About us
Hi there! Thanks for dropping in to our site. We are Yes! Knoxville (or just ‘YES!’ if you want to keep it short).
We’re a group of local Knoxvillians that love our town and believe that the status quo of how we design and build our neighborhoods is holding us back. We believe Knoxville will be better for everyone by building neighborhoods that have more housing, more options to get around, and more community spaces.
Below you’ll find a brief Q&A about our mission, our history, and how we plan to achieve these goals. Make sure to check out all the other pages, and if this is something you want to see happen, make sure to reach out to us!
We hope you’ll join us in saying, ‘Yes, Knoxville!”
WHY HAVEN’T I HEARD OF YOU BEFORE NOW?
Because we’re new! We formed in March 2023 and in early 2024 became an official 501(c)3. We’re passionate locals with big ideas for Knoxville. We believe the triple crises of a lack of housing choices, transportation choices, and community spaces near our homes are intertwined. There are many outdated codes, zoning laws, and cultural norms causing these, and we’re here to inform people and mobilize a demand for change.
WHAT IS ‘exclusionary zoning’?
Exclusionary Zoning is just what it sounds like: zoning that excludes most things. While this is great in certain aspects (like excluding a landfill next to a school), we don’t think it’s so great when dealing with housing. We think the fact that most residential areas in town only allow a detached house is part of why the housing market is so bad, and we want to change that. Not only does more housing everywhere help with our housing crunch, but more people makes transit more viable, which can help us cut our emissions.
WHAT DOES MORE HOUSING LOOK LIKE?
While we believe that certain parts of town are appropriate for 6 floor, 10 floor, or even taller buildings, we know that isn’t for most neighborhoods. However, we believe that even just allowing something like a duplex (which is usually 2-3 floors) to be built in every neighborhood would make housing freer and give people more choices where to live affordably. And as stated previously, this snowballs and allows transit to work better too!
Won't more density mean more traffic?
Not if we build it right. Tens of thousands of new neighbors are projected to move here in the coming years, and if we continue to build mainly sprawled-out, single-family homes in a suburban pattern, then yes, traffic will get worse. But if we design our neighborhoods in a way that provides easy access to transit, bike lanes/greenways, and sidewalks to get people where they need and want to go quickly, extra cars won’t be an issue, because they won’t be on the road most of the time. Some people will prefer to drive, but everyone should have the choice to decide not to do so.
How do you plan to accomplish all this?
Our primary methods are education, outreach, and advocacy. We plan to educate others on how our vision will help Knoxville as a whole. We plan to provide resources on this site such as local studies, videos, or books on the topics we care about, as well as links to groups that support the things we do. Most importantly, through our supporters, we plan to reach out to people like politicians and developers to let them know that there is a desire for change, and we hope to work with those people to craft change, whether through helping make new city ordinances, working with the city’s budget, or working with local developers and nonprofits to see things get constructed.
CAN I BE ON THE BOARD?
We are always looking for passionate and knowledgeable locals to serve on the Board of Directors! The current time commitment is roughly 8 hours per month and Directors serve two year terms. You can use the form on the Contact page to reach out to us if you are interested!
How CAN I SUPPORT YOU OR BE INVOLVED?
If you want to be involved on a specific campaign or help us in general, you can shoot us an email telling us how you want to be involved. Also, follow us on our Instagram (@yes_Knox - link in the top header) to see updates on our monthly First Friday events and Social Hours. And, of course, you can become an annual member by donating below. Membership is based on a ‘pay-as-you-can’ basis, and we are grateful for donations anywhere from $1 to $1,000,000 (looking at you, Dolly).
i have other questions.
We love questions! Feel free to drop us any questions you have through the form below. Also feel free to reach out and tell us if you want to volunteer with us or otherwise become part of our movement. We love it when others say, ‘Yes, Knoxville!’. As we encounter more commonly asked questions we’ll add them to this page. Make sure to check out our ‘Resources’ page, which will grow in time as well. This is only the beginning, and we have big dreams for Knoxville!
Who is on your current board?
Great question! While we’ll eventually have an entire page dedicated to our Board and volunteers (building a website takes a lot of time, yall!), you can see our current Board of Directors here:
President: Aaron Jernigan
Vice President: Andrew Harper
Treasurer: Anna Parmley
Director: Ellen Zavisca
Director: Zoe Scott
Director: Jack Vaughn
Director: Matthew Debardelaben