{"id":15485,"date":"2023-06-30T19:05:47","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T19:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/?p=15485"},"modified":"2023-07-07T16:31:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T16:31:42","slug":"santa-fe-realtors-promote-diverse-housing-options-in-housing-strapped-region-2-3-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3-3-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-4-2-4-2-2-3-2-4-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-3-3-2-2-3-2-2-2-3-2-3-2-2-2-2-3-3-2-2-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/homepage\/success-story\/etar-transform0723","title":{"rendered":"East Tennessee Association of REALTORS\u00ae Jump-starts Riverfront Development through Transforming Neighborhoods"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>At the heart of Knoxville, Tennessee, one of the fastest-growing mid-sized cities in the nation, is a meandering stretch of the Tennessee River whose banks are ripe for development.\u00a0 It has long been the city\u2019s intention to create a walkable, amenity-rich destination waterfront district, but efforts to date have only progressed in fits and starts.\u00a0 Given the sharply increasing demand for housing and the untapped potential for an enlivened waterfront, the East Tennessee REALTORS\u00ae<\/sup> (ETR) applied for the Transforming Neighborhoods Program<\/a> for a focused study by the Counselors of Real Estate (CRE) Consulting Corps to get the project on track.\u00a0 The REALTOR\u00ae<\/sup> Party underwrote four studies by this elite group of creative problem solvers in the past year, and Knoxville received one of them.<\/p>\n

ETR\u2019s Governmental Affairs and Policy Director Hancen Sale suspects that the association\u2019s existing working relationships with relevant community partners probably contributed to their application\u2019s success. \u00a0\u201cThey certainly boosted the project\u2019s success,\u201d he says. \u00a0\u201cThe major stakeholders involved are well known to us, so it made perfect sense to build even stronger partnerships with City Council members, City staff, and the University, who all have an interest in developing the waterfront.\u201d \u00a0As the political will was already there, he notes, the directive for the CRE team was specifically to identify sites for development and create a strategic plan, taking into account the objectives and interests of the local stakeholders, as well as market realities and opportunities.<\/p>\n

The first phase of the study took place in October 2022, when the CRE team leader came for a short visit to meet some of the stakeholders and see the waterfront.\u00a0 This helped to narrow the definition of the task, and ETR then began reaching out to additional stakeholders and working with the city to determine what was already being done, to avoid overlapping efforts.\u00a0 \u201cWe wanted the CRE team to be able to focus where they needed to, so we were careful not to throw the whole kitchen sink at them,\u201d says Sale.\u00a0 He and his team invited the Knoxville Community Development Corporation, those involved in the design of a planned pedestrian bridge linking the opposite sides of the river, and several residents of the area to meet and share their views with the CRE team when they convened in Knoxville.<\/p>\n

That happened over a week in April, which, Sale reports, was intense, but great.\u00a0 \u201cThe six-member team was deliberately diversified so that we benefited from expertise in numerous relevant fields.\u00a0 It included an affordable housing expert, an engineer who focused on infrastructure, and an attorney with a background in economics who could speak to the legal ramifications of plans.\u00a0 They came in with an impressive preliminary understanding of the situation and really hit the ground running.\u201d\u00a0 The first day featured a bus tour of the river frontage and an introductory dinner.\u00a0 The following days were filled with meetings with more than thirty stakeholders, which ETR had arranged, but was not present for, notes Sale, to maintain as neutral an atmosphere as possible.\u00a0 On Friday, the CRE team delivered an initial presentation to all the stakeholders involved.<\/p>\n

Sale reports that this generated a great response.\u00a0 \u201cAfterward, both the neighborhood groups and developers were excited about it \u2013 that kind of shared enthusiasm doesn\u2019t often happen around development projects!\u201d\u00a0 The initial takeaway, he says, is that \u201cThere\u2019s huge potential, and while there are many big expensive projects that are worth considering, there are also many ways we can be engaging the waterfront in the short-term and that are not overly cost prohibitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the community awaits the final report from the CRE team, the anticipation is palpable, he adds: \u201cWe\u2019re actually getting unsolicited phone calls from a wide range of stakeholders, asking when the report will be delivered.\u00a0 The people involved are really excited about the process, and that bodes well for implementing plans moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more about how the East Tennessee REALTORS\u00ae<\/sup> is helping the City of Knoxville to make the most of its under-developed waterfront, contact Governmental Affairs and Policy Director Hancen Sale at hancen@etnrealtors.com<\/a> or 865.588.6350.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Knoxville has long wanted to revitalize its downtown waterfront along the Tennessee River, to create an appealing sense of place and address the increasingly limited housing supply. To help get the project off the ground, the East Tennessee Association of REALTORS\u00ae turned to the REALTOR\u00ae Party\u2019s Transforming Neighborhoods program, which awarded the city an in-depth study with actionable recommendations by a team of experts from the CRE Consulting Corps.","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,33,296],"tags":[588,1603],"class_list":["post-15485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-us","category-success-stories","category-success-story","tag-tennessee","tag-transforming-neighborhoods"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}