John Coffelt, Editor

County Mayor Dennis Hunt said during a recent Planning Commission meeting that the county is working out the specifics on the recent amendment to the A-1 agricultural zoning regulations that creates a 5-acre minimum restriction on lot size for minor subdivisions.

The problem with the regulation as it stands is that farmers cannot now carve off a small lot for their heirs, or at least nobody is really sure how to make that happen.  

As presented to the County Commission, there would be two pathways to divide less than five acres: the variance pathway and the rezoning pathway. But the precedent set by Planning last week is that it should be up to the Board of Zoning Appeals, but there’s a problem with that path. Nobody can agree if a variance is applicable in this situation.    

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 County Planner and the Chairman of the Planning Commission’s opinion differ with Hunt’s that the definition of variance is broad enough to address the issue.

Hunt said that these details could only be worked out after the restrictions were passed because otherwise the work to do so would have been wasted effort had it not passed.

Still, the county has drawn criticism from some residents who say that that lack of planning is grossly irresponsible and leaves the residents hanging out in limbo, while the Planning Commission and the Mayor scramble to come up with criteria for variances and/or special exceptions.

Another concerning proposal would be the so called “5/5/5 Rule.” The first “five” designates 5-acre minimum, the second would allow up to five total divisions, and the third would restrict the number of times that one could make divisions to once every five years.

What if a resident has more than four heirs, and moreover, is the county in the business of limiting when a landowner can gift or sell his property? Would a time limit stand up to the scrutiny of a court suit? What about the people who have invested thousands of dollars in good faith on a project before the county changed the codes?

With six variance requests on the next BZA agenda and likely a rezoning request to be heard at the next County Commission meeting, it looks like the time to answer these questions has passed.

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.