Participants in a series of Growth Readiness Workshops got down to what Chris Craig, a TVA biologist, called the “meat and potatoes” of their work Wednesday.


The workshops, sponsored by the Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance and Greeneville’s government, are tasked with producing non-binding recommendations to local planning commissions related to stormwater, sometime next year.

Wednesday’s session was the third of its kind, with several more planned.

After hearing a presentation on low-impact subdivision design from engineer Todd Wood, president of DTWood Engineering Inc., of Jonesborough, workshop participants broke into three work groups. Groups focused on:
lot design, including open spaces; streets and parking; and natural areas.

Wood is a consultant to both Jonesborough and Washington County on subdivision development, especially as it relates to stormwater and low-impact development issues.

Wood said he has been working on a draft for ordinance for Jonesborough that would encourage development practices that minimize problems with stormwater, including sedimentation and other forms of pollution, and thus improve water quality in streams.

Right now, he said, most communities and counties in East Tennessee use subdivision and zoning regulations developed about 30 years ago by the local planning office of the Tennessee Department of Economic & Community Development, with local modifications made over the years.

He said Washington County and Jonesborough are aware that their regulations do not encourage developers to do projects that have minimal impact on water quality. He said each of the two governments are working to “start designing a system to create behavior we want.”

In general, he said, if developers have to ask for special permission and go before a public hearing to do a low-impact development, they won’t, because in development, “time is money.”

He said the goal is to design rules that provide “the path of least resistance” for environmentally-friendly, low-impact projects.

Cites Maryland Experience
Wood said he moved to Tennessee five years ago from Annapolis, Md.

Greeneville is now in its third year of Stormwater II state regulations, but “Maryland has had stormwater regulations for 20 years,” Wood said.

Most of the rules that Greeneville is implementing deal with subdivision design and controlling runoff and erosion during construction, but Wood said rules in Maryland deal with “post-construction water quality.”
He said that water quality will be the next step in regulation here, and will be “a huge change,” because rules will deal with pollution washed off parking lots, nutrients in streams, and other pollution sources.

In general, he said, “People do not like change,” and that goes for subdivision developers.

Local developers have long been accustomed to removing most trees, paving and curbing streets and dealing with runoff from lots in fairly minimal ways, he said.

Wood showed slides of typical subdivisions in Jonesborough.

But he said some local developers are beginning to see the advantage of “low-impact” designs and of dealing with runoff in forward-thinking ways.

He said Jonesborough is working on a case-by-case basis with developers, informally, early in the development process, to encourage low-impact designs that leave more trees and open space, in hopes of coming up with better projects.

Not all developers are willing — voluntarily — to try, he said, and some may never be.
Jonesborough Development

One development taking a low-impact approach, he said, is The Meadows, on U.S. 11-E in Jonesborough. Six or seven years ago, he said, Jonesborough created Planned Residential District (PRD) zoning for projects such as this.

Wood said PRD zoning is designed to “encourage non-typical development,” and has no minimum lot size, and no property line setback requirements, through it does require a 25-foot buffer around the perimeter of the project.

Such developments feature open spaces for uses that all residents of the project share, he said.

A “pedestrian access plan” is required, he said, but that doesn’t necessarily mean sidewalks, and trails are allowed and even encouraged.

A maximum of five units per acre are allowed. Typically, such projects use mowable swales to handle water runoff from roads and roofs, instead of curbs or deep ditches.

“Swales are broader and a lot safer than ditches,” he said, as well as being more attractive and allowing more water to be absorbed, rather than channeled.

He said the goal of development that improves stormwater problems is to “try not to concentrate water flow,” which curbs typically do.

Wood said lots and houses in this development “are selling real well, especially to people who move here from other parts of the country. They expect something other than cookie-cutter subdivisions,” Wood said, and are looking for amenities like walking trails.

He showed a slide depicting homes clustered tightly together on a ridgeline, overlooking a four-acre open area, much of which he said has been deeded to Jonesborough for preservation as a wetland.

