Proposed Preserve at Sheridan development gets pushback from neighbors

Backyards or open fields? Congestion or more congestion? The welcome mat or the “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign?

Those are the questions at play as Franklin homeowners protest plans to annex 36 acres of land at 2247 South Berrys Chapel Road into the city limits, rezone almost 17 acres of it from Residential 1 to Planned District, and build a 16-plot subdivision with a sports complex.

The neighborhood, to be called The Preserve at Sheridan, has caught scorn from homeowners who claim the development will cause undue aesthetic and environmental damage, as well as traffic congestion along Franklin Road.

A petition titled “Oppose the Preserve at Sheridan in Franklin TN - 2247 S Berrys Chapel Rd” was posted on ipetitions.com in March and had received 1,521 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.

By the numbers

The total area of the land in question is 52.61 acres, with each of the 16 lots to measure 1 to 2 acres. According to an item report submitted to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen on Feb. 23, David Blackburn of DRB Preservation Trust owns the land, with the applicant being Troy Gardner of RaganSmith Associates, a Nashville-based landscape engineering firm.

The firm’s recent projects include the Witherspoon neighborhood in Brentwood and improvements to the West 7th Street corridor in Columbia, according to the RaganSmith website. 

The firm is also a partner of the Tennessee Interstate Conservancy group alongside the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County, to plan greenway development along Interstates 24 and 75.

According to the item report, the development plan falls in line with recommendations from Envision Franklin, the city’s long-term land-use plan. Those recommendations include the subdivision being “designed around natural features to highlight forested areas, hillsides and hilltops, streams, and tree rows,” per the item report, which is viewable under BOMA’s meeting minutes at franklintn.gov.

The report was submitted by City Administrator Eric Stuckey, Director of Planning and Sustainability Emily Wright, Assistant Director of Planning Development Amy Diaz-Barriga and Principal Planner Joseph Bryan.

The Preserve at Sheridan is not the only major development project in Franklin that is either in progress or waiting in the wings. During its April 9 meeting, BOMA approved a development plan with 14 modifications for the In-N-Out Burger office complex and restaurant to be built along Goose Creek Bypass.

Other planned developments include an eight-story, 244-room hotel at the corner of Cool Springs Boulevard and Carothers Parkway, as well as a 120,000-square-foot site south of Bowman Road and west of Lewisburg Pike, which BOMA approved rezoning on Tuesday to accommodate a new campus of Fellowship Bible Church. 

Additionally, a $125 million expansion of the McEwen Northside mixed-use urban district that will include a nine-story building and attached parking garage, broke ground in November and is expected to be completed by spring of 2025.

‘Tired of the growth’

The development debate comes as Franklin grapples with an influx of new residents. The city’s population has grown from 62,487 in 2010 to 83,454 in 2020 to almost 87,000 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census.

Rodney Rose, who lives in the Lynnwood Downs neighborhood near South Berrys Chapel Road, is one of those new residents. He moved to Franklin from California about six months ago, and the beauty of the area helped him choose where to call home.

“You feel remote, but you’re minutes from downtown Franklin, minutes away from everything,” he said.

Rose is the administrator of the Voting Property Owners Rights Group, which supports “responsible growth and development design for the community,” according to its Facebook page. Members of the group made and posted signs along Franklin Road protesting The Preserve at Sheridan. 

Rose also posted the online petition, which labels the neighborhood “urban sprawl” and cites safety concerns and loss of rural identity as reasons why BOMA should reject the annexation and rezoning proposal. 

Rose voiced concerns that the development is moving too fast, with nearby homeowners getting little to no notice about the property owner’s plans.

“Nobody knew what was even going on until two days before the [March 12] BOMA meeting,” he said. 

During that work session, homeowners protested that development of the South Berrys Chapel land would damage nearby wildlife and cause traffic backups along Franklin Road.

“There are flocks of wild turkeys, hawks and owls,” Tom Weiss, who lives near South Berrys Chapel Road, said. “There is old-growth forest there. A more extensive environmental study should be done.”

Rose said that while BOMA has been “understanding and workable,” the planning process has been “a slam-dunk, rubber-stamp operation” that could set the stage for more damaging development in the future.

However, Rose said, he and the VPORG are not against the area growing in general.

“We are not a no-growth group,” he said. “I’m in the mortgage business. I support growth, but I support smart growth. Nobody ever said, ‘Let’s go for a drive through the city streets.’ They say, ‘Let’s go for a drive in the country.’”

‘Growth is going to happen’

The Planning Commission will vote on the annexation and rezoning request during its May 23 meeting. If approved, it will go to BOMA for its approval.

Franklin Vice Mayor Matt Brown, whose Ward 2 includes the South Berrys Chapel property, said the level of opposition to the Preserve at Sheridan proposal took him by surprise.

“I would never have guessed in a million years it would have caused this much distress for residents,” he said.

Brown refuted claims that the city is conducting a land grab, saying Blackburn requested that the city annex and rezone the land so he could have it developed.

“The landowner has to ask for an annexation,” he said. “Landowners can develop their property. It’s their right. It’s generational wealth. Unless the neighbors want to pool their money and buy the property and keep it open space, it was never going to stay open.”

Brown added that city officials and community groups have been working on land conservation projects in and around Franklin for years, citing the purchase of the Creekside property in 2022 and efforts this year to preserve more battlefield land, among others.

Additionally, BOMA approved only four rezoning requests and two annexation requests in 2023, and did not approve any new multifamily units, according to the city’s 2023 Development Report.

The figures mark a sharp turnaround from the previous four years, when the city approved an average of 21 annexation and zoning requests and 523 multifamily units per year, even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brown said growth is vital to any city’s survival and that he hopes more affordable housing and agri-development in the vein of Short Farm can come to the area soon.

“If we say, ‘We’re done,’ then we’re going to get stagnant and we can’t maintain what we’ve got,” he said.

Brown would like to find a middle ground with homeowners like what was recently agreed upon with residents of Goose Creek Estates regarding the In-N-Out complex. 

But, he said, the fact is that new residents are coming to Franklin and the rest of Williamson County whether current residents like it or not, and they need to live somewhere

“It’s not that ‘If we build it, they will come,’” he said. “It’s ‘we have to build it because they’re already coming.’”