Blount County subdivision gaining 300 homes after planning approval

Vacant land in a growing area of Blount County could soon host more than 300 new homes.

A Knox County-based development company got approval Thursday, June 27, for two early-stage maps of projects in the Manor in the Foothills subdivision off Best Road in Maryville. Phases three and four of the Smithbilt Homes project will cover the construction of 311 new homes.

The Blount County Planning Commission’s vote to accept the Manor in the Foothills maps Thursday meant the county’s approval of its largest subdivisions so far in 2024. Sixty lots, in total, got planning commission approval in the first five months of the year. And the vote to approve Thursday came in spite of planning commissioners’ stated reservations over the size, design and density of the homes in the neighborhood.

Smithbilt neighborhood

Phase three of the project will see 149 residential lots placed on about 47 acres, while phase four would mean 162 lots on just over 39 acres. Planners with Blount County’s development services department wrote in June memos that the land on which the new homes will be built is “vacant (...) and gently sloping.”

Earlier homes stemming from the project, which has been in development for years, have been completed and occupied.

Smithbilt’s website lists the neighborhood’s amenities as including a pool, playground and walking trails, among other offerings. It’s billed within the site as “the newest, largest, most affordable and amenity rich community to ever be built in Blount County.” According to public property records, lots in the subdivision this year have sold at prices including $357,900, $402,500 and $450,000. Public floor plans show home sizes in the neighborhood between 1,870 square feet and 2,910 square feet.

The site indicates that homes in the development are currently “sold out.”

The company lists other Smithbilt neighborhoods throughout East Tennessee, from Tallassee to Norris Lake. Smithbilt has also overseen large projects in Knox County, including the Belltown development in the Powell area that could house “thousands” according to a 2023 report from the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Reservations

The new maps for Manor in the Foothills would not meet current county zoning regulations, which now require larger lot sizes. Rules on cluster developments — a type of denser housing — have also shifted recently. But Tennessee law, said an attorney for the county, protects the interests of developers from the beginning of their projects. Developers have vested rights, said attorney Scott Stuart Thursday, and a law or ordinance passed after a project begins won’t necessarily apply to that project as it continues, under most circumstances. A planning commission decision to reject a map for a different project late last year led to a lawsuit that ended this year with a Blount County Circuit Court judge reversing the denial and approving the developer’s map.

Members of the planning commission Thursday stressed that they had major reservations about the Manor in the Foothills project. Some also noted that their decisions were constrained by state law.

Planning commissioner David Wells, who also serves on the county commission, said, “Basically, what I’m hearing is that it’s been approved before, it’s under vested rights, and we don’t really know how to say, ‘No,’ to this.”