It's six o'clock, and um I would like to um call this workshop to order, and we will begin with a pledge of allegiance led by councilwoman Helsley to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible liberty and justice for all.

Mr.

Johnson, will you please call the role?

Councilman Adams.

Here, Councilman DeBarta Laban.

Here, Vice Mayor Fugit.

Here, Councilman Grant, Councilwoman Fugit, or Councilwoman Helsley.

Here, Councilman Honeycutt.

Councilman Lloyd.

Here, Councilwoman Parker, Councilman Thomas.

Seven members present, Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um thank you so much for to uh the planning uh commission staff to come tell us all about planning.

You get to be the first workshop of this new city council.

So and one of the things that we all know and you know all too well there's a lot more land use stuff that city council deals with than the average citizen would think we deal with.

The average person that runs for office thinks they will deal with.

So um so thought it'd be really nice to get all that's coming up, and Amy, I appreciate you um being the first one up and meeting me a month or so ago and pulling this together so quickly.

So I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

And we are honored to be the first on your agenda for these workshops.

So I you all know me, but Amy Brooks, Knoxville Knox County Planning.

I have brought several of my colleagues here today, um, and I will introduce them.

So we have Jesse Hellman Hillman, she is our principal planner, and she takes the lead on a lot of the city rezonings and plan amendments.

This is also um, I'll just quickly say this is the team that will be um primarily working on the comprehensive plan update as well.

Um, it'll include a lot of other staff members as well, but this will be um part of our core team.

Um, Michelle Porte, who you all also know, she's our planning services manager, and Allie Ketron, she is our um strategic planning communication and planning manager.

So for today, I'm gonna give you all an overview of who we are.

Um this will probably be familiar to quite a few of you, um, but I think it's really important to help set the context, and then we'll go over the planning process and talk more in depth about rezonings and plan amendments and special use reviews.

You all don't see those on a day-to-day basis, but um they sometimes do get appealed to this body, so we want to make sure that we cover those as well.

Um and we'll talk about how we keep the community informed about the application and the requests that come before the planning commission, and then we'll we'll briefly start to talk about the comprehensive plan update that's coming up.

So here on the screen you see our mission.

Um, our customers are the citizens, elected officials, businesses of Knoxville and Knox County, and we work really hard to treat them all with respect and make sure that they receive high quality service from all of our staff members.

Um, one of our primary goals is to ensure that we provide objective and impartial advice and follow a code of ethics that's established by the American Planning Association.

Um internally, we maintain a high standard for all of our employees.

Um professional development is expected, um, and we're always looking for ways to improve what we do and how we how we do it.

Um those last two bullets there.

Um I really do want to highlight that our role is to provide you all uh and the planning commission and other boards and commissions that we serve to the objective advice and make sure that we're serving as an information resource to you all as well as the broader community.

So we have three core areas within our agency.

We have our planning services division, which is our largest group.

Um those are the staff members that you all will probably you interact probably most often with if you are calling our office to inquire about a rezoning or a plan amendment.

Those are the names that you see on your staff reports that come before this body.

We also have our information services team.

Um this staff conducts research and reporting, they do our GIS mapping, and they provide information via our website, uh handle all of our social media as well as our newsletters, and then we have our transportation division.

This this division serves uh primarily our Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization or TPO as it's called here locally.

And it also serves not just the city of Knoxville, Knox County, but Anderson Blunt, Loudon Rhone, and parts of Sevier.

So we work really closely with the city administration.

And this highlights some of the main departments that we work with most frequently, engineering, housing, neighbor development.

We do assist CAT with administration of their grants and helping out with special projects.

We did assist them with their most recent plan updates.

We work really closely with plans review inspection on a daily basis.

And if you all want us to dive into more detail about that, we'd be happy to do that.

But of course, policy sustainability and of course urban design and development.

Amy, yes.

Council members, um a lot of questions you may have may get answered as we go through this.

So if you might want to just jot them down and let's see if we can hold our questions kind of till you get through all the presentation.

Okay.

I interrupted you to tell everybody not to interrupt you.

That's fine.

That's fine.

Whatever you all want to so we do have a work program.

This is just some highlights.

This is specifically to highlights of items that are on the city portion of our work program.

As I mentioned, we serve a number of different entities.

Uh we are also basically the planning department for Knox County.

Uh, we have our regional function, but uh, we have this ongoing work related to addressing, um, plat review, of course, serving these different boards and pre-submittal reviews, so working with applicants on the front end, reoccurring projects, the one-year plan update, um, and we also do mapping and data support for other uh departments within the city of Knoxville as well as the Knoxville Chamber, um, KJIS, and other nonprofit entities in our community.

Um, we we do have special projects.

Uh obviously the comprehensive plan is the biggest one coming up this year.

Uh, we have on our work program to review our design guidelines, our historic overlays, and um on request, we are we're we're always looking for ways to improve what we do.

So uh, whenever there's a need for a zoning ordinance amendment, we try to be proactive and keep those, keep those moving forward.

I will say that our work program is reviewed and approved by the planning commission, um, and you will help inform this work program this time of year.

So, our information services group.

This this group really does serve as the backbone of our of our agency.

They support the other two groups, um, like I mentioned previously.

They create all of our websites, they create websites and web pages for the city of Knoxville departments as well, research and reporting, social media, any of those tools that you see on our website have been developed by this team.

And we also maintain a very extensive library of planning related publications that is open to the public.

If you're ever curious what's in there, please reach out.

We're happy to share that information with you.

We also have a running list of publications that we acquire on a monthly basis, and we will send that out to interested parties.

So these are just an example of some of the reports that come out of that team.

So we have our development activity report, and this looks at uh it's a it's a market report, it's released annually.

