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Seven Days

Wednesday, March 28
Art in the City, Part I: Dogwood Arts Festival officials unveil their "Bearfoot in the City" program, in which local artists will paint and decorate dozens of fiberglass bears and place them around downtown. Notice to would-be urban hunters: They are statues. Hold your fire.

Thursday, March 29
A long-awaited audit of the Knox County Schools System is released. After about six months and hundreds of billable hours, the auditors reached the conclusion that the school board doesn't get along very well with County Commission.
About 100 people turn out for a forum and brainstorming session on the future of Market Square. Weirdest sighting of the night: rocker/poet R.B. Morris engaged in animated conversation with News-Sentinelbusiness maven Georgiana Vines. Word is Vines will be adding vocals to a track on Morris' forthcoming album.

Friday, March 30
Officials at Hamilton Place mall in Chattanooga announce a new weekend curfew for kids under 18—they all have to leave by 6 p.m. So who will be working the cash registers?
Tech wonder-turned-dot.com casualty iPIX announces another round of layoffs, as the company's once stellar stock trades at 16 cents per share. Whew. Aren't you glad we all got rich while we had the chance?

Saturday, March 31
Memphis developer John Elkington says he is no longer necessarily attached to the Worsham Watkins plan for downtown and is pursuing Market Square opportunities on his own. One of his ideas is a sports bar tied to a former Vol star. Please, no Peyton Place jokes...

Sunday, April 1
In the most successful TDOT April Fool's prank ever, some wily traffic engineers remove an entire bridge across I-40. The Forest Heights neighborhood laughs heartily.

Monday, April 2
Art in the City, Part 2: City County Building officials order artist Moema Furtado to remove a Holocaust memorial installation from the lobby because its long strips of latex apparently remind them of condoms. The order is later rescinded, but the cause (and effect) is clear. No one told Furtado that in Knoxville, sex is more offensive than genocide.

Tuesday, April 3
Mayor Victor Ashe and City Council defy political convention, public outcry, and all general standards of decency, courtesy and plain old common sense by appointing Raleigh Wynn to fill the late Danny Mayfield's Council seat rather than Mayfield's widow, Melissa. Those term limits can't kick in fast enough...

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
The plaque in question adorns the side of a building on Whittle Springs Road, currently in use as a church. The building, home to an acoustically perfect auditorium, was built in 1954 by the owners of WNOX radio, adjacent to the old Whittle Springs Hotel. Mayor George Dempster was at the dedication and noted, "WNOX's new quarters mean a lot to this end of town. The city is moving northward." It was supposed to be a showcase radio theater and studio, but by the early 1960s live radio had gone out of style and the theater languished. The first correct answer comes from Butch Bryant, submitted on his behalf by Ashley Carrigan. Thanks to both of them, and a prize to Butch: a copy of Back to the Moon, the novel by October Sky author Homer H. Hickam Jr.

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

CITY OF KNOXVILLE BUDGET LUNCHEON
THURSDAY, APRIL 12
NOON
NORTHWEST PARK
Mayor Victor Ashe will announce his proposed budget for 2001-2 at a lunch meeting in the city park at the corner of Pleasant Ridge Road and Bradshaw Garden Drive. A catered lunch will be provided for those who have received invitations, but the budget announcement is open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to park at nearby Badgett Field on Ball Camp Pike.

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION
THURSDAY, APRIL 12
1:30 P.M.
CITY COUNTY BUILDING
400 MAIN ST.
City Council rejected a proposed outright ban on new billboards inside the city limits last month, and instead offered a compromise measure that would allow new billboards only along interstates. MPC will consider the new proposal at its next meeting.

POLICE ADVISORY AND REVIEW COMMITTEE
THURSDAY, APRIL 12
6 P.M.
KCDC FAMILY INVESTMENT CENTER
400 HARRIET TUBMAN ST.
City residents are invited to voice their comments and complaints about the Knoxville Police Department.

