Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Folks, it's right after 700 p.m. and I hereby declare the Dixon County Planning Commission meeting for 8th of January, 2026 to be in order. Uh, I guess in lie of lining anybody up, I'll lead us in a very brief devotion and we'll get started. Father of righteousness, we're thankful we could be here this evening to conduct the business this county. We pray we'll do so in a way that's in accordance with thy principles lined out for us that we know. We pray that we will do things that will make the county better and stronger. And we pray that all uh the people who work for the county will be safe and protected with a fence of protection from thee. And we ask these things in your mighty and powerful name. Amen.

Mr. Hayes, could you call the role? Todd Barry here. Barry here. Green here. Todd Lindsay here. Donald here. Tommy Brown here. Jeff Chase here. Rain here. Paul Morgan. Amanda Barry here. Patrick here. Thank you for that. Mr. Hayes, uh, has anyone signed up to make public comments before the formal part of the meeting begins? No, sir. Well, then we'll we'll dispense with that and we'll move on to the agenda items.

Mr. Chairman, one thing. Yes, sir. Item number one is not a preliminary plat. It is a site plan. Okay. We'll I'll correct that here in my notes and hope everybody else will, too. All right. Site plan in item number one. Now, has everyone had a chance since we just got it to see the staff comments on this agenda item? Mr. Chairman, we got to need to approve minutes.

Oh, let's do Yeah. Has everyone seen the minutes of uh the meeting from last month? Does anyone have any questions, additions, deletions, or anything else about the minutes of December 11th meeting? Chair will entertain a motion the minutes of December 11th, 2025 be approved. Todd is approve is moved for approval. Who seconds that? Okay, Mr. Reagan, you'll second that. Those in favor of approving the minutes of December the 11 state I.

Those opposed state no. The opinion of the chair, the eyes have it. The motion is adopted to approve the minutes. And now we'll move on to item number one, which is, as we pointed out, the site plan for Nashville Getaway RV and Campground. Tax Map 139, parcel 30.07, 9.20 acres, highway 48 South in Dixon, Tennessee. Zoned currently C2 general commercial. Mr. Hayes,

this is a site plan for the Nashville Getaway RVing Campground. This body approved the reszoning of the property on June the 12th of 2025 and then proceeded to the uh county commission for public hearing on July the 23rd of 2025 and a final reading on August 18th of 2025 in which it was approved and it was approved by the BCA Board of Zoning Appeals for a special exception on October 7th of 2025. Thank you, sir. All right. Uh board, uh let's talk about what we think about this. Does anybody have any particular questions, objections, or anything regarding this? I think there I I I spotted three very minor errors in the in the boiler plate plate language on here. Mr. Chase, you you look like you have something to share with us.

Yeah, I was just going to say I was I've sort of been keeping an eye on this since it first came before the uh this body and I went down there today and uh I mean it's definitely a good place. I think it's a good fit for the area to have this kind of a thing down there. Um, the only thing I worry about is uh some sort of traffic control, either reducing the speed limit there or something else because pulling a 38T rig, pulling a jeep uh is going to be a mess with cars coming south on 48. Install a turning lane there. A turning lane out or in? Out of it?

It is turning lane. In. Okay. Yeah, because that's that's that's that's one of my major concerns there. Other than that, the only other thing I worry about and you guys have done the planning, so I'm sure hopefully it's okay, is some it looked a little tight based on the site plan itself in terms of how things were laid out. But that was just simply because of the the plat that we're looking at, the plans that we're looking at. I think in my mind it looked like is that really going to be easy inside there for people to move around the way they need to be moving around with a big rig. That was my only concern.

It ju it seems to me like if everybody there has a 42-footer it's going to be a problem but if most of them are something smaller it's going to be fine. But no and Mr. Chase you did look at the traffic study that Okay. Yeah. And that that didn't cause you any more concerns other than just what you're thinking about from having seen the place? I think so. Yeah. I mean, yeah. All right. Okay. Does anybody else have any questions, com? Yes, sir. Mr. Green, please go ahead.