We have our facts and figures, it looks at demographic and economic data that also is released annually, and we have other studies and special reports.

So, example on the screen here is our priority populations report, which looks at economic stress, mobility, health, uh, housing, sustainability, income, and education, and we map uh where people who struggle with these issues are located with within the county.

So the image on the right is a screenshot of the tools page.

It pulls up a list of all of our tools.

Um I'll pause here and say if you guys ever want a tutorial on how to use our website, how to use some of these tools, we're happy to set up a separate session on that.

Also, if there's time after our presentation, we're we're happy to get into the details of that.

But again, this is something we can do one-on-one with you all, or if you all want to have a special session, um, we can bring staff in to let you see what is all is available on our website.

So we have panorama, um, this is a dashboard that includes interactive data and maps on population, demographics, uh, economic conditions, quality of life, housing, uh, and it links to the ACS Explorer if you want the raw census data.

Um, so again, a lot of other organizations and departments utilize this information to help inform the work that they do.

The Knoxville, we also house the national the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization.

This is a federally mandated organization to provide comprehensive transportation planning in a TPO planning area and includes all forms of transportation.

So not just roadways, bike lanes, sidewalks, screenways, public transit, and traffic management.

The TBO has its own website, it has its own technical committee, its own board.

There's a council member Helsley, I believe is our appointment to that board.

And then as I mentioned, the planning services group is our largest team.

So this staff provides the primary support to our planning commission, design review board, historic zoning commission.

We assist the city with administrative design plan reviews.

So customer service, rezoning, subdivision review, site plan review, updating, making sure that our plans stay updated, and we make sure those special reports are disseminated, and of course, assigning addresses, not just for the city of Knoxville, but Knox County and the town of Farragut.

So now I'm going to turn it over to Jesse who's going to walk you through the planning process.

Yes, so as Amy mentioned, I'm a principal planner with our team.

I'm also a certified planner, which means I am bound by a code of ethics to serve the public interest.

I'll walk you through some of what our planners consider when we're researching properties and making recommendations to the planning commission on rezonings and plan amendment cases, which end up on your desk for final determination.

I'll also cover special use cases, which may come before you if a planning commission decision is appealed.

So the first thing planners consider when developing our reports are the adopted land use plans.

We begin with the growth policy plan, which was updated in 2024.

It mostly pertains to areas of supported growth and rural preservation in the county.

But it is an overarching plan that was adopted by the city, the county, as well as Farragut.

This plan informs the general plan, which was adopted in 2023 with a horizon of 2033.

This is the comprehensive plan that establishes the vision, principles, and policies that guide development.

At the time of its adoption, it was a cross-jurisdictional guiding document, but the county recently created its own comprehensive plan.

So the general plan only applies to the city now.

Later on, we'll determine.

Later on, we'll cover how Knoxville is going to embark on its own new comprehensive planning process.

The principles and goals of the general plan are reflected in the sector plans, which are community-based plans that provide geographically specific policies and recommendations on land use, transportation, and public facilities.

It guides land use development through land use classifications.

The sector plans also provide recommendations on capital improvement projects and programs.

The reason they're called sector plans is that they represent certain city geographies to help highlight specific community priorities, which are also represented through corridor plans, small area plans, park and facility plans, and special studies.

Previously, sector plans served as guides for zoning, but conformance to the plans was not legally required, and that changed with the one-year plan charter.

In doing so, it created kind of a duplicate land use classification system, and any rezoning requests within the city limits must conform with the one-year plan as well as the sector plan's land use classifications.

The one-year plan also provides specific location criteria for certain uses that can inform development, and per its name, it is updated annually.

The zoning ordinance is an implementation tool for these land use plans, and it provides the framework for determining what is legally allowed on a specific parcel.

So you heard me mention land use classifications a couple times.

These are designations that stem from the sector plans and the one-year plan, and they define the community's vision for future land use and development.

Land use classifications are mapped onto each parcel of land in the city, which and that corresponds to features of each lot, such as its location, its proximity to certain assets, how the land has historically been used, surrounding infrastructure, topography, and other natural features.

These classifications describe the types of development that are desired in the future.

So it's forward thinking.

Most importantly, they determine which zones can be considered on a specific property.

So what is zoning?

Zoning is the DNA of the built environment.

Whereas planning is the process of defining a collective vision of the future.

Zoning is a regulatory tool to implement and enforce that vision.

Zoning provides the legal basis to determine what can be built where and how, and specifically addresses the types of land uses, activities and development that can occur in a parcel.

It can govern the shape of buildings in terms of height, scale, size, materials, and relationship to the public realm.

You'll see that we have broad zoning categories of residential, commercial, office, and industrial.

And at the bottom of this list, we have two form-based codes, one along Cumberland Avenue and one in South Waterfront.

Form-based codes prioritize the physical form and design over the separation of land uses because the general intent is to foster a more walkable mixed use environment.

We also have special purpose zoning districts that don't fit neatly into those other categories, such as agricultural, open space, and natural areas, as well as institutional zoning, which provides for uses like hospitals and large campuses.

Overlay zoning districts address additional aspects of control or design to protect certain uses, structures, natural features, and neighborhoods.

Development and the historic overlay is evaluated by the Historic Zoning Commission to ensure it's abiding by design guidelines.

That's also the case with the neighborhood conservation overlay.

Similarly, development in the NFL housing overlay is evaluated by the design review board.

The hillside protection overlay limits how much land can be disturbed on steep slopes, so it's an effective tool for tree preservation.

If a property owner wants to develop something that's not permitted under their current zoning district, they can apply for a rezoning that would permit that use.

That is when planners come in to provide consultation.

It's important to note that planners are not the ones enforcing the code in most cases.

That's the role of plans review and inspections.

