Board of Zoning Appeal & Regional Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

How do you mean grind the chair? No.

Oh, yeah. I call this meeting of the Jefferson County Board of Zoning and Fields to order. First order of business will be to have a prayer and pledge of allegiance. I think Commissioner Bell is going to lead us in prayer and Mark Chambers will lead the pledge.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you tonight. We just want you to bless this meeting and let us work together and do what's best for the county. We ask for your grace and your mercies that you continually give to us, and we thank you for that. Lord, let us just do what's best for the county and the citizens of the county tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Attention, salute, pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The next order of business is a review of the minutes. Has everyone had a chance to look those over and are there any questions? Can I have the right draft of this because I had some vague issues? Yeah. Okay.

It should be in here.

I've got two copies of one of these.

That's a question. One of those is your person beside, or that was, I put at his spot.

Okay.

And then there's also the other one.

All right. I will note that the chairman is not here at this point. He expects to be here within the next 15 or 20 minutes. We do have a quorum without him present, so we can continue on with the agenda and conduct business. We have minutes as everyone had a chance to look over them. We had a correction on the date. I think that now is corrected. So we do have correct dates on the minutes. Are there any questions, comments about the minutes? Would someone like to make a motion to approve?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes. We do not seem to have any input forms for citizen comments. Are there any citizens that wish to comment? OK. Next item on the agenda is determination if a flying squirrel trolley cable rod is an allowed use in the A1 agricultural forestry district. Is anyone here to speak to that issue?

We've not heard from him, so I would say we'll postpone that one.

All right. Could I get a motion to postpone? All right motion made. Post moment. Is there a second for that? Okay, the second has been made. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? All right, the next item on the agenda is a request for a five and a half foot variance for a side setback on a metal building that was constructed too close to the parking lot on an existing concrete slab. This is a 1576 Smoky View Drive. Is anyone here to speak to that? You can just come forward to the podium.

if you would like to just explain what it is you're doing and why um we just need the five and a half foot uh variance um that was my mistake when i came down to uh to get the um the permit and um i misunderstood how the from the property line i was thinking it was just from our neighbor's uh roof line and so that was my part that i messed up on any questions how far off the parking lot is it it's about now from the parking line is about one and a half to two

We thought it was seven foot from the house. We didn't realize it was from the property line and the house. So that's where we made our mistake. So we're seven and a half from the house, but the property line, obviously, it's quite close to the property line. It was just an honest mistake. We didn't realize it was from both. We only thought it was from one side. we moved there yes ma'am we just it was already pre-existing oh it was already yes so we just covered we just built it on the pre-existing concrete yeah was there a building on it before no sir it was just a slide the gentleman forest uh distorted boat on it okay he didn't have a fence yeah it was a fence

I'll entertain a motion motion to approve the variance there's a motion to approve the variance is there a second and there is a second by Mr. Dixon all those in favor please signify by saying aye motion passes thank you The next item on the agenda is a variance request of 15 feet for a front setback on a new house being constructed in Dandridge Landing on lot number two, Persimmon Orchard Drive. John Baker and Dana McLean. Are you here? Yeah. I assume you're John.

I'm the builder.

Oh, you're the builder? Okay. Would you like to explain the variance in the house?

And there's multiple houses in subdivisions that already have the variance.

Are you familiar with other variants of the same issue in the same subdivision?

We did one just a couple months ago in the same subdivision.

We've done numerous in that subdivision.

That is like property I presume. It is. Are there any questions?

It's going to be where the other house is. I'm sorry? It's going to be where the other house is on. Yes.

Are there any other questions? I will entertain a motion. There is a motion for approval by Mr. Dixon.

Is there a second?

Second by Ms. Greenfield. All in favor please say aye. Motion carries. Thank you. The next item is a variance request of 2.09 feet for a side setback at 504 Wells Spring Road.

Is there someone here to speak to that? So we're looking to get a change of use permit for an existing garage, all walls up, slab up. It's been existing, pre-existing from when I bought the property. Looking to convert it into one bed, one bath for our Mimi. Looking for a two foot and a fraction, it looks like. It's that small square at the top of the screen. I got a more recent. They had to go back and update the numbers. Survey was very rough to deal with.

That is a separate garage.

Yes.

Who is your survivor?

TNLDS Timothy J. Howe.

Commissioners, do you have any questions? I will entertain a motion.

So you're not changing the footprint? No, the footprint is staying the same. We're building a deck off that left side, but the footprint is staying the same.

Is this the open deck?

The open deck, yes.

I'll make a motion to approve the variance.

We have a motion by Mr. Dixon to approve the variance. Is there a second?

I second it.

And a second by Sue Springfield. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Well, that brings us down to item 11, which is adjournment. I would accept a motion to adjourn.

I have a motion to adjourn.

Is there a second? I have a motion. I have a second on Mr. Dixon. Motion approved and we are adjourned. order this meeting of the Jefferson County Regional Planning Commission. The first order of business is to review the minutes. So move Mr. Chairman. So move to approve. Yes. Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. So minutes are approved. And again, I do not have any citizen input forms. Is there someone that wants to speak? Okay. all right the next order of business is a final applied approval for mountain view estates is there someone here yes sir i'm happy to be here i don't know they're supposed to be quiet so she's happy

Hello, folks. Good to be here. Let me get that for you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Hello, ma'am. Ladies.

Pardon my pardon.

Okay. Dave, what do we have, sir?

We are on Mountain View Estate. I'll close my book. Item A, interview business. Okie dokie. For regional planning. We're already through with BZA.

BZA. Yep. Everything went smooth on that, I suppose.

Well, we had a few train wrecks, but other than that, it was okay.

That goes along with this today. It does. Okay, Mr. Fowler, I'm going to let Mrs. Baldwin speak with you about the concerns she's got. I think you may be already aware of some of those that we've got going on and just kind of let you know where we're at with that. Okay.

uh well they uh i'm assuming you received a copy of my comments i did okay uh well i received an email yesterday at four o'clock yeah yes okay um so uh as described last month i believe um i kind of laid out what the procedure by tennessee code requires for public infrastructure that is proposed to be accepted as um or private infrastructure that's supposed to be accepted for public maintenance so this would be accepted as a public street at some point exactly And that process is very specific in state law. Only the Planning Commission has authority to approve the road and drainage construction plans prepared by a licensed and sealed set of plans from a licensed engineer prior to construction. Prior to construction. um the um and um as i understand that the roads are complete and there has been no review of the road and drainage plans by this body uh i do understand the road superintendent i understand that but by state law the road superintendent does not have authority to do that only the planning commission has authority to do it and um I know you had a licensed engineer and a licensed surveyor to walk through the process to date. They are licensed in the state of Tennessee, so I know they know this process. So that is still of great concern to me. To give you a timeline, after the last meeting, the construction drawings were submitted to Stephanie, and I looked at those. It was an unsealed set of construction drawings. So I advised Stephanie to contact a viewer, the surveyor, and get a sealed set of construction drawings. and we did get that okay um so um i understand that um uh so i i reviewed those um the uh i also looked at the certifications from the water utility district and the electric utility district i think we did receive a written approval from the county road commissioner today In the water utility districts and the electric utility districts, there is a disparity in the number of lots that they certified as being approved. On which one, I'm sorry? The letters from the electric utility and the water utility. I think there are 66 lots. There is 66 lots, yes. Reference on the final plat. Both of those referenced a different number of lots. I don't know if it was a typo, but it was. But I did note that. there's a certificate and compliance is required with regard to stormwater management so the subdivision regulation just to give you an idea the subdivision regulations are 49 pages long there are several articles articles three and four which are titled general requirements and standards of design and development prerequisite to file a plat approval and those articles range from page 11 to page 24 so it is the bulk of the sub regs nothing in that section is in your compliance with

Can you say that again? Yes. I'm not in compliance with any of what?

I'm just saying that from page 11 to page 24 are the details for construction of sewer lines water lines you don't have sewer for water lines roadways and electrical infrastructure but specifically because the county is the receiver the roadways the roadways are paramount and they have not been reviewed or approved by this body when I look at them and I'm not a certified I'm not a licensed engineer but these are the things that One of the big omissions, which is in Article 4, it is the stormwater control. So a hydraulic study is supposed to be performed and the rate of post-development runoff is supposed to be compared with your pre-development rate of runoff.

And I have that before.

That has not been reviewed or submitted. So you have over 70 acres, I believe, in total in a subdivision. And that is currently, or prior to this, was totally filled.

