Summary

• Planning Commission recommended a Plan Amendment to the brand-new Knox County Land Use Plan
• The new plan specifies a quarterly update cycle – more frequent than the initial recommendation of annual updates
• Planning staff’s recommendation was to postpone to the August quarterly update cycle. The Planning Commission voted 6-7 for the postponement  recommendation, and then voted to recommend approval.
• The new plan requires at least two (2) of a list of criteria to be changed. KCPA’s review of information doesn’t find support for two criteria to be met.
• The amendment changes an area on Chapman Highway – from Town Center and Parks / Open Space placetypes – to Corridor Mixed Use. There was no discussion of the merits of changing this Placetype – what does that do to the plan for a Town Center locus, etc. Our advocates assert that we should be much more deliberative and purposeful in our changes.

The Plan Amendment Item

In July the Planning commissioners took the extraordinary step of recommending approval of a Plan Amendment and a Rezoning request, when the staff recommendation for a postponement. The Plan Amendment was the first amendment to the county’s brand-new Comprehensive Land Use and Transportation Plan. The new plan recommends hearing amendments on a quarterly basis; the first such meeting was the August planning commission meeting.

Each month the regular process is for professional staff to prepare a background report and a written recommendation for each item on the agenda; these are published the Friday before the meeting to give the planning commissioners, applicant, and community time to review, ask questions, and submit comments.

For rezoning request 1-L-24-RZ in July, staff recommended postponement till August in order to hear the accompanying Plan Amendment (7-I-24-PA). (When the recommendation is to postpone, the procedure we have observed is that staff does not prepare the standard background report and analysis.) A plan amendment is required because the requested CA (General Business) zone is not compatible with the newly-adopted Town Center Mixed Use and Parks and Open Space Place Types in the Comprehensive Plan.

Why would these need to wait until August?

The new comprehensive plan states that consideration of amendments from applicants is expected to occur quarterly (under IM.1, page 72), and the next quarterly consideration was the August meeting.

Knox County used to consider plan amendments every month. At the Jan 30, 2024 planning commission workshop on the new Comprehensive Plan, the frequency of plan amendments was cited as a weakness by the professional consultants who assisted drafting the new plan. The consultants stated that they don’t work with communities that update their plans that frequently, and cited a less-frequent update cycle as beneficial – helping to “maintain the integrity of our plan”, “if we update it monthly, it loses integrity of that big picture we established and put together with our community”, and that “updating monthly doesn’t give us a chance to understand our progress.” Executive Director Brooks acknowledged that this was probably “concerning” to some commissioners but that three years of community input had gone into the new plan and frequent amendments diminish that input. The draft recommendation was for annual amendments to the plan (see figure below, except the first 2 years, with twice-yearly updates).

At the January workshop, Commissioner John Huber pushed back on the annual frequency, describing even the quarterly process as “punitive”. Commissioners Tim Hill and Katie Overton asked for criteria for exceptions to the frequency. Overton agreed that we shouldn’t “review these every 2 seconds” and wanted a set of guidelines where commission could consider an amendment out-of-cycle.

Pushback from Commissioners at the January workshop resulted in the annual-update frequency being revised to quarterly updates in the adopted plan (under IM.1, page 72).

But even this concession wasn’t enough for this applicant. At the July 12^th Planning Commission meeting, the representative for Thunder Mountain Properties asked that the Plan Amendment and accompanying rezoning be heard, even with the staff’s recommendation to postpone to the August quarterly cycle of plan amendments.

History of the Plan Amendment Request

The applicant initially filed a rezoning application (1-L-24-RZ) and sector plan amendment Nov 28, 2023 but in late December requested that they be tabled, which they were in Jan 2024. The new Knox County Comprehensive Land Use Plan was adopted April 22, 2024. Then at the May 9 Planning Commission meeting, the items were untabled so they could be heard the next month. On June 7 the applicant submitted a request to postpone for 30 days to July 11, 2024 Planning Commission meeting. At some point in June, a decision was made that the old Sector Plan amendment request needed to be replaced by a new Plan Amendment request (there are no more sector plans) and that amendment was filed Jun 27th.

July 9 Agenda Review Meeting

At the July 9th Agenda Review meeting, Commissioner Huber asked about these items and why they didn’t appear on this agenda (they were listed – Items #6 on the agenda, but were not selected to be on the agenda for the Agenda Review meeting. Staff selects the items that require additional background information and that they believe will generate the most discussion for the Agenda Review Meeting.) Staff explained, several times, that their recommendation was to postpone to August to comply with the new plan, and that the applicant was aware of this and hadn’t been pushing back against it. (Supporting that – there are no comments from the applicant submitted to commission) . Commissioners Huber expressed a feeling that they are in a transitional phase in the new plan and that it was time sensitive. Commissioner Levenson asked “can we move forward?” and the response was that ultimately it’s county commission’s decision.

July 11 Planning Commission Meeting and Vote

A staff recommendation to postpone does not automatically postpone an item, so at the July 11th Planning Commission meeting, the agenda item was introduced and the applicant’s representative spoke, per standard procedure. Discussion began, and Commissioner Huber advocated that Commission should go ahead and hear the amendment – that this had ‘been in the hopper’ for some time. [Point-of-fact – the application was tabled in January, by the applicant, and then removed from the table in May – after the new comprehensive plan was adopted, and clearly that the proposed rezoning was not consistent with the new plan.] Planning staff was pressured for an on-the-spot verbal recommendation on the plan amendment.

