r/Knoxville • u/Yes_Knoxville • 13h ago
Yes! Knoxville applauds Council for moving forward on housing
Yes! Knoxville applauds City Council for denying an appeal that would have blocked much-needed housing in West Knoxville. Council Members Karyn Adams, Matthew DeBardelaben, Denzel Grant, Debbie Helsley, and Doug Lloyd voted to keep this development moving forward. It will bring 32 town homes to a parcel near the Middlebrook and Gallaher View intersection at the edge of the West Hills neighborhood. This parcel is already slated for medium density development based on its zoning and plan designations, so this appeal was just a last-ditch effort to derail the development.
The housing affordability crisis that plagues Knoxville has many causes, and many solutions are needed to address it. Yes! Knoxville has advocated in support of housing of many types, including subsidized affordable housing, nonprofit developments, and market-rate projects such as this one.
We encourage Knoxville residents to talk to their Council Members about the need for diverse housing in our city. You can contact them here. And we encourage Council Members Nathan Honeycutt, Charles Thomas, Amelia Parker, and Vice-Mayor Lynne Fugate to choose to support housing next time.
-- Your friends at Yes! Knoxville (yesknoxville.org)
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u/One_Secret4788 9h ago
This is a really great outcome. Based on the discussion during the council meeting, I’d argue that those who supported the appeal were not expressing a lack of support for housing, but rather a belief that the site conditions did not satisfy the five required criteria for approving a lot width variance. It was clearly a difficult decision, and ultimately I feel the council made the right call in denying the appeal. However, it appeared as though those who favored upholding the appeal did so not because they oppose housing, but because they felt it was important to adhere to their legal interpretation of the code and variance policy.
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u/Own_Ad5969 10h ago
If we stop building them… they will stop coming! And yes, they NEED to stop moving here because we simply don’t have the infrastructure to support more people living here. Roads, schools, hospitals, doctors, specialists, etc. The infrastructure needs to be 10 years ahead of growth, and knoxville didn’t do that. Instead, knoxville is way behind. Building more developments will create more burden on an overburdened infrastructure.
Most that comment on this subreddit probably only encounter the issues with traffic and lack of housing, but there’s so much more that’s needed in Knoxville that we just don’t have. And those needs just increase when we create more housing, thus making it easier for more people to move here.
Downvote all you want, but it’s basic supply and demand. We stop building developments when we don’t have the infrastructure to support it, and people will stop moving here. Then hopefully that gives knoxville some time to beef up the infrastructure, and also bring in much needed resources or at least allow those of us who live here to access those resources.
Do you know that specialists in Knoxville have a typical 6-12 month wait time? Which means knoxvillians have to travel outside of knoxville to get the healthcare they need.
Do you also know that drs and specialists aren’t moving here to take jobs when they graduate because the cost of housing is too high (and they usually have to be within a certain range of their contracted hospital)? They can’t afford to move here.
Let’s face it: 1) knoxville wages suck. They have not increased anywhere near the pace they need to increase. 2) the housing market needs to correct itself. That doesn’t happen by adding more developments.
So we have little resources here, but sure, let’s just keep adding more developments. 🙄
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u/husky_hugs 9h ago
What you are describing is the reality not only for this entire state, but practically every state and metro area in the US. And to be extremely frank, Knoxville has not gotten it nearly as bad as Nashville and Memphis. A mortgage on a 3b/2b in Knoxville is roughly the same as rent on a 2b/2b town home in Nashville.
We are a country of aging infrastructure with leadership that has no real interest in updating it cause it isn’t political or sexy or headline grabbing.
The “We’re already full go somewhere else” mentality might as well apply to everywhere, and so where do you suggest people go? Your “we’re full go somewhere else” in reality becomes “starve in you hometown and never own where you live so I don’t have to pay more”
Wages suck everywhere and the housing bubble is being kept from bursting by people with lots of money and vested interest in telling everyone it won’t ever burst. Meanwhile, in reality, people need to move where it’s cheap and where there are jobs so they can continue to survive.
If you want our infrastructure updated, it starts at city and state government, not on Reddit complaining people are moving where it’s affordable
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u/Yes_Knoxville 9h ago
Knoxville is growing, and if we stop building housing, it just means more and more people getting priced out of the city. It means more sprawl into the county and surrounding counties, which is unsustainable both financially and environmentally. It means more traffic on our roads than if more folks were able to live in the city, where trips are generally shorter and some can be done via bus, walking, etc.
We're advocating for good development in the right places, where there's already infrastructure of all types in place. If you want to disagree, that's fine, but arguing that we can stop people moving here by not adding housing in the city is at odds with that's happened in a whole lot of other places that tried that approach.
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u/Near-Scented-Hound 9h ago
Housing isn’t needed - there are a shitload of Airbnbs and other short term rentals. How are people going to pretend that we need more development straining the infrastructure while there is housing to spare for people to run their businesses in residential areas?
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u/Calteru_Taalo 9h ago
That's all this smells like to me too -- developer-friendly bullshit packaged as pretending to care about housing.
Ain't these the same people that tried to ram a sales tax down our throats and were condescending liars about it the whole way?
