Broadus Hubbs had some serious misgivings when he looked at the proposed map for Knox County’s new Growth Policy Plan. There are areas marked on it for future growth that contain what he considers some of the county’s best farmland.

The new map would add 17.5 square miles of land to the county's "planned growth" area.

“Could we modify the proposed map to pull in the planned growth areas in some areas like north of Asheville Highway or Ritta, where we have extremely good soil and agriculture?” Hubbs asked Tuesday during the inaugural meeting of the county’s newly reconvened Growth Policy Coordinating Committee.

“This is where some of our best farms are, and that contributes to our economy,” continued Hubbs, a member of the Board of Supervisors of the Knox County Soil Conservation District. “And those farms are a big reason why people want to be in Knox County instead of Nashville or Raleigh, North Carolina, or Atlanta, Georgia.”

As Knox County moves toward the end of its Advance Knox planning update, it is entering the most difficult phase of the process: spelling out what kinds of things could be built where. At Tuesday’s meeting, the most obvious conflict was over protecting rural areas in East Knox County.

Built-In Tensions

The nearly two-year-long process has involved considerable public input and outreach, which among other things identified some consistent priorities. The top concerns included investing in infrastructure, conserving natural and rural areas, providing housing options and maintaining the character of existing communities.

Those have some built-in contradictions, of course — infrastructure investments and increased housing options go hand-in-hand with growth, which can make it hard to preserve either land or character.

The proposed amendments to the county’s Growth Policy Plan would update the county’s state-mandated growth map for the first time since 2001. All Tennessee counties are required to have maps designating areas for growth or conservation.

Allison Fluitt, who managed the project for county consultants Kimley-Horn, said that the proposed map would add 17.5 square miles of land to the county’s “planned growth” area, which would come from areas marked as “rural” on the current map. That would allow for denser development in those places.

The heaviest concentrations of new “planned growth” would be in already heavily developed Hardin Valley in West Knox County and several parts of East Knox County: Strawberry Plains Pike south of Interstate 40, the Ritta area around Washington Pike, and north of Emory Road between Gibbs and Corryton.

Fluitt said the recommended growth areas were in places with existing or planned infrastructure that could support more development and where “market trends” are already showing demand. That would maximize the county’s ability to provide services for the new residents.

“That alignment is really key to maintaining that fiscal impact balance that we studied and analyzed as a part of the comprehensive plan,” Fluitt said.

The Growth Policy Coordinating Committee is an interesting beast, including leaders from Knox County, Knoxville and Farragut — County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon and Farragut Town Administrator David Smoak are all on the body. Also represented are the Knox County school board, the Knoxville Chamber, the Soil and Conservation District and local utility systems, as well as some community representatives.

Jacobs has spearheaded the effort to update the county’s planning documents and maps. He attempted a more limited update to the Growth Policy Plan in 2019, but the effort foundered when the Farragut Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted it down. Under the state growth policy law, any changes to a county’s plan must be approved by all of its local legislative bodies — in this case, Knox County Commission, Knoxville City Council and the Farragut board.

“This has been a monumental task and it's been a couple years in the making, and something that we've been focused on quite heavily over the past two years,” Jacobs told the committee Tuesday evening in the Main Assembly Room of the City County Building.

An overall housing shortage in the growing county has been a persistent theme of Jacobs’ efforts to free up more areas for more kinds of development. The Advance Knox process identified several different kinds of housing options, from single-family homes to townhouses and apartment complexes, depending on the density of development in a given area.

Kincannon said that changes are inevitable with the growth the county’s seeing — Knox County added an estimated 7,700 new residents just last year, the second-highest number of any county in the state. (And Tennessee itself ranked seventh for growth of all states.)

“It’s not a choice of the status quo or this change, because things are changing anyway,” Kincannon said.

Fluitt agreed, saying that growth projections under the county’s current plans and zoning codes would lead to more and more sprawl development that would cost the county more in infrastructure than it would provide in economic benefit.

“If we were to grow in the method that we are currently growing, that is financially unsustainable for the county,” she said.

Land and Heritage

But Hubbs raised many concerns about the impact on existing agricultural land.

“I would like to know why are some of the largest and oldest farms in the planned growth area,” he said. He specifically cited Strong Stock Farm, Green Acres Farm and Murphy Springs Farm, all in East Knox County. 

Jim Snowden, the county’s senior director of engineering and public works, said that the county had been “data driven” in setting the boundaries and not paying attention to specific properties.

“We didn't necessarily look at it parcel by parcel,” he said. “We looked at really where utilities, roadway and school infrastructure supported that.”

Hubbs requested that Snowden supply committee members with a large-format map so that they can see exactly which properties would be affected by the changes.

Five community representatives who spoke at public forum all echoed Hubbs’ concerns and called for changes to the map and/or a delay in the process to better understand its impact. 

Kevin Murphy, chair of the Knox County Planning Alliance, said he appreciated the data-driven effort but thought some data was left out — like the county’s soil districts.

“Some of that farmland soil is some of the very best in the county,” he said, specifically citing the area around Ruggles Ferry Golf Course between Asheville Highway and the Holston River. “If you talk to the farmers, they’ll tell you that’s where the corn grows best.”

Longtime community advocate Larry Silverstein said it wouldn’t make sense to approve the growth map until the county also proposes zoning changes to go with it so people can really see its effects. But he said the county wasn’t doing that for a reason.

“Advance Knox has always had a hidden agenda,” Silverstein said. “It is exclusively to benefit the developers who don't want government regulation or public interference.”

Adam Thompson, a sixth-generation family farmer from Corryton, warned committee members that expanding the growth boundaries in some areas would endanger a fundamental part of Knox County’s heritage and character. 

“You bring in 70,000 people and put them in this area, it’s gone,” he said. “And it will not be back. Bottom line, it won’t be back. They're not tearing down buildings and tearing up pavement to put in farmland.”

The growth committee will have to meet at least two more times. State law requires two meetings in order to vote on changes to a growth plan, and Jacobs said Tuesday’s meeting wouldn’t count because some complications led to inadequate public notice. (The county publicly announced the meeting two weeks ago, but that doesn’t satisfy state law requiring published notice in a local newspaper.)

The next meeting is set for Nov. 16.