I I looked at these plans. Uh I see that we got manhoes, sewer, and all that stuff, but in that area, there's no se no there's no sewer. Uh and I talked to the state guy. He said he haven't seen no paperwork records of anything on this site. So, I guess that's the only concern I got was where all the sewer is going to go with this many campers, you know. Perfect. For the record, I'm Jared Gray, civil design consultants. We're the engineers of record here. Um, in regards, it is a private sewer system that goes to a septic tank.

Okay. We show a septic tank on the property. Now you have manholes and pipes and things like that because all the system is obviously interconnected to get to the the septic tank. It is appropriately sized for our anticipated volume. U obviously we have notes though it is not under the jurisdiction of the water authority of Dixon County. We are uh in we have worked with them in regards to making sure that everything that we are specking out still meets their criteria. Again they do not have anything to do jurisdictionally over it but we are coordinating with them as well. Uh we will be submitting to the state upon approval. We have to have site plan approval in order to move forward with our design plans. But there will be the actual sewer design itself that is shown on the plans that you have will be then formally submitted to the state for their review and approval. Um in regards to the turning radiuses, the turning radiuses that we are showing on these plans mimic the turning radiuses that are I would say industry standard from numerous resorts. uh some large commercial resorts. Now, in my experience, having done many, many RV parks, I could give 200 foot radiuses on here, we're still going to have that individual that tries to cut through the grass. I mean, that's it doesn't matter how wide you make them, you're going to have that occasionally, but um we do show what I would [clears throat] consider the industry standard. And these spaces are not completely just jam-packed. We actually do have some green areas in between each

one etc. Um largely due to the radiuses coming out and you can see that on on those particular plants. Uh just a quick question regarding the leech field and and the need the required size. Yes. For for this system. Do you know that right off hand? Uh it is sized for we have an A and a B area shown on the plans. Those are sized for the size of the tank that we have called for which is called which is

based upon the uh capacity that uh is again industry standard. I believe we're at um want to want to say 180 SFUS uh single family unit equivalents. They don't use quite as much per uh you know individual pad at full buildout as what a home would but um you know there is a number that we have utilized that is the state criteria and I assume the property's parked I'm sorry you've gone through perk testing. Oh absolutely has to be. Yeah. Did did everybody see that the size tank that was called for was 5,000galon? It

it's a 5,000gallon tank. That was my first concern when I saw this until I read enough to see that was what it said and then I kind of relaxed about that issue. Yeah. Well, Mr. Gray, I just only comments I got are very minor. I I there's a couple of in fact there's a total of three references in here to Metro where it should say us. But hey, if you're used to working in Nashville, I can even show you where they are. It's none of them are are dealillers to me. Okay. I was telling my wife before I came over here, I said if I had to redraw take a Leroy set in the drafting board and redraw the whole thing myself, I wouldn't know if I correct it all myself. So,

I don't think that's how this was done in 2026, but you may have done I don't know if you've done it long enough to know what I'm talking about. I I did I had to I had to take mechanical drafting in college and my first uh my first plans back in 1990 were on the board with the lead I believe that and and I appreciate. Does anybody else have any more questions about this because it just seems to have been done really well to me. It's got a good traffic study and a good Yes, sir. Go ahead.

I've just some information if you don't mind. Just I'm curious. You've you've obviously done this before. It's not your first RV park. The life of this septic system, what what do you see in and typically and the ones that you've done? Typically, um well, new uh septic fields uh are still in operation that were done in 1999 in the original area. Uh the state of Tennessee requires you to have both the area that you were going to use and a separate area both approved and tested. Okay. So you have a secondary

that is a secondary area. So that inevitably to answer your question directly uh they say between 30 and 50 years three I'm sorry per drain field. Per drain field. And so once, you know, inevitably they will eventually clog. It would probably be after I'm dead. Yeah.

But um once that one clogs, you move to the secondary area and uh those are all shown on the uh grid plans that are submitted to the state and approved by the state. And uh we keep everybody off of them during construction. That's the first thing that they'll do is fence that area off. Does anybody have any further questions about this project? Does anybody have a motion they'd wish to make at this time?

