Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Around Town / Phillips Tennessee State University Still Doesn't Have Its Bell's Bend Land
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 8:14 AM
Folks, color me surprised and happy that someone is willing to just say it out loud--that "gift" of land to Tennessee State University had strings attached. And everybody knew it.
Here's the thing, though. There's nobody affiliated with TSU today who gave public testimony about how wonderful May Town Center would be who had any room to stand today outraged that TSU doesn't have the land it was promised.
The May Town Center people lied on their zoning application about whether they'd done the proper archaeological surveys. They played fast and loose with the number and location of the bridges that will be needed to build their center. They compromised a TSU professor when they had him "survey" folks about their support for MTC when really he and his students were being paid to market the project. They can't even say how big the development will be, because it is whatever size they think the person asking wants to hear.
And all of that stuff has played out in the papers, where anyone can read it.
If you thought, "Well, with us, they'll play square," you are a fool. And you are a fool who'd better be calling the administration at TSU and the MTC development people until the land is actually in the legal possession of TSU. Because if you don't keep the pressure on these folks, you can't be sure they'll keep their word.
Comments (25)
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I fully understand the historical reasons why TSU has an agricultural function. But the truth is, Tennessee higher education is no longer segregated and the state no longer needs, nor can afford, to have two state universities with agricultural experiment stations. UT is the logical place for it; it has an extensive extension service and experiment station network across the state.
TSU might very well use land in Bells Bend for expansion or some other purpose but the last thing it needs is a farming operation over there. TSU's focus needs to be serving Nashville as a state university educating students and with an important urban research and outreach component. The improvements to its campus over the past 20 years have made it an attractive place.
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I think you're raising good points, but I think they're kind of beside the point.
TSU was promised land by the Mays. It doesn't matter if that land was so that everybody in the English department could have a place to go off and sulk after fighting about whether we have to consider the author or not when trying to figure out complex passages or if it was for agricultural development or just for folks at TSU to have a place to sit in the sun and watch the barges go by on nice days.
And people need to step up and put pressure in the right places to ensure that the promise is kept.
No, they're not beside the point. As you point out in the original Pith post (I assume that's you, although I could be mistaken), it was clear to everybody who has been reading the papers that the land donation was contingent on Maytown going through.
I'm just saying that the idea of a TSU farm over there is ludicrous, a waste of state resources and bad for TSU because it's a misplaced focus.
FYI to Uriah Heap. TSU already has a sizable demonstration farm located on River Road near Ashland City.
As for the May gift, two hundred acres of the donated land, located along the river, was supposed to be used for farming, and fifty acres, located within May Town itself, was to be used for a "research park." But as Professor Padgett pointed out yesterday, "if there is no May Town Center, there is no infrastructure development. What are you going to have — a research park with no sewers, no electricity, no access?" In other words, the gift of land isnt all that important in the absence of a development. (Although I suppose the land has some value as farm land---maybe $1k or $2k an acre-- which TSU could turn around and sell.) Land, though, was not the only thing promised. According to a TSU press release, the donation included, "$400,000 towards an endowment for a Chair of Excellence for Sustainable Agriculture." That's real money but there's been no mention of it in the latest spate of stories. One hopes that a Scene reporter will ask.
Thanks HW, I always learn something from you, regardless of the venue. But surely you didn't believe they were going to give them anything if Maytown didn't go through.
What do you think of my original point: that TSU should no longer be in the ag extension service/experiment station business?
I think it's important to realize the land has value beyond that of a demonstration farm. TSU may or may not use that land for teaching and research purposes, but if they don't it certainly has value as a potential revenue generator for the University. There's no reason the land can't be leased to private interests to run as a farm, and there's no reason the money from that lease can't contribute to the University's operating budget or scholarship funds.
This gift should be considered a donation to the endowment of TSU and we shouldn't let the May family off the hook just because of some disagreements about the best use of TSU's resources.
I suspect you're right. One of the problems with our higher ed system is that we haven't yet identified each school's core mission nor reduced the number of duplicate programs. One hopes that the governor's higher ed reform plans will address those issues. Tennessee is still an agricultural state and we can have ag programs at more than one school. That said, I doubt that TSU's future lies in that direction.
As for the May gift, we havent yet seen all the relevant documents, but don't be suprised if the university's lawyers go after the land and the money with or without the May family's cooperation. (By the way, I was wrong when I wrote that the donation of $400,000 hadn't been mentioned in the press. Although the story by Janell Ross in yesterday's Tennessean didn't mention it, Gail Kerr did in her column today.)
