The year started with the unusual and unprecedented January storm and prolonged cold spell that shut down schools and much daily activity for more than a week.

The county began to confront a growing debt problem.

That dramatic beginning, which tested the snow preparation plans of local governments and the patience of local residents, turned out to be something of a head fake for the succeeding calendar year. In many ways, you could call 2024 a business-as-usual year for the City of Knoxville and Knox County.

Both City Council and County Commission passed relatively lean budgets without tax increases or major new projects. In local and state elections, although Democrats picked up a seat on Commission, every incumbent of both parties who ran won their seats again easily.

But if the status quo was largely undisturbed, there were plenty of signs of changes and challenges to come — including in next year’s City Council elections, which will be run as district-only races for the first time in more than 60 years.

Knox County adopted a new comprehensive land use plan for new growth and development, even as that growth and development continued month by month in one new subdivision and apartment complex after another. There were debates about growth and density inside city limits as well, as demand for more housing options remained high.

It was what you could call a building year for our separate but overlapping local governments, both in the physical sense of ongoing development and in the broader sense of important pieces being put in place for the future.

CITY OF KNOXVILLE

Election System Change

Knoxville elections are held in odd-numbered years, but 2024 brought a seachange to the city’s voting system. Voters inside the Knoxville city limits rejected an at-large system for electing district City Council representatives, ushering in a new district-only voting method for those seats.

Since 1969, district voters have selected the top two candidates in the primary, with voters citywide electing the winner in the general election. A change in state law, however, banned such a hybrid system.

In response, City Council placed a referendum question on the 2024 ballot asking voters if they wanted to adopt an all at-large voting system, with voters citywide selecting the representatives for six regions, which would correspond to the current Council districts.

Political and civic leaders lined up on both sides of the question. In opposition, Republicans looking for a chance to elect more conservatives to Council seats joined the City Council Movement and other progressives concerned about minority representation. All current district representatives urged passage of the referendum.

Because the referendum question was on the ballot during a presidential election, turnout was much higher than it is in city elections. A total of 64,047 people cast ballots on the referendum question, compared to a turnout of 21,752 in 2021, the last time the city voted on district seats.

Voters rejected the amendment by a slim margin — 51 percent to 49 percent. The outcome threw the election system into a default setting, with only district voters voting for district representatives in both the primary and general election

While the old system had been in place since 1969, voters will be familiar with the new method. After all, county commissioners, school board members, state legislators and members of Congress are elected only by their district constituents.

The change takes effect with the 2025 election, when five of the six district seats will be contested. 

Infrastructure Funding

The federal government announced this year that it’s providing more than $62 million in grant funding for infrastructure projects in the city.

The city received the largest federal grant in memory, a $42.6 million federal Reconnecting Communities grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. 

The grant will fund a collection of projects to restore connections — primarily pedestrian and bicycle — between East Knoxville, Downtown, the Old City and South Knoxville. The aim is to restore connections severed by urban renewal and the construction of James White Parkway, which acts as a barrier between East Knoxville neighborhoods and Downtown.

Another Transportation Department grant — this one through the Safe Streets and Roads for All program amounting to $17.8 million — will fund safety improvements along Chapman Highway from Blount Avenue near the Henley Bridge to the entrance to Fort Dickerson Park.

Also, Knoxville’s Community Development Corp. was awarded $1.7 million for infrastructure improvements in Western Heights.

The city missed out on a grant to help pay for one high-profile proposed project — a pedestrian bridge from the South Waterfront to the University of Tennessee campus. For the second year in a row, the U.S. Transportation Department chose not to award a $25 million RAISE grant to help fund the $60 million project.

Speaking of bridges, the Gay Street Bridge closed indefinitely in August after a state inspection found structural deficiencies in the 126-year-old span. City officials are still awaiting an engineering firm’s cost estimates for repairs.

A long-term project announced in April would overhaul Interstate 70 through West Knoxville and West Knox County. The Tennessee Department of Transportation intends to take a comprehensive approach to upgrading interchanges and installing “choice lanes” on the state’s busiest stretch of I-40. 

Construction and Development

Construction of the $116 million stadium adjacent to the Old City continued on pace to open in April 2025. Boyd Sports, which will manage the stadium on behalf of the city-county Sports Authority, announced that the new home of the Knoxville Smokies minor-league baseball club and One Knoxville SC soccer team will be known as Covenant Health Park.

The residential buildings just outside the stadium are moving toward completion as well, and developers have been snapping up nearby property to take advantage of the increased activity in the warehouse district.

