Missing Middle Housing Timeline Knoxville
Opticos Design completes Knoxville Missing Middle Housing scan.
City and Knoxville-Knox County Planning Staff begin preparation for a site-visit and City Council Workshop from Opticos Design.
Tony Perez from Opticos Design visits Knoxville through a collaboration between the City of Knoxville, Knox County and the East Tennessee Realtors. Mr. Perez presented at a stakeholder event supported by all three sponsors. He was also able to meet with City and Planning staff, and he presented a City Council Workshop on Missing Middle Housing.
At the workshop, City Council expressed an interest in moving forward with some changes to the zoning code to allow Middle Housing and to eliminate some of the barriers identified by Opticos.
The City and Planning team dive into plans for how to make Missing Middle Housing easier to accomplish in Knoxville.
City submits proposal to Knoxville-Knox County Planning for consideration at the October Meeting.
Packet can be found here.
Sept. 1 - Launch City website with detailed Middle Housing proposed plans
Sept. 21 - Community Open House at Emerald Youth Foundation Gymnasium, 1718 Central St; 4:30-7 pm
Sept. 25 - Community Open House at John T. O’Connor Center, 611 Winona St; 4:30-7 pm
Sept. 28 - City Council Workshop on Middle Housing in the Small Assembly Room in the City County Building at 400 Main St.; 5 pm
Planning Commission Meeting with proposed Middle Housing plans on agenda.
If approved by Planning Commission, City Council vote on Middle Housing proposal.
If approved by Planning Commission and City Council, the new zoning code takes effect for Knoxville.
Topics for Potential Future Phases of Middle Housing
• Cottage Court – This type of Middle Housing is identified in the Pocket Neighborhood component of the zoning code. This particular type of middle housing and the existing code make it complicated. Therefore, the City decided not to include it in the first phase of Middle Housing work.
• Duplexes permitted use in RN-2 – Councilwoman Seema Singh made a request of Planning to look at Duplexes as permitted use in RN-2 across the whole City. The City’s first phase proposal for Middle Housing focuses exclusively on the TDR geography.
• Middle Homemakers – Housing and Neighborhood Development is working on a new initiative that would be built off the concept of the Homemakers Program but focused more directly on Middle Housing.
• Pre-approved Plan Catalogue – City Council expressed an interest in a book of preapproved plans that would support small developer’s pursuit of Middle Housing. The first phase changes need to be put into place before starting on this rather large project.