Further discussion had several planning commissioners expressing reservations about taking action without a written staff recommendation. Commissioner Midas asked the applicant if they would be willing to postpone, and the applicant stated they were asking to go ahead and go forward. A motion to support the staff recommendation to postpone till August failed 6-7, with the following commissioners voting “no”: Anderson, Barger, Daley, Hill, Huber, Levenson, Overton. Voting yes (supporting the staff recommendation to postpone) were Commissioners Adams, Biggs, Gill, Higgins, Midas, Perez.

Commissioner Huber then motioned to approve the plan amendment, but then had to be prompted for the required justification to support the plan amendment, and took several minutes to come up with justifications.

The plan amendment was recommended for adoption unanimously, as was the corresponding rezoning request from Ag to CA.

The items are now on the August 19th Zoning meeting agenda for Knox County Commission.

What Would a Good Outcome Have Been?

First and foremost, KCPA strongly believes that the Planning Commissioners, and applicant and public, would have benefited from the written professional staff background report and recommendation. These were not available at the July 11th meeting. A good outcome would have been postponement until the staff report was available and all parties had an opportunity to review and submit comments.

Postponement would have also given Commissioners an opportunity to review and prepare for an intentional discussion of the substance of the plan amendment – what the original plan was, why it was that way, and what the impact of this Plan Amendment has on the rest of the plan. Below are our thoughts on that discussion:

A key talking point of Advance Knox was Mayor Glenn Jacobs’ call for more town centers and development along corridors. Town Centers are the most densely populated Placetypes on the future land use plan, and the most fiscally net-positive for the county.

This location on Chapman Highway is a newly- designated TCMU (Town Center Mixed Use) node on the Future Land Use Map. It was placed there because it represents an excellent opportunity for Knox County to encourage new types of development and community. Other portions of the subject property are TN (Traditional Neighborhood) in the new Comprehensive Plan adopted April 22, 2024, along with recognizing the existing Bower Field Park as Parks and Open Space (POS).

The new plan had a vision for a Town Center in this location. What does changing this land to Corridor Mixed-Use do to that vision? KCPA’s advocates think there should have been discussion on what the change from Town Center to Corridor Mixed-Use Placetype means – beyond making it compatible for the desired CA zoning. (CA zone, by the way, is the zone that has facilitated development of the Hardin Valley Food City with no landscaping, as well as countless drive-thru restaurants and small strip shopping centers on Chapman, Maynardville, and Clinton Highways. This isn’t a zone that requires mixed-use development – it could allow that, but not require it.)

Would an alternative vision be to keep the existing Town Center designation, and expand that to the existing Corridor Mixed Use to the east – facilitating a larger, more integrated Town Center Development? Is the vision to create a Town Center node, where Chapman Highway traffic would be slowed down to enter into the community, much as Highway 66 is in downtown Sevierville?

Or is the vision for just having Corridor Mixed Use on either side of the highway, with little-to-no connectivity across Chapman Highway? This is a legitimate vision for the future land use plan, but has not been articulated to the area or discussed in neighborhood and community meetings. It could be that Corridor Mixed-Use is better for this area. But Planning Commissioners didn’t discuss this.

An even better outcome – the Town Center designated-land and the adjacent Traditional Neighborhood land, plus the suburban residential to the east along with the property donated to Legacy Parks, could be part of a Planned Development district. That process would unify and integrate the design and development of this area, and assist with requiring infrastructure to be phased in concurrently with development.

Unfortunately these discussions did not occur at the Planning Commission meeting. The professional staff’s recommendation to postpone was overruled. Commissioners passed a motion to recommend a plan amendment with justification of “changes in conditions” and “supporting the Policies and Actions, Goals objectives and criteria of the Plan”.

One justification was a “changes in conditions of the area” – rezonings in the area, of which there has been one (1) since the plan was adopted on April 22, 2024. We think it’s a stretch to claim that an unanticipated change in conditions could occur in less than three months since plan adoption.

Also cited as justification – the amendment “supports the policies and actions of the comprehensive plan, including but not limited to: incentivizing walkable, Mixed-use centers, corridors, and neighborhood nodes as the preferred form of commercial development; encourage coordination among economic development partners; and support opportunities for innovation and growth of our local economy.” Certainly the existing Town Center placetype already supports all of those. So what was the reason to switch from Town Center to Corridor Mixed Use? Unknown and not deliberated. And sure – one could argue that changing a Parks and Open Space designation to Corridor Mixed Use furthers some policies of the plan, but you can also argue recreational land that would be adjacent to hundreds of new dwelling units also furthers other policies. There was no deliberation about this tradeoff either.

Note: KCPA advocated for strengthening the criteria for plan amendments – to put teeth in the plan – and warned that “Otherwise, the substantial public input, professional expertise and data analysis will be eroded by appointed and elected officials who are faced with evaluating plan amendment applications and only have limited information or decision making frameworks to rely on”. KCPA even suggested specific redline changes to the Plan Amendment criteria in April to county commission.

The July planning commission meeting proved exactly why stronger criteria for plan amendments are needed, and why the plan amendment schedule needs to be specified with “shall” instead of “expected to”.

[updated 2024-Aug-19 with Summary section]