Last month, neighbors helped neighbors keep other neighbors from building at legally allowable setbacks in a sleepy corner of Green Hills.
In order to make sure all the houses lined up, Sutton Hill homeowners successfully pressured members of the Board of Zoning Appeals to overrule clearly established setback guidelines in favor of residents’ aesthetic preferences. Neighbors’ arguments included the fear that houses set further back from the road would be so out of line that they would ruin Halloween. In the end, the BZA ruled for the children. As we reported last month, board member Tom Lawless compared the subversive crusade to the Supreme Court’s decision on Brown v. Board of Education.
Russ Pulley — the councilmember representing Sutton Hill's District 25 — just filed legislation to eliminate the maximum required setback in areas with an "established development pattern," an apparent response to the developing dispute in his district. Builders would default to a street’s contextual setback.
The board’s rogue decision — which enforced an 80-foot setback rather than the 60 feet allowed by the letter of the law (and sought by the lot’s owner) — has been appealed to the Davidson County Chancery Court. Former Metro Codes administrator Bill Herbert is arguing the case. Herbert's new home in the private sector is land-use law firm Thompson Burton.Â
In a petition filed Tuesday, Herbert takes issue with the Board of Zoning Appeals’ subversion of Nashville zoning law. Among a slate of facts, Herbert states that, “Throughout the hearing, both neighbors and Board members acknowledged that the Zoning Administrator (Joey Hargis) correctly applied the law.” He is seeking a writ of certiorari to counter Metro and the appeals of Jeremy Barlow, the noted area chef and sandwich artist who recently brought us Fryce Cream. Barlow has led neighbors’ setback opposition from his own new build two houses over. If the court issues the writ, then Herbert has a case, prompting Metro’s legal department to issue a brief.
Herbert officially moved to Thompson Burton a few weeks ago alongside Emily Lamb, his former No. 2 at Codes. They join Jon Michael (named as co-counsel on this case), who is also working on the case and who worked at Metro for 15 years — first as counsel, then as the city’s zoning administrator — continuing the pipeline between the courthouse and downtown law firms. This is a common late-career move for Metro’s top brass — catch former Mayor Bill Purcell at Frost Brown Todd, and longtime legal hand Jon Cooper at Waller.
