Rockwood City Council cleared the way for roughly 66 new homes on Oct. 29, voting unanimously at a special noon session to rezone land in the city's Clymersville community for a subdivision planned by Knoxville-based Black Oak Construction (via 3B Media News).
The city's public notice for the meeting spells out the change: an ordinance amending Rockwood's zoning map to move a property on Clymersville Road from R-2 Medium Density Residential to R-4 Multi-Family Residential. The council held its public hearing on the ordinance at City Hall, 110 North Chamberlain Avenue, before the vote.
The notice uses the R-4 district's multi-family name, while 3B Media News described the project as about 66 single-family homes. Neither source lays out the lot sizes, home sizes or price points, so the exact product Black Oak plans to build isn't public yet.
Representatives of Ingram Gore and Associates, LLC came to the hearing to field questions about site preparation. No questions came up, and no one spoke against the request, 3B Media News reported.
Mayor Jason Jolly called the project a major milestone for the city. He said it's the first new neighborhood development during his time as mayor and that it will add to the city's tax base.
That matters in a town that hasn't been growing. Rockwood had 5,444 residents at the 2020 census, about 2% fewer than in 2010, and the University of Tennessee's Municipal Technical Advisory Service lists the same figure as the city's certified population. The city sits at the foot of Walden Ridge on the eastern edge of the Cumberland Plateau in Roane County, with Watts Bar Lake along much of its southern side. It started as an iron town built around the Roane Iron Company's furnace in the late 1860s and has since spread out toward Interstate 40, the main route between Knoxville and Nashville.
What comes next is still loose. Site preparation is expected to start once the property transfer is finalized, 3B Media News reported, and no construction timeline has been announced.
Why it matters for Contractors
A 66-home subdivision is a sizable job for a town of about 5,400, and the first wave of work will be site prep: clearing, grading, utilities and streets. If you run an excavation or utility crew in Roane County, it's worth reaching out to Black Oak or Ingram Gore once the land deal closes rather than waiting for a bid notice that may never be posted publicly.
If the homes are built in phases, local framers, roofers, electricians, plumbers and HVAC shops can also look for steady work across a stretch of months. Watch the city's council agendas and building permit activity for the plat and permit filings that usually signal when vertical construction is close.
For small builders weighing their own projects in Rockwood, note how this one went: a unanimous council vote and a public hearing with no opposition.