What's The Difference

From Nashville to Knoxville and all points in between, massive over development is a hot topic. Residents in all communities are telling their elected officials, no more. There's two trains of thought. From politicians, we must build more and more to house the people moving in. From rational citizens, if you build it, they will come. Stop the building.

Here in Loudon County we have just that issue. In Lenoir City and Loudon city, the elected officials have adopted the attitude, build anything, anywhere and everywhere, slash and burn, spare nothing. Loudon County has taken the exact opposite approach, choosing controlled, managed growth, preserving open space and rural areas. What's the difference between the three government bodies? County officials listens to it's constituents, the city officials ignore and thumb their noses at their constituents.

Back in 2021 and 2022 when it became obvious that the residential housing boom was up on us and the cities were bringing in anything that had a roof on it, commissioners held community meetings to take input from the citizens. These meetings included a lot of residents from the cities. It quickly became obvious, the residents of Loudon County and the cities wanted some controls put on the out of control developments and the developers who could care less about the county residents. Both sets of city officials ignored any pleas for help from the citizens. County officials not only listened, they took action.

In the last couple years, county commission has taken hard, fast actions to protect the county from the developer onslaught. One of the first actions taken was to eliminate Planned Unit Developments, PUD's. PUD's Allowed for up to 8 homes per acre and even more multi-family units. We established half acre minimum lot size for residential development. Duplexes and multi-family developments must have a half acre for each living unit.  

For comparison:

(R)=Residential, (A)=Agricultural

In Lenoir City,

  • R-3 zoning allows for 24 units per acre
  • R-2 zoning allows for 18 units per acre
  • R-1 zoning allows for 2.9 units per acre

In Loudon,

  • R-2 zoning allows for 5.8 units per acre
  • R-1 zoning allows for 4.3 units per acre

In Loudon County,

  • A-1 allows for 1 unit per acre
  • A-2 allows for 1 unit per acre
  • R-1 allows for 2 units per acre

Can you see the difference? The sad part of it is, the cities could easily restructure their zoning policies...if they wanted to. Obviously, they have no intentions of taking any actions that would protect their residents.

It's sad to see so many elected officials sell their souls to the developers.

Once again, what's the difference between county officials and city officials? County officials listen, city don't listen.

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4/1/24