West Hills Park - Westavia Woods Homeowners Association
West Hills Park - Westavia Woods Homeowners Association

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Sprawl in West Hills Park - Westavia Woods

Sprawl is what created our neighborhoods. We are an outgrowth of late 1950s growth in the city of Knoxville. West Hills had newly been built, and the demand for new single family housing had not been satiated. West Hills Park was developed as housing for the emerging educated middle class. Westavia Woods soon followed. With the exception of the housing at the dead end of Toxaway Drive and one house in Westavia Woods, all homes were built and inhabited by the late 1960s.

Definition of Sprawl

According to the Community Preservation Initiative in Massachusetts, sprawl is defined as

Low density development on the edge of cities and towns, poorly planned, land consumptive, auto-dependent, and designed without respect to its surroundings.

The effects of sprawl can be conceptualized using a Map. Urban development is concerned with specific zoning requirements for each parcel of land, which do not require open/green space or sidewalks and separates land uses. Even different types of residences are separated. Sprawl creates a need for private transportation options that lead to road building, and impervious parking lots. Public transit can no longer afford to reach the sprawled suburbs. Sprawl leads to the absence of well defined activity centers where people of different backgrounds can interact and get to know one another. Sprawl creates demand for city services that cannot be provided unless the tax base is increased via annexation to fund these services. Even then, the cost of providing the long-term services and paying for the secondary environmental consequences cannot be paid for with the sprawled resultant tax base.

Indicators of Sprawl

  • Lack of Neighborhood Sidewalks
  • Necessary Car Travel - Increased Vehicle Miles Traveled
  • Lack of Nearby Amenities
  • Lack of Public Green Space
  • Proliferation of Single Family Dwellings
  • No Mixed Uses

    Effects of Sprawl on Our Neighborhood

    Sprawl and Our Neighborhood

    Limited Housing Options
    The original farm house found at the end of Park Hill Circle burned last year, loosing its grandfathered land use as a landscaping business; it reverted to R-1 or single family residential housing. A young couple purchased the land, and had the area rezoned R-2, multiple family residential (a.k.a. townhouses). One of the neighbors on Toxaway became so angry over the rezoning that she petitioned the city council to rezone it back to R-1. A number of other residents support this action with the fear that our neighborhood will suffer from futher decline if lower priced townhouses are built. Looks like the housing option stock will remain single-family only.

    Transportation Options and Walkability
    Neither neighborhoods have sidewalks, though Francis Road does. A bus stop is located approximately one block away, as are a number of businesses, such as a Weigels, a small Italian diner (that delivers), a walk-in clinic, a drycleaners, a small babeaue/snowcone kiosk, two gas stations, a laundry, and a liquor store, which is about two blocks away. Down Piney Grove Church Road, you can find a barber shop. So some amenities are close to home, but most are further than walking distance away.

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