Exactly.

100% permeable surface.

Yes.

Yes.

So. One barn, but yeah.

But between, now you are, you've constructed roadways, the roadway network is pretty extensive. There will be 66 lots that will have rooftops. There will be 66 lots that have driveways. page parking areas and just anecdotally you guys seem to have a lot of pavement where you park because of the size of your vehicles etc etc so the post development rate of runoff is a high percentage of impermeable surface compared to what was a hundred percent pervious surface So that post-development rate of runoff should be detained on-site in detention parks.

Okay. So, can I ask this? I'll hire an engineer. He designs this thing. I build it. As per his design. Exactly as per his design. I mean, we've done great control off of satellite grading. I mean, this thing's toned in with this job. I mean, we know wherever Brock is on this job. And so I go build it. I do it like he says. And now I'm faced with, it sounds like there's a design problem.

There is a design problem, and it is not a problem of this body. It is a problem in that whoever your consultants are did not follow the subdivision regulations. I should tell you that I also work on that side of the table. I work for a firm that has a lot of subdivisions. This is standard operating procedure for licensed engineers and licensed surveyors. so there is there is even a requirement in the sub regs under the general requirements for a file plat and it requires your licensed engineer to put a signature block that the post development rate of runoff does not exceed the pre development rate of runoff which I cannot be possible unless you're detaining your storm water on site.

Well, he tells me that open ditches with riprap and riprap outfalls is better than catch basins because you're going a lot faster going down pavement than you are down ditches.

Which is the reason you detain it. It is an engineering feature on site that collects the storm water so that it's the pre-development rate is maintained downstream so there's only two ways to address that you can either detain it on site or you can go downstream and upsize every culvert until it reaches a natural drainage way that can handle the runoff one or the other but you can't just do nothing and especially for 70 acres that have gone from hundred percent permeable surface to a high degree of impervious surface it will flood either downstream roadways downstream properties downstream houses garages That opens up a lot of liability and if it gets on a roadway and you have issues with people hydroplaning or in winter where you have a lot of rain and then it freezes very fast, that is a very dangerous situation. As far as the roadway construction, there is a cross section on 3.1 of your construction drawings. There is a cross section. The cross section references both curb and gutters and open ditches. As I understand it from you, you only did the open ditches. I did. So you did not do curb and gutter and you did not do catch bases. No. Or any pipes.

Because it wasn't designed.

It is on your plans and it is in your cross section. Now, the interesting thing that I find is that your engineer put a cross-section with both on there. There are curbs and gutters and there is ditches, which is obviously not what you built, which is good, but it should have been one or the other. Also, the pavement detail, which is on the general requirements of your road design standards. This is in Article IV. Item E, which requires, that's the depth of base, the amount of binder, and the depth of your top coat. That's very specific in the summaries. That is nowhere on your plans. The cross-section says see detail, and there is no detail. I've tried twice to call your engineer and it said leave a message and then it said his message box was full.

So I never did talk to him.

The base requirement is five inches, the binder is two inches, your top coat or wearing coat of course is one and a half, and six inch curves with 20 inch cutters. We don't, but they were on the plans, so that is a requirement. If you put them on the plans, it did not comply with the details.

But there's also a note on the plans, I'm pretty sure, that says you can do either one.

Then you should have shown one or the other, but not both. And as far as the required depth of face binder and top coat, there's nothing on the plans that specify those criteria.

The road superintendent inspected while we were working, and it's there. He signed off on it. Do you have that?

Once again, the subdivision regulations... an adopted document by the Planning Commission by Tennessee code only the Planning Commission has the authority over things this review should have been done before you drop the blade on the property and it obviously is not so Based on this, my recommendation would be that your engineer submit as-built drawings. and that a hydrologic drainage study be completed on site and that whatever that study shows as far as your post development rate of runoff be constructed on site prior to consideration of approval of the plat and if there is any disparity

then that should be bonded uh prior to allowing the bottom type here is the storm i understand this took several days for their computer system to generate this is for mountain view estates this is the and it the engineer tells me this a lot of it don't mean anything to me but the engineer tells me that it shows that it it's either post construction it's it's either right at it. It can go up to 10%. That's what he says. I don't know. He said everything's within compliance of post runoff. Also have a letter from Lee eights. They went out to the side. They had a complaint that somebody called from subdivision down below here a couple weeks ago when we had that heavy storm during the weekend, but I think four or five and I think road superintendent said y'all had five inches in some place, right? Anyway, So they called Lee, which he called me and said, I had a complaint. I said, I'll go by and check it out. I've worked with Lee for years. And I went and checked it out. I actually called the gentleman. No, no, I was going to call the gentleman. He called me. He called me. I talked to him. I said, well, our engineer is saying that we're not dishing any more water off the site post-construction as pre-construction. So he was real nice. I told him I'd come down and meet with him sometime. If there's something I need to do to help him, whatever, what do we need to do? And so Lee sent some people out a couple days later. I've got the email right here in my thing. I can share it with you. That says that he sent his associate out due to a flooding complaint, and he's seen no issues with the runoff of our subdivision. causing a flooding problem. Would y'all like to see that letter? I mean, it's right here.

Don't doubt a bit you have it, and I hope I'm not speaking out of turn. Oh, I'm done.

My recommendation is to...

I think the information you have with the stormwater, what has to be on the final plan approval and stuff with the signatures and the block, I think it's some stuff we need to have in hand to have a chance to look at and go through to make sure things are right. instead of trying to do it tonight in 10 or 15 minutes standing here. Or sitting here, rather. And I don't doubt a bit that you've got what you say you've got at all. I would like to ask for that to be turned in to Stephanie and stuff and give us opportunity to review that.

Okay.

And with the signature block on the final plat from the engineer about the stormwater. And that has to be on that final plat before we can approve it.

Okay.

So we need to get that done and get that turned back in. Catherine, what else am I leaving out here?

So again, this is item four under article four. Stormwater detention may be required for any single family residential subdivision consisting of five acres or 10 lots for street to propose. The development will be required to use generally accepted standards and procedures of calculating the release of stormwater from the site before and after development and institute control measures on site so that downstream peak discharges at post-development are generally due to pre-development conditions. Design criteria for the sizing of detention basins, it doesn't even say if you have a detention base, it says when you build your detention basins. The design criteria and drain pipes is based on a 24-hour storm of a 10-year frequency under the pre-development conditions of the site, which is 4.8 inches. Stormwater drainage and detention plans shall be integrated into the preliminary subdivision plan, which should have been the document that we saw before you started construction. The SWPPP permit is a permit that's obtained from TDOT, and we do have copies of that. That is a process that TDOT goes through during construction to make sure that silt doesn't leave the site. It is a temporary measure. It usually consists of black fences and some materials to make sure silt doesn't leave the site. And as far as detention, the two have nothing to do with each other. one is a temporary measure and the other one is your permanent measure and there you know there's all kinds of standards to calculate but this is a 10-year frequency a 24-hour storm of a 10-year frequency that's not even like a hundred years that's ten so if you have been paying attention to the news Rutledge flooded yesterday last week Knoxville flooded and these are areas where the storm events we're getting anymore they're very intense they're there the duration is longer the uh the the amount of water being delivered on site is much more so um i all i can say is there there isn't any detention on site and um don't understand how your engineer arrived at totally going from 100% permeable to 75% impervious yeah and maybe he has that in the study he has there he he tells us that the riprap ditches and the riprap outfalls is better than

than the water. Yeah, for sure.