Yes, this is my area. I think it's going to fit very nicely there. Um I only have a concern about getting on I40, but that's with all tractor semis and everything because [laughter] that's a nightmare right through there. Um, I'm I motion to approve this plan. Okay. Got a valid motion from Tina to uh approve the uh the plan the site plan for Nashville Getaway RV and Campground. Is there a second? I'll second it. Second from Todd or I see several people second it. Take your pick.

All right. Well, I'm going to call for the question. Those in favor of approval of the site plan of Nashville Getaway RV and Campground state I. I. I. Those opposed of that approval state nay. Opinion chair. The eyes have it and the motion to accept this site plan for Nashville Getaway RV and Campgrounds is entered into the record. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. Let's move on to item number two on the agenda, which is a resoning request for Trent Smith and Ilia Jefferson Smith. Is that correct? Okay.

This is tax map 109 parcel 032.00 2.2 acres on the Eno road Dixon A1 agricult. And again, we are in the second district. So, uh, anything you have to tell us about this, Mr. Hayes, that we don't already know from reading it? No, it's just for the construction of 10 new town homes from A1 to R3.

Well, certainly had to do that to build 10 new town homes. Does anybody have any questions or comments about this move? If there's not any discussion, then the chair would ask for a motion. Does anyone have a motion regarding the reasoning request for Trent Smith and Ellie Jefferson Smith of this parcel? This is also my zone. Yes, ma'am. It's you. [clears throat] And considering all the other houses that are currently on ENO,

I will um go ahead and motion to approve this resoning request. Have a valid motion, Tina, to uh approve this uh resoning application. Is there a second? Have a second from Mr. Reagan. Now, it's our procedure on a reszoning to always do a roll call and get everybody's vote recorded. So, I would say Mr. Hayes, if you call the role, we'll vote. Todd Barry, yes. Tina Ferris, yes. Darren Green, yes. Todd Lindsay,

no. Robert Wall, yes. Tommy Brown, yes. Jeff Chase, yes. Randy Ramy, yes. Amanda Barry, yes. Patrick, yes. There's 10 in favor,

one opposed. And let the let the record reflect that this was approved by a margin of 10 to one. The third item on the agenda is a reasonzoning request for Raul Kunista Inesta. That's on tax map 136, parcel 028.18, 19,400 square ft. 2652 Highway 46 South Dixon, Tennessee from A1 agriculture to C2 general commercial 7th district. Mr. face. The reser request from A1 to C2 is on a small parcel in between two other parcels that that the purchased that is already C2 and we had that Miss Harrington had I mean it's a small it's like 10,000 square ft property that's in between other C2 commercial lots and the guy purchasing the surrounding and he wants to combine it all to make this one lot commercial as well.

I think this is almost 20,000 square ft, but it's it's not out of character with that area at all. In fact, it's sort of right in character. It's just sort of been left as agriculture when everything around it was reszoned to commercial a long time ago. Everybody pretty much knows what we're talking about, right? Okay. Does anybody have any questions or comments or problems with this? Because seems pretty routine to me. So, Mr. Hayes, he's operating currently a business out there. I don't think he's moved there yet. Okay. It's my understanding that it's the the Burns Garden Center. Okay. That's going to move.

They're going to move out there. He's going to move off of 47 and out there. Okay. Honestly, probably a better area more more in conjun more more like the surrounding use than where he is now. This is right beside the the middle Tennessee lumber. Yeah, this this is a lot lot better area for what he at the scale he's doing it at now, it's probably a better place for it. And that again just just an opinion doesn't mean anything other than I think it' be a good thing. Do we have a motion to approve this?

I'll make a motion. Okay, Amanda Barry has moved that uh the resing request uh for tax map 136 parcel 082 028.18 2650 to highway 46 South be approved. Is there a second? Okay, Mr. Brown, several people seem to be comfortable with this. Once again, this is a reszoning request to go on to the county commission. So, uh, our procedure is a roll call vote on this. So, Mr. Hayes, if you would again. Barry, yes. Tina Paris, yes. Aaron Green, yes. Yes.