Their director of is the zoning administrator, and he and his team determine what zoning allows and whether or not a development can be permitted.

If someone wants to pursue a rezoning, they come to planning.

Sometimes a rezoning can be considered under a property's existing land use classification.

Perhaps someone wants to build a duplex, but their lot is too small for that use to be allowed under their RN1 zoning.

With their low density residential land use classification, they could ask for RN2 because that zone can be considered and low density residential.

But if they need to ask for RN3 for the duplex to fit, then they would need to request a plan amendment to the medium density residential land use classification, which would coincide with their rezoning request.

There are additional standards applied when evaluating if a plan amendment is warranted, and plan amendments can only occur on a quarterly basis per the one-year plan rules.

Rezonings and plan amendments are ultimately decided by this body.

We as staff make a recommendation report to the planning commission, whose vote is a recommendation to city council, and you are the ones who decide whether to approve or deny these requests.

I'll give a quick example of what staff consider when we're writing recommendations.

The property highlighted in blue was originally zoned office with a land use classification of civic institutional.

The applicant requested that it be rezoned to RN4, general residential, with a plan amendment to medium density residential land use classification.

When considering a plan amendment, we evaluate questions such as whether there was an error or omission in the sector plan and one-year plan that warrant a plan amendment, or perhaps there were changes to the surrounding conditions or to government policy that justify an amendment.

In this case, we determined that yes, the civic institutional designation had once aligned with the church that existed on this property, but that church was now vacant and selling this property to the applicant.

We also noted that there were brand new apartments that had gone up adjacent to this parcel, showing a trend towards more residential development in this area.

And lastly, you can see that medium density residential was a minor extension that created a cohesive section of this future land use vision according to our adopted plans.

So a plan amendment was ultimately recommended.

Then we turned to rezoning.

Is a rezoning from office to R and 4 here warranted?

The property is accessed by a residential street, Pinehurst Drive, right off Washington Pike, and the surrounding land use is all residential, not office or commercial.

So a rezoning to RN4 actually better aligns zoning with existing development.

Now R and 4 is a little more intensive than some of the single family homes that abut it.

Among other uses, it permits townhouses and multifamily development.

However, if a townhouse or apartment development exceeds a certain threshold of units or buildings under RN4, it must go through the special use process to evaluate if it's appropriate.

And I'll get into that in the next slide.

So for these reasons, staff recommended approval, planning commission recommended approval, and city council approve the request.

Some uses in a zone are permitted by right, meaning you can go straight to permitting and build it.

Other uses, special uses may be permitted in a zoning district, or they may not.

Whether or not a special use uh per a specific development proposal is appropriate in its context is evaluated by planning staff with input from other departments like engineering and plans review and inspections, and it's decided by the planning commission.

If that decision is appealed, it comes before you for determination.

Special uses may be approved or denied, but they may also be approved with conditions.

Those conditions are requirements of the developer to do something extra to improve upon the development so that it better aligns with plans or surrounding context.

We can apply conditions.

We can we cannot apply conditions to a rezoning, but we can to special uses.

One example of a special use is a drive-thru facility in the general commercial zone.

The general commercial zone is intended to support a more walkable pedestrian-oriented environment.

So more scrutiny is applied to an auto-centric use like a drive-thru.

You can see on the right hand side the standards that staff respond to when evaluating a special use.

Is it compatible with the area and adopted plans?

Is it going to create a hazardous environment?

In this case, staff determined that a Taco Bell drive-thru on Kingston Pike, amongst other drive-throughs along the corridor, it was not terribly detrimental.

However, staff did influence the layout of the site plan to make it safer for pedestrians.

And we recommended a number of conditions that were approved, including the requirement that they provide a uh bus stop furniture for the neighboring CAT stop.

Planning is required by law to advertise the planning commission agenda items in the newspaper.

In addition to that, staff voluntarily post signs on subject properties, and we send postcards to all property owners within a 300 foot radius of a case.

We also require applicants to sign a form indicating uh whether they have or will engage their neighbors about a development request.

Uh in this way, we're strongly supportive of community awareness of all planning commission cases.

Our signs and postcards direct people to our NOx Planning.org website where they can look up that case and get more detail on the request and the property.

They'll also see the assigned planners' contact information so they can contact us to get more information directly.

On the case web pages, residents can submit public comments that the planning commission and planning staff are alerted to.

Uh, and they can read others' public comments as well, and they can request to speak at the meeting.

Uh we make all of this very accessible because uh we want public engagement and understanding of these cases that may affect the future environment.

So those are some of the planning processes our staff manage, and we're happy to answer any questions now.

Does anybody have any questions at this point?

Okay, I do.

So one of one of my questions is first of all is just how many staff people do you have to do?

This is a tremendous amount of work.

Just kind of curious about how many people are planning staff that have to support three municipality, three branches of government or three governments.

Right now we have 34 staff members.

So around 33 to 34 total staff for the entire agency.

A lot of work for 34 people.

And my other question is um on the one-year plans, because we've talked about this a lot in the time that I've been on council, is um how current are we on?

I mean, that's a lot of frequency to have to keep redoing these one-year plans, and I just wonder how we're doing with that because sometimes it feels like to me, and I'm glad we're having this workshop because it feels like to me sometimes community members feels like something's in, yes, it's kind of what's we want to happen, but it's in conflict with the sector plan.

We hear that a lot.

Um can you speak to that for me?

Well, the one year plan is is updated annually.

Right.

But we're not necessarily making wholesale changes to it, we're just making sure that it is aligned with the zoning code.

You want to speak to it?

So you want to speak to some kind of process.

Can recommend things, but a neighborhood or something could find something to say that does not meet as part of the one year plan.

Part of the one year plan.

