McMinnville vs. Morrison: Hamblen confident growth plan agreement is close
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Other than two counties currently in arbitration, Warren County is the last county in the state to turn in its 1101 plan.
“If we miss the July 1 deadline, then we start being really concerned,” said County Executive Carol Hamblen. “But I think we’re close to getting this done.”
A plan drafted by the county that, according to officials, would be acceptable to the state was presented at a meeting of the Growth Plan Coordinating Committee Thursday and is ready for submission. But a controversy over boundary lines between the municipalities of McMinnville and Morrison could make the county could miss the filing date.
The area of contention lies between Gillespie Road and Todd Lane. The city of McMinnville has already made an effort to annex part of this area and the residents are opposing this in court. The outcome is still pending and won’t be resolved before the 1101 filing deadline.
Both McMinnville and Morrison have 1101 plans ready, but since the areas designated by the plans have overlapping borders the state won’t approve them, according to Joe Barrett of the local planning assistance office.
The county’s plan designates the contested area as a Planned Growth Area, which provides leeway on how the area will be utilized as the 1101 plan progresses. Although the regulations are complex, it would basically allow the two cities to resolve their differences sometime in the future and still allow a timely filing of the 1101 plan.
After much discussion, the Growth Plan Coordinating Committee passed the county’s plan at Thursday’s meeting with a minimum nine of the committee’s original 17 members present to provide a quorum. The plan was then given to representatives of the cities of McMinnville and Morrison for approval.
If Morrison and McMinnville ratify this plan within the next couple of weeks, the plan would then be voted on by the County Commission at its scheduled May 28 meeting. If the plan passes there, it will be ready for filing with the state and should easily meet the deadline.
However, if the plan should be rejected, there would be very little time to prepare and pass an alternative plan. And failure to comply at this point will result in penalties that could affect the county’s ability to apply successfully for state grants, a situation that could have a major economic impact on local programs.
Public Chapter 1101 is a Tennessee bill that became law in May of 1998. The law requires county and municipal governments in Tennessee to develop and agree upon a growth plan for the next 20 years. The primary aim of the law is to minimize urban sprawl and catch uncontrolled growth before it starts.
In order to enforce the law, a system of “grant points” was set up to award bonus points to counties that turned in a plan by July 1, 2000 and penalize counties that filed after July 1, 2001.
Since counties with metropolitan governments are exempt from the law, Warren County dodged the bullet on the 2001 deadline when it held a metro referendum. By doing so, the county got a one-year extension on the 1101 filing, moving the deadline to this July 1.
Barrett said the deadline is one the county needs to make.
“Already they’re not going to get the 5 bonus points that a lot of counties around the state will get, but if they go past the deadline on this, and they impose a 5-point penalty, then that’s essentially 10 points the county has lost before the state even starts evaluating a grant, said Barrett. “When you get all these grants from all over the state of Tennessee, they’re very competitive, and with any loss of points, it is very likely you would not receive that grant. And that could hurt the county.”
So far the loss of the bonus points hasn’t been much of a problem according to Hamblen.
“We’ve been very fortunate that even in this time period we got the ambulance grant when there was some question as to whether or not we would,” said Hamblen. “We didn’t get the bonus points and we still got the grant. Without the bonus points we were still 21st out of 25. The only ones who beat us were probably the ones who got the bonus points.
Hamblen indicated Warren Utility District received $477,000 in grants this year to extend its water lines and other grant money has also been coming in.
“The city of McMinnville still got housing grants this year, so I don’t think that up until this point, even without getting the extra points, we have not gotten what we applied for,” said Hamblen. “Some of the fire departments didn’t get the FEMA grants, but that had nothing to do with this. I think most everything else that’s been filed for has been received.”