Robert Wall. Tommy Brown. Yes. Jeff Chase. Yes. Randy Ramy, yes. Amanda Barry, yes. Patrick Reagan, yes. Mitchell Harden, yes. It's a unanimous

Okay. unanimous motion to approve reszoning of tax map 136, parcel 028.18 from A1 to C2. All right. The fourth agenda item is a public hearing amendment to the Dixon County growth plan and plan growth area. And we'll proceed to that at this time. My counselor, do you have a presentation for us on this? I'll try to be brief, but yes, I do want Well, we want you to make that presentation then, sir.

I didn't get to connect my computer to the TV, so I'm going to pass out my presentation if y'all wouldn't mind passing that down. you did have in your packet the Dixon County Planned Growth Area Amendment map. Um, so that's kind of the basis for this and I'm going to kind of walk you through what the growth plan is, what does it mean. Um, apparently it was a lot more interesting at the Charlotte Planning Commission tonight on their growth plan about 40 or 50 people there. We have we have one who's a member of our county commission. So, uh not a not a large public contingency here tonight, but I do want to provide you with this information because you may start to get some questions as members of the planning commission. So, I want you to have this information. So, just I'm going to read through this and provide context, but what is a growth plan? Every county has one. The growth plan determines where and how municipalities can annex new territory and where the planned growth area of the county is located. We already have one. It's from the 2000s. Uh we went through a couple of amendments. The state legislature, the general assembly, mandated growth plans. Uh I think it was a law passed in 1999 2000. Um to indicate where can you annex to? And this kind of goes with you go back far enough in time, cities used to annex by ordinance as they saw fit. That law was changed kind of in conjunction with the growth plan. Uh and and I'll get to that in a minute, but we're dealing with four different areas in the county. You have all your cities that's within their jurisdiction, right? Then you have your urban growth boundaries. Every city has one. All the cities in the county have one. Right? Now we are looking at all the mayors

have been getting together and now it's going to the planning commissions holding public hearings going to the governing body. It's going to make its way to the coordinating committee which I'll talk about more in a minute. Uh but everybody's got their growth plan and what that means is that's where cities can annex. That's the main purpose. What where do we see potential growth or need for planning for that growth? infrastructure, schools, utilities over [clears throat] the next quarter century. These are these are large planning documents. This is not to say this entire area is about to get annexed. In fact, in Tennessee now, you can only get annexed if you request to be annexed and it has to be done in a sequential manner. Now, counties don't annex, so you don't have to get into that in your discussions, but the city of Dixon, White Bluff, Burns, Charlotte, um, they can grow their natural boundaries by annexing territory in a domino effect. Um, so, um, I guess I already talked about this on this page, but annexation can only occur under state law at the request of the owner. Policy discourages leapfrog non-ontiguous annexations. There's a few exceptions in the statute. you, the applicant, have to own all of the property and it could technically annex further out. It's strange. We don't have that happen often, but supposed to be in a domino effect. And a parcel in a urban growth boundary is not in that municipality. That's a misconception we deal with common. It's still in the county.

If you're in the UGB and you have not been annexed, you are under county law, our zoning, you pay county taxes, you do not pay city taxes, you're not under city law. um how the growth plan will be updated. Well, the coordinating committee is the statutory body that receives these sections of the growth plan from each of the jurisdictions, puts it together as a puzzle, and sends it back down. Um the coordinating committee for our county will have 14 members. It's the mayor of every jurisdiction, two representatives from the county, two from the largest municipality, that'd be the city of Dixon, school board, chamber of commerce, etc. Uh, but they'll meet and look at what every jurisdiction has submitted and piece it together like a puzzle. Right now, this is the very beginning of the county process. In a moment, I'm going to ask the chairman to open up for a public hearing in which anybody from the public can express their thoughts on this subject. Uh, and there will be another public hearing at the county commission in February in which the county commission will take up a resolution to send some version of the map that was in your packet to the coordinating committee. I'll note just one of the reasons we're going through this process is our old maps and it's starting to be a little bit of an issue are, for lack of a better term, crayon on paper. Most parcels on the edges of either the growth boundary or the PGA, it goes through the parcel. Half the parcels in, half the parcel's not because they didn't have GIS mapping to the degree we do now. So, one thing we are getting regardless of what happens in this entire process is full GIS mapping for the county that we will be able to access. I was just talking to Miss Harrington who is playing with it. I haven't gotten to play with it yet, but you'll be able to log in uh to a website or just go to a website and play around and see which parcels in which jurisdiction and know exactly where that

