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Oak Ridge council updates vehicle and home-business rules, approves multiple rezonings
Summary
At its July meeting the Oak Ridge City Council voted to align its motor-vehicle code with state law, allow limited on-premise sales for home-based businesses and approved rezonings including a Manhattan District overlay for the former Applewood site. Council also set a process for industrial lot-line setbacks.
Oak Ridge City Council on July -- approved a package of code and zoning changes aimed at aligning local rules with state law and accommodating infill development.
The council voted unanimously to amend Title 15 of the city code to match state requirements on vehicle lighting and traffic signals and to clarify when right-turn-on-red is permitted. Miss Solomon of the legal department told the council the state statute requires two working tail lamps and stoplights, and staff updated local language to reflect the state standard and expand definitions for emergency and authorized vehicles.
In a separate item, planning staff presented changes to the home-occupation rules that would allow on-premise sales of goods produced in a resident—usiness between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., reinforce staff authority to deny or revoke permits for violations and retain existing limits on employees (no more than three and no more than one nonresident employee). Miss Williams said the change was intended to support small businesses while protecting neighborhood character; council approved the amendment on first reading.
The council also approved several rezonings on first reading for properties recently transferred from the Department of Energy, assigning an IND-2 zoning district with a nuclear-industry overlay to parcels the staff said could be transferred to industrial users in the future. Separately, after a public hearing council adopted on second and final reading a rezoning of roughly 7.29 acres at the former Applewood Apartments to R-2 with a Manhattan District overlay to allow reduced setbacks for infill single-family homes; planning staff and the commission recommended the change as an infill opportunity.
Finally, the council adopted a text amendment affecting IND-1, IND-2 and IND-3 districts that makes zero-foot side/rear setbacks for adjoining industrial parcels subject to Board of Zoning Appeals review and a required public hearing. Staff said the change preserves compatibility and requires BZA findings that placement meets building and fire-code requirements.
Council members asked staff to clarify enforcement practices for lighting/equipment violations, and whether signal-arrow variations (right red arrows, yellow left-turn arrows) require additional code language; staff said they would review and may recommend follow-up language.
The meeting record shows unanimous or near-unanimous approval for these items; votes on the major ordinance and rezoning items were recorded as 7 ayes, 0 nays (a later industrial text amendment was adopted with 6 ayes while one member stepped away).
