To the Honorable Mayor Tony Aikens and Members of the Lenoir City Council:

We, the undersigned homeowners and residents of Haven Hill subdivision, respectfully petition the City Council to deny the rezoning petition submitted by Cook Bros. Homes to rezone the approximately three-acre parcel at the entrance to Haven Hill from R-2 (Medium Density Residential) to C-2 (Central Business District). We base this request on the following:

1.  C-2 is, by the City’s own ordinance, the downtown Central Business District.
Section 11-407 of the Lenoir City Zoning Resolution establishes the purpose of the C-2 district as follows:

“In order to protect and improve the principal shopping area of Lenoir City and to permit and encourage concentrated development of office and shopping facilities, a Central Business District is hereby established.”

By the City’s own stated purpose, C-2 is the downtown Central Business District — the principal shopping area of Lenoir City. The parcel in question is not in the principal shopping area. It sits at the only entrance to a residential subdivision of more than 160 homes, directly adjacent to homes, the community clubhouse, and the community pool. Applying C-2 to this location applies the City’s downtown commercial district to a residential neighborhood entrance, contrary to the purpose for which C-2 was established.

2.  The access infrastructure is not suitable for general commercial use.
The parcel shares the single existing entrance to Haven Hill — a road designed and built to serve a residential neighborhood. There are no dedicated turn lanes, no merge lanes, and no traffic infrastructure designed to accommodate commercial traffic alongside residential ingress and egress. The introduction of general commercial uses sharing this single access point would create traffic, safety, and congestion conditions that the existing infrastructure was not designed to handle.

Moreover, even if commercial access to this parcel were routed directly from Highway 321 rather than through the subdivision entrance, Highway 321 itself is not built to handle commercial traffic at this location. There are no dedicated turn lanes or merge lanes serving this parcel on Highway 321, and the additional traffic generated by commercial use would still increase congestion at the only access point that more than 160 Haven Hill homes rely on to enter and exit their neighborhood.

3.  This is the most visible and defining point of our community.
A residential neighborhood’s entrance influences its identity, safety, and property value. The proposed parcel sits not at the edge of the subdivision but at its only point of access — within feet of homes, the pool, and the clubhouse where families gather. Rezoning this specific parcel to the City’s downtown Central Business District would not be a marginal change. It would fundamentally alter the character of the entrance to a 160-home residential community.

Our request
 For the reasons above, we respectfully ask that the Lenoir City Council deny the rezoning petition for this parcel at its public hearing on June 8, 2026, and preserve the residential zoning at the entrance to Haven Hill subdivision.