Roads and Rail Impact Area Horse Farms "We don’t have the option of city water. I can’t give my horses bottled water!” By Nancy Brannon Several land use changes will affect the future of agricultural land and horse landowners in the Collierville and Rossville, TN areas. The proposed I-269 roadway, a Norfolk Southern Intermodal Rail facility, and the Chickasaw Trails Industrial Park on Hwy. 72, are all infringing on agricultural land in southeast Shelby and western Fayette Counties, TN. Current residents expect the road, railway, and warehousing to make drastic changes in their communities and their quality of life. On March 21, the Coalition for Livable Communities sponsored a panel discussion at Shelby Farms: “Inbound for Memphis: Speeding Toward I-269.” Local government planners discussed the issues and were not enthusiastic about the future impacts of the roadway. Tom Jones sees it as “further hollowing out Memphis and exacerbating Memphis’ problems.” John Lawrence believes the “new industrial development needs better planning.” He predicts, “Some people will be paying double taxes for old and new infrastructure if things are not correctly planned.” Mary Baker echoed concerns about the fiscal impacts on taxpayers. In addition, she said, “Metro areas are competing with each other, creating winners and losers. But eventually we all lose because [this kind of growth] is unsustainable. Because of the fragmentation in government structures, it is difficult to achieve collaboration.” She advocated a “Memphis area planners group that would include Memphis city government, Shelby County and municipalities’ representatives.” Lawrence submitted, “Sustainable Shelby offers a unifiable vision for Shelby County, both environmentally and fiscally.” Baker added, “Unfortunately we have a history of developing plans and not implementing them.” Tom Jones added, “At one time we inventoried those plans; we got to 162 and then quit.” Jones continued, “The Memphis City and Shelby County governments and both mayors opposed I-269, but Senator Lott pushed it through.” On April 2, 2009 Collierville approved land-use guidelines for future growth expected from Interstate 269. According to news sources, the I-269 Small Area Plan covers over 1,500 acres in southeastern Shelby County. Purportedly, it protects the rural residential character of Quinn Road and encourages mixed-use development in other areas. Rick and Gail Sievers at Sycamore Hill Arabians feel somewhat relieved with the promise of Collierville officials that “property all along Quinn Road will stay as it is. The rural character of the area needs to be maintained. There are lots of horse farms along Quinn road,” they said. “The neighbors were unified in wanting to keep the land as it is.” The Sievers and residents along Quinn Road are in the Collierville Annexation Reserve area. The Sievers believe they have thwarted plans for a road that would have run “from Holmes Road, between our barn and shed, right through our arena.” It would have been an access road for property that was slated for “high density development,” albeit “conservation development” that would require “half the property to be left in raw land,” they said. The Sievers go on afternoon trail rides together in their neighborhood and Gail remarked, “It’s very peaceful here now.” “That’s why people move here,” Rick said, emphasizing “the responsibility that we have as individual landowners to maintain our property. But the City also has a responsibility to protect the character of your neighborhood. If they don’t, you won’t have any stability.” With the coming of I-269 a half mile from their east property line, they still “hope the noise won’t be bad” and hope the trees will provide a buffer to the traffic noise. The future looks more doubtful to Marilyn and Rusty Hiner who live on Hwy. 72 next to the proposed Chickasaw Industrial Park and near the planned route for I-269. The land has been historically rural and agricultural. The Hiners are third generation farmers and horse owners on land owned by Marilyn’s family. Her dad Milton Mann owns 175 acres on two sides of their 12 acres. Marilyn said, “The land all around us is now zoned light industrial. We were annexed by Piperton without any notification. Then we got a $400 tax bill from Piperton. Piperton voted to rezone the 900 acres on the south side of Hwy 72 from agricultural to light industrial. So far, garbage service is the only benefit we’ve seen. Our tax assessment has grown 46% higher in the last three years, but we’re not getting more services. Developers make the decisions and really don’t consult the people to know how it will affect them.” The Hiners said they didn’t receive any notification nor have any input to these land use changes. The Chickasaw Trail Industrial Park will be on the west side of the Hiners’ and Mann’s property. I-269 will come through the southwest corner of Mann’s property. They foresee greatly increased truck traffic on Hwy. 72 coming to the Industrial Park, lured by the Intermodal facility which will be located a just few miles from them on the former Twin Hills Ranch. With all the additional projected truck traffic, “we might as well be another truck stop,” Marilyn said. “I-269 will make it even more attractive for industrial development.” The Hiners have already seen major land changes. “The property [for the industrial park] was rolling hills with ponds. They bulldozed it and leveled if for the Industrial Park and now it is a new desert with only retention ponds for drainage,” Marilyn described. She said they are already getting twice to three times the amount of water runoff across their driveway than before. Living sandwiched between an interstate highway and an industrial park, neighbored by an intermodal rail facility is not what the Hiners envisioned when they moved here in 1989. “My grandfather owned about 600 acres of land in this area at one time. They have taken a nice country home area and completely ruined it. We have put lots of sweat equity in building our horse, our barn, and improving the land. If we had to replace them, it would cost at least a million dollars,” Rusty said. Right now the Hiners don’t have plans to move. “We hope to be here another 20 years and we’ll put up all the resistance we can. We hope progress is very, very slow.” Dana and Bill Lackey live on Knox Road in Rossville, about a mile from the proposed Norfolk Southern Intermodal Facility. The Lackeys also said they were left out of the decision-making process. Dana first read about the proposed Intermodal Facility in The Memphis News and was just heart sick afterward. “It will be about one mile due west of our house. It will totally change the character of our area. Our farm and house are the biggest investments of our life. We have a lot of labor and money invested in our house, our barn, our land. We just can’t pick up and move, but this kind of facility can ruin your whole quality of life and the reason we moved here in the first place,” Dana lamented. “I see the city coming to us bringing traffic, congestion, pollution, and all kinds of social problems.” Some foreseeable problems are lights and traffic. “I didn’t think about the light pollution until I read the article. Getting to work will also be a nightmare,” with the increased traffic. She regrets the potential loss of natural areas and wildlife that now teems in the area. The first proposed location was east of Rossville, north of Hwy. 57, adjacent to the Wolf Rive bottoms. The Wolf River Conservancy and South Fayette Alliance strongly opposed that location because of its impact on the Wolf River, surrounding wetlands and ground water recharge. Then developer William Adair offered 465 acres in the middle of his property, the former Twin Hills Ranch. Local political leaders were reported to be pleased with this alternative location because it “keeps truck traffic away from natural areas like the Wolf River.” But to the Lackeys who used to ride horseback and fox hunt across Twin Hills Ranch, that property is a treasured natural area. The Lackeys are concerned about effects on water. U. S. Geological Survey Reports show that nearly all of Fayette County is recharge area for the Memphis Aquifer, the source of drinking water for the region. Dana wondered, “What’s going to happen to our water? We have a well, as does everyone out here. We don’t have the option of city water. I can’t give my horses bottled water!” Dana wonders “why we have to choose one site over the other. Neither is good for a rural area. No one has asked our input until now. It’s sad.” See the March 18, 2009 issue of the Memphis Daily News at: http://www.memphisdailynews.com/editorial/Weekly.aspx The South Fayette Alliance web site is: http://www.southfayettealliance.com/ The Coalition for Livable Communities web site is: www.livablememphis.org.