League of Women Voters meeting on infill development

Submitted by Rachel on Thu, 2008/03/13 - 6:36pm.

Vistors are welcome at this meeting, so please come if you are interested.

Bring your brown bag lunch to the Beck Center, 1927 Dandridge Avenue at at 11:30 on Tuesday, March 18. The program will begin at noon, followed by questions and discussion.

Infill development, as the words imply, is the process of filling in gaps in already developed urban areas. It involves increasing urban density, improving antiquated public facilities, new mixes of activities and land use. It involves more urban design emphasis than traditional land use planning.

Seven of the people most responsible for planning the infill development of central Knoxville will talk about their plans for the Broadway and Central avenue area, the South South Knoxville waterfront, Cumberland Avenue and Magnolia Avenue. Infill development of these
areas , along with the current successes of revitalization in the Fourth and Gill neighborhood, Old North Knoxville and Mechanicsville can create, in effect, a whole “new town in-town” in Knoxville.

Michael Carberry, Comprehensive Planning Manager for Metropolitan Planning Commission, will introduce the topic and the projects. Maps and drawings of the projects will be exhibited. Other presenters will
be Bob Whetsel, Director of Redevelopment , City of Knoxville; David Hill, Senior Director of South Waterfront Development; Mike Reynolds and Jeff Archer, Metropolitan Planning Commission Planners; Anne
Wallace, Cumberland Avenue Project Manager and Jacene England, President of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

City Council members Bob Becker and Joe Hultquist who represent parts of the City involved in the projects will attend to participate in discussion following the presentation.

( categories: )
Smaller infill
Submitted by Up Goose Creek on Sat, 2008/03/15 - 6:44am.

I'd like to know more about infill for vacant lots in the neighborhoods. Do you think there will be any time to touch on that subject?

____________________________________
Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs

nextarchitect's picture
report
Submitted by nextarchitect on Wed, 2008/03/19 - 7:15pm.

how did this meeting go? was there much detail about fort sanders plan?

Infill Development Meeting
Submitted by Lisa Starbuck on Wed, 2008/03/19 - 8:45pm.

Pretty good meeting, well attended. It was filmed and should be broadcast at some point by CTV.

The meeting was only supposed to be an hour long, so they had to paint everything in fairly broad strokes and they had a lot to cover. The presentations were by Dave Hill on the South Knox Waterfront, Mike Carberry, Jeff Archer and Anne Wallace of MPC explaining various codes, overlays and projects. And a couple of other folks whose names escape me.

Besides the presentation on the South Knox waterfront project, they showed a briefing of the Cumberland Ave redo and the Magnolia Ave. corridor study with an overview of various form-based code regs. Not that much detail, but again there was a lot to cover. On the Cumberland Ave. plan, they showed taking away one lane of traffic to widen the sidewalks and create space for curb cuts for transit and parking, talked about burying utilities, adding streetscape components, etc.

After all that, there was only a few minutes for discussion and the meeting was adjourned. I applaud the League's Land Use Planning committee for the opportunity to to discuss these issues, but obviously there is a lot more to it to make these things a reality - the biggest thing now is getting the investment and the buy-in for the plans.

My personal feeling is that the real conversation needs to be about Knoxville and Knox County developing a comprehensive land use policy with some teeth and support instead of the loose guidelines that nobody pays any attention to. It may be that the time is right politically to accomplish that.

Schools
Submitted by Up Goose Creek on Wed, 2008/03/19 - 10:11pm.

Bob Becker made the first comments and he pointed out that throughout this hour long presentation not one mention of schools had been made. Other concerns he mentioned were adressed but not another word was said about this 800 lb elephant in the room. Mark Harmon noted that not a one of the renderings had shown a solar collector.

My personal feeling is that the schools need to be improved before we can expect any large scale investment or buy-in. Especially for the Magnolia and Central corridors. And besides the higher density developments shown in the plan, there are hundreds of vacant lots in the A-E zone suitable for single family infill.

I hope people in the county will realize there is a direct correlation between inner city school shortcomings and development pressures in the rural areas.

It may take a Marshall plan level of involvement to bring this about but I believe the investment will pay off big for both the city and county.

____________________________________
Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs

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