is. It's going to be uh a really big tool for all the county uh in terms of being able to plan and go forward from there. Um so, uh just kind of going through the slides a little bit more. We're going to establish the coordinating committee. They'll meet after every jurisdiction sends their growth area up. So, the countyy's again sending up our PGA that'll be voted on by the county commission. Every city who's participating uh will be sending up their proposed changes, amendments, edits to their urban growth boundary. And you again, you bring them all together and puzzle it together. I will note they have not voted. We have been told that Vanlier and Sladen are not going to participate. So, their urban growth boundaries stay the same. they're just they're not in the process, but Charlotte White Bluff Burn, City of Dixon, and the county are participating in the process. Um, so that's that's generally what this is. And I'll kind of go through the map with you briefly. You can see the color coding, the areas that are unchanged. You know, most of the southern half of the county outside of UGB's was county PGA. some of those areas are going to be given up uh by the county, more appropriate for cities to perhaps put their UGBs in those areas. There's some swapping that went on. Um you can see the blue areas are where the county PGA was given up and then the the pink or salmon areas kind of along major corridors is where we're adding some county uh plan growth areas and things that are not colored in. That's the rural part of the county and that's uh for the most part staying intact as is. Um but that's that's where we are in the process. There's two public hearings. One's going to be in a moment. Another one will be in February and then there'll be two meetings of the coordinating committee to put the maps all together and then it'll come back down to each of the jurisdictions to adopt the completed puzzle. Like again, right now you're just sending up your

map for your jurisdiction and in April, May, somewhere in there, all the jurisdictions will vote on the whole map and then that goes at the very end of the process to LGPAC, an agency of the state to ratify the growth plan. So, having said all that, are there any questions, comments from this body? And we're going to, I know, get into the agenda item, but while I'm up here, does anybody have any questions? I guess I have one. Yes, sir.

What is that little What is that little item right at the southern border of the county and that place there in kind of sort of toward the southwest corner? That one little track there that's coming out of the the Dixon UGB. What What's the What's the thought? That was a split. Uh okay. So, it's clean up. Split. Okay. You know, a lot of the edits, not all, but a lot of the edits that we went through over the past couple of months was with that split and looking at parcels.

What roads are they actually accessing? Oh, you're on this side, maybe you need to be in Burns. Oh, you're on this side, maybe you need to be in the city of Dixon's UGB. You don't want someone who's accessing a road in one jurisdiction and that's where they're getting the driveway permit, everything. Have to deal with

different jurisdiction on a building permit or development plans or what have you. So, it's trying to make a little bit more sense of what area is is is there. But again, if you're in the UGB unannexed, you're just in the county. I mean, there's really no difference. There's no difference in taxes or anything. It just means you now have and continue to have the option to ask to be annexed if you're on the border of that city. If you're 10 parcels away, you got to wait for those 10 parcels to get annexed first before you can can ask. Um, you know, I know the city of Burns has had several annexations recently, but they're doing it in a domino effect. They you got to have that person ask. And it can it can take a while to get through any area. And I think it's designed that way. But again, the biggest component to all of this, this allows us uh and I say us collectively, the county, the cities, the planners, everybody to look where could growth be um and where should that growth be? And you see the north part of the county kind of staying mostly the way it is and and see some swapping between county plan growth areas, city UGBs, and again every jurisdiction is going to go through this process and send up what they think their area needs to look like.

Does anybody on the commission have any comments about this or any questions about it? Okay. Well, with that, Mr. Chairman, statutoily, I need you to open up. I I was going to say I think what I need to do is declare that the public hearing on this issue of urban growth boundaries is now open and all persons who are going to comment upon it need to do so. Commissioner, do you have anything to tell us? You're the only member of the public here for the purposes of this meeting. I think

here to observe. Well, I hope you don't have any problem what we're doing cuz I'm about to close the public hearing on it. This was duly published, folks. If I either people trust us a whole lot or they don't read the paper cuz I was I when I pulled up here tonight, I was about half scared. I was afraid this crowd was all here for us. I was happy to find out they were here for Charlotte. Instead, I'll let them worry about it. Uh, I hereby declare the public hearing on the urban growth boundary plan growth areas for the municipalities of Dixon County to be closed.

