Save Knox Farmland
Save Knox Farmland
Under the county's second draft zoning map, land currently zoned Agricultural (A) is proposed to become Rural Residential (RR) by default. The general comment period on this draft closes August 12, 2026. A separate, later form — the Agricultural District Opt-In — is due August 31, 2026 for owners who want a more protective designation. Two different deadlines, two different actions, both matter.
Find your parcel and leave a comment directly on it — this is the official record before the Aug 12 close.
Comment on the Map →You must register by phone or email no later than 4:00 PM the day before the Aug 24 meeting. Do it now while it's on your mind.
Request to Speak →Can't attend or speak? Put it in writing so it's part of the record commissioners see before they vote.
Submit a Comment →Three more channels worth five minutes each, especially if you have specific concerns about open space rules, landscaping/buffer standards, or infrastructure requirements in the new code: Article 16 — Open Space & Natural Resource Protections, Article 14 — Landscaping, Buffering & Screening, Article 18 — Infrastructure & Public Improvements.
Pick whichever fits you, tap Copy, and paste it into the map comment tool, an email to contact@advanceknox.org, or the County Commission's comment form. One thing worth doing first: swap in your own name and address, and change a line or two into your own words if you can. Identical copy-pasted comments are easy for staff and commissioners to spot and tend to get counted as one voice instead of many — a couple of personal tweaks go a long way.
I'm the founder of Monarch Ecosystem, a Knoxville-based company that helps families build real, lasting businesses together — our tagline is "Transforming Together," and it's the same instinct that has me organizing this campaign, just pointed at my own community instead of a client's.
When I was younger, I watched my family's farm get turned into a neighborhood. I remember what that land was before the houses, and I remember how little say my family had once the process was already moving. I don't want that same story to repeat for the next generation of Knox County families — including my own. This campaign is personal: I want to preserve the right to farm our family's land, and to make sure other families still have that choice too, not just the paperwork trail that's supposed to protect it.
Monarch Ecosystem isn't a party to this campaign in any formal sense — this is me, as a Knox County resident and landowner, organizing alongside my neighbors. But I'm not hiding who I am while I do it, and I brought the same care I'd bring to any family's plan to this one.
Knox County's Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) — the implementation phase of the 2024 Advance Knox plan — includes a second draft zoning map. On that map, parcels currently zoned Agricultural (A) are shown reclassified as Rural Residential (RR). Keeping a more protective agricultural or rural-preservation designation requires the property owner to submit an Agricultural District Opt-In Form by August 31, 2026. Nobody is mailing affected landowners a notice — the burden is on you to find out, check the map, and file the paperwork.
Public comment on the draft map closes the same day, at advanceknox.org/udo/feedback.
Advance Knox's own agricultural zoning page confirms: if you don't submit an opt-in request, your current legal use of the property "would be allowed to continue as what is called a legal nonconformity." Planning officials have also said new zoning designations apply mainly to future development or redevelopment, and County Commissioner Andy Fox has publicly noted the UDO has not been adopted and is not yet county law.
Why "legal nonconformity" still matters: nonconforming uses are generally frozen in place — you typically can't expand them, and rebuilding after major damage or a long pause in use can require going through the new zoning rules instead of the old ones. It's not losing your farm overnight; it's losing the flexibility to grow, rebuild, or change it under today's rules. That's a real enough stake to comment on.
Whether UDO-related items and public comment land clearly on that agenda is being finalized around this date — another reason to register to speak and get comments in now rather than later this week.
The public feedback survey and comment window tied to the second draft zoning map and updated UDO articles closes. This is the most urgent deadline on this page.
Main Assembly Room, City-County Building, 400 Main St. Comprehensive Plan Amendment 8-D-26-PA and related agricultural-zoning items are on the agenda. Sign up to speak or submit written comment in advance.
Large/Main Assembly Room, City-County Building. Register to speak by 4:00 PM on Aug 23 by phone (865-215-2534) or email — walk-ins are only recognized at the Chair's discretion.
