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An ad hoc Blount County Planning Commission committee, established to begin drafting regulations concerning ridge-top and hillside development, got to work Thursday, but made no concrete decisions.

Planning Director John Lamb said the committee began by taking a close look at the recommendations of a hillside regulation study by Saratoga Associates, commissioned recently by Sevier County.

"We focused in on the visual aspects, the aesthetics, of the study that was done in Sevier County," Lamb said. "We went through the list they recommended in that study. We didn't come to any conclusions, but we're getting close to starting to write something and make decisions on things."

The study includes design recommendations such as:

Color. Exterior (roofing, siding, fascia, window treatments) building materials with muted, dark earth tones are strongly encouraged and white should be avoided.

Building and retaining walls. To reduce the visual scale of buildings and retaining walls, uniform and blank massing or surfaces should be avoided.

Terrace retaining walls/constructed slopes. Retaining walls should be finished using materials of a color and texture that are similar to local natural conditions. Shorter walls should be staggered/terraced to the maximum extent practical in place of one larger wall to allow for the planting of vegetation that will provide screening of the slope cuts.

Ridge tops

There was a common theme to comments by the committee members, Lamb said.

"Ridge tops came up quite a bit ... trying to protect the ridge tops so we don't get the (upper elevations) stripped off," Lamb said. "The remainder is trying to figure out where this is actually going to apply. It's not going to apply to every mountain and hill in Blount County. It's going to have to be somewhat selective."

Planning Commission Chairman Jim Scully said committee members have listened to the public.

"You've got a lot of people who want the views and to keep the mountains," Scully said.

On the other hand, the commission can't just stop development.

"We don't want to take away property rights," Scully said.

The regulations can stress good design practices such as using earth-tone colors and no shiny materials, he said.

"You can make (them) so you don't see a house on the ridge tops," Scully said.

A guiding principle of the Sevier County study, which can be found online at www.sevierlibrary.org/hillsides/, was that hillside development should not be completely prohibited. One of the most important recommendations is the principle that all development should be secondary to the surroundings.