Reflections on the 1101 Process in Blount County, Tennessee

Conclusions: From the standpoint of Blount County, the Public Chapter 1101 processwas less than satisfactory.The membership of the Coordinating Committee mandated by the 1101 law was stackedin favor of municipal interests, to the distinct disadvantage in addressing legitimateCounty concerns.The law did not provide a sound basis for judging the reasonableness of proposals forgrowth areas. The municipalities were thus not constrained by a consistently identifiableset of standards in identifying Urban Growth Boundaries.The 1101 law put the County and the six municipalities into conflict over identifyingterritories. This was not conducive to cooperative and rational planning.The 1101 law ignored existing planning legislation that could provide a morecomprehensive approach to growth planning.The 1101 process was not inclusive. There was little citizen input, and local legislativedecision makers were not adequately included in deliberations.The 1101 law did not have clear land use and development criteria for determiningsprawl and appropriate development patterns. Status quo development patterns wereprojected into the future.Recommendations: Public Chapter 1101 should be scaled back into a law addressingannexation issues. General planning issues should be considered using existing planningenabling legislation. The existing planning statutes could be modified to include explicitprovisions for citizen participation, and explicit requirements and standards forconsidering issues of growth. Mechanisms for cooperative planning between countiesand municipalities could be included in modified planning legislation, particularlyprovision for a county wide coordinating committee which would have limited powers ofcoordination over individual planning commissions. The existing planning legislationcould be expanded to include specific provisions for capital improvement programs andbudgets to address public services needed for growth. Studies of sprawl in the context ofTennessee should be conducted prior to focus on this issue in planning legislation.Particular attention should be given to the differences between MSA centered growth andnon-MSA growth issues.____________________Paper presented at the 42 nd Annual Conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning,Atlanta, Georgia, November 4, 2000. This paper was presented as part of a panel discussion in Track 6 –Land Use Policy and Governance – Tennessee’s Growth Policy Act: Report from the Trenches –moderated by Cecilia Zanetta of the University of Tennessee.Blount County 1101 Growth Planning Process Page 14 of 14