That's not typically how, or at least in recent years, the one year plan has been utilized.

Okay.

That doesn't stop.

I'm just saying that doesn't necessarily stop us from hearing people say that.

Yes, and and Jesse, do you want to speak to the we we do have public meetings?

They're not well attended, I will say, related to the one year plan.

I mean, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to pick, I'm just trying to help us understand it.

There are things that we're gonna hear when people come before us that sometimes gets a little well, this says this and this says this, and we're trying I'm just trying to help us get an understanding of how that all works together.

Yeah, so the one year plan is updated annually.

Um there are no major updates proposed this year because we are embarking on the comprehensive plan, which is where we'll kind of update everything as it pertains to future land use visioning.

Okay, thank you.

I have a question connected to that.

Is there going to be uh a philosophy that we have in regards to when there are misalignments that we we're just saying like we're waiting until the comprehensive plan is done?

It's kind of up to each person's vote.

I mean Charlie, right?

I mean, you know, it's not we as a council don't necessarily talk about that because I think that's our independent judgment as council people voting on something.

Those of you that have been hearing, do you disagree, Charlie?

Okay, thank you.

Council.

Um this has got to be the most complicated thing I've ever looked at in my life.

Yeah, it is.

Twenty-one zoning districts, ten overlays, and an exam and there's an exemption to everything.

How does the public make any sense of this?

Well, they can watch this.

I mean, what's what would be a citizen's first step?

I think they would probably contact our customer service desk.

We they can either come by in person or call us, and a lot of times they have specific questions about their property, and we'll walk them through what they can do.

Lots most mostly what we get is what can I do with my property, or we'll get this is what I want to do, how do I get there?

And so we kind of help them through that that whole process, whichever question they have.

Are you willing to work with somebody before they buy the property?

We frequently do.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mr.

Frost.

Uh thank you.

Um many moons ago served on the city historic zoning commission, though we have a number of overlays, and not all of them are historic overlays or conservation overlays or whatever overlays.

Overlays, in my experience, generally apply to a small percentage of the city uh land.

I mean, but when you have would you say 21 zones overload?

Well, um think about all the the varying types of property, whether you out to the rural area of Strawberry Plains Pike.

They they need something that does not apply in for sake of argument, downtown Knoxville and vice versa.

So let's I don't mean to speak for them, but it uh that might be one of the reasons there's so many.

Yeah.

I think the the number of of zones kind of speak to levels of intensity and providing more nuance, so it allows us to be a little bit more fine-grained with how we apply different land use principles within each zone, if that helps to kind of have so many sorry, would you sorry, sorry to know?

I mean, again, this is workshop, right?

So there's no bad questions and until I ask it, probably, right?

So we'll let you know.

That's fine.

This is this is being broadcast, so I'm sure yes, it'll come back to by meeting but the first of all, thank you guys so much for all the work you do.

Uh you know, and working with you in different capacities over the years, you guys are incredibly professional.

Uh and as a city, we should be very proud of the the department uh that you all run and what you have.

So thank you for what you do and the way you do it.

The uh I do think it is it true that though, through to to Councilman Lloyd's point, through the comprehensive plan, there is opportunity to streamline things uh where we see complexity and redundancy and and and and and an op there is opportunity within this process that we're about to embark on to make it simpler, to make it more user-friendly, and and hopefully uh you know also accomplish what we want to as a city.

Is that is that true?

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

So I think I agree.

I think that you know there are very varying degrees of complexity, you know, when you look across different cities uh and the process we're about to go through is a is it is a good opportunity to to hopefully streamline some things.

Councilwoman Parker.

Um I'm curious.

Um the recode process was an interesting process and one that I um was viewing uh and somewhat participating in as an uh from the outside, it was before I was on council.

Um but I wonder, you know, that that process in mind.

My question is um, you know, we have certain uses limited to certain zones, and I'm just curious how much what we currently have in our zoning code is based on um you know recommendations coming from your professional opinions, and how much of that is based on maybe um you know, community input and reflecting what the community would like to see and um city priorities and reflecting that, or maybe it's a mix of all.

I'm curious your thoughts on that.

Councilmember, I I would say it's a mix of all.

So the the update to the city's zoning ordinance was included many public engagement sessions.

It was pretty robust um uh process that took several years um to get through, but it also um did take into consideration the plans, the plans that we went over.

So the sector plan is a general plan, uh looking at the one-year plan, it also was uh brought before council and a lot of amendments were made during that legislative process as well.

So I would say it was the combination of all the things that you outlined.

Because one use in particular that, you know, I wonder how did we get to this being what the code reflects is homeless shelters.

And you know, the fact we just went through and heard a um a description of institutional zones meant for larger campuses.

Um but it's the only zone in our zoning code that permits homeless shelters without needing a special use permit.

And I don't believe currently we have any homeless shelters in institutional zones.

So I'm just curious, like how do we get a zoning code with those rules and regulations, you know, included when they don't seem to be a match for the city?

I think there's an opportunity as we work through this development of this new comprehensive plan, it should include recommendations for how to implement the plan.

So as part of this process, there's an opportunity to say, okay, how do we want to grow and where do we want to grow and what type of uses are appropriate where?

Um so it sets that that vision, those policies, that directive, and then the next step in the process would be, okay, in order to implement these plan the this plan, these are the different um steps that need to be taken.

And uh we would envision and know from recent experience that uh what an outcome could be is we need to update our zoning code to do X, Y, and Z.

So for Recode is particularly, I know that we had consultants involved.

Were any of those consultants um you know, able to well, I don't know how to ask this question, but I'm still stuck on the five acres being the recommended size or the adopted size for permitted homeless shelters?