Last day to file the Opt-In Form specifically for owners requesting the more protective Agricultural Rural (AR) or Rural Preservation (RP) designation instead of the default Rural Residential (RR). This is separate from the Aug 12 comment period.
Meeting times can shift. Confirm the day-of agenda at commission.knoxcountytn.gov and knoxplanning.org before you go.
The 2024 Comprehensive Plan — the foundation the UDO builds on — reports that over 4,000 people participated across three rounds of public input between 2022 and 2023, through in-person workshops, virtual meetings, and online surveys. Knox County's population is roughly half a million and was projected in the plan to grow to about 570,000 by 2045. Outreach listed in the plan included 41 local news articles, 7 press releases, a mayoral video series, a 5,000-subscriber newsletter, paid social media, and targeted outreach to UT and Pellissippi State students, alongside in-person events at schools, a golf course, and a library.
The plan also reports that its own "preferred scenario" — the one that became the Future Land Use Map — was projected to produce a $4.8 million annual fiscal surplus for the county, versus a $1.9 million deficit under a baseline "continue current trends" scenario. It also scored best across the plan's own community-derived goals in the scenario comparison.
Appendix F (Public Engagement Summary Memos) publishes exit-questionnaire demographics against 2020 Census (ACS) benchmarks for the county. In Round 2 — Community Choices, the largest of the three input rounds (3,905 total participants, the bulk of the plan's ~4,000-person total), respondents were 91% White/Caucasian versus 86% countywide, while Black respondents were 2% of participants versus 4% of the county and Hispanic/Latino respondents were 3% versus 5% countywide. 76% of respondents held a bachelor's degree or higher, versus 40% of the county. 51% reported household income above $100,000, versus 33% countywide, while under-$50k households were half as represented (16% vs 32%). 81% owned property in Knox County. In Round 1 — Ideas, the earliest and smallest round, participants over 45 made up 60% of respondents versus 43% of the county.
To be precise about what isn't in the data: the survey didn't ask whether respondents farmed their land or track "land value" as a category, so those two specific claims aren't things the appendix confirms or denies — the property-ownership figure (81%) is the closest available proxy, and it points toward landowners being over-represented relative to renters, which is worth naming as your own read rather than a county-published stat.
The plan states its own preferred growth pattern — the one that became the Future Land Use Map — was projected to produce a $4.8 million annual fiscal surplus for the county, versus a $1.9 million deficit under the baseline "continue current trends" scenario. It also scored best on the plan's own community-derived goals. Both things are true at once, and it's fair to ask commissioners directly which one actually carried more weight when the map was finalized — that's a pointed, defensible question, not an accusation.
Two more specific, checkable questions worth putting in your comment: (1) the plan's "Rural Agriculture" place type description emphasizes crops, livestock, forestry, and farm-related business — ask staff directly whether any industrial, telecom, or waste-disposal uses are permitted in the proposed agricultural zoning districts (Article 4.01, 7.02, 7.03), since that's not clear from the public-facing summary pages. (2) Ask what remediation path exists for a property owner who disagrees with their assigned zoning after the opt-in window closes — the public materials describe how to opt in, but not how to appeal or correct a zoning designation later.
Search your address on the Draft Map 2 comparison tool at advanceknox.org/udo/feedback. See your current zoning next to the proposed one.
If your land is Agricultural today, submit the Opt-In Form to keep stronger protection. Either way, leave a comment on the map — silence reads as consent.
Add your name below. A long list of Knox County residents — not just farmers — is the single most persuasive thing we can hand commissioners.
Attend the Aug 13 Planning Commission hearing or the Aug 24 County Commission meeting. Can't attend? RSVP below and we'll send a calendar invite plus a 90-second speaking-point cheat sheet.
Most affected households don't know this is happening yet. Every dollar funds a mailer or a targeted digital ad reaching residents in the affected zones.
