Chattanooga City Council Meeting: CARTA Strategic Plan and Landscape Ordinance – December 16, 2025
Chattanooga City Council Meeting: CARTA Strategic Plan and Landscape Ordinance – December 16, 2025
On December 16, 2025, the Chattanooga City Council met to receive a strategic update from the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA) and to discuss a proposed amendment to the landscape ordinance. The meeting included presentations by CARTA leadership, council member questions, and a motion to refer the landscape ordinance to the legislative committee.
Consent Calendar
- The council approved the minutes of the previous meeting without action.
Discussion Items
CARTA Strategic Update
- Charles Frazier, CEO of CARTA, and Johan Denysen, Chairman of the CARTA Board, presented an overview of recent accomplishments and future plans. Mr. Frazier noted that the city’s 2019–2020 consultant, Jarrett Walker, had described the transit system as “a legacy of low expectations and low investment.”
- Mr. Frazier outlined three focus areas: establishing a 20-year shared vision (via the Plan Chattanooga document), stabilizing the organization (corrective actions, technology upgrades, diversifying funding), and community engagement (transit tours, classroom training, windshield tours, and a rider advisory committee).
- Key statistics shared:
- Caravan (door-to-door) ridership increased 54% year-over-year while miles driven decreased from 70,000 to 45,000 per month, achieving record monthly ridership since June 2025.
- Fixed-route weekday ridership up 9% year-over-year; weekend ridership highest in four years.
- Parking utilization at CARTA garages increased 80% year-over-year, revenue up 46% after implementing first-hour free parking.
- The city’s $2.9 million capital match in 2024–2025 leveraged $25.5 million in grants, including $10 million from competitive grants.
- Mr. Denysen emphasized that 40% of Hamilton County households earn $20,000 or less annually, and that poor transit limits access to jobs and training. He argued that the system is chronically underfunded and called for viewing transit as an economic enabler rather than a transactional service.
- Councilmember Henderson asked about partnerships with Waymo and autonomous vehicles. Mr. Frazier confirmed discussions with the city and UTC on smart grants and autonomous technology, noting that technology could solve first-mile/last-mile challenges.
- Councilmember Henderson expressed concern about the lack of a strategic plan linking transit to workforce development and noted that the current system may be “one of the worst in the nation.” Mr. Frazier acknowledged the need for improvement and said the team is committed to change.
- Councilmember Elliott stressed the need for a dedicated revenue source for CARTA and asked about the cost of new transit hubs. Mr. Frazier said costs are being quantified and that a downtown transfer center is a priority. Councilmember Elliott encouraged CARTA to bring a hard ask to the council.
- Councilmember Clark argued that transit should not be forced on residents and that the return on investment should be framed as economic development, not personal choice. He asked how efficiency savings are reinvested. Mr. Frazier said he would provide details in February.
- Councilmember Burris noted the importance of pedestrian connectivity and the cost of car ownership (estimated $12,000/year), and praised the Plan Chattanooga transit layer.
- The council thanked CARTA for its work and looked forward to a February presentation on the long-term transit plan.
Landscape Ordinance Amendment (Introduced by Councilman Harvey)
- Councilman Harvey proposed amending the zoning code to allow registered professional engineers or architects (not just landscape architects) to prepare landscape plans, citing that the previous code allowed this for over 20 years and that the change would cut red tape and help address housing affordability.
- The amendment adds “or a registered professional engineer or architect licensed to practice in the state of Tennessee and having competency in landscape plan preparation.”
- Councilman Elliott expressed concern about runoff and irrigation issues, and asked whether engineers from other specialties would be competent. Mike Price, an engineer, explained that the same review process at the Land Development Office (LDO) applies regardless of who prepares the plan, and that professionals risk their licenses if they act outside competence.
- Councilman Henderson questioned how “competency” is determined and whether the previous change was due to problems at LDO. Chris Anderson (staff) noted that the change was suggested by planning staff and that it has caused a slowdown in housing production, which this amendment seeks to address.
- Councilman Burris raised concerns about native plant diversity and the city’s status as a national park city, arguing that landscape architects bring a holistic, ecologically-minded approach. She suggested revisiting native plant requirements over time.
