Walland STR Rules: Blount County, Townsend, and the Maryville Ban

Jacob Mishalanie
Aug 16
14 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

Layered blue ridges at dusk on Foothills Parkway near Walland, Tennessee

Most Walland cabins sit in unincorporated Blount County, not inside the City of Maryville and not inside the City of Townsend. That is the first sentence a buyer needs, because the ban people Google is Maryville and the 2026 hotel-tax talk is Townsend. Three clerks. Three answers. One map. Confirm the parcel on Blount GIS and the Building Commissioner’s map before anyone fills out a form. A pin that types Walland into search can still have drifted across a city limit. Believe the map, not the listing caption, and write the jurisdiction into the offer memo before anyone prices nights.

This page is the jurisdiction walk. It is not a Maryville-city how-to. It is not a Townsend cluster. It is not a Port Townsend, Washington, permit rewrite. It is not a fee table this draft cannot screenshot. Unincorporated Blount is the pin. Maryville amended Title 14 in 2018 to prohibit short-term residential rental units. City of Townsend is a different clerk with pause, three-percent, and $250-a-year figures that every sentence on this page will hedge. AirROI’s Low label is a vendor signal, not an ordinance.

Read this next to the market report. AirROI’s August 8, 2026 lock still prints forty-five listings, a $323 daily rate, 37 percent occupancy, a $32602 typical year, and a $3050 median month. Those cells do not decide whether the cabin is legal on the tract you are buying. The investment page underwrites the year. The startup page stacks desks you can defend. This page only draws the three-clerk map and refuses to mash those desks into one phone number.

Confirm the parcel before you call a clerk

Open Blount County GIS and the Building Commissioner’s map the week you underwrite. Type the address. Then type the tax map and parcel. Walland is an unincorporated hamlet on US-321 / Lamar Alexander Parkway. It is not a city with its own short-term rental desk. A cabin in Miller’s Cove can sit in county zoning while a house five minutes west sits inside Maryville and a house ten minutes east sits inside Townsend. The listing title will not save you. The clerk you call depends on the line the parcel actually crosses, and a wrong clerk is how a legal tract inherits a ban it does not sit inside.

If the parcel is unincorporated Blount, stay on this page and on the county zoning PDF. If the parcel is inside the City of Maryville, stop treating it as a Walland cabin and call Maryville Planning. If the parcel is inside the City of Townsend, call that clerk and do not apply Townsend’s 2026 talk to a county pin. Three phones. One wrong call is how a buyer underwrites a ban onto a legal tract, or a permit onto a tract that does not need it. Caption the jurisdiction in the offer memo the same way you caption the driveway.

Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain are hotels on this road. They are not the zoning standard and not a shortcut around GIS. HOA packets and Blackberry-adjacent covenants can be stricter than anything the county published. Pull those papers before you model nights. The financing desk will ask whether the use is legal on that tract. A lender will not accept a listing caption as proof. Neither should you. Confirm the parcel. Then pick a clerk. Screenshot the GIS line and keep it with the zoning PDF.

Unincorporated Blount is the pin

Primary zoning text is the Blount County Zoning Regulations PDF. Use the live Document Center file the week of draft. One copy is posted as Zoning-Regulations-PDF. A later recodification is posted as Zoning-Regs-08172023. Confirm which PDF the Building Commissioner is citing before you quote a line in a memo. Section 7.11 covers vacation rental cabins. In R-1 Rural District 1, maximum density of vacation rental cabins shall be no greater than single-family density in the zone. That is the county’s sentence. Screenshot it the week you close, not the week you first toured the porch.

In R-2 Rural District 2, maximum density shall be no greater than 0.5 units per acre, which the text states as one unit per two acres on average over a single tract or development. Up to two vacation rental cabin units on a single lot or tract may be permitted directly by the Building Commissioner — confirm the live PDF still says that the week you close. This page will not invent a numeric cap the county did not publish. No lottery appears in the file this pass. Density is not a town-wide ceiling you can quote as a single number, and a seller who quotes one without a page number is already selling a story.

R-1 and R-2 are rural districts, not a Maryville city lot and not a Townsend Main Street storefront. A vacation rental cabin in those districts still has to match the density the zone already uses for single-family use, or the half-unit-per-acre R-2 average. Two units on one tract is a Building Commissioner question, not a blog permission slip. Pull the PDF. Call the Commissioner if the tract is odd. Then write the density you can defend into the startup stack. Do not write a cap this county did not print, and do not treat two units on one tract as a blog permission slip.

