RuCo needs to manage growth on The Murfreesboro Post

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RuCo needs to manage growth

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By: MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer

Posted: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 3:28 pm

Managing growth and protecting Rutherford County’s resources top the list of issues from, Parsons Brinkerhoff, consultants behind a comprehensive plan’s development.

Parsons Brinkerhoff presented its Existing Conditions Report to Rutherford County Comprehensive Plan’s Steering Committee on Monday night.

The report outlines where the county stands now and the trends that brought it to this point, as well as important issues that need to be addressed when the comprehensive land-use plan is developed.

The main issue the county needs to address is 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.

It also points out the county is the second largest in Middle Tennessee, but has 12.6 percent of the population living below the poverty line, second only to Montgomery County.

One reason the county has grown so swiftly is the relative ease for developers to build residential developments.

“While many parcels of land are still vacant, the current zoning structure allows for, and even encourages, future residential development,” the report said. Land in the county is, by default, zoned residential, but can be rezoned with a joint rezoning/conditional-use permit.

Because of the ease with which houses are built, in the mid-1990s 60 acres per day were being developed from open space to mostly residential tracts.

“Many of the older communities that formed Rutherford County have either disappeared of lost their distinguishing characteristics, also altering the cultural and physical landscape of the county,” the report said.

All the development and affordable housing has also brought in commuters from surrounding counties with most commuters headed into Davidson County daily.

“Rutherford County send 2.65 workers to other counties for every worker who commutes into Rutherford County,” the report said.

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.

Tagged under Comprehensive Plan, Growth

Member Opinions:

By: nannieof4 on 9/22/09
Isn't this what the good citizens of Rutherford county have been saying over and over again....unmanaged growth etc. Fat lot of good it will do for a consulting firm to put in writing - our commissioners and planners can't read. They just want to keep building, expanding, and taking away the "country". Pretty soon we'll be house to house from county line to county line.

By: Duvics on 9/22/09
The city actually does a great job at managing growth. Their plan includes annexations, etc., but they also strive to keep Murfreesboro a Main Street community. The County, on the other hand.....

By: ItsGood on 9/22/09
Divics, in the past is was grow - annex - build quickly. The Chair of the Planning Commission, a realtor, cannot plan an area - he can plan a plot.

By: Macgyver on 9/22/09
An impact tax is needed to make developers pay for the services their new construction will require.

By: cmac on 9/23/09
"Mister!", he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
"I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues, and I'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs" -- He was very upset as he shouted and puffed -- "What's that THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?"

"I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees, which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please; but I also speak for the brown Barbaloots, who frolicked and played in their Barbaloot suits, happily eating Truffula fruits."

"Now, since you've chopped the trees to the ground there's not enough Truffula fruit to go 'round!"

(Theodor Seuss Geisel, The Lorax)