And also I was out there today and I don't know if anybody else but cerebral and I'm not gonna say everyone there was one place I had a concern about the cerebral for the drainage runs down the ditches and it falls it goes under the roads. Then he's got piles. They're shooting it off the side. They've utilized cerebral depressions and sinkholes that were natural on the property. that these tiles this this water is going into these sinkholes and depressions. So they're definitely going to slow the water down, right? It's going to catch water just like any any farm you'll see, you know, you see water build up there and storm it'll soak right back down in the ground. Absolutely. And I do I do know and on a final map I can I can show you where some of them are because I was out there today looking at where the where the they're letting their water exit from their ditches. It is going into depressions and sinkholes.

three or four different places through the development so it is going to catch sort of a huge water down i mean in that sense utilize that i utilize it all the time in development are those things that he included in that paperwork that you've got as far as we directing the water to those natural sinkholes natural areas that's what's on the plan yeah okay I know you have to be borderline frustrated as well as we because we don't want to see you held up. You've done a lot of work, a lot of effort been put into this point. But we have the certain guidelines we have to go by. And here's what I would suggest. I would suggest getting all that information to Stephanie just as soon as you can. Letting her give it to us. I would encourage the engineer to have an open line of communication with us, even if Mr. Baldwin needs to get involved in conversation and willing to talk. And let's get all these things tidied up and get this thing passed next month. that's I know it's not that long yeah and it has 20 grand and I am terribly sorry but and not trying to point a finger blame but if the engineer does the work and they look at the subdivision rigs they know what's supposed to be done and they know the timely steps that are supposed to be taken to get it to us. So that's, like I said, I ain't saying point of failure or blame anybody, but I'd have some questions with them why those things didn't get done when they're in black and white on the subdivision rigs. It's available on the internet that everybody has access to. Especially if he's doing what he's doing for a living, he should definitely be looking at them and getting them to us. We're going to see it get done, and we have hands and butts about it. But we've got to make sure that those checks and balances are in place and are done the way they're supposed to be.

Can it be subject to? I mean, we'll do whatever we have to do. We're not here to be bad neighbors. We're here to be good neighbors. I understand completely, and I wouldn't accuse you of that at all, sir.

if the study requires detention that would it need to be bonded so if it requires attention you could approve the plant and bond the construction of the detention ponds but if somebody needs to tell give us a sealed opinion probable cost that this is how much it's going to cost to construct those. And he could bond them. He would also, I think, need to post a maintenance bond because the roadways are done. I personally, I don't know the construction of the roadways in terms of the base and the binder and the top coat. I think somebody needs to

state that that was in compliance well I think Joe signed off on that yeah he did he signed I mean they send guys out to inspect whenever we're doing county roads he proof rolled he proof rolled the whole deal the whole road I mean not the place we did 10,000 feet of road right they do they come out and inspect awesome I think you had a question sir thank you Mr. Chairman um for me I would like to see the sealed as-built drawings uh

from an engineer just just to be comfortable because I can think of some subdivisions I think we all probably can in our county where there has been some issues so I think we have to do our due diligence here and ensure that everything's being done right it sounds like you already have a lot of the documentation that's being requested so with that said mr. chairman I'm going to offer a motion to postpone item a to our August meeting to allow time to prepare these documents for review.

We have a proper motion on the floor. Do we have a second?

Does that include the hydraulic study?

So it's not subject to. It's not subject to. The motion is to postpone until August.

I think this stuff's just, I know we've done some subject to or some conditional approvals. This is a little bit bigger than some of the conditional approvals we've done in the past. It's a 78-acre site.

I know. It's a conditional preliminary. It's got to sit here tonight. This is a final plan. I know. Yeah.

but when you say it's the conditional preliminary it's causing us to sit here tonight and stumble um another thing that i i want to make sure is oh hold on one second before we get any further discussion if we have a motion do we have a second for postponement of this until the office

mr chairman on second okay we have david seconds we have proper uh motion and a second now we'll open it up to any further discussion on this captain i think you mid-sentence whenever we well one of the requirements was that um there be a signature block certifying the post-development rate of runoff does not exceed the pre-development rate of runoff now we're going to get the hydraulic study which should meet the requirements of this but um regardless of what happens that needs to go on the plat and your engineer needs to sign that and seal it okay and he needs to understand he's taking liability do we have any further discussion any other questions

So we're asking for signed and sealed final drawings from the engineer. Signed and sealed final drawings from the engineer. With the pre and post runoff studies on it.

Yes. Which he already has. It's just not on the final plat. Right, it's not on the final plat.

So you're asking for that on the final plat, signed on the final plat, and what else?

And you were asking for the as belts on the railway.

Yeah, signed by the engineer. Which again, I think this will happen fairly simply.

It's there, it's just a matter of going back and getting that signed. Okay, so we got those two things. And again, I just really encourage an open line of communication. If we find an issue looking at that, study with the runoff and somebody reaches out just have your engineer where he can answer questions or or you know give us the reasoning for what he's come up with well i would have had him here if i didn't know i was getting an email at 24 hours before this meeting yeah i'd have had him well he's in colorado but at the same time if he's been doing his work properly well you wouldn't have been chasing down the tail end it had been done beforehand that's true so that's that's a lot of his his fault there on that uh what else we've got captain the the as built on the road the study And I'm just trying to get the list of stuff together he needs to have. Right.

If the decision is required, we will need an opinion of probable cost for a bond prior to recording the plat. And that would have to come from his licensed engineer as well. Right.

Of course, the engineer sounds like it's not needed. So I think once we get a chance to look at him and those questions come up, how did he come to that assumption? How did he come to that decision? Is there anything else we're missing? And again, tomorrow, if you can with Stephanie, that way we don't waste a day of this. And we get things moving. We'll get it done. Any other questions? Concerns? If not, all those in favor of postponing this until the August meeting, let me know by saying aye.

aye all those opposed motion passes thank you thank y'all one of our BZA was late okay he's in the audience now the one for the very first item on the agenda for BZA what's your count ma'am

five square okay I'm gonna say this not as a punishment but let us finish up planning and then we will go back as long as the board we will adjourn this and go back and open the BZA meeting back up okay we are to the final item B on Planning Commission agenda Final plan approval for three lots off Rocky Valley Road View Market by Billy Bull.

Yes, sir. Hello, sir. Just, I'll try to make mine easy. My parents are deceased and the property has been divided up. My parents have been deceased, so the two mobile homes that's on the flat and the residence for the house, it was all on one big plot of property. So just subdividing it, nothing's being built, nothing's being added. subdividing the three properties individually so i went to each department had the maps on verifications for the water and electric and everything rode the 911 got all the departments so basically the property that you see here is all one big flat so we're just subdividing it up and identifying each lot and and just subdividing it up into individual parcels so like i said nothing's been added nothing's been constructed it's just dividing it up so we had eddie garrett survey it and he identified educated me on that you had to have more than 0.9 for a for a lot for a mobile so He constructed the flat out to where it exceeded that, and like I said, I went to each department, had verifications for the sewer, the electric, the water, and everything to come here tonight to just get this signed off on to move forward with executing the estate.

So what is the question, the road right away in the middle? It's not a right away, it looks like it's the D here.

Yeah, so whenever Eddie put together the survey here, in the middle there, there's property that goes at the back, so he just put a...

Okay. It's a flag lot. Okay, it's a flag lot, it's 50 foot. Yeah. Going back, how big is that?

That lot back there is 19 acres.

19 acres, okay. Yes, sir.

So he just put it there for, he said that way you'd have access if you were to live. Right, absolutely. That's correct. like I said though it's just a individualize each one pretty much and those houses the trailers have been there like yeah I know what the one on lot one that my grandparents lived there and it's been there since 1971

Okay, Catherine, I think you had one question on this.

So lot one has frontage on the Rocky Valley Road there. Lot two does not have any public road frontage. And both one and two, when you look at the aerial, they, all these, well, lot three, lots, the Parrot Track, the 1980 track, and lot one and two all use the same driveway. uh so what to um is as presented as landlocked but you need to access these there's a 25 foot one right there yeah okay i just can't see it yeah there is a point right here that will not come straight back 25 foot okay um

that's fine i spoke with eddie about this this morning when i looked at it once the copy runs down the left side yes in the road if you were facing the property standing in the middle of the road you'd be on the right hand side yeah yeah and it's got a an arrow pointing to it austin it says 25 feet private access yeah okay yeah that's on the right the statements on the left hand side of the plan Yeah. Take care of that issue. That's everything we had on it. Does anyone else on the board have any questions about this? Yes, sir.

Mr. Chairman, I move to approve item B.

