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Purchase isn’t only way to keep homes off golf course
By CLINT CONFEHR / Review Appeal Senior Staff Reporter
Short of a public-private collaboration to buy the Country Club of Franklin, there may be a way to make sure the golf course isn’t developed as a housing subdivision, one of the preservationists on Franklin’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen said on Sunday afternoon.
It’s called a conservation easement, a publicly recorded contract between a property owner and a qualified entity which can include local government. The Land Trust for Tennessee Inc. is another legal entity which monitors conservation easements. It’s unclear whether golf qualifies as a conservation purpose here, but it has elsewhere.
Alderwoman Pam Lewis spoke briefly about this alternative to a controversy that’s disturbed hundreds of city residents.
A conservation easement could be accomplished with a payment or exchange of something of value to the owner of land where development would be restricted.
While Mayor Tom Miller denies Franklin City Hall has any plan to buy the fairways and greens visible from Lewisburg Pike, Lewis has acknowledged her interest in preserving that open space since the property’s owner, Rod Heller of Washington, D.C., challenged the community at-large to do something about it.
Heller paid $5 million to a businessman who planned to sell the property rented by the Country Club of Franklin, club members and city officials have said. The previous owner had another buyer who reportedly planned to build homes there. Heller is interested in preserving the open space since he’s a descendant of the family that built Carnton Mansion, a former chairman of the national Civil War Trust, and he’s a golfer.
Lewis’ observation followed a tour and Civil War history lesson at the Collins Farm, just northwest of the country club and Historic Carnton Plantation. She was asked what she thought of the situation which includes Country Club of Franklin members and other city residents who oppose city spending to transform a golf course into a battlefield park, and the historic backdrop detailed by leaders of Save the Franklin Battlefield Inc.
“It’s very compelling that it’s battlefield property,” Lewis said of the Collins Farm which was part of the McGavock family plantation, better known as Carnton, and the golf course between the mansion and Lewisburg Pike.
“The question is whether we can prevail,” she said.
“One option is to buy the development rights,” said Lewis, explaining that could be “done with a conservation easement.”
The cost “would be less than $5 million,” the alderwoman said.
“It would leave the golf course and open options to buy other properties,” she said after about 30 people learned about combat on the eastern front in the Battle of Franklin.
The audience included Tom Greuel and Hank Beyke, residents of Dallas Downs subdivision southeast of the Country Club of Franklin, who used to live, respectively, near the Civil War battlefield at Manassas, Va., and Fort Recovery, Ind., which was recovered from the Shawnee.
“I’m glad there’s some movement,” Beyke said before the history lesson in the Collins Farm parking lot. “It’s unfortunate we’ve had to wait so long. The longer you wait, the harder it is” to create a battlefield park.
Greuel, who knew only a little about the golf course situation before the history lesson, said he would favor anything that could be done to expand the public’s view of the battlefield.
By CLINT CONFEHR / Review Appeal Senior Staff Reporter
Short of a public-private collaboration to buy the Country Club of Franklin, there may be a way to make sure the golf course isn’t developed as a housing subdivision, one of the preservationists on Franklin’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen said on Sunday afternoon.
It’s called a conservation easement, a publicly recorded contract between a property owner and a qualified entity which can include local government. The Land Trust for Tennessee Inc. is another legal entity which monitors conservation easements. It’s unclear whether golf qualifies as a conservation purpose here, but it has elsewhere.
Alderwoman Pam Lewis spoke briefly about this alternative to a controversy that’s disturbed hundreds of city residents.
A conservation easement could be accomplished with a payment or exchange of something of value to the owner of land where development would be restricted.
While Mayor Tom Miller denies Franklin City Hall has any plan to buy the fairways and greens visible from Lewisburg Pike, Lewis has acknowledged her interest in preserving that open space since the property’s owner, Rod Heller of Washington, D.C., challenged the community at-large to do something about it.
Heller paid $5 million to a businessman who planned to sell the property rented by the Country Club of Franklin, club members and city officials have said. The previous owner had another buyer who reportedly planned to build homes there. Heller is interested in preserving the open space since he’s a descendant of the family that built Carnton Mansion, a former chairman of the national Civil War Trust, and he’s a golfer.
Lewis’ observation followed a tour and Civil War history lesson at the Collins Farm, just northwest of the country club and Historic Carnton Plantation. She was asked what she thought of the situation which includes Country Club of Franklin members and other city residents who oppose city spending to transform a golf course into a battlefield park, and the historic backdrop detailed by leaders of Save the Franklin Battlefield Inc.
“It’s very compelling that it’s battlefield property,” Lewis said of the Collins Farm which was part of the McGavock family plantation, better known as Carnton, and the golf course between the mansion and Lewisburg Pike.
“The question is whether we can prevail,” she said.
“One option is to buy the development rights,” said Lewis, explaining that could be “done with a conservation easement.”
The cost “would be less than $5 million,” the alderwoman said.
“It would leave the golf course and open options to buy other properties,” she said after about 30 people learned about combat on the eastern front in the Battle of Franklin.
The audience included Tom Greuel and Hank Beyke, residents of Dallas Downs subdivision southeast of the Country Club of Franklin, who used to live, respectively, near the Civil War battlefield at Manassas, Va., and Fort Recovery, Ind., which was recovered from the Shawnee.
“I’m glad there’s some movement,” Beyke said before the history lesson in the Collins Farm parking lot. “It’s unfortunate we’ve had to wait so long. The longer you wait, the harder it is” to create a battlefield park.
Greuel, who knew only a little about the golf course situation before the history lesson, said he would favor anything that could be done to expand the public’s view of the battlefield.
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