Maryville is the 2018 ban, not the cabin

City of Maryville amended Title 14 in 2018 to prohibit short-term residential rental units. Council materials sit on maryvillegov.com. The Daily Times covered the November 2018 ban. Walland is not Maryville. A Walland owner is not banned because Maryville is. Do not tell a Miller’s Cove host they must shut down because a city six miles west closed the use. Do not tell a Maryville-city buyer that Walland’s county density rules will save them. Town and county are different desks in every paragraph on this page, and mixing them is how a closing inherits the wrong ordinance.

If the parcel is inside Maryville city limits, point it to the Planning desk and stop. Residential development and short-term rentals route through Mike Brusseau, Land Development Administrator, at , listed on maryvillegov.com/planning.html the week this cluster was briefed. Confirm the name and the number the week you call. This page will not walk a Maryville-city application because the city banned the use. A banned city parcel is not a Quiet Side cabin. It is a different purchase, and no amount of Miller’s Cove photography will rewrite Title 14.

Buyers who Google “Smokies Airbnb rules” land on Sevier County explainers, Knoxville city talk, or Maryville’s ban and then paste the wrong answer onto a Walland pin. That is why this page exists. The market report already said the file is forty-five unincorporated-side listings, not a city inventory. Keep Maryville in the ban column. Keep Walland in the county column. Keep Townsend in the other-clerk column. Three columns. No blending. A Smokies Google result is not a Blount answer.

City of Townsend is a different clerk

City of Townsend is not Walland. It is not unincorporated Blount. It is a municipal clerk with its own 2026 conversation. News this draft week — WATE on March 16, 2026, WBIR on March 17, 2026, and the Daily Times on May 21, 2026 — describes a planning-commission recommendation to pause new overnight rentals while a permitting process is written. The same coverage talks about a 3 percent occupancy tax collection start discussed for May 1, 2026, and later a 60-day permit clock with a $250-per-year figure in the Daily Times write-up.

Hedge every Townsend number. Confirm the live clerk page and the ordinance PDF the week of draft. Do not write a Townsend cluster, and do not treat a May news story as the ordinance itself. Do not apply a pause, a three-percent tax, or a $250 permit to a Walland / unincorporated Blount parcel. If the parcel is inside Townsend city limits, call that clerk and stop using this page as the application. If the parcel is Walland, do not scare a county host with a city process they do not sit inside. Town and county again. Same rule as Maryville, different rumor.

Townsend lunch, the Heritage Center, and the Cades Cove gate are drives from a Walland bed. They are not a second regulation file. The Little River page will send guests east on US-321 without turning Townsend into a lodging cluster. This rules page only needs the parcel test: inside Townsend, different clerk, hedge the 2026 figures; outside Townsend, do not import them. A buyer who underwrites Townsend’s permit talk onto Miller’s Cove is already in the wrong memo. Town lunch is a drive. Town lodging rules are a city-limit question.

Occupancy tax is a separate desk from zoning

Zoning asks whether the cabin may operate. Occupancy tax asks who remits when it does. Those are different phones. Confirm Blount County hotel, motel, or occupancy tax with the Blount County Trustee. Confirm Tennessee local occupancy tax with the Department of Revenue page on marketplace remittance for stays under 30 continuous days — that page is current this draft week. Hotels and vacation lodging services remit to the local government. Do not invent a Blount rate this draft did not screenshot. Ask the Trustee for the live schedule and write down the date you called.

Hedge any 28- versus 30-night cutoff. The 28-night cabin product cares about that line. This page will not invent it. Marketplaces often remit for short stays. Longer stays can change the tax treatment. Ask Revenue and the Trustee the week you list, and write down which desk said what. A listing that crosses thirty continuous days is not a loophole you invent from a blog. It is a question for the same two desks, asked the week you list, not the week a guest already arrived.