We have proper motion. Seconds motion. Any further discussion? all those in favor of approving item B on the agenda let me know by saying aye aye all those opposed thank you thank you appreciate you okay moving on down the agenda we are to item C resolution amending the zoning regulations in Jefferson County Tennessee to reflect changes and permitted uses in the I-1 and I-2 zoning districts to add developmental standards for material extractions by Mr. David Nelson. David, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As everyone probably recalls, we had a draft of a resolution probably two meetings ago, possibly, or one, I can't remember now. Time slips by. But anyway, this resolution is somewhat similar but also different in some respects. I guess the first thing I want to do is offer a little oversight on why I'm proposing this resolution and what it is. The resolution basically is a recommendation to the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners. It does two things. It's to establish zoning districts for three activities mining, querying and material extraction. The other thing it's trying to accomplish is to develop and establish, not develop, establish development standards for material extraction. Part of my motivation in doing this is I've been very, very concerned about health risks from silica dust. There are health risks from that, and it's created by material extraction activities, particularly quarried activities. Breathing crystalline silica dust causes severe health risk, most notable silicosis, lung cancer, and COPD. It is a highly dangerous substance to have other activities. The silicosis is an irreversible and uncurable lung disease. So part of my motivation in wanting to do this is a health hazard. There is a health hazard when these activities take place. And so the piece of this resolution that deals with material extraction when this might be triggered and caused is merely to try to balance property rights of residents and farmers and rocks for industrial operators. It's a way to try to marry them together. So everybody wins so to speak. When I put this together, as I mentioned, probably the last meeting, I've looked at zoning resolutions in several counties, particularly looking at Washington County, Tennessee. So some of the more specific items in this resolution are modeled after Washington County. Also, Knox County, and Hamilton County. So I've looked at several when I put this together. Before I actually walk through specific provisions of the resolution, I went up on the floor to questions. from any of the other commissioners about the purpose.

The simple this you're talking about is basically the dust coming from clay dirt.

It can be from a lot of things. Yeah, of course, clay dirt, rock rock activities. Last thing is A lot of activities can release the silica dust into the air. And silica dust can travel a long ways. I've been trying to get better educated about this as I started working on it, but one of the things I've seen is it can travel up to 50 miles. And Mr. Bells, you mentioned a couple of concerns at the tail end of the last meeting that I did want to address. This resolution does not make any effort to govern mining operations, querying operations, or material extraction operations per se. It's really establishing zoning districts and development standards, but not operations per se. As we well know, mining operations, either surface or deep, are governed and queried are all governed by federal law and state law. So there's nothing in this resolution that addresses the operational side of these type of activities. This is merely development standards to try to protect everyone when these activities take place. And there are no general questions. I'm going to walk through this in a similar manner to what I did a couple of meetings again. Of course, as I mentioned, it's a recommendation to the Jefferson County Commissioners. The first section of this is merely to establish some definitions. These would go into the zoning resolution in the definition section. It defines what excavation is, what extraction is, what filbert is, what a material is, what overburden is and what a residence is. And to refresh everyone's memory to when we make amendments to our zoning resolution, and we change zoning districts, it has absolutely no effect on current uses under current zoning. So who this would affect would be anyone in the future that wants to engage in a material extraction activity, or who wants to establish a query or not?

What does it include bar pit? divine love state.

That's the state definition. It's not contemplated in here.

Again, while we're focusing on the field there thing, I mean, you know, the state will get under built roads, especially like way less than a big one over next to blow bushes there where they've been building the four lane, you know, the market or mine there. And use it because it's good compaction dirt and building highways. You know, I mean, you see it everywhere. I think there's one down here on 2570.

They're about if we get any say on that.

Yeah, well, a lot of private people do it too. I mean, your private developers will they've got a piece of property and they're building a road over here, building a subdivision over here, and they've got dirt over here, they're going to mine it over here and take it over here. So it will have a say on that, for sure.

Well, again, that's the operation itself, Mr. Dixon. The reason this is defined, we'll look at this as we go through, there is a provision in the developmental standards that you can't put fill dirt in the setback area. So that's just to define what that means that it's not permitted in the setback area. Not anything to do with the actual operation of the mineral extraction itself.

Can you obtain fill dirt from within a setback?

Can you obtain it?

then it would probably be overburden in that point if you're taking it away about borrow pits a typical borrow pit there in a lot of places they're permitted because you see more of that than you do you sure you do you see that a lot yeah but again this is not dealing with operations that

of Aquarius operations of the mine. That's not what we're doing.

Right. No, I understand that. I understand that. Right. Okay.

Right. Any other thoughts or questions on definitions? Let's move on to section two then. And that section, as you can read, is to amend and remove the term mining as a permitted use, which is now number four, and to renumber permitted uses, and that relates to I-1 type activities. That's section 9.9. So that's merely deleting it. We'll be putting it back in a later section. The purpose of removing it as an I-1 use is to put it in as an I-2 use. So that's just saying we're going to take it out there and put it somewhere else. On the next page, section 3, That is to amend I2 to allow these permitted uses. We would add item 11, now 10 items under I2, to allow as permitted uses mining, querying, and material extraction. Those uses shall only be permitted in the I2 zone. And again, keep in mind, If there's a mining use in I-1 now, it stays at Grandfather Inn.

This only is prospective.

Well, it's there.

Or if somebody in the future, if you've got a farm, and you're going to take their spot of your farm and put it somewhere else, or sell it to somebody else, I mean, is that going to be allowed in A-1? Yeah.

If it's not allowed now, this doesn't change that. All this is saying is in the future, in other words, it's already taking place. It takes place. It doesn't change.

I think I'm getting it.

I want to ask a question here, and I'll take the situation. Let's say a person has a large tract of A1 ground, and back in the 30s, 40s, 50s, there were a lot of quarries scattered about, and they're still there. Mm-hmm. And let's say a person has that piece of ground and he has one of those existing queries on it. What effect, if any, would this have on that if he decided for personal use or if he wanted to sell some material, whatever it may be coming out of that query, what effect would this have on him? Since it's already an established query, but it's NA1. It's sitting there. I can take you to a handful of them.

I know there's several of them around the county. From my understanding, this is really more a legal question than anything. From my understanding, mining and querying have their own set of rules as far as grandfathering. And they can have intermittent periods of long years where that activity doesn't take place, but it's still grandfathering. It could have been dormant for 15 years. And now they start operating income. That is the nature of mine, right? Yeah, mining operates that way. So if you've got a tract of land that's already had that mining use taking place, my understanding is they can sit there for 15 years and then crack it up again and then fine. Okay, so again, what we're trying to do here is effect only prospect abuses. Everything that's the goal one moving forward, not to change anything that's already there. Okay, that's not being seen.

I'm just talking about if you want to move dirt off your farm, but you've never moved dirt off that.

To another farm.

To a field. Agricultural uses are exempted in here. I'll point it out to you when we go through.

I noticed that back on the first page.

This is not intended to try to regulate agricultural activities.

Yes, ma'am. Do you The grandfathering of a longer period of time, you're saying that's in Tennessee code? And do you know the section?

I don't. I hate to quote an attorney when the attorney's not present. That is from the county's attorney document. Okay.

Because normal non-conformities have three...

It's because it's mining. Mining is unique. And part of that is because I just want to make sure that you check that because I have absolutely. Yeah. Okay.

What is the state's definition of mine?

Honestly, not quite sure. But we're not. This is really not a mounting resolution. Oh, in fact, we're saying we want mining to take place. It is the only zoning district. Or if we're not, I haven't put anything here that affects mine, how mines operate.

Well, yeah, I know. If somebody knew, they were going to have to get it rezoned out too. Exactly. Which ain't going to happen. We all are back just sitting at this table and it ain't going to happen.

And I'm concerned about your point. Borrow pits? Borrow pits are all over the place. But they are a land use. And they are typically stated as an allowable or prohibited use. Now, they're temporary, too, because you exhaust the source. You exhaust the source. And it's not mined. It's not quarried. But it's very frequent. So if it's not addressed in here... make sure that that's addressed somewhere long term or at least have a statement in here even that borrow pits are not considered mining and quarrying and is referenced elsewhere because these things are it's very important that we do this but it does happen infrequently borrow pits are couple times a year anytime somebody's looking for field material cut and fill material any any type of thing like that and typically they are permitted and you still have to get a SWIFT you still have to reclaim the place you do so I don't want us to lose sight of that because I haven't seen that but is that not regulated by the state no

It's not regulated by the mining act?

You can get a borrow permit, but I mean a lot of people just move dirt without a borrow permit.

On their own land?

Well, even if they're moving from one section to another.

Yeah, I mean, like the guy that just came. If you're doing any kind of extensive development, you've got cuts and you've got fields, and it's to level it out. And so it's almost accessory to the principal use of construction. But there are lots that are designated for only borrowed pits. There are. I agree. And I keep on...

they're everywhere so that that may be something we just want to keep on the bird or something well I think there needs to be something addressed about it that it would be what would that be I'm not sure I'll follow yeah I'm just it would just not definitely borrow pits would not be be included in mining quarrying because we're talking about in part of this it said soil you know clay dirt limestone sandstone gravel

And what are the definitions?