You know, it's as if the city is adopting a policy position that we want to see large homeless shelters only in the city, large populations, which doesn't seem it seems to conflict with other areas of our priorities we've set, you know, set for homeless services.

In fact, we've seen a um uh you know, carm move some of their services to another part of town so that there's not so much concentrated in one area.

What do you recommend for council if we see a policy within our zoning code or uh rules that just seem to conflict with where we are headed as a city?

How do we intervene at this point to try to begin a new way forward?

Will it happen through the comprehensive planning process?

Do we have to propose a question or a I mean I think that's one opportunity when you think back to uh when we when that code was developed that at that time, and I I can't um council I can't speak to off the top of my head right now um the details of how that institutional zone came to be.

I'd have to look back at you know, notes and maybe consult with some other folks who who were engaged as well.

And I can't speak specifically to that.

Um, but I will say, you know, it's it's been a number of years since then, so 2019, 2020, a lot's changed during that time.

A lot of new tools are out there, a lot of new issues have come up, and I do think that this comprehensive planning effort is an opportunity for us to kind of reset and think, okay, well, how do we want to grow?

What do we want need to do?

What other tools are out there to help the city reach its policy objectives.

So I I do think this is the opportunity to do that, and then the outcome would be okay.

Now we need to do X, Y, and Z to implement it.

Thank you.

I don't see any other lights on, so we let's move to the next topic of the plan amendment process.

At least that's what my agenda says.

Okay.

We um Jesse covered the plan amendment process.

So actually, we're gonna talk about comprehensive plan, just real briefly roll up a high level.

It was all in one.

I had this different bullets.

Yeah.

Thanks.

I made a few uh a few tweaks here.

Um you're just talking about the comprehensive plan.

I think we um so a con a comprehensive plan really is that long-range strategic document that distills the community's vision and aspirations for future development.

So one of the core features of a comprehensive plan that it is that it's long-term.

It's intended to be a guide that looks at the physical development of the city over the next 10, 15, 20 years.

The challenge of a comprehensive plan though is that it aims to address multiple issues, you know, all at one time.

And now not all of the issues that are identified in the graphic on the screen will be detailed in the comprehensive plan, but I think it's really important that your comprehensive plan take all this into consideration because this all of these different areas impact how a community grows and develops what the physical um character of the community is going to look like.

So the city's plan will focus on implementation strategies in the core areas of land use and transportation.

Excuse me.

So we're councilwoman Adams, did you have something?

Yeah, just quick about the time frame for that, and this is based upon when you think about the comprehensive plan.

To me, that's kind of in the planning world, that's the strategic plan for how our community uh grows.

And in other fields, strategic plans are getting shorter and shorter because they are responding to situations becoming so dynamic that they need to be shorter in their time period.

Is that something that is also true in the planning world?

Yes, no, and and what is do you know yet the specific time frame that our comprehensive plan intends to cover?

I I still think that it the best practice is to look out into the long term, like how how what when we one key piece of information that we use to inform our plans is that population projection.

So those are looking out pretty far into the future, so 10 to 20 years.

However, you need to be looking at your plan more frequently than every 10 to 20 years.

So I would say every five years, you need to be taking a look at your plan and at least giving it a minor overhaul every 10 years, a complete overhaul.

But then if you if the community is changing in a way that, hey, in two years, you need to be able to um be flexible enough to say, okay, we need to make changes now because this is the direction that we see we're going, and we need to make sure that um our tools are responsive.

I do think ours got exacerbated by this explosion of population in the last few years that accelerated the need for planning more quickly.

I don't see that slowing down.

So just for uh reminder, will you remind everyone how old our current plan is?

2003.

2003.

Yeah.

Um this is why we wanted it.

This is why council has wanted it for quite a number of years, and I'm glad that um it's all worked to make it on to the plan.

The the other thing, I mean let's council asked, but really it comes from the administration, the the actual request for what you work on.

It comes from the mayor's office of the city and the mayor's office of the county.

So we do not directly request, we speak to the administration with our priorities and because it you have to go do a work plan, and they're the people to authorize the work plan.

So all right, thank you.

Please continue.

So we need to be thinking about as we just talked about uh how how the plan is going to be used once it's developed.

The um we need to create a plan that's actionable, like I mentioned, that needs to be a living document um that responds to the needs of the community.

It needs to articulate the goals and actions for the community's future.

It needs to provide direction for local decision making on rezonings, on capital and improvements, uh setting priority development, redevelopment areas.

Um again, I can't stress enough how important it is for the plan to be actionable and identify who will be taking those actions, like who is charged with implementation.

It's it's never just one entity.

Um it also needs to be a communication tool.

It's a tool that can be used to articulate what the community's vision is of how and where the community wants to grow, and it can inform and guide not just public investments, but also help inform decision making amongst the private sector.

So this is our timeline for for this comprehensive plan.

We're we're gonna get started pretty quickly here.

Um so we're hoping to have public outreach begin in the spring, and we'll have public outreach throughout this process, actually.

But you know, really some um concerted effort in the spring and the fall, and hope to bring a draft plan to you all at the end sometime in the winter, end of next year, end of this year, first of next year.

Councilwoman Adams.

Has the consultant been selected yet, or is that uh announced yet?

No, they have not been selected yet.

Um about councilman the board laden, you haven't asked a question yet, so we'll let you go first.

Thank you.

I have a question about uh how closely will our land use plan match our transportation plan.

So I I see some things currently in our zoning that are incongruent with how fast we drive on our roads.

So Kingston Pike is a good example.

It's some of it, it's it's zoned for pedestrian type of stuff, but it's not comfortable to walk with four lanes of the center turn lane when cars are going 45 miles an hour.

So will that be something that will be a part?

Look, will will transportation both private automobile and all other modes of transportation be included in this?

Yes, absolutely.