Do not treat AirROI’s Low or unlicensed label as a tax opinion. Do not treat a platform dashboard as the Blount Trustee. Do not paste a Sevier County lodging-tax explainer onto a Blount parcel. Sevier is a different county. This cluster will not use Sevier’s factory visitor-spend figure as a comparison, and it will not use Sevier’s tax desk as a substitute clerk. Blount Trustee for the county. Tennessee Department of Revenue for the state overlay on local occupancy. Two desks. Screenshot both. A platform dashboard is not either desk.

State overlay is not a Blount permit

Tennessee’s Short-Term Rental Unit Act, T.C.A. section 13-7-601 and following, is state overlay. The MTAS summary reviewed July 9, 2026, is a useful restatement, not a Blount application form. The Act is not a county permit. It does not replace section 7.11. It does not replace the Maryville ban. It does not replace a Townsend ordinance if your parcel is actually inside Townsend. Read it as the state frame. Then go back to the clerk who owns the pin. A state overlay does not fill in a county form you never opened.

No published numeric cap for unincorporated Blount turned up this pass. Do not invent one. Do not write a lottery. Do not write a Woodstock-style ceiling onto a rural Tennessee hamlet because another cluster had one. Density in R-1 and R-2 is the supply rule the PDF actually prints. Two units on one tract is a Building Commissioner question. A county-wide number of cabins is not in the file. If a seller or a manager quotes a cap they cannot show you in the PDF, ask for the page. No page means no cap, and no cap is not the same sentence as no rules.

The investment page will say one unit at a $3050 median month is a hard sell. That is a revenue sentence, not a legal cap. Do not mash them. Legal use is the GIS and section 7.11 question. Yield is the AirROI question. A legal cabin can still be a thin year. An illegal city pin can still photograph well. Underwrite both, separately. This page owns the legal half. Leave the year on the market report and investment siblings.

HOA and Blackberry-adjacent covenants can be stricter

County zoning is the floor, not the only paper. A subdivision packet, an HOA covenant, or a Blackberry-adjacent restriction can forbid short-term lodging on a tract the county would otherwise allow. Say that before anyone falls in love with a porch on West Millers Cove. This page will not invent a resort rule. It will not review Blackberry Farm or Blackberry Mountain. Those are hotels. One sentence. Pull the covenant. If the packet is silent, get that silence in writing. If the packet bans the use, the county PDF will not save the closing. A hotel down the road is not a variance.

Covenants are why GIS is not enough. A buyer who only reads section 7.11 and never opens the HOA folder is buying a lawsuit with a river view. Ask the listing agent for the packet. Ask the HOA board, if one exists, how they treat vacation rental cabins in 2026. Screenshot the answer. File it next to the zoning PDF. The startup page already treats covenants as a line item because they can kill the use after you have paid for furniture. Read that line before you order the beds.

Neighbors are not a clerk, but they are a risk line. Quiet Side density is forty-five listings, not four thousand. That does not mean every gravel road wants a Friday turnover. House rules, parking, and a cleaner who will not leave bags at the road are how you keep a legal cabin legal in practice. The DIY versus hire page keeps local knowledge on the owner. This page only needs the paper: county PDF, city limit, covenant. Three documents. Then the phones. A legal cabin still has to keep the road quiet on a Friday night.

AirROI Low is a vendor label, not an ordinance

AirROI’s Walland page may print Low regulation and zero licensed listings. That is a vendor label on a dated file. It is not a Blount ordinance. It is not a certificate. It is not permission to skip the Building Commissioner. It is not proof Maryville’s ban applies. It is not proof Townsend’s 2026 talk applies. Do not hand an AirROI badge to a closing attorney as a permit. Do not write Low equals legal. Do not write Low equals banned. The label is a signal to go read the PDF. It is not a green light and it is not a red light.

This page will not print a fee it cannot screenshot from a clerk. Hedge the Townsend $250-per-year figure until the ordinance is on that clerk’s desk. Do not invent a Blount application fee. Do not invent a Maryville workaround fee for a banned use. Confirm Trustee and Revenue for tax. Confirm the Building Commissioner for density. Confirm Maryville Planning at only if the parcel is actually inside that city. Confirm Townsend’s clerk only if the parcel is inside that city. Four phones, used in the right order, beat one rumor.