We were talking about the material. And I don't think at the state level clay is even considered mine material. I know it's not.

A lot of times, I'll give you an example. Somebody's digging out footers for a house and they find organic material that they have to go down deeper. They got to backfill that to get the footings appropriate and level. And they got to get that somewhere. They buy fill material. If they don't have it on site. Yep.

I just want to make sure we're not shooting ourselves in the foot with that.

what is it do you think we should do I think we should address the borrow pit somewhere in this resolution I've got a canned there's a lot of borrow pits in Oak Ridge yeah they do a lot of excavations so I have a canned thing that's specific for that and we can I can dig that up we'll look at it see if it goes in here if it doesn't it might go somewhere else but it is frequent It's even a lot of residential single family detached homes.

Back to, I think, This was raised by Brian, or I'm not sure if he raised the question about agricultural activities. But if you go back to page one under extraction where we talk about what extraction means for purposes of this resolution, it just says this is what it is. It's removing, pulling, or separating materials from the earth in any manner where the activity involves 20,000 or more square feet. See, and the reason for that is quite simple. We're not trying to tell people they can't move dirt around on their property unless it's of significant nature. Then this would come into play, except it's not relevant and not pertinent to an activity for agricultural purposes or for construction purposes.

That's one of the things I looked at with material extraction. and then seeing on down in material and part of the definition of it was vegetation unfortunately there's no vegetation in there now that's changed okay it's gone and i was looking at logging and somebody you know this has changed from that draft from last month yeah so that's not in the definition

So does that definition, Chad, does that help with the borrow pit? I mean, I realize borrow pits can be much larger, but at least you're talking about somebody with a farm wanting to strip some topsoil and sell it and build a big pole barn or something. That would address that aspect.

Right, it would address that here. Not an activity for agricultural purposes.

yeah well and then you have the 20 000 square feet uh provision but this is still a place wouldn't that be 20 000 square feet per location

And if you had a 100-acre farm, are you building a pond on your farm? Do you have multiple 20,000? That's an agricultural fund. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Right. So with this, he would still have the right to sell that because you're building a pond for agriculture. Correct. You have to do something with the dirt.

You can't use that dirt for construction purposes. It's got too much vegetation. It's topsoil. But it still can't be used for a footer or any of the things that are referenced.

I've actually seen some topsoil around here that probably could be.

I don't want the house that goes on top of it.

Okay. Those are some of You just don't want to restrict anybody to Scotland from their uses.

I think that solves a lot of those questions.

And it may very well.

All right, let's go back to where we sort of left off with section four. This is where the developmental standards start for material extraction. And Commissioner Bales, you also had a concern about conflicts with federal and state laws, so I'll put a provision in here that says those laws prevail if they somehow differ from something that's in this document. It kind of goes without saying, but I think it doesn't hurt to make that statement. So in introduction right before item A, it says should any of these standards conflict with state or federal laws, those laws shall control them. The first part of the development standards is a buffer strip and I will thank Ms. Baldwin for most of this information. She put this together and I'll just hit some of the highlights. One thing is the buffer strip is required on any property and it has to go all around the property boundary, the entire outer perimeter. In item one it says the buffer strip shall be no less than 15 feet in width. And items two under A through six is a lot of details that Ms. Malwin helped with to define what would be an appropriate buffer strip to take place. I'm not going to dig into those details. And so we'll drop down to item B at the bottom of the page, which is where we talk about operations for any material extraction activity. This says they shall be confined to areas at least 500 feet from any property line, 1,000 feet from the property line of any adjacent property, including across a roadway that is zoned residential or contains a residence. And this is where we're trying to protect the property rights of adjacent property owners to have the quiet enjoyment of their property without the nuisance that comes along with industrial activity right next to them. Any thoughts about setback requirements? Because I have one I want to add myself.

I just wanted to ask

what what drove you to come up with these footages i mean what did you what did you come up with you obviously know i've been pulling out here again i've looked at other zoning documents for the three counties i mentioned uh 500 feet in knox county washington county is 1500 feet for everything, no matter what.

And that was Knox County?

Knox County was 500 across the board. Washington County is 1500 across the board for anything all the way around all the way around. Yeah. For anything.

And all I've put in here is a thousand.

I've only put a thousand. That's only, keep in mind, only in the instance if there happens to be adjacent residential property. If there's not adjacent residential property, then that doesn't apply.

I think it would be hard to press 500 acres that doesn't have adjacent residential property around in Jefferson County. We're saying we want to press 500 acres. That's the last smile of my life. Yeah, absolutely. So you pretty much completely, if this passed, completely stop everything that pertains to this. Let's put it in I-2. Any possibility of anything in the future being able to be developed and used in this type of way?

I'm not sure I understand why.

no physical limitations of the property of the church the minimum lot size the minimum lot size and the setbacks and everything else from other properties or other residential is is my concern here for me if you've got 100 acres of trash and you've got farmland on 80 acres of it you've got one corner of it that's rock that you could use to query rock

If it's not right in the middle of the property, it's not going to make no setbacks, period. So I'm going to put it out. I just think rock is a big use. They use it on everything.

Well, there's no doubt we need gravel. We have to have it.

We've got to have it. But this is going to stop any. I'm just thinking.

Well, I think that's conjectured. I mean, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of acres of property. Well, can you find a place that would fit and conform to what you're asking? Yeah, I don't know that I can, but I don't know that I can find what you're saying either.

I guess that's what we're saying, is you can't find a place that you could do that based on the limitations that you put with the offsets. Well, I'm saying that's conjecture.

Do you know that for a fact? I sure don't. I just asked you where you could find one. I said, well, I don't know because I don't look for anything.

We're just preliminary on this. Right, it is.

I don't know. I have a question, and it's kind of to your point. It says, so it's 500 feet from any property line. That seems to be in keeping with other jurisdictions. Yes. But it says 1,000 feet from the property line of an adjacent property, including the roadway, it's out of residential or contained residence. Do you count agricultural as zoned residential?

No, it's zoned agricultural.

But that's why it says or contains a residence. In other words, if there's a residence nearby, it needs to protect that residence.

This is why I'm... Let's say the neighbor has a house on his 100 acres beside your 100 acres. Right. and it's fairly close to your property. That's going to keep you from doing anything. 1000 feet.

It's within that so that should so would have a way to address that at least 1000 feet for property line of any adjacent property zone residential so that's our one or two or three or containing a resident or 1000 feet to the actual envelope of the residents so it would be from the line of where they're just as a residence on a legal lot of record it would be a thousand feet between that residence to the activity so if your house borders that property it's a thousand feet but if your house is two thousand feet on the other end of your property at that point it's not so much a nuisance that there's a mine way over here But the way it's written now, it's 1,000 feet from the adjacent property, correct?

It is. The way it's written. It's 500 feet from any property.

Right.

Yeah. But 1,000 from a property with a residence on it. Right. Not from the residence. Right. But from the property on it. Right. Okay. I just want to make sure I understood that.

That is the way it's written. Okay.

So what are you suggesting? 500 feet from any property line, at least 1,000 feet from the property line if it's zoned residential. Mm-hmm. That's what it does say there. Or another, or agricultural...

if agricultural a thousand feet to the actual residence well that's really the way I tried to write that was irrespective of zoning if it if the property obtained a residence it is written property so if we can just say a thousand because it's agriculture you're right

they're going to have it. And you shouldn't allow something in writing and then take it away in another paragraph.

In your research on this, and of course you noted Washington County and Knox County and the footages that they had in place, did you come across any that were less stringent than that? And if so, what were those?

The answer is no, but quite frankly, I just for some reason, because three counties to look at their documents, right? Okay, fair enough.

I wasn't really I just wanted, you know, if we were middle road, we were extremely into the spectrum. And if there was some that were not as stringent, and if they weren't as rigid, what was the driver behind those? Population?

and natural land area of the county. There's not a lot of vacant land in Hamlin County. Absolutely. Absolutely. Sure. And I don't know about Washington, but it seems like Washington County.

Washington is an urbanized county.

There's still some sex.

There is agriculture up there.

Yeah, there is. Okay, sorry.

I just this is for discussion purposes. Now, I want to add another setback. And if I've studied the silica deaths in the health hazard event, I realized I probably overlooked something on setbacks. And that would be schools. And I'm debating with myself over how far that setback should be. But if we have a school in the vicinity of a mineral or material extraction activity of any kind, that silica dust concerns me. So I think that setback should be greater than what it would be for a residence because you have all these children that are going to be in school there every day with silica dust floating across the setback area until it gets there. And what I've read, it can travel 50 miles.

