Nashville Town Council denied a request to rezone a piece of property near the town-owned Village Green last week.
Tom and April Barr own the property at 12 S. Jefferson St., which is next door to the Nashville United Methodist Church. The town owns the grassy corner in front of the building at the corner of Main and Jefferson streets. The building used to be the Barr law office.
The Barrs wanted their property rezoned from RB (residential buffer) to B1 (business) because its RB zoning had been an impediment to getting it sold, Tom Barr told the Brown County Area Plan Commission in February. The property had been on the market for at least a year. However, after they filed for this change in zoning, a buyer came along who is wanting to use the property for a tourist home — which is allowed with the RB zoning the property has if they can get a special exception from the zoning board.
In February, the request to rezone received a positive vote from the APC, which forwarded it to the town council for a final vote. On March 18, the council voted against the request, 3-2, with Jane Gore, Nancy Crocker and Anna Hoffstetter against, and David Rudd and Alisha Gredy voting in favor of the rezoning.
Crocker said that even though she is “pro-business,” she was voting nay. She said she didn’t believe that a property should be rezoned if it cannot sell, and that if someone wanted to open a business that they couldn’t put in this building because of its zoning, there are other empty retail spaces in town where they can do that.
Crocker had told the APC in February that she’d talked to residents in the area who didn’t want to see the town’s business zone grow outside the boundaries it has now.
“If we want our town to survive, we have to have residents,” she said. “There are studies that say if your residents are happy and prosperous, then your town will survive.”
Gore said she also was pro-business, but feels strongly that the town needs to keep the boundaries of the business and buffer zones and not extend them. Though other properties near the Barrs’, such as Michael’s Flowers and Brozinni’s Pizzeria, do house businesses, they have been there for many years and were “grandfathered in,” she said.
The council did not allow public comment on this topic before voting; comments were only taken at the APC meeting in February.
The potential buyers of the Barr property are scheduled to go before the Brown County Board of Zoning Appeals tonight, Wednesday, March 24, to get a special exception to operate a tourist home in the building at 12 S. Jefferson St.
