JOHN COFFELTEditor

The subsidiary group that holds title to the Bonnaroo Farm New Era Farms, LLC. has approached the city with plans for a small infrastructure improvement at the site.

At the July Planning Commission meeting, speaking for the LLC, Steve Ballard obtained site plan approval for a 17,500 square foot storage warehouse for the festival.

The structure will be used to store festival equipment in the offseason.

The non-heated structure will have a loading dock along the front side, and a dry sprinkler system to avoid the freezing in the winter. The structure will include south-facing solar panels.

One item on a pretty standard punch list of housekeeping items, like maintenance agreements, includes a request to hold off on paving until spring to use a funding stream from ticket sales, Ballard said.

A rough estimate for finishing the warehouse could be January.

Developer returns after granted variance

The developer looking to build a multifamily dwelling at 814 Spring St. returned to the Planning Committee for a request for rezoning from R-3 medium density to R-4 high density. The request comes after the Board of Zoning Appeals (made up of the same members of the Planning Commission) granted a special exception that allowed for a single multifamily townhouse to be built at the site rather than it be subdivided and build two duplexes.

Community Development and Zoning Director Brittany Fiske said that the owner Wesley Parker told the department that the new request was so that he could expand the building capacity from four families to six.

Fiske said considering the size of the lot, an R-4 designation would allow for nine families if the current layout were altered.

At the BZA meeting in June, members of the community were concerned with traffic at that spot. At the July meeting, City Engineer Scot St. John voiced similar concerns that he would like to see the placement of the driveway before the commission offered a positive recommendation to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for the rezoning hearings.

The Commission deferred the request and until the August meeting.

Land use plan approved, then delayed again

The proposed land use plan, a document designed for city leaders to address requests for rezoning has hit yet another snag after the notice for the public hearing came in three days short of the required 30 day notice.

The land use plan came up from a Planning Commission subcommittee in the summer of 2022, was approved by the Planning Commission and passed a reading at BOMA.

Then the challenges began.

One concern voiced is that the plan (which will not rezone any property, rather is an attempt to strategically plan for growth in certain areas) addresses future growth the urban growth boundary, outside the city limits.

First off it was noted that the Planning Committee, when it passed the Land Use Plan did not have any members representing the Manchester UGB. Then challenges were made concerning public notices regarding the subcommittee meetings. At the April Planning meeting City Attorney Craig Johnson, however, said that the Commission was on firm ground because any possible violations would be rectified by holding deliberations during a proper open meeting. That meeting, he said, would remedy the situation.

This latest public hearing in which the commission moved to approve the Land Use Plan and send it to BOMA and to the County Commission to weigh in on the UGB portions, fell 27 days after the public notice ran in the paper.

Mayor Marilyn Howard said following the meeting that the land use plan would be delayed so that the letter of the law could be followed.

Until the July meeting, little if any public comment was made concerning the content of the map, instead focused on the process the city took to approve it.

At the July Planning Commission, local activist and government follower Sarah Bradley said that the plan doesn’t address chronic manholes, school placement and said that the planned R-5 mobile home park districts were located in areas with the most pollution, traffic.

“I have an 18-page document with everything wrong with this,” she said. “That’s a terrible plan. We don’t have the road capacity, we don’t have the sewer capacity and it’s taken us years to get started on a little section of sidewalks,” she said.

When asked by the commission to what extent the proposed land use plan differed in residential density from the current plan that dates back to meetings in August of 2022, City Engineer Scot St. John said that the proposed plan addresses the gives guidance for general areas and anticipates growth trends in the city.

He said that the changes amount to “more than a minimal amount.”

The changes aim to create something of a bullseye of growth – more dense development in the center of town and then less density in the outlying areas, with the exception of areas along Highway 41 north of town which are likely to be high density in many areas.

The Planning Commission felt that the Land Use Plan is a document that city departments can use to develop infrastructure upgrades.

The Commission voted to adopt the proposed Land Use Plan and send it to the governing bodies in a 4-1 vote with Ken Seuberling offering a no vote.

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.