Keep the three-clerk map on one line you can repeat. Unincorporated Blount: vacation rental cabins in R-1 and R-2, section 7.11, no invented cap. Maryville: Title 14, 2018 ban, Planning desk. Townsend: different clerk, hedge the 2026 pause, three-percent, and $250 talk. Occupancy tax: Trustee and Tennessee Department of Revenue. State overlay: T.C.A. 13-7-601, not a county permit. Covenants can be stricter. AirROI Low is not law. The pin is Walland. The county is Blount. Call the clerk who owns the line, and do not let a vendor badge replace the call.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which clerk owns a Walland cabin?

Most Walland cabins sit in unincorporated Blount County. Confirm the parcel on Blount GIS before you call anyone. Maryville is a different city. Townsend is a different clerk. A listing title that says Walland is not proof of jurisdiction. Believe the map, not the caption, and write the clerk into the memo. Believe the map, not the listing caption, and write the jurisdiction into the offer memo before anyone prices nights.

What does Blount County allow in R-1 and R-2?

Section 7.11 of the county zoning regulations covers vacation rental cabins. R-1 density is no greater than single-family in the zone. R-2 is a 0.5-unit-per-acre average, one per two acres. Up to two units on one tract may be permitted by the Building Commissioner. In R-2 Rural District 2, maximum density shall be no greater than 0.5 units per acre, which the text states as one unit per two acres on average over a single tract or development.

Does Maryville’s short-term rental ban apply to Walland?

No, not if the parcel is unincorporated Blount. City of Maryville amended Title 14 in 2018 to prohibit short-term residential rental units. If the parcel is inside Maryville, call Planning at and stop. Do not paste the ban onto a county pin this hamlet does not sit in. Maryville amended Title 14 in 2018 to prohibit short-term residential rental units.

Do Townsend’s 2026 rules apply to a Walland cabin?

Only if the parcel is inside Townsend city limits. 2026 news describes a pause recommendation, 3 percent occupancy-tax talk, and a $250-per-year permit figure. Hedge every Townsend number. Do not apply those figures to unincorporated Blount, and do not write a Townsend cluster. Do not apply a pause, a three-percent tax, or a $250 permit to a Walland / unincorporated Blount parcel.

Who handles occupancy tax?

Zoning and tax are different desks. Confirm the Blount County Trustee for county hotel or motel tax. Confirm the Tennessee Department of Revenue for marketplace remittance on stays under 30 continuous days. Hedge any 28- versus 30-night cutoff. Do not invent a Blount rate this page did not screenshot. Confirm Tennessee local occupancy tax with the Department of Revenue page on marketplace remittance for stays under 30 continuous days — that page is current this draft week.

Is AirROI’s Low label the law?

Low regulation and zero licensed listings are vendor labels, not a Blount ordinance and not a permit. Do not hand an AirROI badge to a closing attorney. Read section 7.11, check the city limit, and pull any HOA or Blackberry-adjacent covenant. The label is a signal to go read the PDF. Do not hand an AirROI badge to a closing attorney as a permit.

Is there a numeric cap on Walland cabins?

No published numeric cap for unincorporated Blount turned up this pass. Density in R-1 and R-2 is the supply rule the PDF actually prints. Two units on one tract is a Building Commissioner question, not a town-wide ceiling you can quote as a number. Density is not a town-wide ceiling you can quote as a single number, and a seller who quotes one without a page number is already selling a story.

What is the Tennessee Short-Term Rental Unit Act here?

section 13-7-601 and following. The MTAS summary is a restatement, not a Blount application. It does not replace county zoning, Maryville’s ban, or a Townsend ordinance on a city parcel. Read it as the state frame, then call the clerk who owns the pin. It does not replace a Townsend ordinance if your parcel is actually inside Townsend.

Do I need to confirm the parcel before I advertise?

Confirm the parcel on Blount GIS and the Building Commissioner’s map before anyone fills out a form. Confirm which PDF the Building Commissioner is citing before you quote a line in a memo. Confirm the Building Commissioner for density. Up to two vacation rental cabin units on a single lot or tract may be permitted directly by the Building Commissioner — confirm the live PDF still says that the week you close.

Does a 30-night setting fill the slow month?

A 30-night minimum is a platform filter. Typical stay on these extracts is still a short trip. The filter is not a filled slow month and it is not a remote-work product you did not photograph. AirROI’s August 8, 2026 lock still prints forty-five listings, a $323 daily rate, 37 percent occupancy, a $32602 typical year, and a $3050 median month.