FCI Dec 2006 - Memphis is Coming!

Rumors about Memphis coming over the county line are rampant. Although the growth and annexation law prohibits Memphis from annexing across a county line except under specific circumstances, many residents are not put at ease by this knowledge. The most prevalent story being propagated is “John Wilder may leave Nashville soon. Wilder won’t be there to protect Fayette County in Nashville and the powerful Memphis lobby will get the growth plan law thrown out.”

Wilder is purported to have said he will relinquish his senate seat if he is not re-elected as Lieutenant Governor. Wilder is a Democrat. The State Senate has a Republican majority of one. Heretofore, a few Republican senators committed to Wilder have insured his continued reign as the longest tenured state legislative leader in the US. Since Republican and Wilder supporter Curtis Persons vacated his senate seat this year, the needed Republican vote to elect Wilder may not be there in January when the election will be held by the Senate.

If Wilder is no longer in the Senate, Fayette County’s clout in Nashville will, unquestionably, be diminished.

In the event of Wilder’s absence, the rumor theory is that the other large urban centers (Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville) will join forces with Memphis to get the growth law eradicated or at least amended to give them annexation rights across county lines. Inclusion in a city or at least inside a city’s Urban Growth Boundary is being promoted as giving people the greatest possible protection against the looming change in the law,

This theory was voiced by County Mayor Skip Taylor in an exchange with Piperton Mayor Buck Chambers at the West Fayette Republican Club meeting on September 28th:

ST:	If it goes inside an urban growth boundary, that gives the cities some rights. If they were ever to take away those rights, then the city would have, I’ve been told, some sort of standing to contest it. And, it’s a fig leaf, but it’s one more fig leaf that you have.
BC:	That’s right.
ST:	Anytime they meet in Nashville, if they want to decide to, they could. But, what affects us down here, what affects across the state, and there’s several other areas in the state that…
BC:	Affects the same way.
ST:	It would be the same thing. It wouldn’t be just Fayette County and Shelby County. It would be around Knoxville, Chattanooga area, outside of Nashville.

What Do People in the Know Have to Say?

The Insider contacted several people who are regularly involved with the state legislature and/or the other large urban areas in the state. Each conversation began with an explanation of the concerns about Wilder stepping down, the large cities wanting to annex across county lines, and the vulnerability of the growth law.

Bill Terry – Nashville

Bill Terry has been a professional planner in Tennessee since 1966 and is AICP certified. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999 and a Distinguished Service Award in 1998 from the TN Chapter of the American Planning (TAPA), in part for his work on Tennessee’s growth and annexation law. Prior to the adoption of the growth law in 1998, he worked on legislative issues for a number of years for the City of Goodlettsville and for TAPA on its legislative committee. When the Ad Hoc Study Committee was formed in 1997 to develop a growth policy for Tennessee, Terry was already familiar with the legislature and the legislators. He has served as a planning advisor for the TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) which provided support for the Ad Hoc Study Committee and was charged with monitoring the implementation of the growth law and reporting its findings to the General Assembly.

Mr. Terry was the judges’ planning expert for the arbitration of Fayette County’s growth plan and developed the plan which was recommended to the judges.

The following written statements were provided by Mr. Terry:

As always, I suggest a planning process that justifies the size and configuration of a UGB or PGA taking into account all of the planning requirements of the Act. Of course, that rarely happens.

John Wilder’s participation in the development of the growth law

Wilder was not a principal in the drafting of 1101 [the growth law] nor in its passage. Senator Bob Rochelle was, but he was Wilder's deputy speaker. However, Wilder always knew what was going on. He appointed Rochelle and the other members of the Senate who served on the Ad Hoc Study Committee. Even though he wasn't out front, the bill would not have passed if he had opposed it, and he had committed, along with Naifeh, to support whatever bill the Ad Hoc Committee reported out.

The future of the growth law

The long-term viability of the law is unknown. The legislature can amend any law that is on the books. There is and was a lot of opposition to it. However, to repeal the act or any part thereof would be very controversial since the growth boundary aspects are closely intertwined with the annexation laws. That said, there are a lot legislators and city and county folks that believe the process of getting all interests together to work on their problems/opportunities is a good one.

Annexation by a city

The statute is fairly specific about growth boundaries and annexation. Basically, a city can annex outside its UGB in only two ways:

1) By obtaining an amendment to the growth plan boundaries or

2) by referendum.

See TCA 6-58-111(a) (c) and (d). This section was amended in 2005 to provide that no city could annex into another city's UGB even by referendum.

Annexation across a county line

A city can annex across the county line only in the following circumstances:

TCA 6-51-108(e) states that a city may not annex by ordinance in any county other than the county in which the city hall is located unless one of the following conditions applies:

1) If the city is located in more than one county on Nov. 25, 1997, it may annex in all such counties unless the percentage of the city population in the county other than where the city hall is located is less than seven percent.

2) A city may annex by ordinance in another county with the approval by resolution of the county legislative body of the county in which the proposed territory is located.

3) A city may annex in any county in which, on Jan. 1, 1998, it provided sanitary sewer service to 100 or more residential and/or commercial customers.

That would seem to keep Memphis out of Fayette County unless the statute is amended. I don't consider that to be likely.

[Ed Note: The bold section headings were added for clarity. Memphis does not meet either 1) or 3) of the conditions required in order to annex into another county.]