So, Mr. Chairman, on this always call me or Curtis or anybody between now and county commission meeting if you have additional thoughts. I also have on your way out I have the completed puzzle if you want to take [laughter] it exists right now from every jurisdiction again every jurisdiction going through this process you could see some slight changes so it's very much so in draft form but I want you just to have that so you can see how what's going up to the county commission as our piece of the puzzle interacts with the rest just so you have but there's no action that's required that's all we have

all right Before we adjourn, is any comments or things that need to be put out for the good of the planning commission or any comments that anybody feels uh motivated or called to make because if not, I'm going to ask for a motion that this meeting be adjourned. I guess I need to ask one thing just for clarification. The last document in your packet is a zoning resolution amendment. Um, that may have gotten folded into number four and I think we're just going to have to move it to next month as it does need to be on the agenda. Agenda unless things otherwise, but it wasn't. Okay.

To talk about the nonresidential character. Oh, that's right. Yes. I I was going to ask it to counselor. If you'd like to me to try to get this approved by unanimous consent, I'll do it and we'll address it tonight. Is there any objection to entering this item onto the tail end of the agenda that wasn't on that? We saw the document for it, but it wasn't on the preprinted agenda. Any any objection at all? Because it has to be unanimously sent. Uh I do not hear any consent. Well, I'm a little confused on what is it? This that we're talking about that was added.

Okay. Yeah. Ter, do you have do you have a problem with this? Cuz we'll we'll put it next month. If you do, if you don't, we'll do it tonight. I would like to see it move next month. All righty. That then there is no unanimous consent and that'll be heard uh as part of the agenda of next month. Um Yes, sir. If I may, just since you have it and you're going to study it, feel free to call. These are nonresidential character and development standards.

There are laws that limit what counties can do versus cities on how non-residential buildings can look. This is a graph on putting together some of those standards as a zoning resolution amendment. So, this will go up to county commission, look at it, study it. I think this may take more than one meeting to get through because while it is only two pages, it is a pretty significant change to how non commercial buildings are built in the county. Uh so definitely look at it. Uh talk to Curtis, Amanda or myself. Uh we can walk you through parts of it, but I would like to have a discussion um at the next meeting.

Mr. Mills, this just this is commercial structures only. Correct. Non-residential non res non-residential commercial, anything that's non-resident. Okay. So, workshops at at homes also would fall under the it's an accessory structure to a residential building is going to fall under this. Okay. Okay.

And if that's something we need to make sure it's very clear, again, that's part of [snorts] the discussion. I I think most of you all are familiar with this just in case anybody's accessed to the commission since we talked about this. You know, counties are creatures. We're instruments of the state. The state can very very strictly say what a county is authorized to legislate or to do. Whereas the uh fact the charter gives a city considerably more freedom in that area than we have. Just because they do something in the city, it may or may not be something we can do to match it in the county if we want to. So this is this is I'm surprised that they're giving us this much leeway on this area to tell you the truth. That's I don't know if you've paid attention to the state legislature the last 10 years, but there's been a growing number of things that the state has forbidden any county to do. And I I hope that'll calm down or at some point we won't even need to do this anymore. But uh that that's what this is about is that they're not going to let any county and it's a good thing up to a point. They're not going to let any county that's got somebody say, "Well, I think every foundation ought to be purple." You're not going to get that. It doesn't matter how bad you want it. And that's to me that's a good thing. But anyway, at this point, I will entertain a motion that we adjourn till the next meeting, which is the uh 5th, no 12th,

12th of uh February of 2025. I move. Mr. Brown moves. Who? Seconds. Second. Mr. Barry seconds. Those in favor say I. We'rejourned. We'll put the maps right here. Yeah, I want that. Thank you.