Share this page directly with people on your road. This spreads fastest person-to-person, not through algorithms.
This fills in the county's actual PDF form — the same one posted at advanceknox.org — with what you type below, adds your signature, and gets an email ready to send to the Advance Knox team. About two minutes, no printer required.
Nothing you type here is sent anywhere until you personally hit send in your own email app. This page doesn't collect or store your information — the PDF is built entirely in your browser.
Your name will be included in what we deliver to the Planning Commission and County Commission ahead of the August 31 deadline. We'll also send you plain-English updates as the UDO process moves — no more than a couple of emails or texts a week.
One click adds it straight to Google Calendar. We'll follow up with parking info and a one-page "how to make public comment" guide.
Main Assembly Room, City-County Building, 400 Main St, Knoxville, TN 37902.
+ Add to Google CalendarMain Assembly Room, City-County Building, 400 Main St, Knoxville, TN 37902.
+ Add to Google CalendarSubmit your Ag District Opt-In form and map comments online — no need to travel.
+ Add to Google CalendarMost of what we know already reached you through Facebook shares and word of mouth. There are entire streets that still haven't heard. Every dollar goes toward printed mailers and targeted digital ads to residents inside the rezoned areas — nothing else.
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You may hear conservation easements offered as a way to "permanently protect" your land from rezoning. Here's what that really involves, and how it lands differently depending on what you care about most.
An easement can feel appealing here — it locks in today's landscape. But "locked in" cuts both ways: you also lose the ability to change your own mind about how to use or improve the land later, and that restriction outlives you.
Habitat can be protected without giving up permanent development rights — through conservation-minded farming practices, buffer zones, or term-limited agreements, rather than a perpetual restriction on the deed.
An easement restricts development, but it doesn't guarantee the land stays actively farmed or that the next generation can afford to farm it. Zoning that keeps land affordable and workable does more for local food than a permanent legal restriction does.
Development rights are a real, monetizable part of your land's value. Signing them away permanently — even for a tax benefit today — can reduce what the property is worth to a future buyer or lender.
This is the core tension: an easement is a permanent, third-party-enforced limit on what you can do with land you still technically own. For many owners, that's a bigger loss of control than a zoning designation that local government can still, in theory, revisit.
Fair — you don't have to take a position on conservation easements to oppose the default rezoning. Filing your opt-in form and commenting on the map is the direct, zoning-specific action; an easement is a separate, permanent step you're never required to take.
Conservation easements are sometimes discussed as one tool that can serve large-scale land-preservation goals. Whatever you think of those broader policy conversations, the easement itself is what binds your specific parcel — evaluate the paperwork in front of you, not just the movement behind it.
The UDO and easements are different tools: the UDO governs what can be built and where across the county; an easement governs one specific property forever. Opposing dense, centralized planning doesn't require signing away your own land's future flexibility.
An easement moves long-term control of a specific decision — what your land can become — outside of local elections entirely, into a private contract with a nonprofit or agency. If your worry is unaccountable control, that's worth weighing carefully.
Modifying or terminating an easement later typically requires legal counsel, negotiation with the holder, and sometimes court involvement — it's designed to be hard to undo, which means future flexibility usually comes at a legal cost.
The organization holding your easement enforces it in perpetuity. Its funding, leadership, and priorities can change over decades in ways you have no say in — worth researching who would actually hold and enforce yours.
Zoning is generally the faster, more direct tool against a specific large development proposal. An easement is slower to arrange and permanent — useful for some owners, but not a quick-response tool against an active development threat.
An easement on your own parcel doesn't control what happens next door. Staying engaged in the zoning and rezoning process affects the whole area; an easement only binds the specific land it's recorded against.
Sources for further reading: The Land Trust for Tennessee, American Stewards of Liberty, National Center for Public Policy Research. We encourage you to read multiple perspectives and talk to an attorney before signing anything that affects your land permanently.