And you know, the city has done quite a bit of work, quite a plan quite a bit of planning already around transportation, so that will be incorporated as part of the plan.

But yeah, we'll be working very closely to ensure that um all adopted plans and then future uh future thoughts on transportation planning are included.

Can I ask one more follow-up?

I feel like um I know people have opinions about Cumberland Avenue, uh, but it seems like transportation was very considered or considered very much.

It was a big part of what was happening there, and uh it seems like I was wondering what was different about that process compared to say other processes that we've experienced during the rezone process.

Well, the Cumberland Avenue there were it was it well, yeah.

Well, that it had it's its own district, it's it's a much smaller area, and that's often easier to um implement plans in a in a smaller area like that, but it had um corridor plans specifically, um, a couple different efforts over the years, and then a code that followed, and then obviously a lot of development interests that kind of accelerated it.

Councilman Honeycutt.

Sure.

I have a couple questions, but um I guess uh you sort of talked about you know the community engagement part that's going to be taking place, hopefully that or will be taking place this spring and summer.

Uh can you expand a little bit on on what that process is going to look like, like how many community meetings, how how's the community going to be notified?

Like what you know, I think we've all seen community engagement go well, and we've all seen community engagement uh not go well.

And so, you know, can you talk to the emphasis your department's putting on that and what the process will be?

Yeah, I might I might let one of my colleagues jump in here too.

But we have not developed the community engagement plan yet.

That will be the first step once we bring a consultant on board.

Okay.

Um it'll be a it's a high priority of a project.

Like any project that we do here at planning, but in particular for a comprehensive plan, it really needs to be community driven.

And that that's great because and I hope that maybe you'll you know report back to us on on that because you know, we want to be liaisons within our community uh for this effort and for this plan and help communicate to the neighborhood groups and communicate to the the stakeholders in each of our districts.

So uh, you know, we hope to be involved in that communication plan and and look forward to to seeing you as you develop it, the what the what that's gonna look like.

Yes, we hope that you'll be very involved throughout the process.

I have a feeling we will be.

Uh Councilwoman Parker.

Um the Cumberland discussion may did make me think about um, you know, there's there's a need for um maybe uh more discussion of the form-based codes and with that missing middle and kind of what the city has hoped to achieve through the adoption of both.

And it's kind of um well, uh allowing space to think about what is what's the future of these codes?

Are we looking to expand them, move them to other areas?

Um but we don't talk much about the purpose of them.

They were um they were adopted before I was on city council, and I think that could use a little discussion.

Thank you.

Councilman Thomas.

Yes.

My apologies for this.

That's okay.

You're not used to looking at this.

And my own city usually looking.

Okay.

Um thank you, Director Brooks and all your staff, and I really appreciate what you guys do.

It's an often daunting um responsibilities that you take on.

So thank you.

Um my question is um, you know, we went through the recode process not that long ago, and there was an extensive public process on that.

And I'm looking for some context.

Um, how will this differ from recode and it will will it cover areas that Rico didn't?

Is there a real need for it since we uh relatively lately finished Recode.

So if you could just kind of give me some context on that, uh I would appreciate that.

Um, so I'll start and then if anybody else wants to jump in, you can.

So the the update to the recode was updating codes, which is really different than a comprehensive plan.

A comprehensive plan is is is setting the stage for what codes will look like in the next iteration, so five, ten, fifteen years out.

So how do we want to grow and where do we want to grow?

It's much higher level, much big uh a bigger picture um look at the community as a whole instead of district by district, zone by zone.

Okay, will there be you said that you know uh recode basically was uh focused on codes, would there be like a wholesale uh revamping of the codes that recode uh addressed?

I would not envision that you would need to do a wholesale revamp of your codes.

And it wouldn't, but I do think that coming out of the comprehensive plan, there are gonna you're gonna identify some um amendments that you might want to make to your zoning ordinance to your subdivision regulations to ensure that your plan gets implemented.

Okay.

So uh to follow up on my colleague Deber Light of Ben, if I got his name right, I'm still working on it.

I'm doing better.

Um so is this more likely to encompass, for example, broader issues like transportation?

Yes.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions of anyone?

Oh, sorry, Councilman Honeycutt.

I'll get better when we do more of these.

Those of us in the corner kind of hiding.

Yes, y'all are yeah.

I'm gonna have to look left and right a lot.

The um real quick, this probably goes back to the community engagement part, but I I hope that as part of that you guys are also you know considering a public relations strategy, a media strategy, you know, and that kind of thing, and that'll be part of that community engagement component.

And this again may be part of something you will answer when the consultant's on board, but will there be sort of an advisory board or or sort of a group of stakeholders, uh a community member stakeholders that are part of your team or part of the advisory part of this?

Like it won't will it be just you and the consultant, like how how will there be community stakeholders or some sort of task force put together that is sort of part of this process.

We haven't worked out all the details of that.

But yes, that is very typical.

It's not going to be just be um our staff, our planning staff, city staff, and the consultants.

Uh we will help project manage um the whole plan, but we will need extensive input from a number of different groups and entities, including this body along the way, planning commission, and some form of a um and guiding committee as well.

Guiding committee or maybe multiple committees.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Councilman Lloyd.

Uh using your mapping technology, is it possible that you could call up a map of the city of Knoxville and like only highlight the tracts of land that are five acres or larger?

We could have a RGIS staff do that for you.

It's not something that you could do on KGIS, the public-facing one, but we could have someone put that together for you if you're looking for that.

I would really appreciate it.

I think that would be helpful, especially with the um interest in homeless shelters that we're seeing right now.

I mean, I'm getting calls about it every day.

And it would be really nice to have an idea of where they're where they could be located at.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Honeycutt.

Thanks.

