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The Blount County Planning Commission is recommending the adoption of a revised "Sports Complex District" zoning amendment with hard limits on the amount of commercial and residential development allowed.

The Planning Commission voted 9-3 Tuesday to recommend that at least 60 percent of any such complex would have to be sports fields or related to that purpose.

Planning Commissioners Tonya Burchfield, Ernest Blankenship, Gary Farmer, Brad Harrison, Scott Helton, Tom Hodge, Holden Lail, Jim Scully and Ed Stucky voted yes.

Planning Commissioners Rick Brownlie, Bruce McClellan and Bill Proffitt voted no.

The proposed zoning amendment would limit commercial development to 10 percent of the complex. Residential would be limited to 15 percent.

The proposed amendment, which will now go to the Blount County Commission for approval, also includes setback requirements and other regulations that would address community concerns, Farmer said.

Because of community concerns with the proposal, the County Commission voted on April 19 to send it back to the Planning Commission for further consideration.

Meanwhile, the partners behind a proposed 230-acre sports complex on U.S. 411 South just south of Henry Lane, which the amendment would allow, said they can make the project work even with the limits.

"That wasn't anything we were going to do, anyway," said Frank Bradley, one of the partners in the project. "We're not doing any permanent residences down there. It doesn't affect us at all.

"The commercial part of it has been overemphasized."

Businessman Jerry Simmerly is the other main partner in the project.

Before the discussion, the Planning Commission allowed input from citizens attending the hearing.

Ingrid Haun said she opposes the district, which would allow the development near Henry Lane.

"If we put this down there, we're going to get satellite development and it's going to start looking like Chapman Highway," she said.

Joe Gallagher agreed.

"Get the message," he said. "... We are tired of government that is all about developers and not about the individual homeowners of Blount County."

The sports complex idea did have a supporter at the hearing.

"I'm for the sports complex," Ralph Hall said. "It will be a good thing for the area down there."

During the discussion, Lail said the Planning Commission needed to create a zoning district without consideration of Bradley's and Simmerly's project.

"These folks may look at these regulations and go 'Uh-uh, we can't do it,'" he said. "Sometimes we seem to get the car and the horse mixed up."

"What we're here to do is try to set up a zone for a sports complex," Farmer said. "Then we worry about where it is."

Helton successfully pushed for a reduction in the allowable amount of residential development from 30 percent to 15 percent.

"My personal feeling is I don't' like that part," he said. "I envision it having no permanent residents."

Better defining what commercial would be allowed in the district helps address the concerns of county residents, Harrison said.

"The people seem to be for the ball fields," he said. "It's the commercial that needs to be clarified."

Kathleen Skinner of the Raven Society said the amendment is still flawed.

"This zoning amendment is not substantially different from what was originally proposed," she said. "This is not part of any comprehensive land use plan, only a reaction to one developer's needs. The majority of people in Blount County seem opposed to this due to significant traffic, noise, lights and congestion in an area designated as rural."

"We're still looking at 23 acres of commercial development with no sewer."