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The Blount County Planning Commission has removed restrictions on the number of houses developers can build in areas served by overcrowded schools.

The Planning Commission voted 8-2 Tuesday to delete Section 6.01(2)(c) from the county's subdivision regulations.

The section, originally adopted in March 2005, stated "no major plat of five lots or greater shall be approved for subdivision if the school capacity of the elementary school, middle school or high school serving a proposed subdivision is classified 'intolerable.'"

Only Planning Commissioners Ed Stucky and Rick Brownlie voted against the change.

"Just removing the regulations, we have abdicated our responsibilities," Stucky said. "I would urge us to look at alternatives ... it is our job to consider educational infrastructure."

There was no discussion of alternative actions during deliberations.

"I'm not going to debate," Chairman Jim Scully said to Stucky. "What I'm saying is we're not taking schools out of our whole subdivision regulations."

Planning Director John Lamb, speaking to the County Commission Public Services Committee later in the evening, said the deletion will make it harder to make planning decisions based the impact of developments on schools.

"It's harder to build the case with each developer," he said. "It's easier if you have it in your subdivision regulations."

The decision troubled County Commissioner Wendy Pitts Reeves, who was in the audience.

"It's a mistake to remove the four-lot rule without putting something else in its place," she said.

The majority of public comment at the meeting was against deleting the rules. Out of 16 speakers, six people, all connected with the real estate or construction industries, spoke in favor of the commission's action.

County resident Peggy Walters said the county needs to consider establishing impact fees for development.

"If homeowners and developers want to grow an area, they need to bear a share of the cost, not the rest of the taxpayers," she said.

William Miller, Blount County Board of Education member, asked the commissioners not to delete the rules.

"If we have all these schools in the intolerable classification with the rule, what's it going to be like without it?" he had asked during a meeting earlier in the day.

Jerry King, who works for a construction company, encouraged  the commissioners to consider the people working in the building industry.

"There are hundreds of people whose livelihoods depends on what you're considering," he said.

Lamb previously said that if the school capacity criteria is deleted from the subdivision regulations, those developers who had agreed to a four-lot limit or an age-restricted subdivision could come back to the Planning Commission and ask that those conditions be lifted.