Free Land
| Usually, if Lenoir City officials do something, it's
not long before Loudon City officials will follow suit. Except, Loudon
sure beat Lenoir City to the punch on artificial turf for the football
field. Anyway, Lenoir City officials have been in overdrive in bringing
in low income rental property to the city, now looks like Loudon is
jumping on that band wagon, maybe. There's been a lot of buzz about the 270 housing units being planned for the old Hutch property in down town Loudon area. At the September Loudon City council meeting, a resident of the city was in attendance to ask some good questions about the development. Clay Townsend ask if it was correct that the city had invested 1.6 million dollars in the property. That was confirmed by mayor Jeff Harris. Townsend asked if the city was selling the property to the developer or just giving away the property. A long silence ensued. Both Harris and city manager, Ty Ross, confirmed that the property would be given, at no charge, to the developer. Townsend then asked if all the 270 housing units would be all rental property. Harris confirmed that was the plan. It was never discussed if the 270 rental properties would or would not be government subsidized but that's probably a good question to be asked. Whether the 270 rental units will be subsidized or just fair market rental properties matters but the bigger question is, do Loudon residents really want to see 270 rental units in the heart of down town Loudon? Time will tell. Below is a link to the meeting. Mr. Townsend's comments and questions begin at about 12:05 and run to 16:05. |
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10/18/21