I recently heard a TSU representative speak on the land and technology center. Tony G was in the audience perhaps to monitor what she said. She refused to comment on the future of the farm/technology project itself if the larger May Town project doesn't happen.
BTW, my comments above were intended as a reply to Uriah.
Mr. Valentine, you are correct also. Even without the development, the land still has value as farm land which TSU could sell or lease. And, as I said above, my understanding is that the university is not about to let the donors off the hook. Stand by.
Ha, Henry, you're a braver man than I am for bringing up the third rail of the existing demonstration farm! Because what are they demonstrating out there? How many trees can grow on unused farm land? Or is there a working farm you can't see from the road?
Anyway, as a hyperbolic baby myself, I recognize just a hair of hyperbolic baby-ism in Professor Padgett's complaining. He's too good to drive down OHB like the rest of us? He thinks the Barneses and the park folks are all reading by candle light and shitting in the woods? Please. It's rural, not frontier.
Brandon, one would assume that, at the least, the sod farmers could continue sod farming, just with new landlords.
UH, TSU has a significant extentsion program, and I think Geier would support that TSU have all A&I function in higher ed in TN if the state decided to do away with one or the other. If both governing bodies are unified (Regents merged w/ UT system) then the point would be moot.
The May Town Center developers considered the land to be "walking around money." It is tragic that the TSU faculty and students who sold their souls didn't realize it was contingent walking around money.
We've had this discussion somewhere before, but to a different conclusion. Given the TSU farm out River Road mentioned by HW and the "potential revenue generator" of the Bells Bend land gift, some had predicted months ago that TSU would sell the land to developers whether or not May Town passed. If the gift is truly unconditional, that means TSU is free to keep or dispose of it as it pleases, right? Carefull what you wish/goad for.
As noted, without a bridge and existing infrastructure the land is fairly useless as an agricultural experiment station or as any part of TSU's campus.
It would be difficult, politically, to obstruct a historically black university from profiting from development if it meets current zoning (one home per acre outside of the floodplain, one per five within). And once such a development was approved, it would be impossible to stop any other similar development that meets zoning. Giantarra's alternative of 600 homes on the MTC property would then seem much more than an empty threat, giving him even more leverage to develop their land to a higher and better use than a sprawling subdivision.
Hate the Mays for offering the gift. Hate them for withdrawing it. Hate them for making it non-conditional. Hate them for making it conditional. And on and on...
If we're going to debate where the state should have ag programs, don't forget the sizable one at MTSU.
Well, I brought up the issue because once TSU is given the farm land, it will be hard for the state to deny them a major expansion of TSU's agricultural program -- which neither TSU or the state needs.
That's the only point I was making. As for MTSU, I don't find it offensive for either it or TSU to teach a few undergraduate ag courses. That's a far cry from running dual ag extension services. And that's why the governor will, hopefully, address this issue of duplication and core missions for each institution in spite of the political difficulties he will face.
From what I gather, the gift cannot be compelled. I'm sorry, but has any legal authority ever been cited to show it can be forced? Nope. None. Nada. Zilch.
It ain't gonna happen. And in all likelihood, there was a deal already between MTC and TSU wherein the latter would sell back the property for a tidy little sum--and that would happen only if the council and planning commission coud be properly bribed, along with our hapless and ineffectual mayor. All this nonsense about an ag program is smoke.
The alumni, students and faculty of TSU were useful idiots, the city council member for that district has been made into an ass, and all that is corrupt and rotten about Nashville has been laid bare. The Mays knew how to play this town, and they gave it their best shot. What the Mays and their notorious attorneys won't do is give up a square inch of dirt unless money falls their way.
Saywhat??? I'd be surprised if the Mays had any plans to buy back that land. It's in the flood plain and it's riddled with Native American burial sites. Handing it over to TSU makes dealing with those factors their headache.
It likely was a straw transaction, B. TSU wouldn't be able to use the property for much, either, for the very same reasons you set out. That's speculative but the only thing that makes sense. The land's value is negligible without May Town Center. With it, the "gift" was worth something and I suspect there was a ready buyer. The agriculture angle was a farce.
What isn't speculative is that a gift contingent on an event cannot be legally compelled. And it won't be.
