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Requests for commercial rezoning along U.S. 411 South are mounting up. The county’s policy makers have divergent opinions about how this will affect the rural nature of the area.
Just Thursday night, the Blount County Planning Commission recommended approval of rezoning a three-acre property at 6102 Highway 411 South from R-1, Rural District, to Rural Arterial Commercial-RAC for a lawn and garden center. It’s just one of several requests that have been coming down the pike in the past months.
County Commissioner Steve Hargis believes that both sides of U.S. 411, outside of the Maryville city limits, will eventually be zoned commercial all the way to the county line.
“I’d bet the farm on it,” Hargis said. “It’s already started. Between the (U.S.) Highway 129 junction and the Loudon County line is prime property to do this. It’s already started in my district on Brickmill Road. It’s started back toward Maryville.”
The RAC zones are allowed along county arterial roads, such as U.S. 321 and 411, beyond the growth boundaries of Alcoa and Maryville. The regular county Commercial Districts normally end outside these boundaries. The RAC can go the length of those arterial roads. County zoning regulations only allow the RAC designation to extend 500 feet from the road frontage.
Building Commissioner Roger Fields said the requests for RAC rezoning reflect a greater interest in commercial projects throughout the county.
“There has always been some, but it seems like there is more people right now who are interested in doing commercial projects,” he said. “That’s all over the place. Maybe it’s due to market demand, I’m not sure. It just seems to me there is more requests for commercial type usages right now.”
The RAC zoning is approved on a case-by-case basis by the Planning Commission.
“RAC is for the rural R-1 areas of the county along specific sections of 411 and 321,” Fields said. “The provisions are there, but they’ve got it set up so the property owner has to request to be rezoned. If they are inside the growth boundaries, they can just be zoned regular commercial.”
Commissioner David Graham said he originally had concerns about the RAC zoning but hadn’t seen any abuse of the designation.
“I don’t have a problem with the way things are set up,” he said. “I was concerned about the RAC and the potential for sprawl, but I haven’t seen that be a problem yet. It doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.”
Hargis said the nature of 411 has changed with its widening.
“It used to be a two-lane road,” Hargis said. “When you widen roads, they are fine for people to come in and they are fine for commercial business, but if you’re going to live there, it’s not so good.
“It’s like a gold rush to get property on 411. It’s good for mom-and-pop type businesses. The people who live between Greenback and Madisonville don’t have to drive all the way to town to get their goods. These four-lane roads are where the mom-and-pop businesses really thrive, not on the industrial park.”
Planning Commission Chairman Jim Scully is interested in beefing up the design criteria for commercial development in the county, including the those in the RAC zones. He has asked that Planning Director John Lamb put the item on the August agenda for discussion.
“I don’t want metal buildings,” Scully said. “I care about the county. I want to make sure it looks nice so you don’t go down there and see junk yards and stuff like that — Welcome to Blount County.”
The RAC requests are not being evaluated consistently, Hargis said.
“In our meeting, we denied the piece of property for (Kenneth Hodson), then we turned around and approved one right after that,” he said. “Why was one approved, and why wasn’t the other one? If it continues the way it is, we’re going to be full down through there.”
On July 19, a motion to allow a metal building, originally built as a residence, on U.S. 411 South be allowed to be used for commercial purposes failed for lack of a majority. Hodson, the property owner, had made the request to rezone property located on the corner of Hitson Road and U.S. 411 South from R-1 to RAC, nine months after saying he planned to live in the 5,000-square-foot metal building.