CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – More than 35 acres in Montgomery County have been requested for rezoning off Guthrie Highway from AG and C-5 to M-1 light industrial district to serve businesses out of the Industrial Park.
The applicants are Knox Thomas III and Shirley Thomas, and their listed use is to rezone a portion of the existing property to develop a stabilized laydown yard, with the associated infrastructure, said Regional Planning Commission Director Jeff Tyndall.
Shirley Thomas told the County Commission Monday that her husband has always lived at the farm on the property, working alongside his father and grandfather. “Our intention is to continue farming on this land for the future, and we will remain permanent residents and neighbors to this proposed development,” Thomas said.
“We believe they will be excellent neighbors, so with this in mind, we respectfully request your approval for the M-1 zoning.”
Storing of materials for businesses in Industrial Park
Local attorney Stanley Ross, with Mitchell, Ross, Rocconi, spoke on behalf of the applicants, saying the laydown yard would be where materials are stored for other uses down the road in the Industrial Park. “What we would be doing is basically just staging materials that will be used at a different site. In order to do that, it’s either going to be in containers or wrapped and organized on the lot,” Ross said. He said that way, things are kept looking nice.
He confirmed that the project would be required to install some berms, as well as landscaping and fencing, to shield the materials laid on the property. “We’re planning on a 5- to 8-foot berm, with hardwood and evergreen vegetation,” Ross said. “Along with a privacy fence that will surround the entire site.”
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Ross said they had a traffic assessment completed, and they are projecting just 10 trips in and out a day. He said to help the flow as traffic, there will be only one entrance and one exit.
“In terms of this being a M-1 use in the rural reserve; I would like to point out that the industrial part of the Land Use Opinion Map is just a couple of hundred yards from where we’re asking for this,” Ross said. “We’ve got C-5 on the other side, and we think this is going to be a good transition from that industrial use … down to that C-5, which goes the rest of the way to the state line.”
RPC staff says no, commission says yes
Tyndall said the acreage is an agricultural piece of property that is currently being row cropped, and it sits approximately 400 feet south of the Shady Brook Lane and Guthrie Highway intersection.
“You can see the state line just to the north of this; this is in the rural area of the Growth Plan, and it is in the Rossview Planning Area,” Tyndall told the County Commission on Monday. “It’s also in the rural reserve future land use.”
While the property goes up to Spring Creek’s 100-year-flood plain, none of the property is encumbered in the floodway, said Tyndall.
RPC staff recommended disapproval because the request is not consistent with the overall goals and objectives of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Comprehensive Plan, and the request does not align with the rural reserve future land use designation.
However, the Planning Commission recommended approval based on the 35 acres sitting nearby the M-2, as well as C-5 beside it and across from it.
The Montgomery County Commission will vote on the proposed rezone at their next formal meeting, scheduled for Monday, April 13, at 6 p.m.
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