Knox County planning staff announced a series of public open houses and stakeholder meetings this month to introduce the county's first Unified Development Ordinance and collect community input. The meetings include in-person open houses on Tuesday, Sept. 23, and Thursday, Sept. 25, each with two sessions that begin with a brief orientation at 5:30 p.m. and an open-house format running 5:30–7:30 p.m.; a virtual meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 25, from noon to 1 p.m. Staff said additional sessions that week will include stakeholder advisory groups, a chamber membership meeting, a workshop with the county commission and a planning commission session at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 23 on the fifth floor of the City-County Building.

The meetings are intended to present the draft code structure, explain key changes and offer interactive stations where participants can ask questions and provide feedback. Planning staff asked commissioners and attendees to help share the schedule with their networks and said the meetings and materials will be posted on the Advance Knox website.

Why it matters: a UDO combines zoning, subdivision and development standards into a single document. The public open houses are an early public engagement step where residents can learn how changes might affect development patterns, permitted uses and review processes in their neighborhoods.

What staff said: staff described the meetings as orientation-style presentations followed by open-house interaction and noted that sign-ups are available in advance for the virtual session. Staff also identified separate stakeholder meetings planned for the same week.

Next steps: staff invited questions and said materials and meeting dates are posted online. No formal action was taken at the agenda-review meeting; the announcement was informational and intended to publicize the upcoming outreach.