Understanding the comprehensive growth policy in Tennessee
Tennessee’s economy is experiencing robust expansion which places a new emphasis on smart growth planning in rural communities. The state’s population is expected to continue increasing over the coming decades according to the University of Tennessee Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research. Tennessee’s population grew to 6,910,840 over the past decade, up 8.9% since 2010 according to the 2020 Census results. Projections anticipate the state’s population to grow to 7.8 million in 2040 and 9.3 million in 2070.
In 1998 the Tennessee legislature enacted a novel approach to long term growth planning by cities and counties. Public Chapter 1101 (PC1101) provided a framework for growth policy development within each county area without imposing a statewide mandate. Local governments and community leaders were charged with the responsibility of cooperatively shaping growth policy within their county areas through the development of a 20-year countywide growth plan.
Lawmakers have considered a comprehensive review of PC1101 since over twenty years have passed since enactment of the PC1101. Legislation has been filed in the last two sessions on the topic, although little action has been taken on the bills.
COUNTYWIDE PLANNING:
In every county, the initial draft of the growth plan was formulated by a coordinating committee composed of representatives of the county, cities, utilities, schools, chambers of commerce, soil conservation districts and others. The county and cities proposed boundaries for inclusion in the plan. After the growth plan was developed or amended, the committees conducted public hearings and submitted the plan to each city and county for ratification. The committee could revise the plan upon objection from these local governments. If the governmental entities could not agree on a plan, one of the governmental entities could petition the Tennessee Secretary of State to appoint a dispute resolution panel of administrative law judges to settle the conflict. The deadline for completing and approving all plans was July 1, 2001. Once adopted, a plan could not be amended for three years, except in unusual circumstances. The final step in the growth plan process was approval by the state Local Government Planning Advisory Committee (LGPAC). This committee is housed in the Department of Economic and Community Development and is charged with the responsibility of reviewing and approving the growth plans and amendments.
The plan should identify three distinct types of areas:
(1) “urban growth boundaries” (UGB), regions which contain the corporate limits of a municipality and the adjoining territory where growth is expected;
(2) “planned growth areas” (PGA), compact sections outside incorporated municipalities where growth is expected (if there are such areas in the county), and where new incorporations may occur; and
(3) “rural areas” (RA), territory not within one of the other two categories which is to be preserved for agriculture, recreation, forest, wildlife and uses other than high-density commercial or residential development.
ANNEXATION:
One of the major issues of PC1101 was to address the annexation of new territory by municipalities. After the growth plan was approved by the Local Government Planning Advisory Committee (LGPAC), a municipality could use any statutory method to annex property within its UGB, including annexation by ordinance and/ or referendum. However, in 2014 the General Assembly passed Public Chapter 707 with Farm Bureau support, which eliminated annexation by ordinance and provided annexation within the UGB can only occur by referendum or with written consent of the property owner(s).
Outside the UGB, a city may annex by referendum or amend its UGB to include the new territory, which may then be annexed by resolution with written consent of the property owner(s). A recent amendment also provided a municipality may expand its urban growth boundaries to annex a tract of land without reconvening the coordinating committee or approval from the county or any other municipality if (1) the tract is contiguous to a tract of land that has the same owner and has already been annexed by the municipality; (2) the tract is being provided water and sewer services; and (3) the owner of the tract, by notarized petition, consents to being included within the urban growth boundaries of the municipality.
