After hearing from upset neighbors and from university officials, the Metro Planning Commission Thursday night rejected Lipscomb’s proposal to change Parkwood Terrace apartments from residential rental property to university office space.
The other three parts of the university’s amended institutional overlay proposal passed by a 7-2 vote, clearing the way for McFarland to expand west (beyond the required setback lines), for residential property next to Draper Jewelry to be cleared for a parking lot and adding more “campus-related building square footage within the overlay.”
It was the change in the use of the apartment property that sparked most discussion.
Both sides shared their opinions about the overlay proposal before the vote. Eight community members spoke in favor of Lipscomb, while 10 others from the neighboring area shared strong disapproval for the university’s proposed changes.
Among those sharing their feelings was Elizabeth Betsy Thompson, 88, a Lipscomb high school and university graduate, who has lived in her home since 1935 and “very much wanted to speak” about the Parkwood Terrace proposal, which she said went counter to what she understood to be a university promise to the neighborhood.
“It grieves me to see them want to destroy that subdivision,” she said, adding that she believes Lipscomb made a verbal commitment not to cross Belmont Boulevard. “All promises made sometimes don’t get in writing… that bothers me that Lipscomb is not living up to their word.”
After hearing from both sides of the argument, commission members voiced their personal opinions on the matter and asked additional questions of Phil Ellenburg, Lipscomb’s general counsel, who represented the university at the hearing.
“We’re obviously disappointed and wish it had come out a different way,” said Ellenburg after the meeting, referring to the rejection of the Parkwood Terrace proposal. “But we’ll go back and evaluate and see what our options are and just go from there,” he said.
Ellenburg said the commission’s vote does not change the way the university relates to its neighbors.
“We have a good relationship with our neighbors, and we will continue to have that,” he said. “We have bumps occasionally, but we get over those and we work together for the most part.”
University’s preparation prior to commission meeting
University administrators met with about 20 faculty members Monday to prepare for a zoning hearing that could determine whether to move forward on a campus expansion plan, which has created anger and controversy among some of Lipscomb’s neighbors.
The issue comes up before Metro Planning Commission Thursday, when a vote will take place after discussion of a four-part change to Lipscomb’s institutional overlay.
Phil Ellenburg, Lipscomb’s general counsel, said every university in Nashville is required to file an institutional overlay—designed to show how the university might grow—with the city.
“Basically what an institutional overlay is: It’s a master plan, which sets out arbitrarily defined boundary lines of where you want to grow, and then sets out a vision for what the campus could look like,” he said.
The four-part change to the overlay includes turning the Parkwood Terrace apartments (across Belmont Boulevard near the softball field) into office space, adding onto McFarland by expanding west (“across a required setback line”), replacing a residential property along Granny White (next to Draper Jewelry) with a parking lot and adding more “campus-related building square footage within the overlay.”
Lipscomb’s proposed changes to the overlay—especially the change involving Parkwood Terrace—has created some controversy among residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.
In fact, the Planning Commission staff recommendation going into the public hearing is to deny that part of the proposal “because it is not proposed in the sensitive and planned manner intended by the Zoning Code, it is mid-block and surrounded by residential uses.”
The university has owned the Parkwood Terrace apartments for nearly 20 years, Ellenburg said, but the proposal to change the use of the building from residential rentals to office space has upset some neighbors who say it would break a promise they believe the university made.
“The controversy with the neighbors is that there is a perception that somehow the school promised to never go across Belmont,” Ellenburg said, explaining his understanding of the issue. “Well, as we’ve tried to explain, I’m really not quite sure how that perception got there.”
Ellenburg said he thinks the confusion may have been created by an expansion plan from 1997 that the university proposed and then removed when it received “almost unanimous” opposition from the neighborhood.
“We included four houses on Shackleford, a big piece [of property] on Green Hills Drive, which included an additional four buildings around Parkwood Terrace, and we were going to turn it into a new dorm complex,” Ellenburg said, describing the old proposal. “It was a huge change, and the neighbors were really opposed to that. So, we took that off the table. …Well, by taking it off the table, I think there was a perception that, ‘OK, the school has said they’re never going to do anything over here.’
“That certainly wasn’t our intent,” he continued. “And there’s another fear that, ‘They’re going to expand this way, and they’re going to take over our neighborhood.’ We have no plans to do anything in that neighborhood. We have no plans to plan to do anything in that neighborhood.”
Ellenburg said he has been in “every single meeting” Lipscomb has had with its neighbors since 1997 and knows he didn’t make any promises about the university not crossing Belmont Boulevard.
“I know I didn’t promise that. I couldn’t. I can’t,” he said, adding that he can’t control Lipscomb’s board of trustees and the decisions they may make in the future.
As evidence that the university doesn’t plan to “take over” the neighborhood, Ellenburg said Lipscomb has turned down opportunities to buy properties deeper into the neighborhood, “because we aren’t going that way.”
Ellenburg said Monday’s meeting was designed to explain the issues to faculty and staff “who live in the footprint of this plan” and to give them an opportunity to ask questions. He also said he hoped to find more people who would be supportive of the proposal when it is taken up by the city planners.
“Because of the controversy generated with some neighbors, I wanted to make sure our own folks understood what the issues were, and I could try to answer any of their questions,” he said. “And I did ask … our folks to support the plan and let the councilman know, so that he knows there actually are people in favor of what we are doing instead of just the ones who are against it.”
Lipscomb tries to be a good neighbor to the community, Ellenburg said, noting that the university has an open campus.
“We let our neighbors—we want our neighbors—to come onto campus, and you’ve seen them on campus walking their dogs, strolling their babies, all these kinds of things,” he said. “We invite them to ballgames, the fireworks, all that kind of stuff. It’s in our best interest to have a really strong neighborhood, and it’s in the neighborhood’s best interest to have a really strong Lipscomb. We want it to be a really good relationship.”
Ellenburg said Lipscomb also looks out for the community by preventing university guests from parking along side streets.
“Whenever we have huge events, we station people at the entrances to Green Hills Drive, Burton, South Observatory, North Observatory to tell people, ‘You can’t park on those streets,’” he said. “It’s legal parking. People are legally allowed to park there, but for our neighbors’ sake, we tell them not to. Go to Stokes or go to the football field. Why? We’re just trying to be a good neighbor.”