Finally and as an aside, anyone who supported this project and claims to be "green" also was a dupe. Please don't tout recycling and then turn around and support "development" of rural property for a project the city apparently didn't need and certainly couldn't support and sustain. Wrecking the environment and plowing millions into infrastructure for the next shuttered mall and empty office building makes absolutely no sense.
This is the part I've NEVER understood about this (but I'm naive about these things). With the new Convention Center, for all the faults of that project, at least they were able to say "Here are some conventions that have committed to coming here if we build the MCC." You could actually see and judge that there was some interest (and then we could, as a community, debate whether that interest is enough or likely to pan out or whatever).
Who are ANY likely candidates for occupancy of May Town? No one who's at Nashville West needs to also have a shop there. Anyone who's a direct competitor of a business in Nashville West would have to consider how successful they would be against an already established business.
It's like I've said, you can't put 40,000 people (or however many tens of thousands of people it would end up being) in an area without a grocery store. And no grocery store is going to build until there's a sustainable population.
That's the problem with the whole "If you won't let us do this, we'll put up a bunch of ugly duplexes, and that will show you." threat.
Really? You've got a bunch of people who want to live in a huge subdivision at the end of a dead end miles from the nearest grocery store and a good 20 minute car ride (which would mean an hour school bus ride) down winding roads from the nearest elementary school?
Anyway, I hope it's clear that I don't think that TSU has any legal standing to compel the gift. Their only recourse, I believe, is to try to publicly shame the Mays into keeping their word.
B,
40,000 daytime population of a May Town would have a bridge over to the Nashville West area where there is a Target (as well as on White Bridge), a WalMart and a Publix to get groceries. Big-box and chain restaraunt development will be on the Charlotte Avenue and White Bridge because, as you've pointed out, that's where it is already. The talk from some people of a Walmart being built on Old Hickory Boulevard is just fear mongering.
People living in a subdivision, if development went that way, would get their groceries same as anyone else living in Bells Bend. Maybe they will have jobs, and do shopping on the way home from work? Where do folks on Tidwell Hollow Road buy groceries?
"Really? You've got a bunch of people who want to live in a huge subdivision at the end of a dead end miles from the nearest grocery store and a good 20 minute car ride (which would mean an hour school bus ride) down winding roads from the nearest elementary school?" Amazing. One argument is that Bells Bend is a beautiful fairyland, a state treasure so precious, an awe-inspiring gaze into the face of God... then argue that no one in their right mind would want to live there! Asking why someone would want to live "way out there" without school nor store is like asking why people live on South Harpeth Road or at Riverwalk. People who'd prefer to live in BFE 40 miles out of Nashville (and there are many) will buy into a subdivision in the Bend to get the same feeling of solitude without the commute.
BTW 750 residences, having a 50% child-occupancy typical of new subdiviions, would eventually bring about a new elementary school nearby.
"Their only recourse, I believe, is to try to publicly shame the Mays into keeping their word."
This is what I don't get. If you "shame" the Mays (that is, continue the petty battle with them even though you won) into giving the land to TSU, and TSU doesn't really need it, then you may end up with a subdivision built on the TSU property that enriches TSU. That will lead to more subdivisions and the eventual loss of everything outside the park to development. Which may warrant a taxpayer-funded bridge across the Cumberland sooner than later.
TSU would be tough to fight, and opponents would be accused of the "R" word at every step. Let this dog lie, folks! Let it lie!
I want to meet the developer in this economy willing to put up a subdivision in a flood plain after paying to relocate Indian remains.
B.-
A "clustered" development that sets aside most of the land as common space can be built on the land that doesn't have archaeological issues and is least likely to flood. For example, if one home requires five acres because it's in the flood plain, it can be clustered with 10 other homes on one acre lots. The result is 10-acre island of development within the remaining 40 undeveloped acres.
I don't know if clustering would be allowed under the latest community plan, but if so I suspect as long as each homesite is left with enough percolating land for septic, it would be OK.
Again, folks insisting that the property gift be unconditional may not like the ultimate use that TSU choses for the land they're trying to embarrass the Mays into giving.
Oh, David, I have such a soft spot for smarty-pants that even though I disagree with you, I find your smartness bending me to your will!
I shake my fist at you, good sir!
Anyway, if you're curious, I've already taken a look at the archaeological issues (known archaeological issues, I should say) and the flood plain issues, if folks would like to look at a bunch of blurry images and decide for themselves what the chances are of there being development right along the river.