On the other side of Downtown, a South Carolina-based firm has received all the approvals necessary to build a 297-unit high-rise apartment building on the riverfront adjacent to Neyland Drive. City Council approved a 10-year payment-in-lieu-of-tax agreement to help with funding for the $135 million project.

The local housing shortage continued to dominate the real estate market in 2024, even with a record number of residential building permits issued in 2023.

Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon unveiled her administration’s strategic housing plan in February. The plan includes funding affordable housing, encouraging the development of “middle housing” in older neighborhoods, providing incentives for owners of older apartment buildings, redeveloping blighted properties and more.

Officials announced other development projects for the near-term future. The city has issued a request for proposals for a mixed-use development at the old Tennessee Valley Fair midway in Chilhowee Park on the south side of Magnolia Avenue. KCDC is preparing to issue an RFP for the former McClung Warehouses property on the northern edge of Downtown.

KNOX COUNTY

The Fight for Advance Knox

The first half of the year for Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs and other county officials was occupied with finalizing and passing new land-use regulations arising from the Advance Knox planning process.

The county’s new Growth Policy Plan was up first, redesignating about 14.5 square miles of territory in the unincorporated areas of the county from “Rural” to “Planned Development.” That will allow more types and higher densities of development in those growing suburban corridors. But the effort was no slam-dunk (or, as Jacobs might prefer, no chokeslam).

State law requires that any changes in county growth plans must be approved by not only the county government but also any incorporated towns and cities. County Commission and Knoxville City Council approved the new plan, but the Town of Farragut’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen once again played spoiler — as it had four years earlier, the last time Jacobs proposed changes to allow more development.

The Farragut board initially rejected the amended plan on a 3-2 vote, leading Jacobs to declare an impasse. That would have sent the matter to a state mediator for resolution, but before that happened one member of the board changed his mind, leading to a second vote and approval.

In short order, County Commission then approved a new Comprehensive Land Use Plan incorporating the boundaries of the growth plan and setting more detailed standards for what kinds of development can be built where. County Commissioner Kim Frazier, a critic of the county’s permissive approach to new development, succeeded in adding nearly 20 amendments to the plan to provide more protections for existing residents.

Still to come is an overhaul of the county’s zoning ordinance, which will bring it in line with the new plans. 

Debt Troubles

In this year’s county budget, Jacobs once again proposed no property tax increase, making it 25 years since the county last raised its rates. But the squeeze is showing — the budget initially included only a 1 percent annual raise for county government employees, because tax revenues have not grown as fast as the county’s costs.

And county Chief Financial Officer Chris Caldwell brought county commissioners the unhappy news that that situation is only going to get worse in the near term. County debt levels will rise significantly over the next five years, as old bonds come due, and debt service will exhaust the county’s current debt reserves and take up a growing portion of the budget.

Over the course of the year, county commissioners became more outspoken about both the growing challenge and the county’s limited options for meeting it: raise revenues — either from property taxes or sales taxes — or cut already tight spending. The conversation will no doubt get louder as Commission considers the 2025-26 budget in the coming year.

County Elections

And whatever conversations happen on Commission, they will include a lot of new voices. Five new commissioners were elected to open seats on the 11-member body this year. (The only two incumbent commissioners who sought reelection — Democrat Courtney Durrett and Republican Terry Hill — won easily.) 

The new members are an interesting group. They include two Democrats: Damon Rawls, who succeeded Democrat Dasha Lundy in the heavily Democratic 1st District; and Shane Jackson, who won the 4th District seat previously held by Republican Kyle Ward. Along with Durrett, that brought the Democrats to three out of 11 seats on Commission — still a small minority, but a potentially important bloc, particularly on contentious development issues.

Meanwhile, Republicans Angela Russell, Adam Thompson and Andy Fox won contested races in the 5th, 8th and 9th districts, respectively. All three are wary of the impact of growth on their rural/suburban districts, creating a more challenging political landscape for developers. Russell and Fox are also cultural conservatives, and along with incumbent 7th District Commissioner Rhonda Lee they have formed something of a far-right voting bloc. (All three worked with conservative consultant Erik Wiatr on their campaigns.)

The new makeup emboldened Lee and Wiatr to resuscitate a resolution “protecting the innocence of children” that had stalled when Lee first proposed it in 2023. It would have restricted any county funds from supporting organizations or activities that “sexualized children.” Although Lee’s resolution did not define what it meant by that phrase, both supporters and opponents took it to be a reference to LGBTQ-friendly events. Lee did pick up support from Fox and Russell, but Commission’s other five Republicans joined with its three Democrats to vote the resolution down.

Fox has also not so far made headway with his colleagues in his efforts to refuse federal grants and funding for county programs, on the grounds that the spending contributes to the national debt.