John Coffelt, Editor

The Telford’s request for rezoning, from A-1 agricultural to C-1 Rural Center District for their home at 1009 Hoodoo Road will go before the Coffee County Commission with a negative recommendation by the County Planning Commission.

The Telford’s are one of at least seven landowners who are currently affected by the county’s recent amendment limiting divisions of property in the A-1 agricultural district to a minimum of five acres.

Last month, Robyn Smotherman, co-owner of Short Creek Homes, approached the Coffee County Planning Commission with concerns about the recent changes to the A-1 zoning resolution during the May 27 Planning Commission meeting.

Smotherman said that she and her husband Chad Smotherman purchased the property in April, within days of the county passing the 180-day moratorium on hearing major subdivision requests. 

The Telford’s modest lot on Hoodoo Road (US 280) is not farmland, but rather a single-family dwelling that they want to split into two lots and build a second home on the rear portion.

The C-1 zoning designation is designed to provide commercial areas in rural agricultural areas. The designation also allows for single family residential dwellings. The restrictions placed on C-1 zones are that they must be located on collector or arterial roadways. They are also exempt from the A-1 lot size minimum.  

“We are hoping that we are applicable for C-1 because it meets the criteria in that it does have fire protection,” Surveyor Nickolas Northcutt said. “And it is on a state road.”

“We felt it was justified,” Northcutt told the Times, “Because the Planning Commission said that it was a viable pathway to divide, and the property met the criteria spelled out in the county zoning ordinance. The criteria is rather stringent.”

Northcutt said his clients would have preferred an RS-1 zoning, because RS-1 is intended for residential purposes, whereas C-1 zoning is kind-of a catch-all zoning that allows for certain commercial uses, as well as residential. However, this property did not meet the requirements for rezoning to RS-1.

The property was purchased in December with the intent to build a residence on it. An ongoing backlog with soil perk testing delayed the project and then the County made the zoning restriction.

“I think it qualifies because it’s an arterial (roadway),” Chairman of Planning Steve Cunningham said.   

The County Codes department confirmed that it meets the requirement for C-1, yet the board unanimously voted to give the request a negative recommendation for the rezoning.

“If they go to C-1…they can do anything that goes into C-1,” Cunningham said. 

Planning Member Randy Harrell and Laura Nettles said the request would create precedent for skirting the 5-acre restriction.  

“It’s starting to open up a door from A-1 to C-1 and it’s less than five acres and our regulations specify that you can’t do it less than five acres in A-1,” Harrell said. 

Nettles said she didn’t have a problem with the construction or dividing of the property but took issue with the rezoning. She sided with Hunt suggesting the preferred method would be variance.

Variance or Rezoning?

One of the key discussions moving forward is how the County will make exceptions to the 5-acre minimum, be that a variance or a rezoning.

Variances in Tennessee allow deviations from zoning rules in specific cases where the strict application of those rules would cause unnecessary hardship due to unique property characteristics like narrowness, unusual shape, or topography. They are granted by local Boards of Zoning Appeals (BZA) or similar bodies.

 The alternative route would be to rezone the property to any of the county’s other zones that are not bound by the 5-acre restriction. Rezoning requests are heard by the Planning Commission, then sent to the full commission for a decision. 

Cunningham said that he was not in favor of the variance route.

“I think rezoning is better,” he said. “I think we made the statement before that we need conditions and reasons to do this, and we’ve asked people to be patient and wait.”  

“You see the situation people are in though now, right?” Northcutt asked.

The 5-acre minimum passed amid struggles between protecting farmland and those who feel that landowners should retain the right to sell their farmland for development

One issue brought up in the overarching narrative has been whether an elected body is making the decisions or an appointed body. BZA (who makes variances decisions) and Planning are appointed, while the County Commission (who makes the final rezoning decisions) members are elected.

During the Feb. 25 Planning Commission meeting, Hunt presented to the Planning Commission a proposed 90-day moratorium. Hunt said at the time major subdivisions (defined as five or more divisions) the full County Commission should be involved. 

In his announcement at the time he said “rural residents of Coffee County have legitimate concerns that they are not adequately represented in the current approval processes for major subdivisions in the Rural Area Districts of Coffee County …. Recent events regarding these large-scale developments have left too many voters in Coffee County with the feeling of being disenfranchised in the approval process.”

Elected members, however, are positioned to represent constituents, but that could allow politics to blur their decision. BZA and Planning members who are appointed could arguably be in a better position to weigh the facts of the matter free from political motivations.        

“You are supposed to have no favors. You don’t owe anybody nothing because they voted for you,” Hunt said during the June 26 BZA meeting. “You are an independent thinker making decisions based on the information on this table.” 

Further, Hunt said during the recent Planning meeting there are semantics that need to be addressed in the language defining the core of the issue with the term “variance.”  He said however that the County did not get the cart before the horse by passing the resolute prior to working out how it would work.

“According to the TCA and our planner (Harris) ‘variance’ has a singular meaning,” Hunt said. “I don’t think it does…when it comes to planning and zoning.”     

Caught in that mix are farm owners who want to subdivide their property to gift to their heirs. Currently, they would be limited to giving their children 5-acre plats. The county intends to amend its zoning to create special language to allow in-family minor subdivisions.

Also caught in the mix are landowners who were caught off-guard midway through a project and are looking at a substantial loss by not being able to fully develop their project.

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.