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Commission plans
permanent PUD ban
Hugh G. Willett news-herald.net
Loudon County Commission started Monday the
process to make the temporary moratorium on
Planned Unit Developments permanent.
The agenda for the regularly scheduled workshop included discussion of a recommendation that Loudon County no longer allow PUDs. District 3 commissioner Bill Satterfield was on the agenda to lead the discussion but did not attend the meeting, reportedly because of medical issues. As many as a half-dozen speakers signed up for the public comment portion of the meeting indicating they would speak about PUDs. Shortly before the workshop began, Chairman Henry Cullen told those waiting for the meeting to begin that the PUD item had been removed from the agenda.
In
addition to Satterfield, commissioners Adam
Waller, David Meers, Kelly
Littleton-Brewster and Julia Hurley were not
in attendance. Discussion of the permanent
moratorium on PUDs was moved to the May 16
meeting.
With commission approval, the issue would then go to Loudon County Planning Commission. If the planning commission approves the permanent moratorium, the matter would go back to a commission workshop in June or July and could be voted on at a regular meeting in July or August. “It could take a few months,” District 5 commissioner Van Shaver said. “That’s why we wanted to get started on this early.” Commissioners voted 7-2 on Feb. 7 to extend a PUD moratorium for six months as well as seek guidance from the planning commission on multi-family homes. The original moratorium passed Oct. 4. Current county regulations allow 2.5 housing units per acre for PUDs and requires at least 75 acres for consideration. An R-1 Residential District allows two units per acre. Satterfield said in February the extension was necessary to complete public input meetings on the subject. In the three meetings already held, the public has been overwhelmingly against PUDs, he said. Several commissioners at the Monday workshop said they intended to vote for a permanent moratorium at an upcoming meeting. Shaver said he was ready to move forward with the permanent ban as currently defined. He said he was not against housing developments and would support developments with a density of up to two units per acre. Shaver said he has attended several of the public meetings to gather input from residents about PUDs and has found most are against high density developments. He also said he had knocked on a lot of doors while campaigning for the May 3 primary and found voters in his district are overwhelmingly against such developments.
District 4 commissioner Gary Whitfield
said he was also ready to move ahead
with discussion and vote on a permanent
ban. He said he had intended to support
the measure if the item had not been
removed from Monday’s agenda.
District 2 commissioner Matthew Tinker, who along with fellow district 2 commissioner Julia Hurley had voted against the temporary moratoriums, said it was unfortunate the item was pulled from the agenda when there were residents at the workshop wanting to speak. Tinker said he preferred to continue to study the issue until the current temporary moratorium expires. He said the Loudon County Economic Development Agency is working on a study that would identify rules for the permitting of PUDs and specific areas with the necessary infrastructure to support such developments. He said he was against a permanent moratorium and believed there might be others on the commission who felt the same despite previous votes for a temporary ban. In connection to the meeting, discussed in the News Herald story above, below is the email sent out by Knoxville Area Association of REALTORS, another special interest group who want to open Loudon County to mass development. Dear Loudon County Chapter members, |
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4/25/22