Wood pointed out that streets with curbs have to be wider than streets without them, because curbs prevent parking on the shoulder, which swales make possible.

He said Craig Ford, Jonesborough’s public safety director, was asked the minimum width required for fire trucks, and said 12 feet is enough for streets without curbs, but 20 feet is needed where parallel, on-street parking is allowed.

New Halifax Development

Wood also showed photos and talked about “New Halifax,” a dense cluster development on Main Street east of downtown Jonesborough that he said is “my favorite project.”

Wood said New Halifax is “a traditional neighborhood” more like the older “tree streets” in Johnson City than a typical subdivision.

Its developers are Don Bacon and Steve Bacon.
The homes in this “neighborhood” development are close together on narrow streets, with garages in back served by alleyways, and off-street parking, he said.

The architecture is coordinated. Most homes have porches in front, and are served by sidewalks that lead to open spaces that residents can use in common.

He said as many trees have been saved as possible.

“If the paint wasn’t really new, you might think the neighborhood had been there for many years,” he said.

The first phase is sold out, Wood said, and several more stages are planned. He said two-story houses in the development sell in the $225,000 to $270,000 range, but smaller, one-story houses start at $160,000.

He said that, instead of clearing most of the trees, the developers first clear roads, and only remove trees once a home has been sited in such a way as to leave as many healthy, desirable trees as possible.

He said Jonesborough has an “urban forester” on its staff that will work with developers on this.

The urban forester identified about 10 trees worth preserving when a new hotel was built recently near downtown Jonesborough, Wood said, and the developer was able to save six of the 10 because the paving contractor was willing to make the extra effort.

“Not every developer” wants to do a low-impact project, with swales instead of curbs, and with as many trees preserved, Wood said.
But as rules become tighter, such projects will be more important, and having a system of rules in place that permit low-impact, environmentally-friendly development “will drive behavior,” he said.
He urged those working on recommendations for this community to “figure out your ultimate goal,” that is, the type of development they want to encourage, “and work backward” to develop rules that make it easy for developers to build such a project.

‘Credit Points’ For Developers
He recommended considering offering developers “credit points” for low-impact features included in a plan, not monetary credits, but credits that could mitigate or offset other parts of the design.

Jane Fowler, of Southeastern Watershed Forum, the organization that is facilitating the workshops, provided each work group with copies of draft recommendations developed by similar workshops in north Georgia, Wise County, Va., and elsewhere.

These recommendations have not yet been presented to the appropriate planning commissions, Fowler said, but will be by around the first of the year.

She said some of those recommendations may be applicable here, and some will not.

Greeneville Alderman Sarah Webster said it needs to be emphasized that the goal of recommendations that come out of the workshops needs to be to encourage developments that “make the minimum impact possible for each size and type.”

She said some recommendations for streets that might work well in a Greeneville residential area would not work in rural parts of Greene County, where farm equipment might have to use roads, for example.

Fowler and others said that with as many jurisdictions as there are in Greene County, with each jurisdiction having its own somewhat different rules for zoning and subdivisions, it will not be realistic to recommend “specific ordinance language.”

However, Fowler said each work group should try to pull together recommendations “that are specific enough so that each jurisdiction can understand the intent, and adapt” what they think is appropriate.

As in earlier workshops, engineer Brad Peters and environmentalist Debbie Smith represented Greeneville’s government, as did Webster.
Several other government agencies were well represented, as were local engineering firms.
County Mayor Alan Broyles attended about half of the session, which began at 8:30 a.m. and continued past noon.

Ronda Sawyer, the state-contract planner for both Greeneville and Greene County, was present, and Leon Bird, the county’s building commissioner, attended part of the session, as did County Commissioner Sam Riley, a member of the Greene County Planning Commission.

The work groups agreed to meet separately several times over the next two months. The next Growth Readiness Workshop combining the three work groups was tentatively scheduled for Jan. 31.