So your I-2, industrial tube, Do you have, how many properties in the county are zoned I-2 at this point?

Very few.

So the determination about, and this may be a point where conditional uses are, might be an alternative. That should be considered when you rezone I-2. Because you look at the other uses of I-2. So you don't have any I-2. So if someone walks in and asks for I-2, you could say, you're within so many feet of any school. that would i would think that that would come into play and just considering and so that would cover that in other words um you might want to write that in that or that consideration or uh this could be a conditional use again and that there can't be a school within and you said silica could travel 50 miles 50 miles yeah yeah it's crazy yeah it's dangerous you know I mean high school kids middle school kids middle school in the elementary you want them outside so they'll call their energy so it's like go outside lock the door with them on the other side so that that that would be a big consider I would nation I would say a map change right

Stephanie, do we have I-2 zone property?

I'll have to go look. I don't know that we even do. About anything that I'm familiar with is all out one. Right. Which mostly is the mining property.

Right.

Okay. If we do, there's maybe one.

I mean, we don't have... That probably could not meet these criteria anyway.

Do you have specific thoughts on...

what that distance might be for the school well i'm just i'm just doing a little labor uh about and forgive me for the pronunciation of the word uh crystalline silica okay that's in line

I've seen a lot of things.

And you look at us in Newmarket. I mean, you let the wind get up any given day and it's blowing. Well, I mean, that line probably goes blowing. It looks like a smoke ever wore. We haven't had the line of pastures in several years. So this is a positive thing. Well, it all depends. Yeah, I'm just thinking about the effects that you brought to my attention with the silica. Now, I think of short mountain silica, you know, just our neighbor, you know, in Hopkins County and stuff going up 11W. You can see it from Morristown, Beanie Station, Terminal Creek. That's a big old white spot on the side of the mountain. That's how it is. And here's my deal. I believe we need to have and I'm just talking off the cuff here. I believe we need to look at doing some things to make it safe and to protect the property rights of others. But at the same time, I don't want to restrict things to the point that if a property owner has materials to use that one word from the definition is that could be beneficial to be harvested by him. I don't want to tie his hands to where he can't do something with it. If he's got it there. It's like having the money in the bank, but you can't touch it.

Well, that's that's the whole idea is to balance the right to live everybody.

Absolutely. What is what is what

It's an I-1. And incidentally, there is no permitted use for querying anywhere in our zoning resolution right now. Right. That's the dog noise.

OK, forgive me. I'll hear you. You can continue.

Let's continue on. Let's move on to page three. We're closing in on the finish line here. The fill dirt question someone raised is addressed in item C. It basically says overburden or fill dirt may be deposited within 150 feet. It may not be deposited within 150 feet of the parking lot. there's a missing word there that's supposed to say may not may not be deposited but it says no over oh okay builder you're right it's stated in that okay okay okay we've got our English right so overburden or fill dirt should not be deposited with 150 feet of the parking lot unless it is to do a required part The minimum lot size I've said will be 100 acres. Then item E addresses in addition to a buffer strip if there's going to be a burn required. And item one under E basically kind of covers the whole intent of all this. And it says the berm design is intended to alleviate, and that's what the whole bulk of this development standard narrative is, to alleviate visual, sound, dust, health, and smell nuisance to surrounding property owners. And item two under E just has some distance requirements on the setback if one is required. The last two items are just kind of housekeeping items. F says you have to have the site plan approved by the Regional Planning Commission. And then G just says no operations should begin until the site plan is approved, the buffer strip is in place, and the berm is complete if a berm is required. and then you're proposing like an item H about to address the schools we could put that anywhere we could put it in the operations where the other setbacks are I think that needs to be a special consideration is how do we protect our school and our school children so Catherine can we go back to the borrow pit and chat a minute to try to help me understand what it is you think needs to go in here relative to a borrow pit if you I mean

land use like this is not just an improvement like i know we've run into this before a structure is a you know you build a building or a business or this or that um i think there's been a um prior consideration that use only applies if there's a building there. Use is actually any use of land. So that doesn't mean that there has to be a building there. Like right now, a lot of commercial areas, at least in the rural area around Knoxville, You see these large areas that they have different types of mulch, different types of rock. They're not a building on site. They're not a little box or where somebody sits, you know, on site. They're not a building. So, but it is definitely a business and it's definitely a, it's not extractive, but it's definitely unsightly, I'll say. so uh borrow pits is uh or the organs i'm thinking of that would be a statement about the borrowing of material in addition to the placement of material which is not has nothing to do with mining uh it's typically very quick maybe somebody doing You see a lot of industrial sites, I mean commercial sites. If they've got any kind of hill and they don't need fill material, they're going to cut that down though to make a level commercial site. That's got to go somewhere. And a lot of instances on a commercial site, they sell that material. You're right about that also. A lot of times they'll tell the excavator, you take it, you sell it. It's part of the deal. But if you're just doing that on a commercial basis, Joe needs filled, I'm going to take it off my site and I'm going to sell it to him. It's not extraction, but it should be permitted. at least a TDEC permit, at least a SWPPP permit. And everybody's seen these scars where people have gone in and they've taken all this material out, they walk off and leave it. And it's just a raw sight. TDEC hates those, but they're in rural areas and they're rarely addressed. Now, if you need to get rid of it, and you gotta find a place, then that's placement of material. And both of those, there should be some consideration for depending on where it's coming from and where it's going. So it's kind of a separate little thing. I don't think it should go in here. it is very common you almost always see it on commercial sites if they can't balance cut bill on site they're selling and if it's going somewhere in your county it may be going to fill a depression a little something out and it may be just going on a big pile down the street yeah you know and it may be moving in and it may be moved again a lot of them topsoil commercial site they will because you know remove the top so a lot of times they'll pile that up but they sell that too or they'll spread it you know and right they'll take the food usually so both of those things are commodities um i don't think they'd go here but at some point you know if there's one in a residential area that's not something you really want to see yeah so it might be something that we want to look at down the road so i just made a note it's a bit longer to be excluded from this Yeah, but the, I think you're no overboard burden. Your caveat at the very beginning where you said, or is not an activity for preparing land for construction of foundations, fitting, cellars, houses, buildings, and other structures. That may cover it, unless you go over 20,000 square feet, which is not that hard. to do when you're looking at construction. So it may be that we add something here when you go over 20,000 square foot.

This applies when you go over 20.

It may be too restrictive for what you're discussing. You wouldn't want to make you you wouldn't want to sit back from this period, borrow pitch in my opinion. yeah i agree but i think it should be addressed somewhere because yeah well i agree they can they can be really unsightly and they can be detrimental uh they you know get a lot of material picked up causing your culverts downstream then the county's got to go clean them out it sounds like a borrow pit might be totally separate from a mining operation anyway right that's what i'm saying i just wouldn't want to classify yeah somebody later in the mining it's currently it's not so if we address it separate from this later it's got a lot of language overburden yeah that's a bar they're and they are they're called borrow pits uh and it should be i think we should look at that i think we should look at some less strenuous

counties on the setbacks I'm just not sure that thousand feet and 500 feet I'm just I think it's very limited and I'd agree with you on that Jed and one of the reasons I think about that course you've got no ways you've got the dust particles but how far did you say it could travel again that you'd factor studies 50 miles so I mean if we backed off these footages to 750 or to 600 it's not gonna have a huge impact on stopping that stuff from traveling that it's going to be terrible. Yeah. It's gonna catch us either way. Yeah.

And that might like to lessen some of the restrictions on Well, I'm sympathetic to those setbacks and issues and what Commissioner Bell said about where you rule out everything. I hope that's not the case. That's not the intent, right? But I don't really understand. the dynamics of our land and who owns what and how many acres but it doesn't seem like as as much open space as i see when i'm out and about that uh a 50 or 100 acre track is that big a deal i mean it seems like there ought to be plenty of those but maybe they're not it's not as many as they used to be that's for sure and they're they're going they're gone there's not many 70 or 80 acre tracks left

No. And one thing I think that's really a note, you travel to Asheville lately, you walk quarries as close as you get them. And the further distance away it is from a place that needs it, North TDOT and North Carolina DOT, trying to rebuild i-40 those high walls are what 80 foot tall and they're all stoned and the further the distance that they have to travel to get that so i wonder how many quarries they're having to tag to get that material and what the radius the distance traveled is because you're sitting at two exits for i-40 and you're not that far um now obviously cox county and western north carolina may be better sources but face it quarries are something intensely necessary in this day and age so you don't want to do something so what would be some less strenuous

Well, I don't know. Do you have anything in mind in particular?

