KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The South Waterfront development plan is ready and city council members are going to see it for the first time on Tuesday evening.
Over the last year and a half, Knoxville's Vice Mayor and 1st District Councilman Tommy Smith said they received community input and heard from several groups on what they wanted to see.
They organized the South Waterfront into three zones: Up, mid and down.
"As development comes along towards Chapman Highway, like Kerns Bakery, it's important to revisit what we want the Southwest Waterfront to be similar to how the development has happened along the east side of the South Waterfront," Smith said.
Smith and many of the South Knoxville residents have been providing input about what they want for that corridor in the Scottish Pike area.
Smith said some things stood out from the community input they received.
"Preservation of the character of South Knoxville, the urban tree canopy, the parks, etc., mixed-use and mixed-income housing, maintaining the intent of the form-based code along the whole South Waterfront and public spaces that are accessible to everybody that cannot be accessed at any time," he said.
The vision of what's planned for downriver somewhat mirrors the upriver. The last 18 years of development have now led to a year and a half's worth of input from the public about what they want to see downriver.
"It has public green spaces," Smith said. "It will have utility lines underground. It has sidewalks., it has small-scale local businesses."
One of the plan's highlights includes making new housing space for future residents.
"Both market-priced housing and affordable housing," Smith said. "So for example, some of the development that is under construction now has affordable housing built into it."
The city is also waiting for federal grant money for the pedestrian bridge.
Regardless of whether they get that money or not, according to Smith, they will continue investing in infrastructure, building roads, sidewalks and more.
What's special for the South Waterfront is that it will pay itself because of the tax increment financing.
"Every new development that happens in the South Waterfront, a portion of the property taxes that the city gains from that are set aside to build public infrastructure and parks and green spaces and sidewalks are the people who live there," Smith said.