city/county taxes or both????? (Knoxville, Jefferson City: apartment complexes, condo, house)

[sthepoet]

Just read a thread on where the city limits were in Knoxville that really got me thinking. We are looking at a home in the Dandridge area, it is aprox. 8 miles from town, but has city water, does this mean they consider this an annex of Dandridge and therefore we pay both city and county taxes?? Want no surprises here, but where we live we are only 3 miles form town , have septic and well, pay only county taxes. Can anyone enlighten us on what the water being out that far from town could possibly mean if not considered part of town and annexed??

[john t]

Eventually Dandridge will annex you. When? I don't know. The city water thing is sometimes an indicator, ask where the city limits runs. Even if it's not in the city the distance of 8 miles may not be enough buffer zone especially if a large business moves nearby. Cities usually give those business incentives to come, pitch the economic advantages of them coming, and then annexing everything out to there.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by sthepoet

Just read a thread on where the city limits were in Knoxville that really got me thinking. We are looking at a home in the Dandridge area, it is aprox. 8 miles from town, but has city water, does this mean they consider this an annex of Dandridge and therefore we pay both city and county taxes?? Want no surprises here, but where we live we are only 3 miles form town , have septic and well, pay only county taxes. Can anyone enlighten us on what the water being out that far from town could possibly mean if not considered part of town and annexed??

Several years ago, the state required all municipalities in Tennessee to determine their "urban growth boundary" meaning the land surrounding the municipalities that will eventually be annexed. Tennessee cities and towns are not allowed to annex anything that is not currently part of their urban growth boundary.

You should check with the city of Dandridge to see where their urban growth boundary is located. If you're 8 miles from the current Dandridge city limits, I suspect you're safe, but you should check it just to make sure. You might even be in some other town's urban growth boundary (like Jefferson City).

Just having "city water" does not mean that you'll be annexed. That just means you're part of a utility cooperative which purchases its water from a local city.

You might be interested in knowing that, by law, no municipality in Tennessee can take up more than 1/3 of the land area of any one county, so Tennessee towns are limited in how large they can get. The only exception is what happened in Lynchburg and Nashville when those cities essentially gave up their city charters and merged with the counties. I don't see that happening with Dandridge and Jefferson County.

[daniellefort]

I live in a home that is on an island type road at the very end where i have a road in front of my house that goes around the corner to behind my house. Well the front of my house is considered city, the back side county. Now i called the city to pick up my trash and they said i was county and i would have to pay for my own service so i called the company that picks up trash to go ahead and start paying for it and the trash company said, "your in the city limits" so we'll pick it up for no charge. Now we don't pay city taxes but have city services while our neighbor across the street from us on the city side has to pay city taxes and pays to have their trash picked up. I guess our home is smack in the middle of the county/city line. It's quite frustrating when we need to call the city or county for anything because they even don't know where we stand.

[knoxgarden]

It does get weird. I'm in a large condo development in Knoxville on Gleason Road about a mile west of West Town mall. But I'm not in the city, just the county. I pay county taxes, no city taxes, and the county sheriff comes out if there are problems, not the police.
The condo development on the other side of us is in the city. The area across the street is in the city. We aren't and neither are two very large apartment complexes behind us.
I'd love to hear the story sometime about how that happened.

[sthepoet]

wow more confused as when I posted this question, so I am thinking I need to call about any street or rural avenue I choose to look at a house? and can they give you info on where they would be even looking to annex in the next couple of years? or even if there are manufacturing coming into the area? and does things change if land developers come in and put up a resort like community?

[gemkeeper]

Originally Posted by daniellefort

I live in a home that is on an island type road at the very end where i have a road in front of my house that goes around the corner to behind my house. Well the front of my house is considered city, the back side county. Now i called the city to pick up my trash and they said i was county and i would have to pay for my own service so i called the company that picks up trash to go ahead and start paying for it and the trash company said, "your in the city limits" so we'll pick it up for no charge. Now we don't pay city taxes but have city services while our neighbor across the street from us on the city side has to pay city taxes and pays to have their trash picked up. I guess our home is smack in the middle of the county/city line. It's quite frustrating when we need to call the city or county for anything because they even don't know where we stand.

Several years ago when we lived in South Carolina friends of ours built their home on a road only a mile or two out of town. What they were never told in the process was that the school districting line cut through the middle of their property.

To make a complicated long story short, the line didn't just go thru their property, but through the house! They were told that one son was in one school district and the other son had to attend another school district. Officials based this decision on which school district did the individual boys have their bedroom in!! One had a bedroom on the one district's side; the other boy had his bedroom in the other school district.

Needless to say, soon the two sons were sharing the same bedroom and all was well. I think that is carrying the zoning process a bit too far.

I imagine the same could be true of city and county services. I would store the garbage can on city property!

[daniellefort]

Originally Posted by gemthornton

I would store the garbage can on city property!

Funny you say that. We WERE bringing our garbage cans across the street to our neighbors yard who had free pick up Literally 10 feet across the road and one day the garbage men saw us dragging it across the street and no longer picked up our trash. BUSTED!! That's when i called to start paying for the service and the garbage company told me we were in city limits to just leave it in our driveway and it would be picked up no charge.

Now our neighbor on the other side of the street who was paying for her service just turned 101 years old lives with her daughter in another city and they only come to this home once a month for 4 days so they stopped garbage pick up here and give us their 1 bag of garbage instead of paying $60 a month for garbage pick up. It's such a mess around this neighborhood as far as zoning. I think our house is split down the middle on the zone lines too. Front door is city, back door is county. Crazy..

[hiknapster]

I once rented a house that had the Mass/Conn STATE line run right through the house. I called both school districts, and both said I could pick where I wanted to send my kids to school.

Ah, the good old days.

[gemkeeper]

Very funny stuff. I guess we just all shake our heads and wonder how "they" got to be charge.

Sounds like CT and MA, hiknapster. Easy, easy going back when.

Nice that you could work out something for your elderly neighbor, daniellefort. What goes around comes around. See, you got free pick-up after all!