More Development on Cove Mountain Denied!

It is with relief that we add our applause to the large audience that waited at the courthouse in Sevierville to learn whether the County Commissioners would allow the addition of yet more development along Wears Valley. Cove Mountain is the area’s largest and most visible peak encompassing 942 acres and developers wanted to add 61 lots to 89 acres of it. The vote was NO and the residents in the area approved with thunderous applause.

We’ve been concerned for the last three years about the amount of construction of cabins in the whole area of Pigeon Forge and Wears Valley and the destruction it has brought to the mountains. Pollution from sediment has affected the streams and ground water to say nothing of the loss of timber and the resultant gouges made to the sides of the mountains.

Just the other day I was driving on the back roads (Bird’s Creek Road) coming from the Glades Road Arts and Crafts community of Gatlinburg and going towards Upper Middle Creek (the road on which the main entrance of Dollywood sits) when I looked over to my left and saw a whole mountain had been zig zagged to the top with roads and denuded of trees in preparation of more construction of cabins. When is the area going to be overbuilt? Is it already overbuilt?

Two years ago, I saw an alarming set of numbers suddenly appear on a former web site I worked for which had a large number of cabin clients as well as campground clients. For the first time in the website’s 8 year history, the campgrounds numbers surged past the cabin numbers, and the cabin numbers dropped off. It was the best year our campground clients had ever had and we felt it might be the signal pointing to over construction of cabins in the area. I also took calls from the Knoxville News Sentinel asking pointed questions about the industry and I deflected them as best I could, all the time wondering if the death knell for the cabin industry was echoing through the mountains already.

But that was two years ago and the construction still goes on unabated. I can only trust that the commissioners will be as vigilant as they can be to assure any further developers submit very clear plans about what they are building so good decisions can be made about the construction. And too, we hope the residents never give up their rights to hear, learn, veto or applaud what is planned for their neighborhoods.