urgent - SW item at Council

[Janice Tocher]

Good afternoon neighbors,


Please see the following email message put together by Rachel Craig (Island Home Neighborhood Association) with regards to an ordinance that will be proposed at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

Rachel’s email describes the issue very well. I hope you will connect with ALL city council representatives to let them know how you feel about this proposed ordinance.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me: jto...@bellsouth.net

Cheers!
Janice Tocher

---------- Forwarded message ---------

Neighbors,

Council member Amelia Parker is sponsoring an item onTuesday's (March 21) Council agenda (item 12a) to put a 90 day moratorium on ALL building permits in the South Waterfront. Ms. Parker has not consulted our district Council member, Tommy Smith, about this, nor has she made any attempt to vet this with the south Knoxville community. She has not attended any meetings in south Knoxville over the last two years, including the recent open house. It's unclear to me why she is jumping in now.

The item says that over the 90 days the Planning Commission should review the entire code, open it up to public comment, and recommend changes. Those of you familiar with Recode know that such a process would take longer than 90 days. It's also not in the PC's workplan for this FY, so it's questionable if they could even begin such a big undertaking before July.

This is also unnecessary and reckless. The bulk is the code is fine; it does not need to be opened up to wholesale change. And doing so would open it up to mischief because developers would be standing in line to weaken it.

The big problems have been lack of transparency and too lenient review of applications. The City has recently taken and continues to take steps to fix these problems. There is now a requirement for all requested variances at BZA to put a sign on the propery. A list of current projects under review is now on the City website, and we finally once again have a single point of contact, Rebecca Jane Justice, for SW questions and concerns. In addition work is underway to tighten up and clarify the administrative section of the code to make project reviews more stringent. The plan is to present that work at a Council workshop on form-based code in June. Council member Smith deserves a lot of credit for these changes.

It's also worth noting that this item, if passed, wouldn't just be a moratorium on big new development projects, it would apply to anything that requires a bldg permit.

Please contact Council and tell them that this proposal is unnecessary and reckless. Council member contact info is here:

Tommy Smith: Tsm...@knoxvilletn.gov

Andrew Roberto: Arob...@knoxvilletn.gov

Seema Singh: Ssi...@knoxvilletn.gov

Lauren Rider: Lri...@knoxvilletn.gov

Charlie Thomas: Cath...@knoxvilletn.gov

Gwen McKenzie: Gmck...@knoxvilke.gov

Lynn Fugate: Lfu...@knoxvilke.gov

Janet Testerman: Jtest...@knoxvilke.gov

Amelia Parker: Ampa...@knoxvilletn.gov