By Erik Schelzig | TNJ
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Metro Nashville Airport Authority has assumed broad new powers over zoning decisions and building permits within a large portion of its host county, according to documents obtained by The Tennessee Journal under public records laws.
In a letter sent to Nashville’s Department of Codes Administration, the airport said a new law gave it the power to “regulate aircraft hazards, compatible land use, or other factors impacting the safe and efficient operation of the airport by requiring the review and approval, conditional approval, or denial of building permits within the designated boundaries.”
The authority operates Nashville International Airport and the John C. Tune executive airport in the county.
“Please implement the permit boundary within the Metro permitting and GIS systems, to be effective July 1,” the airport’s executive vice president and chief operative officer, Robert Ramsey, wrote in the two-paragraph letter.
The airport authority’s zone of influence covers nearly all of Nashville’s core and stretches to the Cheatam, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, and Sumner county lines.
George Cate, an attorney for the board, in a recent court hearing rejected the notion that the new powers mean “you have an airport authority that’s just run amok and just gobbling up territory.” While he acknowledged the law takes away local legislative authority, he said the airport authority still falls under a series of state and federal laws that “restrict what it can and cannot do.”
Cate told the judges the city has long worked closely with the airport on issues like building height and land use to prevent problems for air traffic.
“All that’s happening here is that the authority has been given a chance as the expert on what areas might constitute an airport hazard,” Cate said. The city then must consult the map when deciding whether to grant a permit, he said.
“I submit, your Honor, that that is not taking away Metro zoning authority,” Cate said. “It is providing the vehicle for Metro to execute that authority in reference to the map.”
Questions over new zoning and eminent domain authority for the airport have arisen as part of a lawsuit filed by Metro Nashville over the new law. Much of the focus of the litigation has been on the move by the Republican General Assembly to wrest six of eight appointments from the city’s mayor and instead give them to the governor and speakers of the House and Senate.
The three judges hearing the case expressed concerns about what the Nashville airport law could mean for boards in other parts of the state. Circuit Judge Mark Hayes of Dyersburg wondered whether the General Assembly could invoke a “divine legislative right” to make wholesale changes to local drainage and levee districts or industrial development boards.
“What’s the constitutional limit,” Hayes asked. “If we build it, we can tear it down?”