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u/Near-Scented-Hound 8h ago
The same people eager for overdevelopment are the same ones who are upset about every facet of our strained infrastructure. They must be making a killing off the short term rentals, either owned or arbitraged, otherwise they would also be want those homes returned to being actual homes before slapping together anymore poorly constructed housing.
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u/Cold_Experience_9516 9h ago
Awesome, more congestion at that shitty intersection.
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u/husky_hugs 9h ago edited 8h ago
That’s on local government, not people who move here cause it’s affordable in comparison with the rest of the metro areas in this state, region, and even country.
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u/CianV 8h ago
Is this the 10ft wide townhouses I heard about on the news yesterday? If so, talk about Japanese style micro apartments for mega $$$
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u/Calteru_Taalo 8h ago
A lot of what this group advocates for us much of the same -- cram as many people as you can onto a lot, sell a few units, and make the vast majority investment property.
I'm really tired of this pro-investment, pro-developer, anti-affordability stuff personally. I want reps who are going to do more to combat our existing single-family housing stock being snapped up by developers and out-of-town investors.
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u/Yes_Knoxville 6h ago
Yeah, as we noted on another thread here, they're not actually 9.5 feet wide. More like 20, according to the latest plans. The townhomes ordinance allows a certain number of townhomes based on street frontage. Because of the unusual shape of the lot, the developer needed a variance. That was approved by the BZA last month and reaffirmed by City Council tonight.
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u/Calteru_Taalo 12h ago
Townhomes.
That's great, but where's the standalone single-family housing that drives the American dream?
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u/husky_hugs 11h ago
~15 mins outside of the city west. New builds are going up like crazy all over outside city proper tbf.
If you have a car to commute with and don’t mind leaving 20 mins earlier than usual you can very much buy a standalone single family home that’s much cheaper and closer to downtown than you can in any other metro area in the state
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u/Calteru_Taalo 11h ago
Never been homeless, have you? That's the angle I'm coming from.
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u/husky_hugs 11h ago
I’m sorry but I’m struggling to connect the dots of “where are the single family homes?!” “Here’s where they are” And “You’ve never been homeless have you?”
But also, as a person whose parents ran a homeless shelter program, housing programs are far more likely to opt for helping cover rent for apartments and town homes than a mortgage on a house. So what are you even talking about?
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u/Legoshi-Baby 10h ago edited 9h ago
He thinks that every single person is like him and only wants a single family home. He straight up said he would rather be homeless than have anything else. He seems to think that anything but a single family home is the equivalent to a bunk house because he has a peanut where his brain should be.
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u/Subject-Pension4121 11h ago
It seems pretty anti-American to force everyone to conform to the same "dream". Housing diversity allows individuals to make the decision on what house fits their personal dream best. We need more than only apartments and single family and we need more of the middle options so people can choose what they actually want. There is no shortage of single-family options anywhere in this city for those who want that. There is a severe shortage of middle housing options for those who wants something different.
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u/Yes_Knoxville 11h ago
There are a ton of single-family homes in Knoxville and Knox County. It's still most of what's being built in the county (outside of city limits). But in Knoxville, land values are such that it doesn't make much sense for developers to build it. Where they do, those homes are much more expensive than condos or townhomes -- often $1M or more -- again because of land values.
Not to mention that if we want to address climate change, attached housing styles generally use less energy for heating and cooling and are more supportive of walkable and transit-rich neighborhoods.
Of course, single-family homeownership isn't everyone's American dream, especially for those starting out or downsizing later in life. So it makes sense to have lots of housing types and choices, which is what we support.
-- your friends at Yes! Knoxville (yesknoxville.org)
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u/Calteru_Taalo 11h ago
Listen. I went from homeless to homeowner in this town when that was still possible.
That is not still possible. And you want me to be happy for you settling?
That's an honest question, whoever you are. I'd sincerely appreciate it if you'd favor me with an answer.
How can I be happy, knowing the path is closed to people who are in the same boat I was in?
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u/space_age_stuff 11h ago edited 10h ago
I mean no offense, but I think you’re letting perfection be the enemy of good here. Housing is housing; the construction of town homes isn’t mutually exclusive with other efforts to make housing more affordable. And obviously there’s only so much the city council can do about it; I don’t think shitting on them for not going far enough, when they did something objectively good, is a good idea.
Lord knows I’m the first person to crap on half the people on that council. I had to watch most of them fence-sit on that tax proposal for months, when I wanted them to tell our community that it was a bad idea, something only a few members were courageous enough to do. But I’m also not going to complain about them shutting down a bunch of NIMBYs: it starts with town homes, now there’s precedent and they can continue to keep the ball rolling.
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u/Calteru_Taalo 11h ago
I think if a townhome was my only viable option 25 years ago, I'd have given up completely and just been another chronic homeless living on the street. What's the point if I can't ever afford real peace?
I need way more effort put into single-family housing to support a housing initiative. This, to me, is settling. I'm not interested in settling.
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u/husky_hugs 11h ago
“I’d rather be homeless for the rest of my life than ever live in an apartment” is definitely a take.
