Former school land rezoned resid

Former school land rezoned residential

Hugh G. Willett news-herald.net

Property off U.S. Highway 321 once planned for a new county school could soon be the site of single-family homes and apartments.

The land was purchased in 2006 by Loudon County Board of Education and then sold for a small loss in 2021.

Lenoir City Council unanimously approved March 21 on first reading an ordinance to rezone the property from C-3 highway commercial to R-3 high density residential.

Lenoir City Planner Beth Collins said about 15 to 20 acres near the highway will remain commercially zoned.

“The concept at the moment is to build a road and a single-family home subdivision and possibly townhomes or apartments,” Collins said.

The rezoning comes back to council for a second reading and vote in April once a site plan has been reviewed by the planning commission.

The land purchase was originally approved 16 years ago by the county BOE amid controversy that the steeply graded tract was overpriced and unsuitable for building a school.

At the time, the 102 acres were valued for tax purposes at about $600,000. The property sold to a Knoxville attorney for about $1.1 million on the same day the BOE purchased 80 acres for $2.2 million.

Months later, new members of the BOE questioned the wisdom and circumstances of the deal. The board later requested 9th Judicial District Attorney General Russ Johnson look into the transaction. Johnson investigated and reported nothing improper.

The BOE in August sold the land at auction to Aleksandr and Dana Botezat for $2.02 million.

After the sale, Director of Schools Mike Garren said he was pleased with the selling price, having received an offer of only $1.4 million earlier in the year. The money from the sale went into school reserves.

The BOE is currently looking for property in the same area as the site for a new school to handle the growth of elementary and middle school students in the northern part of the county.

BOE Chairman Bobby Johnson Jr., who was on the board in 2006, said the board thought then they would have to build a new high school in that part of the county.

Johnson said school districts always face challenges trying to find land in the right area at the right price. As was the case then, the market for land today is tight and prices are rising fast, he said.

“We need about 40 acres,” he said. “We could probably use more, but it’s hard to find right now.”

Johnson said the search for suitable land feels like a replay of the same old story.

“Back then we had a hard time finding land,” he said. “As soon as they heard the schools were looking at the land, they jacked the price up.”

County schools are even talking to Lenoir City in the search for land on which to build. The county owns property next to the Loudon County Technology Center on Harrison Road, but the site might be problematic because of its proximity to Lenoir City High School, Johnson said.