No, I don't have anything in mind. I'd probably give me something. Maybe it's brought up at the workshop. I don't know. Have you all talked about this workshop in your

we're we're in the agricultural district but we didn't get through a1 today i heard there was progress today i did we look forward to reviewing it and sending it back to y'all

but but I heard it was pretty productive especially in comparison to some of the other stuff

So there may be some other things too, like reduce the distance. And then on the site plan, you could have a requirement that a water truck trucks shall be available on-site for the months June, July, August and September possibly even October and that if you go for you know somehow try to quantify

that if you reach this point you've got to water that site down several times a day yeah and and people do that on construction sites they do and they want they do in a lot of the quarry sites too i've watched them there they did it it's required yeah it is they actually have to do the dust test yes

And do they do those?

Yeah, the state does.

They keep track of it?

Oh, because they have to have a permit to mine. Yeah, they have to. So they have to be in compliance with the state.

They have to be in compliance with the state guidelines. I mean, they do the dust and the water. I mean, they're pretty extensive, what the state mandates upon them.

That might be the answer to the issue of material leaving the site. Yeah.

One of the thing I'd like for us to just take a little bit deeper dive into is the item D. The minimum lot size shall be 100 acres. Just to look if we can tweak that a little bit, as we just discussed, there's not that many hundred acre plus pieces of property. And again, there's, you know, not that many 80, 90 acres. Right.

And they're definitely not I'm gonna say in an area where they could get I-2 zoning anyways.

And I'm not saying scale it back to 20. But maybe lessen that a little bit. Maybe it's an 80 or 75 acre or 60 acre minimum size or anything.

A lot of your 100 acre tracts are actually, they're not rock piles or farms. That's my opinion and conjecture. For me that's the biggest issue. You're going to take 100 acres because you've got 20 acres over here on the corner that's rock piled and that takes all this farmland goes to I2 at that time. That's just one of the things I've looked at. We're still a long way from that.

Right, and it may be, that's exactly right, we are a long way from that. Maybe your setbacks, you may be able to limit your site size with your setbacks. They have to work. Right, exactly.

But Brady made a really good point in that to have a quarry, you've got to have rock material present to begin with. And in Jefferson County, I mean, you go to Cocke County, obviously, there's a lot of rock. Jefferson County, what areas of the county do you even have?

Anywhere I run a bush hog, there's a rock. There's a rock. Oh, we've got lots of rock.

A big rock. But you've got to have a critical place.

There's not a lot of areas that would make a potential quarry site. There's not. You start drilling deep.

You're going in the mines. I mean, as well as I'll replace 80 foot deep.

yeah it's good and bad that might be an answer to the question is how many air how much land actually even has a potential to serve as a rock port i know you got one right now it's not in the news but um it we may be trying to address the problem really doesn't exist that much

I think we've had some good discussion on this, and I'm not trying to shut it down. I want to ask David, what direction you want to go right now with the discussion we've had and what's the resolution you put in place?

work on a little bit more before i was meeting well i would just like to come away from this meeting with a good understanding of what issues we have to work through absolutely and obviously there's issues about minimum lot size and setbacks is that it is that it or is there more that's the two i have right now but i'm not going to speak for everybody else well and quite honestly i think it's fair to say we need to get a handle on what property is really out there in large chunks like uh mandy's mentioned and you know maybe captain five maybe we're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist absolutely sure or is it or is more isolated right right i don't know let me ask the question about it would you do we have it in the county i don't think that we could do i'd have to look

I don't know we're gonna hear a car crank here good discussion

Any other issue? And I want to ask you this. If there's an issue comes up, are you opposed to getting an email or text message or something throughout? Now in the next meeting that we might be able to look at or address and keep from waiting for them to get it? Certainly. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to say anything on it? go ahead I'm sorry no no you're fine I was just going to say do we need a motion on this or can we just say we're going to that's what I was going to ask if we want to postpone this I think we probably should take an action just take an action if you want to do that I mean even postpone this action absolutely it doesn't tie it down to a certain time frame if we can continue to work so I'd entertain a motion to postpone this item until we have all the information we need to make a good sit I think Sue said did you say it did you make a motion

Well, I think we'd make a motion to postpone it. To August. We can postpone it to August. And let's try to get some more of this stuff resolved on size and set max.

So it's really just two issues that... Yeah, I mean, like I said, I wasn't speaking for everybody else. I mean, is there any other issues like buffer strips or any of that stuff or...

buffer strips are all pretty good so it's just the the two big limiting factors would be lot size yeah yeah and then we also want to look to i think we're going to do a little research before we we maybe just do something here that we don't need i'd like to kind of have an information that has a little two oh you've already got one and it's been an issue fsa should have that information for us

There's no I-2.

Thank you for checking. We got one. What was she saying? She said there was no I-2.

No, I said we got one. It's an issue. The you have a quarry right now that I saw on the news. So we do have one. So there must be right here to an extent because we have an operation. One thing that may be helpful is obviously this is regulated by the state. Even if you die, Mike, that's a separate, that's a firearm thing that they regulate.

I think if you could get a hold of the state records,

So, were there issues that are addressed by the state that we don't need to worry about? I think it would be nice to know what the state does regulate.

Well, there is the Surface Mining Act. Right. And then there's, I forgot what the Deep Mining Act is called, but likewise, there is

state regulation over all mine whether it's surface or deep now this is really not defined as mine but this is configuration that's excessive and if it rises to the level of mining then it is regulated so I think everybody would feel better we know what the state does we have motion repeat the motion to postpone this

August and the setbacks. We're going to open the discussion again in August then. I've been waiting too long for the discussion for a second.

Okay, do we need to continue the discussion on this or over again? Anything else? All those in favor of postponement to the August meeting, let me know by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes. Thank y'all. i do have a question and i'll address this to our commissioners that we have on the black commission and forgive my ignorance but uh i've had kind of tunnel vision for the last little bit with uh with work and everything there but i know that there was a resolution presented in commission dealing with data centers Rick, y'all been working on something. Somebody's got that in the works. I've heard about this recently.

We passed. We passed. We passed. It had to be an I-1 or something.

Yeah, it had to be an I-1. But this commission took that up, if they passed, is it done?

That passed commission. Okay, they passed commission.

We did pass commission. And forgive me. January? So it's been that for a while. Okay, forgive me. I've had it on my mind.

To clarify, the most recent discussion was concerning eminent domain. Basically, the county would be asking the state to look into not using in the domain for data centers in the county. That's, yeah. But our resolution still stands. It was passed, I think, unanimously by county commission. Okay. So AI data centers go into the... I-1. Maybe all of the I's. I-2, 3.

I'm going to pass you to... i'm sure you all hold on to your minutes and stuff from each one of those meetings and all the way back to if you if you have a copy of the minutes from that meeting yeah so if you don't mind

i mean i'm not on it but no no we can make next meeting i'd like to say that too and you you're probably sharper on that part than i am on the data center like they said they don't like one place or two places in the entire county that is possibly going to leave the condition and i think that may have been caused by blasting electrics electrical needs maybe you're thinking of the best

Because that had to be where that transformer came in and peep on. Anywhere else they would have to run lines back to.

Yeah, I mean there's a handful of other locations and something like that could be done in the county. It just has to be in close proximity to TVA lines and

some stations i will tell you because of the action this body took or recommended in the action county commission state i actually think jefferson county is pretty well protected from data centers uh with exception to i mean you know if the government comes in and says we'll put one here yeah i mean but there's nothing we can do about that anything yeah um i mean obviously i'm against that but oh yeah i think i think we've done what we can do okay so i did have a question uh who's brought up by one of these has the solar resolution that we passed last month has that gone to the city it still goes i've got dangers left because all i have left the other two have passed so we will go to the county commission september okay okay good okay hearts and minds clear and yet i'm gonna have to uh

ask you to hang on for just a minute because you were on BZA with the scrape. We're going to pick up that swirl thing there and go back.

Okay. I want to hang this out. This is just going to give everybody an update on what's going on with Gettle.

please.