Putting the There There

Town Center zoning proposal gains ground

"The idea," Metropolitan Planning Commission Executive Director Norman Whitaker says, "is place-making—creating a situation where you know where you are."

Simple words, but radical nonetheless, considering they come from the lips of Knoxville and Knox County's chief planning bureaucrat. The subject of Whitaker's surprisingly bold statement is MPC's new Town Center zoning ordinance (TC-1). Based on traditional, pre-automobile town development and embracing many of the mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented concepts espoused by the architects and planners of the "New Urbanism" movement, the TC-1 zone is a radical departure from the sprawling commercial strips and subdivisions that typically clutter MPC's agenda.

"It's an alternative to Kingston Pike," says Whitaker, "clustering things in a more compact manner." And that, according to Whitaker is the new zone's strength: "This is a different approach—to integrate services and uses (that) people need in a way that is more functional and aesthetically pleasing."

So far, the new zone has received strong support from both downtown activists and suburban homeowners worn out by battles over conventional "big-box" development, with its attendant parking and traffic. "We've had a lot of interest," says Whitaker, "from citizens who feel existing zoning hasn't been successful in containing sprawl or providing alternatives to sprawl." But the real test will be selling the new zone to developers. Citing precedents such as Riverside in Atlanta or City Place in West Palm Beach, Whitaker is optimistic. "These are actually being built out in America. And in some ways they're easier to get financed than a big power center. It's diversified and some of the market is captive," Whitaker says. He goes on to point out the new zone's potential to mix office, retail and residential as part of the same integrated development.

Mike Carberry, also a planner with MPC, is equally hopeful: "A lot of the homebuilders and developers nationwide are seeing the advantage of this type of zoning. So hopefully here soon we'll see the private sector taking over." And, Whitaker says, there are definite advantages to the new zone. "The TC-1 Zone is much more permissive from a development standpoint. It offers flexible siting, mixed uses—even in the same building. In exchange there are some higher design standards."

Apparently, the local development community is responding. A recent MPC workshop on the new zone was well-attended, and one developer already has a rezoning application pending, even though the new zone hasn't been fully approved. A representative of the developer, while enthusiastic about the new zone, declined to comment at such an early stage in the process other than to say that the property proposed for rezoning is a greenfield site in West Knoxville.

But curbing sprawl isn't the only thing proponents of the Town Center Zone hope to see happen. "The real need for it is revitalizing inner-city neighborhoods," says MPC commissioner Mike Edwards. "It really needs to be seriously but carefully looked at. Bearden and Fountain City are really good candidates for this type of redevelopment."

Another potential early candidate for such rezoning is Market Square. The Market Square Association has made Town Center zoning one of the cornerstones of their alternative to the Renaissance Knoxville proposal, which calls for the city potentially to use eminent domain to place the square under the control of a single developer.

PBA chief Dale Smith says he has studied a preliminary draft of the proposal and concedes that it is an improvement over the existing zoning. He also feels that "there are certainly other existing areas that could benefit, such as the Old City and parts of Gay Street." But Smith has worries about implementation. "The ordinance at that point," Smith says, "didn't address what percentage of property owners [is] needed to sign off to get it approved. I do think if it's ever going to be useful—minus the city backing total assembly [by purchase]—I think they really ought to deal with that issue." It's a sentiment that Edwards, his predecessor, echoes: "For the neighborhoods that really need a kick-start, where the infrastructure is there, I don't see how you implement it. Maybe it would be better done in pieces," says Edwards, "I don't see how a developer gets ahold of enough property to do it."

Despite the issues raised by Smith and Edwards, Whitaker stands behind his staff's product, saying, "If we can provide the alternative tools, and if they work in the marketplace, then we can get some higher quality development." And whether it's new development or redevelopment, suburban greenfield or inner city brownfield, the ultimate goal, says Whitaker, is the same: "They tend to become a destination of themselves. These places can be true activity centers. People go there because there's a true sense of place."

