There will be a vote Thursday run by the county, with a polling station and everything, that no one will show up to.
The only two people allowed to vote at the lone Independence High School polling place are Gary and Portia Baker, who own the 700-acre Eagle’s Rest Farm property that Thompson’s Station wants to annex, but they did so early.
“Any election that is called for requires an Election Day to be held, regardless of how many ballots are cast during early voting,” Chad Gray, Williamson County administrator of elections, said. “In theory, an individual who is registered to vote could move into the proposed territory by Election Day and be entitled to vote on the referendum as a change of address voter.”
The referendum, which the state law on municipal annexation of property outside an Urban Growth Boundary requires, came about because the county contested Thompson’s Stations’ annexation of the Bakers’ land last November.
The land sits between West Harpeth Road and Coleman Road, and was annexed last year to allow a mixed-use community designed around a golf course. Beacon Development plans to create Two Farms, a $150 million development that will include about 800 homes, a health center and an 18-hole golf course designed by Woods.
The Baker’s farm, while only part of that tract envisioned for Two Farms, is outside the UGB — the legally defined and agreed upon area of municipal expansion into unincorporated parts of the county. The room-to-grow, so to speak, was negotiated among the county and its cities as part of a state growth management law passed in the 1990s. The county was worried that it set a dangerous precedent of land-grabbing, one that could disrupt the years of careful planning and providing of services that both city and county do.
So in July, the county challenged the action, claiming Thompson’s Station violated state law on annexation, which requires a referendum by either the entire town or affected property owners for annexing land outside a UGB. The county voted to give Mayor Rogers Anderson the power to file suit against the town for its actions.
Thompson’s Station responded in October by voting to call a referendum.
Citing precedent set on previous like-annexations outside the UGB, the town opted to involve only the property owners, the Bakers. But because it is still an officially sanctioned referendum by law, a polling place must be set up. Thus tomorrow at Independence High School, there will a poll open even though the Bakers voted early. The result of the referendum will be known likely late tomorrow.
Gary Baker made it clear in July, at the County Commission meeting, how he and his wife intended to vote.
“The land is going to be sold to somebody, one way or the other, and the Two Farms developers are going to create a project that will be preferable to a mass tract home builder,” he said at the meeting. He implied that the county was simply delaying the inevitable, and that the developers of the Two Farms project had a vision for a community that would mitigate most of the objections by Thompson’s Station residents about the alternative of a high-density, slapped together development being dropped into their rural, high-income town.
Meanwhile, Beacon waits in the wings to buy the land and get to work.
“The developers themselves are waiting for this annexation process to play out,” Joe Cosentini, Thompson’s Station town administrator, said. “We are pretty confident that Gary and Portia are going to vote in favor of it, and once it is certified the developers can begin the planning process.”
The Thompson’s Station Board of Mayor and Alderman- in approving the rezoning of the property to a Transect Community, for mixed use, last winter- wanted to be sure that in approving the project the municipality would get something out of it, including infrastructure improvements and school building, and made it a condition that would have to be included in any concept plan. They will have to zone the Baker’s property like the other 1,300 acres already legally annexed south of the Bakers.
Originally, developers had hoped to break ground as early as this past March. During the summer there were rumors that behind the scenes the project was falling apart as the delay continued, but no investor pullout materialized. Tiger Woods lent his name to the project by visiting the site and blessing it as a good location for a course, but has never confirmed that he will actually be designing the course.
Beacon did not return calls for comment.
The entire process will have to start all over now, pending the results of the referendum.
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