Our voice on the Hunter Growth Strategy for Blount County:

PRESS RELEASE: Maryville, Tennessee, May 24, 2005 - “Swift implementation seen as key,” says Raven Society Chairperson, Gail Harris.
The Raven Society commends the County Commission for funding the Hunter Growth Study and resulting draft Strategy and endorses the vast majority of the recommendations. One exception is the completion of the Pellissippi Parkway to U.S. 321. The Strategy describes Blount County’s current zoning regulations as: “neither fish nor fowl, neither rural nor urban. Instead, it is a recipe for sprawl, which goes against the letter and spirit of the County's Policy Plan."

The Society notes that the Study makes practical suggestions for the implementation of the 5 guiding policies of the Blount County “Land Use Plan,” incorporating many actionable recommendations into the Blount County subdivision regulations. These guiding policies, compiled from citizen input, have been in existence for many years, but they have been largely ignored in the day-to-day planning and zoning processes of the county because they were not reflected in the regulations. The Raven Society also notes that the study spends a great deal of time on the Rural Arterial Commercial Zoning (RAC) that has long been a bone of contention between developers, neighbors, the Planning Commission and the County Commission. The study characterizes the development that results from the RAC as little more than strip commercial and describes at some length the damage such development does to the community and surrounding neighbors. Hunter offers a vision of commercial development that would cluster it only at selected intersections, with access from a frontage road, with a required landscape buffer to protect the scenic highways that provide the gateway access to our community and the Great Smoky Mountains. Many of Hunter’s strategies will require an agreement with the cities to extend sewage service out into the county.

“The Hunter Study was completed at a significant cost that will be wasted unless determined and swift action is taken,” Gail Harris stressed. “We respectfully ask that the County Commission waste no time in starting the process to implement these recommendations and to reject any suggestions to delay for any reason." The Raven Society recommended in a recent letter to the County Commission that a point person with integrity and stature, such as former State Senator Bo Henry, should be selected to head up the implementation of the Hunter recommendations.

The Raven Society is a political action committee whose mission it is to support candidates and issues that protect the rural, natural, and historic qualities of Blount County and East Tennessee. More information can be found on the website at www.theravensociety.com or by calling Gail Harris at 983-5652.

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