—Matt Edens

From Orange to Green?

Getting UT to show some leadership in its own environment

Listen to the word coming out of a specially-formed University of Tennessee committee, and you might hear somebody saying that UT is behind the times in creating an environmentally-friendly campus.

Many universities around the country are already pursuing responsible environmental practices. The University of Florida has a program to increase energy efficiency and recently won an EPA award for water reclamation. The University of South Carolina has a policy to buy recycled goods whenever possible. Penn State has specific practices for dealing with waste at athletic events.

Yet UT's policy is limited to a single line in the Campus Master Plan: "Promote awareness and implementation of sound environmental policies." To its credit, UT has a recycling program. In 1999 (the last year data is available), it recycled 49 percent of its waste, and has reduced its sanitary landfill contribution by 40 percent since 1992.

But much more could be done, according to the Committee on Campus Environment, formed by former Chancellor William Snyder. It has created a draft proposal of an environmental policy for UT. Headed by Professor Jack Barkenbus, the committee is composed of faculty and students. Their mission is "to promote a comprehensive conception of environmental stewardship on its Knoxville campus."

The draft environmental policy has already been unanimously passed by the UT Faculty Senate, and in a few weeks it will go before the Student Government Association and will be listed as a referendum item during the student government elections in April. Barkenbus hopes the show of student and faculty support will encourage the administration to adopt the policy. "I don't quite understand why the administration would oppose it," Barkenbus says. UT President Wade Gilley was not available for comment.

The policy sets out principles for the university to follow in five areas: general, conservation, waste reduction, procurement, and design. It also states that for the policy to be effective, implementation must occur in three areas: in the daily decisions of the UT population, such as whether to recycle; in bigger decisions of the administration such as design and construction of new facilities; and in the research, training and learning of UT faculty and students.

Barkenbus says there are plenty of things to do to improve the campus environment and to make UT a leader in sound environmental policy—things from conducting an energy audit to improving mass transit to buying goods with recycled content. "I think a university has an obligation to be a good environmental citizen," Barkenbus says. "UT has not been a leader in building environmental consciousness and programs on campus." Barkenbus says he believes that a policy is needed in order to help the university make environmental sustainability a reality. "When it is nobody's business to do these things, opportunities pass," he says.

Unlike many universities, UT has no official coordinator for environmental efforts. The lack of such an office makes starting environmental programs difficult. An example could be a recent push by a campus group, Students Promoting Environmental Action in Knoxville, to put new recycling bins on campus and take over the operation of those bins that are already in use. UT's Physical Plant currently takes care of the recycling but does not monitor the bins themselves, so a person could contaminate a paper bin with other trash. When that happens, the entire load is dumped instead of recycled. But the group ran into problems when it couldn't find an official liaison to coordinate these efforts. "We couldn't find whom we were supposed to talk to," SPEAK president Caroline Devan says.

For the most part, UT has not been using available resources. Consider the university's Energy, Environment, and Resources Center, of which Barkenbus is executive director. The EERC has done environmental research for many companies and governmental organizations, including TVA and the EPA. Yet it has not been asked to do any work in its own backyard. There are many professors at the university who know about environmental sustainability but have not been asked to use their knowledge for the betterment of the campus. "We are not even in the game. That is what's frustrating," Barkenbus says.

Anyone interested in the campus environment will have an opportunity Wednesday, April 11 to hear how other universities deal with environmental problems. There will be a forum called "Greening UT—Lessons from Other Colleges and Universities" in the University Center's Shiloh Room at 1 p. m. David Newport, director of Greening UF at the University of Florida, will talk about Florida's campus sustainability program. Al Matyaovsky, on staff at Penn State's Central Support Services, will talk about waste reduction, recycling, and composting. The only non-university person is Mike McDonald, of Rebuild America. He will discuss energy conservation on college campuses.

—Eric Winford