August 2006 The Franklin Transfer NIMBY concerns complicate Tennessee’s first TDR-based attempt to combat sprawl By Candace Moonshower
A crowded room filled with passionate people, many dressed in identical t-shirts, rowdy debate and the arrival of the police—it sounds like a hotly contested political issue is at stake. And, in a way, the recent meeting of the Franklin City Planning Commission, on June 22, 2006, was completely political. Two land-use amendments, both involving transfer of development rights (TDR), were up for a vote.
With a TDR program, owners of undeveloped land can agree to not develop their land by selling those development rights to another landowner, who owns land in “receiving areas” that have been approved for more growth. “Receiving areas” are those that have been determined appropriate for higher density and increased growth. “Sending areas” are those where it is has been determined that a property should be preserved as open space.
Franklin is the first community in Tennessee to attempt to create a transfer of development program to combat sprawl, control growth and preserve green space. A TDR program allows municipalities to direct density. Bryan Echols, a real estate lawyer with Stites & Harbison, petitioned to change the Franklin zoning ordinance to accommodate TDRs, submitting a land-use plan amendment to maintain the rural quality of an area at the Franklin Road Corridor near the Mack Hatcher Parkway. A general amendment was proposed as well, a TDR land-use plan developed in an open-space committee meeting by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.
“People who understand the program are generally in support of it,” Echols says. “The problems arise with the policy questions of which areas should be receiving areas—where the development rights end up.”
Franklin Fourth Ward Alderman Dan Klatt agrees. Klatt, who chaired a Land Conservation and Stewardship Task Force for a year, which completed its work in March of 2006, says that this citizen advisory group recommended a land-use plan amendment to add TDR as an appropriate tool for land conservation. “Finding a place to receive the extra density equation is more controversial, certainly,” he says. “Franklin is very much an ‘NIMBY’ community—‘not in my backyard.’ Residents are only involved when it is in their own backyards—and they perceive increased density as inherently undesirable.”
Bill Barkley, president of Crosland Tennessee and a major player in the development of Nashville’s historic Gulch area, says that while TDRs aren’t applicable to urban in-fill opportunities, they are especially important where growth and sprawl are encroaching on green space, including old farms and land with historic homes and other structures. “Growth is going to happen, yes,” he says, “but why not direct it? TDR is a tool to help community planners take control of growth. People think TDRs will be used to slow down growth, but that is not how it works.”
Barkley suggests that high density is not a bad thing. “We need higher density, which makes for walkable communities,” he says. “Instead of encouraging unplanned sprawl, it’s best to allow planners and citizens to do more fine-grain planning—to build communities instead of subdivisions.”
“I’ve personally been involved in development and open-space preservation for many years,” Echols says, “and while I support TDRs, I don’t want to tell property owners they cannot develop. TDRs recognize the value of people’s land and allow a property to remain undeveloped by taking the enticement of developing that land—the financial gain—and transferring it to another landowner. The property owner gets fair market value for the development rights.”
Echols points out that land, for many people in Williamson County, is their retirement fund. If an owner has the option to sell off the development rights and limit the land forever, then instead of the land being appraised at a higher value—resulting in a large estate tax for heirs—the land will be appraised at a lower level.
“This should not be a controversial issue,” Klatt says. “TDR does not require citizen dollars. It is completely market-driven.”
Then why the push to make it personal, as observed when several neighborhoods rallied their troops and arrived en masse at the meeting to protest the formation of a parcel of land—land not even adjacent to their own properties—as a receiving area? According to Echols, the actual land designated as the possible receiving area was adjacent to Spencer Creek Place and, he maintains, those homeowners were in support of the amendment.
“The commission was caught in the crosshairs,” Echols says. “The specific TDR land-use plan was defeated. Now a decision has to be made about the viability of going forward.”
Judy Daniel, director of rural area planning for Montgomery County, Maryland, and former planning director for Williamson County, agrees that the whole issue of TDRs is a political one and, often, engenders heated response from citizens who don’t understand the overall good a TDR program can do. According to Daniel, TDRs were originally started in New York City to save an urban area. In 1980, Montgomery County, Md., became the first county to use the TDR concept to save rural land, and also to maintain a strong program for fiscal management and to control infrastructure and costs.
Daniel has given talks in Franklin in the last six years about the potential for TDR, and she was sorry but not surprised to see the specific amendment defeated. “Proposing and gaining acceptance for a receiving area is the hardest part,” she says, “because you have to find places where people can and will accept a higher density of development.” Daniel remains hopeful for the future of Williamson County, though, since the general TDR land-use amendment encouraging the use of TDRs to preserve green space passed, a necessary first step.
“City or county officials wanting to utilize a TDR program have to have the political courage to establish the program, and the political restraint not to allow a community to get the higher density except through the TDR program,” she says. “And if you separate the TDR issue from the density battle, you’re better off.”
“It usually comes down to density questions,” Echols agrees. “Certainly not everyone supports it. Folks ask how increased density in particular areas can help them, and I point out that while we might increase density in one area, it is where an increase can be accommodated—and there is always corresponding green space.”
Bill Barkley points out to the opponents of TDR that in an area such as Franklin, the economic engine driving the growth of the county and city has always been the rural beauty of the countryside. Without a plan in place to control sprawl, that rural component will disappear. “Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg?” he asks.
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