Narrower roads OK’d for new subdivision
The two local men who are planning to build a new subdivision between the neighborhoods of Coffey Hill and Tuck A Way Ridge do not have to make all their roads 20 feet wide, the Brown County Area Plan Commission has determined.
At the Sept. 22 APC meeting, the group heard arguments about the “hardship” that building 20-foot-wide roads would pose to the project, the existing neighborhoods and the woods in which the new neighborhood is to go.
A “hardship exemption” was needed to excuse developers Steve Miller and Scott Mills from the road width part of the town zoning ordinance.
Miller and Mills are working to put up to 15 homes and a lake on the 11.19 wooded acres they own inside Nashville town limits.
At earlier meetings, Miller and Mills had made the argument that the roads in the Tuck A Way neighborhood were not 20 feet wide either, but APC members had explained that that’s because they were annexed into the town decades after they were built, so they weren’t held to those standards.
Regardless of how APC members may feel about the need — or not — for 20-foot-wide roads, the APC is charged with following the ordinance, explained member Kara Hammes. However, the APC can made modifications “where the commission finds that extraordinary hardships may result from strict compliance with these regulations,” it reads. In that case, “the commission may modify the regulations so that substantial justice may be done and the public interest served; provided that such variation will not have the effect of nullifying the purposes of this ordinance.”
Mills and Miller provided a letter from excavator Dave Wagler, who is building the roads and lake dam for the new neighborhood. Wagler wrote that there isn’t enough excavated dirt from the lake area to make the dam, Woods Lane, Woods Pond Drive and Woods Trail all 20 feet wide; the most they could be is 16 feet wide. They also hit solid rock as they tried to excavate to make part of Woods Pond Drive 20 feet, he wrote.
All of those new roads will be private roads, not maintained by the town.
Brown County Highway Superintendent Mike Magner also wrote a letter of support for the modified width for Woods Pond and Woods Trail, saying that if the speed limit is kept to 15 miles per hour and only a few homes are on them, a width of 16 feet is safe for two-way traffic. However, the main entry road, Woods Lane, would need to be wider than that, he wrote.
Four property owners from Tuck A Way also spoke in favor of the APC allowing narrower roads in the new subdivision. They are hoping that would help keep excess traffic and fast traffic out of their neighborhood. The Tuck A Way residents also didn’t want to see Woods Lane connect to Tuck A Way at the south end, because they didn’t want drivers to be able to make a loop and increase the number of cars driving past their homes.
Woods Lane already exists as a fire trail behind Tuck A Way, and it does curve back and connect with Tuck A Way Ridge Drive at the south end. Residents said they could see the need for a possible second way out of Woods Lane Subdivision, but they’d rather see that south end have a gate for emergencies only.
The APC voted 5-0-1, with Dave Harden (who is also the county’s surveyor) abstaining and Carol Bowden absent to grant the exception to the road width rules. They approved Mills’ and Miller’s plan to make Woods Lane, the main street in the subdivision, 20 feet wide, but to make the east-west connector from Woods Lane back to Tuck A Way Ridge Drive on the south end 12 feet wide. A turn-around also would be placed at the south end of the 20-foot-wide Woods Lane to return most traffic back to the north, the plan says.
For Woods Pond Drive and Woods Trail — the two smaller roads that would lead to homes in the new subdivision — the width will be 16 feet or possibly narrower, the plan says.
The neighbors thanked the APC for their vote.
Seven residential lots changed to business zoning
A couple requested and received a positive recommendation to have seven lots, including the one where they live, rezoned to allow certain business uses.
The Brown County Area Plan Commission heard the request at the Sept. 22 meeting from Charles and Kimberly Harper. The lots they wanted to rezone were at 241 Heimburger Lane; 245, 247, 251, 255 and 259 Old State Road 46; and the vacant lot between 245 and 247 Old State Road 46, on which they’re thinking of putting a business office.
The couple already had one other neighboring property, at 243 Heimburger Lane, changed to B1 (business) zoning in the spring of 2019. They are operating that house, which is next to the Brown County High School football field and track and across Old State Road 46 from Hard Truth Hills, as a tourist home.
Kimberly Harper told the APC that most of the properties on the rezoning petition are now long-term rental homes and they are not going to displace those people. However, if they decide to move out, the couple would like to have some other options for what to do with the houses and properties, she said.
Tourist homes seemed like a good fit because those guests are less likely to complain about noise coming from the businesses surrounding them, because they aren’t there for long, Harper said. Currently, they have long-term renters complaining about football games, the band practicing, daytime noise from the recycling center and highway department across the way, music from Hard Truth Hills, and light from the high school track, she said.
APC member Kara Hammes, who works at a building on the fairgrounds, said she can confirm that the recycling center/highway department is noisy during the day, to the point where sometimes, staff in her office can’t have their windows open. She said she could see why long-term tenants may be complaining.
APC member Jane Gore, who’s lived in Brown County for 45 years, said the homes Harper is talking about have been long-term rentals as long as she can remember, and she even managed them at one point.
One person besides the Harpers spoke in favor of the rezoning. Local businessman and nearby property owner Andrew Tilton asked if the APC would consider rezoning these properties to B3 instead of B1 zoning, which would allow more business uses than B1 does, such as “light industrial” or a hotel. The town has a general lack of B3-zoned land, he said.
APC President Dave Harden said they couldn’t change the petition; that would be up to the petitioners to do.
Three other neighbors spoke against the rezoning.
Laura Wert, who lives in the wooded area called Bunny Trail near The Seasons hotel and the Harpers’ homes, said she’d prefer to keep the area residential. She said the Harpers have done great things to the properties along Old State Road 46 and they’re “lovely neighbors,” but she was concerned about the nonspecific nature of their business zoning request and what might eventually go on that land if businesses are allowed.
Harpers said that “the most we’d do is have vacation rentals.”
Wert pointed out that if the land was ever sold or transferred to another owner, the zoning change would go with it, so even if the Harpers only planned to do tourist rentals, another owner could do anything else allowed in B1 zoning. Those allowed uses include restaurants, photo or art studios, salons, retail sales, multifamily housing, theaters, office buildings and other like busineses.
Another neighbor, Rob Taylor, said that B1 zoning was “too much of a big step,” and didn’t think more business space was needed in Nashville as much as housing is. He also likes the neighborhood residential, the way it is, and was concerned that this rezone would affect his own property’s value.
“Nothing against the Harpers,” he added. “If I owned their property, I might even try to do that, too.”
Ruth Wert asked what noise complaints had to do with this and why Harper would think that changing the zoning would help. Harper said that business zoning would allow them to bring in a “different type of tenant.” Long-term tenants want quiet and no light intrusion; overnight tenants “wouldn’t care that there’s noise,” she said.
Nearly all the land surrounding the affected properties is already zoned for business except for the Bunny Trails neighborhood, including the highway department/recycling center (B3), fairgrounds (B3), Hard Truth Hills (B3), Brown County High School (B2), the Seasons Lodge (B2) and the Harpers’ existing tourist home (B1).
The APC voted 6-0 with member Carol Bowden absent to send a positive recommendation for rezoning to the Nashville Town Council, which will have the final say. The council meets on third Thursdays at 6:30 p.m.