Sam Edwards – Nashville

Sam Edwards is both an AICP certified planner and an attorney. He is the Executive Director and legal counsel for the Greater Nashville Regional Council (GNRC) which is the regional planning and economic development organization for the 13 counties and 52 cities of the Greater Nashville Region of Middle Tennessee. GNRC serves the following counties: Cheatham, Davidson, Dickson, Houston, Humphreys, Montgomery, Robertson, Rutherford, Stewart, Sumner, Trousdale, Williamson and Wilson.

In conjunction with his responsibilities at the GNRC, Mr. Edwards regularly monitors the TN legislature, follows the bills under consideration, talks with legislators and works on developing legislation. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999 and a Distinguished Service Award in 1998 from the TN Chapter of the American Planning (TAPA), in part for his work on Tennessee’s growth and annexation law. He has served as a planning advisor for the TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) which provided support for the Ad Hoc Study Committee on Annexation and was charged with monitoring the implementation of the growth law and reporting its findings to the General Assembly.

In response to our questions concerning changes in the annexation law or eliminating the growth law entirely, Mr. Edwards said the following:

I have not heard any of the mayors or representatives or senators from Knox [Knoxville], Davidson [Nashville], Hamilton [Chattanooga], even begin to mention anything like that.

To be honest with you, I haven’t heard anything from the Shelby County delegation along those lines, either. I’ve heard “metro” [converting to a consolidated city/county metropolitan government], but that’s about it.

It’s going to take 132 people to vote on this. It will take 17 senators and 50 house members to repeal anything. [There are a total of 33 members in the Senate and 99 members in the House.]

Right now, I can tell you that county services people won’t even look at changing one minute word in the [growth] law. So there’s no possibility, in my view, short of a major catastrophe or a major change or a major shift in the thinking of the General Assembly, that they will come in and do away with this law.

In politics, you never say “never”. But, there’s nothing on the horizon that I see that would indicate that they’re willing to do this.

I do know the county folks [TN County Services Association] are strong, right now, as a lobbying power. They don’t want to see it done away with. TML [Tennessee Municipal League] doesn’t want to see it done away with. And the vast majority of legislators I talk to are not unhappy with it the way it is.

I don’t think [Fayette County residents] have anything to fear that the law is going to be changed and allow Shelby County to gulp somebody up.

If Shelby County does anything, it’s not going to be through the growth law. They could come more nearly trying to adjust their county boundaries by getting some kind of amendment passed that absorbs counties through legislative acts. Redraw county boundary lines. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

That’s about the only other option, and I don’t think that’s going to happen.

A couple of years ago, a section of northern Sumner County, that’s on the plateau area as opposed to the lower area of Sumner County, the flat lands, wanted to break off and form a new county. That got nowhere.

Again, never say “never”, but it’s remote.

Karen Hundt – Chattanooga

Karen Hundt is with the Planning & Design Studio which is part of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency.

According to Ms Hundt:

Chattanooga has looked at annexation but is not doing anything about it. They probably realize they can’t afford to annex residential property.

They have a huge UGB so won’t have a need for more land any time soon.

There is no serious opposition to the growth plan law other than those who were originally opposed to it, such as the developers.

Mark Donaldson – Knoxville

Mark Donaldson is the Executive Director for the Knoxville/Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission.

The Insider asked Mr. Donaldson how things have gone in Knoxville with regards to the growth plan, how much annexation Knoxville has done in their urban growth area, and what he saw in the future for that area.

He responded as follows:

Our growth plan was adopted in 2001. It was very controversial with regards to annexation.

The city and the county entered into an agreement that, until December 2007, the city would not annex any residential property within the urban growth area.

The annexations up to this point have been strictly commercial and, since the current administration has been in place which is about 3 years, strictly voluntary. Prior to that, in the early 2000’s, there was fairly aggressive finger annexation of commercial land but within the Urban Growth Boundary.

It’s been relatively calm. We’re way beyond the 3 year moratorium on visitation [of the growth plan]. Whenever I bring it up, I can’t get anybody to even think about it because it was so painful the last time.

We were at the threshold [of going to judges in Nashville] before this agreement took place.

I have started flying the idea that we need to visit the boundary between our Planned Growth Area and our Rural Area, just to reflect changes that have occurred over the 6 years. I’m even having resistance to that because it was so painful the first time.

They think that if we re-open it for any specific case then we have to re-open the whole thing. I can’t assure them that that won’t happen.

You can make very specific amendments to the plan.

We’ve been relatively calm.

From your perspective do the city and county legislators seem to be satisfied with 1101 [the growth law]… no desire to lobby Nashville to get rid of it or anything?

I haven’t heard anything along those lines. I can’t even get them to talk about making an amendment to that Planned Growth boundary.

The city really… We’re bound. We have Farragut between us and Loudon County.

We do have a finger annexation out against Blount County. But, the current administration is just not aggressively annexing land. I don’t see that changing.

Maybe the gloves will come off once this agreement expires a year from now.

The Bottom Line on the Rumors

Planners working in the other large urban areas do not see any interest in annexing across county lines or in changing or eliminating the growth law.

Planners closely involved with the workings of the Tennessee legislature see no indications that the growth law will be changed or eliminated.

Some Interesting Points to Note

Knox County almost ended up in Nashville with their county growth plan being arbitrated before administrative judges. They remember how painful the initial growth plan process was and don’t want to go through it again.

Chattanooga, unlike Memphis, has apparently figured out that annexing residential property is not a profitable practice.

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