thedailytimes.com : Your 24/7 news source

The Blount County Planning Commission Tuesday discussed a proposal to allow commercial campgrounds in certain areas served by arterial roads.

Planning Commissioner Ernest Blankenship wondered about the legal issues involved.

"If we specify specific roads, will it stand up legally?" he said.

"We do that already," Planning Director John Lamb said. "... That is a valid use of the zoning power. You've specified a performance criteria specific to a location. This would allow the use somewhere. You're setting a criteria based on tourist use."

Commissioner Tom Hodge said specifying arterial roads would be a good start.

"To get the ball rolling, you could start with arterial," he said. "At least you're allowing it. You could always move forward from there if you wanted to relax those standards and add lesser road classifications

There had been public outcry about the campgrounds proposal, which, as previously written, would have allowed campgrounds to be built on 10-acre or larger parcels in the R-1 and Suburbanizing zones as well as the traditional R-2 zone, which includes the mountainous regions of the county.

Although the proposal has already been revised to prohibit campgrounds in the R-1 zone, commissioners discussed further limiting them to a few areas of the county more suited for tourist destinations.

In other business, the Planning Commission unanimously re-elected Ed Stucky as chairman and Ernest Blankenship as vice-chairman.