I just have sort of one last question at the moment, but uh last one.

Well, that's why she seems Vice Mayor saying this is my last one.

So it's uh the uh uh hopefully this is you know a softball question for you guys.

But I mean it in all sincerity.

To you all, I mean, what defines success uh coming out of the comprehensive plan?

Like what what means we have done this process successfully, what it means we have a successful comprehensive plan to you all at at the end of this process.

I I think a plan that uh when it's adopted, people are really excited about it and are fully bought into it and want to see it executed.

I would say that's success.

I think for me it means having a really robust public um public commentary, hearing from a lot of people, um, not just the same people that we hear from over and over, but um we that we don't normally engage.

Oh do you mind if I say something, Charlie?

Thank you.

I was gonna say I I personally am very interested in the public process thing.

Um simply because a lot of the routine ways that government and or consultants sometimes seek to get input.

I think we're gonna have to be much more we on this body are gonna have to be much more helpful in driving people to meetings, not just relying on what the consultant or the planning staff does.

If we really want to feel good about what we vote on in the end or gets implemented or the code, whatever we have to change, we need to feel good about many people in the city having participated when we're gonna make changes, not the um the folks who are terribly engaged all the time, but the folks who will wake up one day and go, how did this happen?

Well, and Vice Mayor, if you don't mind piggyback on your point, you know, I noticed during the the parks and recreation master plan that we're you know just bringing to a conclusion and talking with them, you know, when they were holding their own sort of community input meetings, they were getting lower participation than when at later in the process when they discovered that they could if they actually sort of piggyback or attended the already existing neighborhood association meetings that were well attended, then suddenly they were getting that they were getting three and four times the amount of participation.

So just that kind of simple thing where uh if we can help get the community engaged by through processes that are already there, it'd be great.

Invite the consultants, all the neighborhood meetings you go to.

Councilman Thomas.

Yeah, I'm gonna follow up just a little bit on a comment I made on uh RECO just kind of for emphasis, and I think you kind of uh uh touch base on you know what a wholesale change this may or not be.

But I just want to emphasize that you know, we went through a wrong process with Recode, and my district really benefited in lots of ways from Recode.

So I'm gonna be real mindful of the changes that the comprehensive plan uh does.

And I'll just use a couple examples like before Recode uh Oakwood Lincoln Park, a lot of Lawnsdale, it was just this really crazy patchwork of zoning.

Nobody kind of knew what to predict who would be living next to them, what zoning changes would be.

And Recode actually came in and um solidified that.

It made sense out of all of it.

So you had the combination of recode and then the in-fill housing requirements.

And if you look the results right now, you can go into Lawnsdale and Oakwood Lincoln Park, and you're seeing lots of lots uh being filled in with this housing, and it fits the neighborhood.

Uh the neighbors aren't complaining.

Uh the character of the design is really good, and we're adding density in a way that's not having a negative impact.

So that is that was part of Recode that's really been a success.

And before you would have lots of uh disagreements and fights between developers and neighbors and all that, and recode in those issues has really lessened that, and developers know what to expect, and they're filling in those lots uh up and down you know, my street and you know, and other parts of the neighborhood.

And so, you know, that's what I'm gonna be mindful of, is like we went through all that work and some of it was good.

So let's not uh let's be careful about changing the things that work.

Thank you, Councilwoman Adams.

I wanted to add on to what planning staff said about markers of success with the comprehensive plan, because I think that one of them is if we aren't seeing plan amendments every single time we're sitting here, that that's that's a real marker that it it is working, it's what uh was desired and had inclusive um buy-in from folks.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Parker.

Um one concern I did want to raise that maybe could be addressed through this process.

Um dealt with uh short-term rentals and regulations around short-term rentals, and then reco recode came afterwards.

And what we got through Recode were these mixed use zones.

And I know I've approved a lot of uh changes, um, or what I would consider a lot of changes to the industrial mixed-use zone being one of the most popular ones.

Uh not realizing that um those uh units may be able to register under the commercial uh short-term license versus the residential uh owner-occupied.

And so that's just one thing that I'm um becoming aware of and think we should be mindful of, yes, as we move forward.

Yes, uh thank you.

Councilman DeBarde-Laden.

Um I will echo that.

Uh on Island Home Avenue, there's a newer complex that is across from Trailhead, and like something like 11 of the 25 units are short-term rentals.

So instead of creating a neighborhood, you're creating something else.

The same thing's true in Forth and Gill.

There are like 40 townhomes there, over half of them are short-term rentals, and they are allowed to by right because they're CG2, and they're they're allowed to be non-owner occupied um short-term rentals.

So I think it's a great opportunity for us to include this in a plan.

So well, one uh one thing that um I know we had talked about for um perhaps the internal auditor to do for us at some point with um for the city is look at how those are how many do we have, are they all permitted correctly?

Um, and I think that would also help us as we begin to address do we need to do anything about our regulations that don't violate state law dealing with that.

Well, I I don't know, but Council uh um our attorney, Mr.

Frost will make sure we don't break the law.

But um, but I do think that that's but um we can't not we cannot not allow them by state law, correct?

Uh yes, there was um legislation a few years ago is I think a lot of it was driven by how the city of Nashville or maybe uh uh Metro Nashville was taking uh um their opinions about short-term rentals, but uh I think they do have to be allowed in some circumstances.

The city law department stays on top of the requirements.

Right.

But uh point of that is there's nothing that says we cannot look at now that this has happened.

Do we need to look at where they're allowed?

Is what I'm basically hearing you say, Ms.

Parker.

That what we can do as a council even before the plan is done is look at what zones that kind of stuff we can have them be allowed in if we want to when and where it's appropriate.