- Councilman Harvey reiterated that the amendment does not change the required standards or review process—only who prepares the plan.
- The council agreed to move the ordinance to the legislative committee. Councilman Harvey accepted a friendly amendment clarifying that the LDO Director determines competency.
Key Outcomes
- CARTA’s presentation was received; a detailed long-term transit plan will be presented to the full council in February 2026.
- The landscape ordinance amendment was referred to the legislative committee for further review; a date for the committee meeting will be set.
- The council noted that board appointments for Nan and Linda (names not fully specified) will be on the January 6, 2026 agenda, along with the Northgate TIFF resolution.
Meeting Transcript
I'd like to welcome Carta to join us for strategic planning. Call this meeting to order. Glad you all are here. Thank you. I apologize that we have some slow. Folks being a little bit slow to get here, but I'm sure they will be. I'd heard lots of meetings happening last year. So welcome. Take it away. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and good afternoon, council members. My name is Charles Frazier. I am the CEO of Carta, and I'll allow my colleague to introduce himself. Well, my name is Johan Denyson. Thank you for having us. I'm the chairman of the Carta board. And I'm doing my service and support of the general development of our community. Just by way of completing the introduction, I am a recently retired, formerly chief operating officer for the Volkswagen Group in North America with responsibility for operations in the US, Mexico, and Canada. I think, of course, included also the manufacturing plants and all those locations, but particularly of great interest. Chattanooga. A place I moved to in that role. My wife and I decided we'll call Chattanooga Ho. So we love this place, and we want to contribute to the growth and development of our community. With that, I am going to go ahead and get started. And I want to be respectful of your time, and I know that the other council members will join us. But I did put together an agenda here, and so you've got about four or five buckets that we're gonna walk through. And uh good afternoon. Uh but I would like to just start off, uh Madam Chair, if I could, just with a sincere thank you to you in particular. Um, for the rest of the council members, um, I'm new to Chattanooga. Um, so I moved here last year, and so I'm I'm brand new. I'm a taxpaying Chattanoogan citizen, but you gave me some really good advice when I first got here, and that was to get to know the community, lean on the city council to learn about um how to navigate successfully. And every single time that I've called the city council members, you've all responded. And so, even just in some of the pictures up here, um, you've come and spoken at our ambassador graduations, you've come and participated in our celebrations of the reopening of the incline, you've gone on windshield tours with us, you've been to our stakeholder meetings, and so I just wanted to give all of you a sincere thank you for helping me feel welcome into this community. Uh and so with that, uh I want to just start with some background information. Um, so from our point of view at Carta, and I'm gonna introduce some folks here in a minute. Um, we've been at work for the last two years, and so um probably we have some newly elected officials, and so I want to give you just a little bit of background information so that we're all on the the same playing field for this discussion. Uh good afternoon. Um so what I want to do is I want to go back to kind of 2019 and 2020, and the city paid for a consultant, Jarrett Walker, to come to this community and advise the city on what to do about public transit. And at that time, he gave this kind of a not great quote about the system. And he said it's a legacy of low expectations and low investment. And what he meant in that was over the years the budget got tighter and tighter, there were service reductions, we didn't spend enough time on investing in technology or ongoing maintenance of our system, and the results of that are pictured here a little bit, and so they're a little bit embarrassing, but I just want to walk you through it. Um, dead center there, that's one of our shuttles that's over 30 years old that is a piece of duct tape holding it on the side there, it's deferred maintenance, right? Um right below that, there is a shelter there, but if you zoom in on the left, that shelter hasn't been properly maintained, it's rusted through, it's it's about to fall apart. Right above that is a bus stop. Um might look okay, but for for anybody that's trying to use the system, there's no route information, there's no bus stop number, there's no real-time information. And so the results of this are poor use of the system and low ridership. Um in 2023, uh, Chattanooga, this council and the mayor's office, uh, did a call to action. And what you did was you replaced um eight of our board members and seated eight brand new people. Mayor appointed them city council, approved, um, and then our new board turned around and did a national search, and that's how I got this tremendous opportunity to come here and serve this community. And so I just wanted to take one second as we're starting off, and I want to introduce you to your board of directors on the Carta board. And so if I could, board members, would you just stand up?
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