Basically what's happened is ghetto and Gatsby the property owner ghetto is not renewing their contract. So they're actually leases up in August. So our timeframe for them to be 60 days, which it'll be probably close to 60 days or a little longer to get their complete industrial operation out of there. So when it is in the works, I did get notification of that last week from Brad Crenshaw, which is who we've been dealing with. But I have a copy of that if anybody wants to see it.

Okay, so that's kind of taken care of itself. The release is up when? September

Is that just for information? That was just for information.

The release expires actually at the end of the week, a bit into this week. So they'll still be, you know, still have up to August 23rd.

right to make the 60 days but they can't guarantee everything will be out in 60 days they're working on it but they're working on it okay yeah thank you stephanie for sharing that hearts minds clear mr chairman i move to adjourn have a proper motion we have a second second we have a second all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed motion approved okay i would like to go back and uh open up the bza meeting for july and we have a have someone who's on the agenda i reckon had just a little bit of trouble getting here and he is present now and i'll ask him to step forward i appreciate your patience with us sir good evening thank you yes sorry for the delay storm gave me a little more debris than i anticipated

Sorry, my name is Dustin Calhoun. I'm at 2504 Valley View Road. I guess in reference to some questions that were raised last time about Flying Squirrel Project. Yes, there are several licenses that will go along with this, operating permits. through the Tennessee Department of Workforce and Development who oversees the type of activity, I guess, that it falls under, even though it's self-propelled and not motorized. I did find some information that I would like to change. I believe there was a discussion quickly about whether this would fall under commercial changing the zoning to a commercial property because it would have a business license to it for a fee. Please correct me when I'm wrong because I'm certain I will be. I found some information that says that this could and probably should be maybe looked at as far as the Tennessee Agritourism Liability Act. This would fall under something more like an orchard pick. You pick orchard or pumpkin patch. I'm not saying the right word here. So for the zoning portion of that, instead of going commercial, I don't know if that's an option to go with the other.

Is there agricultural enterprise there now? Is anything being done agricultural on the farm? Or do you have an agricultural piece of property in the county?

I'm sorry, I don't know that answer. As I've read if it says or this is agricultural farm homestead or a rural activity agriculture, but commercial because there's not anything commercial in that area.

He's owned agriculture, but it's hard to be agritourism when there's not agricultural enterprise taking place. We went to deal a few years ago with that.

Yeah but it's just not the business for this to be permitted in A1 zoning.

Um as a principal use uh it would have if it's the principal use it'd have to be rezone to commercial. Okay. Because you're gonna sell tickets probably it's an online yeah it won't be anyone just you can't just walk up anytime of course right you'd be selling the service the service would be compelled so that's that the principal use would be a commercial activity To be agritourism, your principal use does have to be a farm. And then if you have an active farm and you want to do a corn maze, that's accessory. If you have an active agricultural production and you want to do a balloon ride, that's accessory. So to keep it in an A1 or we're working on the A2 zone,

principal use would have to be a very simple part yeah and correct me if I'm wrong if there's another piece property owned that is primarily agriculture and you own this piece of property although is not directly adjacent to but if it can be put into greenbelt with your taxes, it's considered agricultural land, you can do it on second page property where you're not raising 100 acres of corn or something. I'm pretty sure if you have an agriculturalism card, you don't have to have it on the land. It doesn't have to be on the same legal law of record. No, exactly right. Thank you. Do you have an agricultural enterprise or anything going on?

Do you have a farm? I've seen several definitions of that, so you'll have to forgive me. I have goats. I have chickens. I have eggs. I mean, I don't know. I have a large garden. How large a piece of property? I don't know. I'm sorry.

If you don't mind me asking this, how large a piece of property do you have? Five point... And everything is on that piece of property? Correct.

Yes. And again, I'm just trying to look for a clear path. I'm not looking for anything. If it needs to be commercial...

I think it's something we need to look at, and the possibility may be there to do it on that five acres of ground. And are you doing anything to sell products off your farm? Is it off your farm?

You selling eggs, selling goats? Just eggs. You are selling eggs?

Listen, I've seen six cows and five chickens pass. Yeah. Say that again? Six cows and five chickens made at the farm. Right. Thank you.

If it falls under that Agricultural Tourism Act,

Then the state would offer small portions of funding and advertising. And the liability with this, with one path, of course, there's a liability waiver that would be in place that would keep everyone free and safe of a lot of dangers, all the what-ifs. And then, of course, if it goes under the other, the agricultural tourism portion of it, there's a signage that goes up, would go up on the property. In black and white letters, of course, a warning. Again, like a pumpkin patch or a horse.

Ride your own risk.

Ride the horse. All the safety measures on my end of things, of course, all those boxes would be checked. There is a daily log that must be kept and up to date. The state does have a random inspection. inspection takes place annually. If the inspection does not pass the book is not in place, an annual permit will be void. And of course can't be renewed until everything is in place. So okay.

Do you have all that information with you?

I have my version of that. Forgive me. I've rewritten this as well as what you've seen previous countless times because I'm just digging myself deeper. Well, we want to help you.

We want to help you. And if there's a possibility or a way to get this done, we would like to see you be able to move forward with it. But we just want to make sure all your bases is covered before you do.

Absolutely, and I want to make sure they are too.

And that's for your protection.

Absolutely.

You know a lot more than you did last time.

You've been doing homework. To be fair, and this is just life, but I began this in February. Right. So with working jobs and opening air, these things I forgot a lot and had to remind myself of a lot. Right. I don't want to tie up any one more time than what necessary but it does require there's a dual license that needs to be in place also that business license through dandridge. And it mentions a business license, a dandridge business license and accounting business license. I don't know all of these things. I've been here a little over a year. It's how it reads, so I'm just mentioning it.

Even though you're just in the county, you have to have an average city license as well?

Not if he's not from the city.

I'm just going by how it read to me, so I'm okay with either one of those, or both. All of these things fall under the amusement... amusement device portion of the state of Tennessee, guidelines through the workforce development, the ACCT and ASTM. Both of those acronyms I have forgotten all of a sudden, but they do all of the inspections, guidelines, and basically they wrote the book for everything for trolleys, zip lines, Even though this is not a zipline, it does fall under the trolley because it has less than a six-degree pitch in it. It's almost a flat surface as far as the cable goes. If those answered all your questions, I just...

I guess the biggest thing would be, is it permitted in? Is it an act of tourism? You see what I'm saying? That's going to be the question.

If it is not something that agritourism, I thought that would just be a wonderful thing. Not so much for state funding, as great as that would be. Again, I'm just looking for a dozen poles or so with a 5-H cable and a small deck. But the reason I like the idea of that is that If it falls under that, then the state puts me on their website, which puts us on the website of come and look. They say it's the largest tourism website for the area. I don't know how large that is, but it has different examples.

It would be great for your campers.

Yeah.

There's always something to do.

The idea is In theory, with the amount of people, the proximity to me and Bush's beans, which according to their website is over 100 plus thousand visitors a year to see the big can. I love the idea of sharing my property and our area with everyone and anyone, with leaving very small, if no foot behind at all.

Right. That's all I'm trying to do. .

David, you found something, brother. I'm eavesdropping on the conversation like I was. Well, I apologize. I shouldn't have been having a private conversation. No, you're fine. I'm happy with the route you're going, I think.

Okay. Well, what I'm looking at, when I look at our current A1 zone and permitted uses, I see out of nine outdoor recreation activities. including golf courses, driving ranges, parks, athletic fields, and playgrounds. So I think as far as BZA is concerned, we could make a determination if that's similar to an existing permitted use.

And then all these other things, because he's not done anything, he just doesn't know if he can. And then we can gather all this other. What's the pleasure of both?

I think we'll make a motion. I'll make a motion that he should be allowed to do this in the zoning that he has. So I'll make a motion for it.

If we have a proper motion, do we have a second? Second. Multiple seconds. We've got a third and a fourth there. Any further discussion on this? Being none, all those in favor of this being a liable use in A1, I think I'm going to say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? Motion passes. Keep us in the loop.

One thing is that this is a use allowable in agricultural, which is what they've determined. So when you get close, I think the site plan for your parking, you'll have to have restrooms, you'll have the layout. So you'll have to present a site plan submitted to Stephanie for approval. Yeah.

Good luck to you, Mr. Calhoun. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. You need to advertise. It's a synergistic. I do have something I need. If you can give me, I'll walk in the truck if you want.

I'm going to go this way. Okay. Heart and mind is clear? have a motion to second sue jed made the second all those in favor can let me know my standing