Under a new city ordinance Ward 1 Councilman Quentin Whitwell proposed today, 75 percent of a Jackson neighborhood's residents could vote to gate their community even though the city would continue funding its infrastructure. "This is a traffic-calming measure," Whitwell said at the Jackson City Council meeting this morning.
Whitwell argues that a community should be able to gate itself without providing the infrastructure of the streets within the gates. He said the city has no ordinance that specifically addresses gates, and that "the mayor has adopted his own policy on gates, and that's that 100 percent of all citizens must approve of it ... . "
Whitwell 's ordinance would allow residents to build the gate with only 75 percent approval from residents of a neighborhood, and it does not force residents to maintain their own roads.
The councilman, who represents northeast Jackson, advocates for the new ordinance at the urging of residents of the high-end Avery Gardens neighborhood, which is already enclosed in a barrier, but with an un-gated entrance at County Line Road. However, if the ordinance passes, it could apply to other neighborhoods on Plantation Boulevard and similar streets, which drivers occasionally take as a second route when traffic on County Line Road becomes congested.
Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. argues that gates delay city firefighters and police access to the community, and said that the gate could pose an insurance risk to cumbersome city or contracted vehicles, such as garbage trucks. He also said the gate may be a problem for city employees who must visit homes to read water meters.
Whitwell said the gate he is promoting does not require a pass code or security clearance.
"It's an automatic gate," Whitwell said. "It's still a public neighborhood. You just pull up, and the gate opens automatically. It's just a way to slow people down, and if there is something suspicious going on, it gives the citizens a chance to identify or apprehend them."
Under Whitwell's ordinance, citizens would present a gate plan to the city's planning department, which must approve the construction.
Ward 2 Councilman Chokwe Lumumba said citizens behind the gates should adopt the costs for maintaining roads behind the gate, because the territory is no longer public access.
"They're basically cutting off community circulation. The reason why we pave those roads are not just so they'll have good streets, but so that anybody in the city who wants to drive past there will have a good road to drive on," Lumumba said.
Council President Frank Bluntson put the ordinance into the Council's Planning Committee without discussion.
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