A process for future property owners to watch? Proposed 2nd house on same lot back to FMPC
A proposed ordinance amendment allowing a property owner to build another house on his lot in the Rural Single-Family Residential (R-1) District was sent back to Farragut Municipal Planning Commission.
Farragut Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted to send the amendment back during its meeting Thursday, Dec. 12, when Tyler Butler, the applicant asking for the second dwelling unit, asked that he not be required to go on sewer, as he already is on a septic tank.
Aldermen David White and Alex Cain both said they thought he and other applicants should have a choice.
“I can’t put an unnecessary burden on an existing (property owner),” Cain said.
Community Development director Mark Shipley said such a change in the proposed ordinance should go back to the Planning Commission, and Mayor Ron Williams agreed.
Williams made the motion to send the matter back to the Planning Commission “for clarity on whether we can allow one (dwelling unit) to stay on (sewer) and one not.”
“The new unit to be added would be required to be on sewer, but the existing home — if it is not on sewer — would not be required to be on sewer?” Town administrator David Smoak said in asking for clarity.
“Yes,” the mayor said.
“If there’s no sewer available, that’s a cocked pistol,” White warned.
“If there’s no sewer available, then all of them would be on a septic tank,” Williams replied.
Still, “It would be good planning to have anything new on sewer,” Shipley said.
FMPC will not have the item on its agenda until its Thursday, Jan. 16, meeting.
The amendment, Ordinance 24-19, would provide a second detached single-family dwelling unit under certain conditions in the Rural Single-Family Residential (R-1) District, which would have more than 1.5 acres of street frontage.
“This was initially discussed at the August (Farragut Municipal) Planning Commission” in a workshop discussion, Shipley said. “The applicant has more than an acre-and-a-half in property zoned R-1.
“They asked to have a potential to have a second dwelling unit to be added to an existing lot,” he added. “The Planning Commission was generally open to that concept, but they asked the staff to look at how many lots are we talking about that could potentially qualify for this.”
Shipley said there are 115 house lots that qualify.
“The Planning Commission was concerned about that number and asked staff to look at options to lower that (number) since this is something we don’t allow for in other districts,” he said. “We do allow for it in agricultural districts under certain conditions.”
Then they looked at lots that could not be further subdivided, as they do not have enough frontage to meet re-subdivision requirements.
“When we applied that (requirement) to the 115 lots, that was reduced to around 25,” Shipley said. “The Planning Commission was comfortable with that” and asked for an ordinance on which they could vote.
The conditions added to the ordinance include: the new dwelling unit has to meet setback requirements, has to be at least 40 feet from the existing dwelling unit, cannot create and additional access to a public street — the two houses would have to share the access — has to meet utility codes and both units be connected to sewer.
Butler said he would prefer not to hook up his existing home to sewer, but Shipley said the Board needs to think of the other 25 lots.
But White and Cain agreed, “I think it should be either-or.”
