Blount County Planning Commission Denies 39-Lot Final Plat at Manor in the Foothills Near Maryville

The next section of one of Blount County's biggest new-home subdivisions hit a wall last week. The Blount County Planning Commission voted 6-5 to deny the final plat for Phase 4, Unit 3 of Manor in the Foothills, a 39-lot section off Best Road near Maryville, Tennessee, The Daily Times reported.

The vote came Thursday at the commission's October meeting at the courthouse. A motion to approve the plat failed first, and a reciprocal 6-5 vote then denied it.

Why commissioners said no

Commissioner Danny Kimsey made the motion to deny, citing "issues with existing county infrastructure, lot size and open space." Commissioner Robert Simerly questioned the traffic study behind the project. "My main objection to all of this is we're basing it on a traffic study that's 10 years old, 8 to 10 years old," he said, adding that people living along the road are upset.

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Voting to deny were Chip Blankenship, Shannon Effler, Kimsey, Bruce McClellan, Steve Myers and Simerly. Commissioner Nick Bright was absent.

The other side

A representative of the homebuilder told commissioners those concerns belonged at the preliminary plat stage, not after the developer had already paid for roads and utilities. The issue "should have come up in preliminary," he said.

Commissioner Tom Hodge, who voted to approve, went further. "I think it's not a matter of fairness, it's illegal," he said. A letter from the county attorney, handed out before the meeting, warned that a denial puts the commission and county "in jeopardy of being sued by the developer for denying the vested rights" of the landowner. Blount County has been sued by developers several times in the past decade over subdivision denials.

How the subdivision got here

Manor in the Foothills was first approved by Maryville in 2018 and has been built in sections ever since. The Planning Commission approved all of Phase 4, with 149 lots, in 2024. Unit 1, with 15 lots, got final plat approval in September 2025, and Unit 2, with 26 lots, in January. Unit 3 got preliminary approval in June.

The board that voted last week is not the same one that gave that preliminary approval. A new commission term that began Sept. 1 replaced five members. The builder said 97 more lots remain in the original master plan.

What's next

The denial lands as the county weighs a yearlong moratorium on new subdivisions of more than 10 lots. Projects that already have preliminary approval would be exempt under that proposal, WATE reported.

The Planning Commission will not meet in November. Its next scheduled meeting is 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 8.

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