In June of 2024, realizing what a mess they had made in the city with their near unrestricted zoning policies, Lenoir City council passed a one year moratorium on any new apartment or multi-family developments within the city. Then in December 2024, the city amended the moratorium that allowed for certain exceptions to the moratorium. Last month, the city council voted to extend the moratorium, with exceptions, for another year to June 2026. 

LC Town Creek 1, LLC. claims, in the lawsuit, that they meet the exceptions to the moratorium and the city must issue the relevant permits that would allow them to build their apartment complex on Town Creek Boulevard. The original plat approved by the city back in 2022, was for 408 apartments. The lawsuit mentions that the number of units may have been modified but there is no mention of what that number is.

This will be interesting to see what Lenoir City mayor, Tony Aikens and the council does with this lawsuit. Many people expressed that when the moratorium was passed in 2024, it was just a smoke screen for the city officials that were up for re-election in November 2024. Unfortunately for the mayor, a second independent council candidate, Robin McNabb, was elected who along with councilman, Todd Kennedy, pushed for an extension to the moratorium.

When reading the lawsuit, it sounds like the developer may have a pretty strong case. Will the city even fight it? Were the exceptions to the moratorium just Aikens way to cover his own tail? Will the city officials just capitulate and allow hundreds more apartments in the same area where the city has already allowed hundreds of apartments?

All this disastrous development in the city is a result of the city's horrible zoning regulations and thus far, city leaders have refused to make a single change.

The mayor and council have unleashed a devil on everyone that they can't put back in the cage now. 

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