Board divided on CLUP contract
Since Farragut’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen last updated its Comprehensive Land Use Plan and Map in 2012, the Board again is looking to revise the documents.
During a special-called meeting Thursday, May 7, the Board voted 2-1 to approve a contract with Tunnel-Spangler & Associates for professional services to complete an update of the Town’s existing Comprehensive Land Use Plan.
Mayor Ron Williams and Alderman Joe LaCroix voted in favor of the contract while Alderman Alex Cain voted against it, saying he
believed action on updating the CLUP and map should wait until after the election. Vice Mayor Scott Meyer and Alderman Drew Burnette were absent.
The 2012 CLUP was an update to the 2001 land use plan.
“The plan [in 2012] did give us a good roadmap … we’ve used it a lot,” Cain said. “It helped us with some ordinances and to move forward.”
However, Cain said he had two concerns about approving the contract now.
“One, I don’t think we should be doing this now,” he said. “I think we should be waiting until after the election, when there’s going to be a big changeover on this Board, a possibility of more than two seats changing.”
Cain also said he would have preferred to consider another consulting firm.
“I would like to see what another firm can come up with,” he said. “We’ve seen what TSW’s done … in my opinion, I would like to see a different firm used for this.”
LaCroix asked about the credentials of TSW and how it ranked among the other three firms that responded to the Town’s request for qualifications.
Assistant Community Development director Bart Hose said the firms were evaluated on criteria such as their concepts for updating the plan, technical skill sets and qualifications.
“They were all good firms,” he said. “They were all quite competent to do the work.”
However, after completing the evaluations, staff selected TSW.
Hose said he expects the update process to take about a year and a half.
“The CLUP Update of 2012 has served the Town well and specifically included eight key strategies developed from community input that the Town was to prioritize through implementation measures to be applied through the year 2025,” Community Development director Mark Shipley stated in a report to the Board presented by Hose. Shipley was unable to attend the May 7 meeting.
“Since 2012, the Town has actively used the CLUP to make numerous updates to its regulations that have helped address the strategies identified in the CLUP,” Hose added.
Joseph “Joey” Ruffalo, a candidate for the North Ward alderman seat, urged the Board to focus on
strategic growth rather than continued growth.
“As this process moves forward, I simply encourage the Board to approach it with transparency, intentionality and a clear understanding of the long-term impact these decisions will have on the future of our Town,” Ruffalo said.
“I think, when you look back at 2001 and then 2012, whenever this was first put into effect, we had a tremendous amount of community input,” Williams said. “That is really important when we have these folks come in from TSW. They’ll do their research and look and see what we did have and what we have now and what we can have.
“Of course, we do have two major properties left in our Town and we also have quite a bit of infill,” he said. “So, all of that will be looked at and decisions will be given to us by [TSW], and we will have community input here in the Board Room.”
In other planning business, the Board voted unanimously on first reading to approve an ordinance amendment updating the Town’s flood damage prevention regulations.
“Chapter 4 of the Town's Zoning Ordinance includes the Town's Flood Damage Prevention Regulations,” Hose said. “As part of these regulations, there are flood insurance rate maps that identify and differentiate special flood hazard areas and other areas of flood hazard.
“As maps are updated, the regulations must also be updated to account for those map amendments,” he said.
Hose added the Federal Emergency Management Agency recently provided new floodplain map panels to the Town, which are included in the amended ordinance.
