Grants for Senior Centers and housing for low income on council agenda

By Mike Steely
Senior Writer
steelym@knoxfocus.com

Knoxville’s senior centers may get some attention from the city council tomorrow when the members hear a request from the Parks and Recreation Department. The council may vote to authorize the mayor to apply for a $100,000 grant from the Tennessee Department of Disability and Aging to purchase equipment and supplies for those centers.
The town’s senior centers are the John T. O’Connor Senior Center, the Larry Cox Senior Center and the South Knoxville Community Center.
The council may also award $510,000 from federal HOME funds to Pines III, L.P., to rehab 17 affordable housing units for very low-income households. The apartment complex is at 5999 Tannahill Drive and the funding is being requested by the Housing and Neighborhood Development Department.
Midwest Causality Company may be hired to provide excess workers’ compensation insurance coverage for city and K-Trans employees. The one-year agreement is for $200,782.
William Burton is appealing to the council to overturn a planning commission approval for an increase in the allowable height of a townhouse in the Northshore Town Center Master Plan.
Mayor Indya Kincannon is reappointing Bailey Foster, Ty Murray and Joseph Woods to the Maker Council. Her requested new appointments to that group are Kami Astro, Aaron Ingram, Ashlee Mays, Brianna Officer and Diahn Ott.
Kincannon is also asking for reappointments to the Affordable Housing Fund Advisory Committee for Ben Bentley and Misty Goodwin and adding Dr. Bonnie Graham.
Zoning requests before the council include motions to change three Maryville Pike lots from RN-4 general residential to I-MU, industrial mixed-use, and two lots on Sevier Avenue to shift from RN-2 residential to RN-3 general residential neighborhood.
A property at 940 Blackstock Avenue, known as the Asylum District, is being requested to go from C-G-2, general commercial, to DK-E, downtown edge subdistrict.
The property at 315 Erin Drive was before the council to shift from I-G to I-MU  but the application was withdrawn.  A change from RN-4 residential neighborhood to C-N neighborhood commercial is requested for 911 West Baxter Avenue and three lots on North Central and Atlantic Avenue may be changed from RN-2 to industrial mixed use.
The office designation for a property on North Broadway may change to C-G-2 general commercial and two properties on Kingston Pike may go from general commercial C-G-3 to general commercial C-G-1.
The council could also approve a request for a Gallaher View Road property to go from RN-1 residential to RN-5, general residential neighborhood district.