Blount County planning panel rejects County Commission’s cluster-development percentage change

Daryl Tipton, chairman of the Blount County Planning Commission, opened continued discussion on proposed edits to section 7.2(o) governing cluster development. Commissioners debated whether to send a formal recommendation back to the County Commission on the draft amendment as written.

Commissioner Wells moved that the commission “vote on it as is” — a procedural motion intended to produce a favorable or unfavorable recommendation to the County Commission. Commissioner Franklin seconded the motion. Discussion centered on the numeric open-space percentages in the County Commission’s draft: speakers referenced 35% for the gross project area in suburbanizing zones and 40% in R‑1 and R‑2 zones.

Wells said he did not view the proposed change as significant enough to warrant adopting it and said he planned to vote against it. Commissioner Giles asked for clarification about the percentages and whether the commission’s vote would simply forward the county’s numbers back to the County Commission. After discussion, the commission voted and the motion failed. The transcript records the outcome as “Motion failed”; individual vote tallies were not specified in the hearing record.

Staff and a commissioner later discussed next steps: whether to make an explicit unfavorable recommendation or rely on the procedural vote to create the record. Counsel and several members noted that voting “as is” yields the formal record of recommendation and recommended against separate favorable/unfavorable motions. No subsequent formal unfavorable recommendation vote was recorded in the meeting minutes.

The commission did not adopt new cluster-development percentages at this meeting; the matter remains pending for future consideration by the commission and, potentially, the County Commission.