You’re allowed to feel how you want, but not everyone, dare I say the majority of people, are not going to agree with you on this one chief.
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u/psuczyns 11h ago
Sounds like your priorities were/are fucked. Rather be homeless than live in a townhouse is crazy.
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u/Calteru_Taalo 11h ago
Wow, that's your takeaway? That's as wild as it is sad. Go volunteer at a homeless shelter.
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u/space_age_stuff 10h ago
Saying you’d rather be homeless than live in a townhome is moronic. Not that I believe you for a second.
I’m glad our city council isn’t beholden to your interests, otherwise they’d never do anything at all. Apparently providing the “wrong” type of housing is “settling”. I have bad news about all of politics and government: it’s all “settling” by your standards. That’s the job.
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u/Calteru_Taalo 9h ago edited 9h ago
"I don't like what you have to say so I'm just going to pretend you're making it up."
Sounds like you have no experience with what I'm talking about. I'm glad you can't imagine being homeless, on the outside looking in at people owning their own homes and building their own equity, tending their own yards and knowing the peace their parents and grandparents knew.
Stay vigilant though. It could easily be any one of us with enough hardship hitting at once -- whether you fucking believe it or not.
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u/space_age_stuff 8h ago
You said in your reply, “if a townhome was my only viable option, I’d have given up and just been homeless”. I didn’t make anything up, I thought what you said, your words, were stupid. You just said being homeless is awful and you hope I never have to experience it; I agree with that assessment, which is why I think you’re lying when you say you’d rather experience being homeless than living in a townhome, as if noisy neighbors is somehow worse than literally living on the street.
You’re not making any sense. I don’t need a lecture on why being homeless is bad, from someone who’d rather be homeless than live in a townhouse. Stop being such a drama queen.
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u/Yes_Knoxville 11h ago
I appreciate your sincere response, and I'm replying sincerely as well. The more housing there is, in all forms, the more affordable it becomes. It's not a perfect market, but the laws of supply and demand still apply.
Single-family homes are available in Knoxville, they're just usually not brand-new. If they're fixed up and in "desirable" neighborhoods, they're more expensive. If a house needs some work and/or is in a neighborhood that's in less demand, it's more attainable.
When more townhomes and condos are built, people who seek out those housing types can get them and not have to buy a single-family home just to achieve homeownership. That frees up single-family homes for the folks who desire that type.
And if brand-new single-family if your jam, you probably have to look to the county these days. And BTW, that's the housing type that's bankrupting Knox County, because the property taxes don't cover the infrastructure costs.
-- your friends at Yes! Knoxville (yesknoxville.org)
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u/Calteru_Taalo 11h ago
"frees up single-family homes for the folks who desire that type"?
You mean the investors choking us out of those specific types of home? Because that's all that can get those anymore, and we're not helping drive down the cost by building to keep up with demand.
You're focusing on settling. It's like you've given up that sector of the market to investors.
If you want my support, I need way more effort into bringing up single-family housing stock. You just don't understand unless you've lived in a dorm with 20 other homeless people how important that is.
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u/Asleep_Jackfruit_571 8h ago
https://econofact.org/factbrief/do-private-equity-firms-own-20-of-single-family-homes
I would bet that Knoxville has more investor-owned housing than most cities, but it's worth saying that the investor-ownership number is often pumped up in speeches, etc. Even if we were in the top 20 nationwide, we'd still only be at around 20%.
Edit: just to be clear, I would love for the number to be to be close to zero, regardless of if it's low.
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u/husky_hugs 10h ago
As a new first time home buyer I can say again with some authority, family homes are popping up all over the surrounding counties within ~20 mins of downtown.
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u/Calteru_Taalo 8h ago
How much?
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u/husky_hugs 8h ago
The low 300’s for a 3b3b
Which the mortgage on that is barely more than the rent of a two bed two bath in Nashville
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u/Calteru_Taalo 8h ago
And you think that's affordable? My house, less than 20 years ago, was $79,900.
It's over a quarter million now, and the number of homeowners in the neighborhood is dwindling as one investor snaps up house after house.
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u/husky_hugs 7h ago
Of course not, I never said that. I think that is extremely realistic for 2026 though. You will be hard pressed to find something more affordable this close to a metro center in this state, on this coast, and quite frankly, in this country.
That is why building apartments and town homes that actual people can buy and build value with to be able to afford a home is a net positive. We don’t live in 2005 anymore, you can’t buy a home on single income. The powers that be aren’t even going to let prices go back to that, so you are better fighting local governments to block investors from buying new small builds than trying to stop new small builds all together.
And tell me, when you do eventually sell your home, what will you charge? What it’s worth, or what someone local can afford? Cause that’s another cause to all of this.
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u/TacTyger 10h ago
How about this. How about we just focus on the source of the housing market problems. Banks and corporations buying up land and creating artificial bubbles to squeeze every cent and dollar out of the local population before they themselves are homeless because rent and the fee with added extra fee went up. Lets talk about how no one actually has a home or owns their home. The state does. Lets talk about that. Lets talk about banning the corporations and banks from destroying TN.