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Scenic Valley Near Brentwood Off Limits to Development
By CHARLES BOOTH
Mary Ann Sugg's 20 acres of undeveloped Williamson County property has dropped in value by about $850,000. Her response: "It just makes me feel good every time I think about it." The decrease in value is her own fault. Sugg's grandfather bought a couple of hundred acres in the area around 1900, and today, the land looks pretty much the same. There are no buildings on it, just pasture and woods covering the scenic hills. Near the Brentwood city limits, it's an ideal spot for a development. But no bulldozers will be treading on this land. Sugg and her brother, John, who also inherited the land from their family, have placed it under permanent conservation easements with The Land Trust for Tennessee, which permanently restricts the uses of the land. Its scenic, rural character must be maintained, making it worthless to developers interested in building neighborhoods. "Both of us agreed we really did not want to see 250 houses go in there," she said. It's a sentiment shared by four of her neighbors on Beech Creek Road, who, beginning in 2000 and culminating just this year, have put conservation easements on their own property. Now, about 256 acres in this rural valley will remain undisturbed for years to come. "I have to say this is the first time a whole valley has been conserved," said Jean Nelson, president of The Land Trust for Tennessee.
"Obviously, we and the whole community should be so grateful for the vision of these people to protect this beautiful valley. It's an amazing rural road with rock walls and a real sense of what rural Williamson County is at its best." Annexation was concern The movement to protect this land started in 1999 when Curry Ingram Academy, then known as Westminster School, was interested in building its campus near this valley. The school wanted the city of Brentwood to annex the area and extend sewer lines to the site. For some of the Beech Creek Road residents, city sewer service was just the first step in converting the empty hills into subdivisions. "The sewer, we thought that would be the impetus for people to sell off to develop," Sugg said. "We decided we didn't want that to happen." Mike Walker, Brentwood city manager, said that wasn't the city's stance. Following public debate, Brentwood city officials decided not to annex the land, but they haven't seen much done to protect the area until now. "The people out there made the plea they wanted to preserve the land," Walker said. "If they're making progress, that's good, but I don't think anybody here is pushing to see development in that area." Not long after the annexation was defeated, Denmark Bell, a retired judge, became the first resident in the valley to protect his land, 72 acres, with a conservation easement. The Suggs soon followed suit, protecting 208 acres of their farm. Seven years would pass before they'd put an additional 20 acres under the easement. At the same time, three neighboring landowners, Mike and Cindy Corn, Brenda Bass and Mildred Stahlman, placed conservation easements on their property. "We've seen the destruction of farm land and the beautiful areas of Williamson County for all these developments," Cindy Corn said. "When we moved here, CoolSprings Galleria was a dairy farm and the Nissan building was a strawberry field. It has changed quite a bit." In 1992, the Corns moved onto Beech Grove Farm, a 122-acre family farm bought by Mike's great-aunt in 1936. Like the Sugg property, most of the farm is pastureland and woods. The Corns live in a log and stone house that Cindy said was built more than 200 years ago. "We mainly wanted to preserve it for us and our family and grandchildren and future Corn generations," Cindy Corn said. "It's a big sacrifice. As homeowners, we are sacrificing because no one in the county (governments) is willing to take the initiative to save the land." Part of that sacrifice comes from intentionally causing the property to drop in value by placing future use restrictions on the deed. "It could have been developed for quite a bit of money," Sugg said. "The appraisal was about $1.3 million. The appraisal after the conservation easement is about a third of that. We can still sell it, but developers don't want to buy it." Tracts enhance Owl's Hill But value is all in the eye of the beholder, according to Jean Buchanan, executive director of the Owl's Hill Nature Sanctuary on Beech Creek Road. She now sees a higher worth in the parcels surrounding the nature sanctuary because, as she puts it, nature doesn't know property lines. "We only have 160 acres, and it's really not sustainable acreage for the number and diversity of species we're so fortunate to have here," she said. "With every acre that's protected, Owl's Hill is enhanced. The sanctuary has been protected under restrictive covenants since 1972. It has a mission of education, conservation, restoration, research and species protection, she said. Buchanan described the valley as a place where deer and other animals roam through tall grass and trees, crossing different property lines. The lawns aren't manicured and the overhanging tree limbs give a sense of an undisturbed wilderness. And that, Buchanan said, might eventually make this valley among the most valuable in the area. "I think they are going to become rarer tracts of undeveloped land. People will pretty soon tire of what they now have and look for something more natural," she said. Williamson makes impact More than 32,000 acres have been protected in Tennessee through The Land Trust since the nonprofit was founded in 1999. The majority of those easements are within this county's borders. "We've done 34 projects in Williamson County," Nelson, with The Land Trust, said. "That's by far our largest number of any county." In addition to the Sugg and Corn properties, Mildred Stahlman's 40 acres of forest and Brenda Bass' 80-acre Basswood Farm, both next to Owl's Hill, round out the valley's recently protected areas. "I think these gifts of land are so undervalued," Buchanan said. "They've preserved things for future generations. Once it's gone, it's gone. They've given this gift for the people for generations." |
