Tonight, commissioners will be voting on a six month PUD moratorium to give time to study if we need even stricter density requirements which could alter the current 2.5 density or just eliminate PUD's all together. Hopefully, the moratorium will pass and give us a little breathing room to access the direction of residential development in the county.

Loudon County is on the verge of residential overbuild to the point of far out pacing our schools and infrastructures.  If we don't take some actions, we could soon see the destruction of large areas of our rural lands and overburden our infrastructure just like Lenoir City has already done.

In the very near future, we will be holding workshops to discuss possible actions that might allow responsible residential growth yet preserve our rural lands. One item being researched would be other overlays, such as a Rural Preservation Overlay. This is a mechanism where property owners in any geographical area could ask commission to grant the overlay that would then limit the density in that geographical area. Property owners in a well defined area would need 75% of the property owners to sign a petition requesting the overlay.

This is very preliminary but might go a long way to allow residents in a given community to determine the density of any development in a defined area. There are several other options to be discussed also.

Workshops on the matter will be announced in the near future.