We cannot just say we can't we won't have them in the city limits, but I do think we um can talk about where they're preferable to have um is it possible this is maybe a question for legal, but in that same kind of solution mindset for how to keep accommodating them but not have them be the only thing that is uh in the in the neighborhood.

Is it possible to have some type of percentage that is applied?

Uh thank you.

Off the top of my head, I hadn't had to look at it in a while.

I don't recall.

Um the city has on the website right now a list of all the permitted short-term rentals, including their addresses and everything, and then we have uh a situation uh where you can have somebody stay in your own home, and then you have, I guess, depending on this the zoning, uh you can uh have it all the time, uh, a short-term rental.

The the only places that have effectively stop them are places that are um have deed restrictions, covenants and conditions that disallow them.

And that actually gets litigated uh by people who want to put in uh short-term rentals.

There was something up in Granger County, maybe on the lake.

Yep.

Uh it's been in courts for years about whether or not uh the deed restrictions in this neighborhood allows them uh or not.

Um generally speaking, the newer the development um uh the um deed restrictions will be newer and will have come in after uh short-term rentals have really started.

It's when you have the deed restrictions for sake of argument 20 years ago before short-term rentals really uh began uh that could have holes in them uh that people who desire to have short-term rentals try to poke.

So we're gonna make it worth, deputy to the mayor, Miss Balls, uh, make it worth her time to have come to this workshop.

Could you come up and uh talk to us about that, please?

Hi, Cheryl Ball, uh Chief Policy Officer for the City of Knoxville, and I happen to be the one who works with our legal team and our revenue team on short-term rentals.

So uh when you have those specific questions, you're welcome to reach out to me.

But more broadly, with regards to the conversation that you all are having today, um the city of Knoxville, City Council specifically put into place a short-term rental ordinance, and one year later, the state of Tennessee um preempted that ordinance.

And so the ordinance that is technically on the books, we're not allowed by state law to follow.

We have to follow the state law.

Um we've done multiple workshops for this body uh regarding short-term rentals.

Happy to do another one.

Here are a couple of just snippets so that you have that, and I'm happy to dig in with any of you individually, or like I said, you know, to do a workshop or whatever is is helpful.

Um the state preempted the city, they said what we can and cannot do with regards to enforcement.

It's all about enforcement.

And so I think that what we have to recognize is that if we don't have an enforceable rule, if you could have very limited capacity to enforce a rule, it doesn't matter where it is if you can't enforce it.

And our ability to enforce the rules that we have, even that are allowed at a state level, are um quite challenging to be able to enforce.

Happy to get more granular than we're talking about today, but that preemption from the state was a result of multiple cities like Knoxville stepping up, wanting to address it, and they wanted to tell us how they wanted us to do it.

One of the things is like maximum fine, correct?

It is one of those stipul you don't have to answer that.

So I do think there are some things that we can do, certainly, but um that it anyway.

Okay.

So sounds to me like when we do our next prioritization, we may want to make this one of the things we want to talk about.

Um Ms.

Parker, Councilwoman Parker.

And I just wanted to clarify that um my suggestion is not that we um return to that ordinance or try to, you know, uh um preempt the state preempting us.

Um but uh but really that this new uh zoning that has brought some you know excitement and some uh cool new developments to Knoxville, we might need to think about how we approach it moving forward and uh proximity to current residential neighborhoods.

Is it a buffer area?

I don't know.

But um if we are stymied, I'm less excited to see a lot of of um a lot more mixed use.

Um and and one area I know like Sutherland is one area I've I was a part of approvals to that um mixed zone uh from a residential or it might have been from an industrial, but in a residential area uh that could continue to be a residential area with maybe neighborhood commercial rather than potentially being suspect to a lot of Airbnbs.

There are any other questions.

I guess one could I ask you.

I'm getting back to basics now before we get to the preemption state.

So right now in Knoxville, uh I know it's different for downtown, but out in the residential areas, Airbnbs uh we're allowed to have them, but we're also allowed to have a rule that they are owner-occupied.

Is that right?

Um in residential zones throughout the city, it does require that the owner reside on the property.

It could be a separate physical structure, but they must reside on the physical property.

Okay, and just for clarity, that's right now, that's okay with the state.

Right.

That's not a violation of state law.

Oh no.

No.

Okay.

I just wanted to get it.

We are not going to violate state law.

No.

That is not a my watch.

It's a tricky enforcement, as as you said, that um the state law is trying to control.

Um it it's it's not the enforcement necessarily of where, it's what we do about it.

What we're allowed to do about it is very limited.

Right.

So uh you know, one of the best things that I could do, I I feel like, I don't know, you all can tell me, but would be to go through a couple of case studies with you.

We have lots of them that are painful and frustrating for neighbors and city staff as well.

Um, but I would be happy to to walk through a couple of case studies so that you can understand what some of our challenges are with our attempts at enforcement.

Yeah, and I I may actually want to do that because and I understand kind of that there's some frustration there, but you know, what I get sometimes is neighbors who know that the owner is not on your occupied, they know it.

And the it's I'm getting the idea that it's the city, the state enforcement requirements that are making it more difficult for us to enforce those things.

Okay.

100%.

Um that is the number one complaint that we have.

And we have lots of prime examples where we know that the individual is not living at the property, but they provide us with what the state requires for proof of residency.

And when they provide us with what the state requires for proof of residency, we have to accept it according to state law.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, um, I don't see any more lights on, so I want to thank you, all of you for coming.

And um, this was a really nice, this is what I think is a great workshop.

We get a presentation, we have conversation, ask questions, and I think we've we've learned something, and um hopefully um y'all are getting a little hint of what's important to some of us on council as we move forward with the comprehensive plan.

So thank you very much.

Seeing no other lights on, this meeting is adjourned.