Norris council sets special meeting to take action on RV park lawsuit
Covenant Life Church in Norris has been in a battle with the city of Norris more than five years over the church’s unauthorized Solid Rock RV Park. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Immediately after returning to the council room to reconvene the meeting in public, Mayor Chris Mitchell asked that the council members set a special meeting for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25, to take some as yet unspecified action on the lawsuits, based on advice from the attorneys during the private meeting.
Although the city won a permanent injunction against the church from the U.S. District Court in Knoxville on May 1 ordering the church to shut down the campground and remove the remaining recreational vehicles from the site, there are still a few issues undecided by the court, including whether the city’s zoning regulations actually bar the use of the church’s property as an RV park.
Also during Monday’s meeting, the council discussed but deferred action on an ordinance proposed by City Manager Adam Ledford that would place restrictions and requirements for city permits for any work property owners might want to perform on city right-of-way across the borders of their land.
Mitchell suggested that the issue was important enough to call for a council workshop open to the public about right-of-way management, which would include even what kinds of vegetation residents would be allowed to plant.
“Individuals are going to be impacted by this,” the mayor said. “I do not want to rush it. WE need to do it right.”
Ledford indicated that there could be penalties written into the ordinance for residents who do not get permits for work on right-of-way areas, which could include fines.
The council also approved a request from Assistant City Manager Bailey Whited to allow him to seek bids for cellphone services for city staff.
Mitchell, who is running for re-election to the council along with the rest of the council members and two challengers in the Nov. 5 general election, also announced that he would sponsor two “town hall” meetings for council candidates on Saturday, Sept. 21.
The first session will be from 1 to 4 p.m., and the second from 5 to 8 p.m. Both will be in the City Council meeting room at the Norris Community Building.
The mayor invited all council candidates to participate in the two sessions.
As for the RV park issue, the City Council on Aug. 12 denied for the second time an application from Covenant Life for rezoning of a portion of its Norris campus for use as an RV park. The council voted 4-0 to deny approval of an ordinance that would have rezoned a 3.3-acre parcel of the church’s 17.6-acre campus to C2, a general commercial zone.
Norris contends that RV parks and trailer parks are permitted in C2 zones, but are not allowed in the P1 professional/civic zone that covers the church property now.
Once again, there were no representatives of Covenant Life Church – not even its attorney – present for either a 5:30 public hearing on the request or the 6 p.m. council meeting Aug. 12, during which the council voted on the measure.
Five Norris residents spoke during the public hearing in opposition to the rezoning request, saying that the area along Norris Freeway (U.S. 441) needs to be kept non-commercial.
The church was given two opportunities to persuade the council to approve the rezoning, once during the July 8 council meeting and again during the regular August meeting.
This was the council’s final vote on the issue regarding the church’s Solid Rock RV Park, which Covenant Life opened in 2019.
After operating the RV park illegally – without proper zoning or permits from the city -- for nearly five years, the church finally shut it down May 31 after receiving the order to do so from the U.S. District Court in Knoxville.
The church then filed a rezoning request with the city, which it had steadfastly refused to do before.
In an unusual move after the rezoning request failed at the July 8 council meeting, Mayor Chris Mitchell got the council’s permission to schedule the public hearing and another vote on the request for the August meeting.
On July 8, Mitchell and council members Loretta Painter and Will Grinder voted to reject the ordinance on first reading. The other two council members, Bill Grieve and Chuck Nicholson, were absent.
Painter said she would not be able to attend the Aug. 12 hearing and meeting, but Nicholson and Grieve were in attendance.
The church’s lawyer, Daniel Sanders of Knoxville, said during the July 1 Norris Planning Commission meeting that the July 8 council meeting was not convenient for church representatives to attend. He requested that the vote be delayed until the August meeting, which he indicated he and supportive church members would attend. None of them did.
The city has been battling the church over the RV park since it opened.
Then, on May 1, it was ordered shut down by U.S. District Judge Charles E. Atchley Jr. in Knoxville.
On July 1, the Planning Commission voted 7-0 against the rezoning, citing documents from 1937 and 1959 in which the Tennessee Valley Authority required that the land along Norris Freeway from Andersonville Highway to beyond Norris Dam be preserved as a greenway, and not be used for commercial purposes.
Mitchell, who supplied the Planning Commission with the documents, led the discussion at the Planning Commission and again during the July 8 council meeting, during which he cited protection of the Norris Freeway greenway as the reason the church’s rezoning should be denied.
“The city and TVA have valued this as a special area,” Mitchell said before the vote on the rezoning request at the Planning Commission, adding that the “intent is to keep the area beautiful.”
Also cited during the Planning Commission discussion was the recently created Norris Freeway Scenic Byway, part of a state/federal program that gives special recognition and protection to certain designated scenic routes from development and commercialization across the United States.
The rezoning request from the church came in early June after the church had cleared the last of the RV trailers from the 16-space pull-though campsites by May 31, as required by the federal court order issued May 1.
The church, at the northwest corner of Andersonville Highway and Norris Freeway (U.S. 441), opened the facility initially as the Solid Rock RV Park, which it later renamed the Solid Rock Retreat, before being shut down by the court order.
It was only after that order was issued that the church decided to follow the city’s regulations, and asked Norris to rezone the site to allow for the campground.
The church’s request would have resulted in rezoning of the area carved out earlier for the RV park on the church’s along Andersonville Highway and Norris Freeway.
Although the church’s attorney acknowledged that the RV park initially charged campers for staying on the site, he said that after the city made an issue of that, the church began accepting donations from campers, rather than directly charging them overnight fees.
He told the Planning Commission, however, that the church might go back to operating the campground as a commercial enterprise if the rezoning is approved. The church would also collect hotel/motel taxes on those fees, which would be turned over to the city, he noted.
While it was operating commercially, the church charged campers $800 a month for each RV site, and advertised the park on its own website, where people could reserve a space and pay for it online.