Tennessee lawmakers consider eliminating urban growth boundaries

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WCYB) — Tennessee lawmakers are considering a proposal to eliminate urban growth boundaries. Some view them as outdated, but others are concerned about potential unintended consequences.

Urban growth boundaries were first introduced in 1998 to give a sense of order to rapidly growing cities, but a 2017 law now requires property owners to request annexation, meaning that growth has all but come to a halt.

"Now what we have is we have a lot of territory that's in the urban growth boundary, that due to the annexation law, a lot of them probably can never be annexed,” Rep. Tim Hicks of Gray said.

In Kingsport and Bristol, the boundary was not much larger than the cities themselves when it was drawn in 2000.

But in Washington County, the boundary is drawn far from the city limits. That's what sparked the conversation after flooding destroyed homes in Middle Tennessee.

"There are some places in the state where this is a long way from the city limits, and those folks actually had to build their homes back under city regulation,” Rep. Hicks said.

The original law's idea was those homes would eventually be in the city, but Hicks said the boundaries don't make a whole lot of sense now.

“A lot of folks down here want to do away with growth boundaries all together because they feel it's not needed with the new annexation law,” he said.

But some cities have expressed concerns about the other goals the boundaries had, like preventing land disputes between cities when annexation comes up. That will be part of the discussion as lawmakers look at changes.

SEE THE GROWTH BOUNDARY IN YOUR CITY | Tennessee County Growth Plans