Knox Action wants all neighborhood groups and associations and their leadership to be aware of an important MPC meeting this Thursday, June 12th from 5pm to 7pm in the Burlington Branch Library meeting room to discuss the East County Sector Plan planning process.

Knox Action is concerned about recent and ongoing changes to zoning rules, sector plans, MPC procedures, etc. that result in "unplanned and uncontrolled development including lack of infrastructure, stormwater pollution and flooding, insufficient roads, overcrowded schools, urban sprawl, and indiscriminate destruction of our scenic landscape."

Full text of the notice and action plan after the jump...

The City of Knoxville has hired David Massey as the new Neighborhood Coordinator, replacing Jason Woodle who is joining TVA. Massey will report to Community Development Director Madeline Rogero.

More details...

BOWL FOR KIDS’ SAKE 2008 – visit BigBrothersBigSistersETN.org
Coming to an Alley Near You!
Have fun with coworkers, friends or family while also helping children. Bowl For Kids’ Sake benefits Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee. Every dollar raised goes toward uniting at-risk children with caring adult mentors. It is a FUNtastic way to spend time together and help our community.

More details after the break...

This has been in the works since last spring.

The annual Neighborhood Conference is scheduled for Saturday, October 13. More info here.

These conferences are usually pretty good. Notice that stormwater and traffic calming, two topics heavily discussed here, are on the agenda.

Some notes on today's County Commission meeting:

Tax Increment Financing for the Devon Group's plan for a mixed-use tower on the old News Sentinel site passed easily. The three no votes were Craig and Frank Leuthold and me. The Leutholds argued the TIF was too long (20 years) and too generous. I agreed and laid out additional reasons (precedent and corporate welfare), noted in recent articles in Planning magazine, the journal of the American Planning Association.

Chairman Scott Moore withdrew his suggested changes to the ethics policy.

I sent out an irony alert, drawing attention to an ordinance (1st reading) from Law Director John Owings and Moore. It, in effect, is a giant but quiet oops, noting that the charter and other ordinances set out travel rules for several officers, ie. fee offices and others. Namely, each gets a vehicle or $300 a month. I got Owings to admit that sometimes some people well exceeded that amount, relying instead on some budgeted amount. The ordinance not only would allow reliance on a budgeted amount but would backdate such a policy to 1990. After all the proper criticism of the county mayor over travel, one has to wonder what kind of travel payments by whom are covered by this blanket backdating. The ordinance passed 1st reading with my solo dissent. Second reading and passage looms next month.

A group of more than a dozen 8th district residents uniformly opposed to a zoning change (Babelay Road east of Harris) walked away in disbelief and disillusionment as the commission majority ignored them and sided with a classic sprawl development. Both district commissioners, Huddleston and Ballard, opposed the rezoning from Agricultural to Planned Residential (similar to a plan rejected just a few years ago). Ballard's impassioned plea was eloquent. I argued we respect our own urban growth boundary and these neighbors. The vote was 10 for re-zoning, 7 against, 2 (Ivan Harmon and Charles Bolus) not present.

One rezoning actually did not go the developer's way. An attempt to amend the sector plan along Middlebrook Pike (changing a site northwest of Albany Road from "Mixed Use Limited to Offices" to Commercial) fell just shy, 9 votes for (ten needed). Another zoning appeal (MPC unanimous for denial, neighbors uniformly opposed, and documented flooding problems) was postponed 30 days.

BankEast in the Development Corridor asked TTCDA for a waiver to a sign height rule. The rule was six feet. Bank East wanted twelve. The TTCDA staff looked at the elevation and compromised, saying eight feet was sufficient. Bank East's attorney asked us on commission to toss out the compromise and let it have the full 12 feet. Commission did; I was the sole no vote.

--Mark Harmon