By Mike Steely
Senior Writer
steelym@knoxfocus.com
Located on Bruhin Road across from the Inskip Park and Pool, The Village at Inskip apartment complex was officially opened at the end of October with a ribbon-cutting.
Mayor Kincannon addressed the event, saying, “We’re a growing city, and the people who work here need a place to live. So the people who are going to live in The Village of Inskip are serving in our hospitality industry. They’re working at our assisted living facilities. They’re taking care of us, and they need an affordable place to live.”
District 5 Councilman Charles Thomas, who represents the area, did not attend the ribbon-cutting. He was the sole vote against the city’s 7-1 approval of the development.
“You effectively lobbied for a zoning change from RN-2 to RN-5 over the neighborhood’s objections, and mine, when two previous city councils had, because of safety and infrastructure inadequacies on this site, denied even an RN-2,” Thomas wrote in his open reply to the invitation from John Huber, the developer of the 98-unit complex.
“Any ribbon cutting on this project is premature. I would appreciate more of an invitation when those future residents would like to walk in their neighborhood and not have their only choice in the road or ditch.”
The Inskip Neighborhood Association also stood unsuccessfully against the development, citing no walkable access to Inskip Elementary, increasing traffic on the already busy street, and the safety of children crossing the street to the park and pool. Some members continue to speak out about what’s needed there.
The council approved a grant of $1.44 million from the affordable rental development fund for the project, with the idea of the developer building sidewalks along the busy road. The city has since created a pedestrian crosswalk across Bruhin Road to the park and pool, and a city bus stop is planned there for next year. But there is no school bus service planned.
Knox County School Bus policy dealing with K-5 says, “Students living more than 1 mile from their zoned school are eligible for bus service. Students living within 1.0 mile fall into the Parent Responsibility Zone and receive no bus service.” The new apartments are 1.1 miles from Inskip Elementary School.
Lynne Siglin, a former teacher and Inskip resident, told The Focus, “Elementary kids will have to walk in a ditch on Bruhin Road and up to Broadview Drive in order to get to Inskip Elementary from Inskip Village Way apartments if they don’t have a car to ride in. There needs to be a sidewalk where the ditch is.”
“Even if only one child has to walk in the ditch on busy Bruhin each school day, that is one too many,” she said.
Continuing efforts to bring sidewalks to Bruhin Road and other neighborhood streets is one of the main aims of the Inskip Neighborhood Association. The residents have also tried for years to get a sidewalk from Dutch Valley Road up the hill to the pool.
In a meeting with residents at the Inskip Park shelter in 2022, John Huber said the current requirement to develop the apartment complex involves building a sidewalk along the Bruhin Road frontage of the property. Local residents said that the sidewalk needs to be extended to Dutch Valley Road and Broadview Drive. Huber indicated that, if that is required and the city grants a right-of-way, he would consider it.
City replies to Village at Inskip sidewalk questions
Grant Rosenberg, Knoxville’s Chief Operations Officer, told The Focus that he agrees sidewalks are needed along Bruhin Road but said the funding is not available.
He sent the following statement.
“The City cannot require a developer to build sidewalks from property line to property line. The resulting development plan provides a connection to Inskip Pool & Park, and as you know the City would like to eventually build sidewalks along Bruhin Rd (this connection project was included in our Sales Tax Referendum), however there isn’t any current funding available.
“The initial development concept proposed a sidewalk along the full property frontage. It was determined that a full-frontage sidewalk was unnecessary, disproportionate to the project’s scope, and appeared to exceed essential nexus criteria. Instead, the City recommended sidewalk improvements proportional to the development’s impact. The sidewalk was set back from the roadway to keep construction costs reasonable and better support Vision Zero objectives. Because the development frontage has substantially more right-of-way than adjacent properties, extending the sidewalk north or south would require significant grading and property acquisition, making the east side of Bruhin Road the more feasible location for a future larger-scale sidewalk project.”
