Rutherford County is done with the past and is ready to move into the future, Planning Director Doug Demosi said.
The Regional Planning Department is currently working on a vision for the county’s future by developing a comprehensive land-use plan for the unincorporated parts of the county.
To develop that vision for the future the department needs public input, he said.
“We’d like to encourage the public to contact us with their concerns and invite them to attend our community meeting,” Demosi continued.
The meeting is slated for 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22 at Blackman High School to review the vision and goals of the Rutherford County Comprehensive Plan.
Currently, the county’s zoning resolution hasn’t been overhauled since 1985 and Demosi wants to use the comprehensive plans as a baseline for reworking the existing code. He also expects to take a hard look at the Zoning Resolution and Subdivision Regulations.
“It’ll be difficult to come up with something to please everyone, but it helps to find a common ground,” Demosi said.
To find that common ground, the plan is taking a three-step process. Now Parsons Brinkerhoff, consultants behind a comprehensive plan’s development, is finishing up the “Where are we now?” phase and is moving into the “Where are we going?” phase.
And just where are we now?
According to an existing conditions report prepared by Parsons Brinkerhoff, the county is dealing with the exponential growth it has experienced in the past three decades.
“Rutherford County has experience over 300 percent growth since 1970, more than five times the growth rate of the State of Tennessee,” the Parsons Brinkerhoff report said.
This places managing growth and protecting Rutherford County’s resources top the list of issues facing the county today.
Demosi said most of the public feedback he’s heard so far deal with the county’s need to balance growth, the housing market and jobs growth.
“We want their input. We want them at the meeting,” he said, adding the planning department wants to know what the public thinks was left out and what needs to be changed in the county’s zoning resolution.
Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com. |
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