Tractor Convoy, Protest Planned In Response To Scheme Turning Tennessee Farmland Into Industrial Park
Image Credit: No Industrial Park, Ichabod/CC & canva
The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
A tractor convoy and protest will take place in Wilson County with the County Courthouse as the final destination on Friday morning.
All Tennesseans are invited to participate. The group will meet at the Ag Center in Lebanon with tractors at 8:30 AM. From there, the Wilson County Sheriff will provide an escort to the town square, ending at the courthouse.
Protesters plan to attend the county’s scheduled planning commission meeting at 10:00 AM on the second floor of the courthouse in Lebanon, Tennessee, on June 21st, 2024.
A group called No Industrial Park is organizing the event to protest the plans of an international development company based out of Texas to take 1,400 acres of farmland and turn it into an industrial park.
Ross Perot Jr. – who is the son of Ross Perot Sr., the late billionaire and two-time U.S. Presidential third party candidate in the 90’s – is Hillwood’s Chairman and the proposed Wilson County project is not his first foray into real estate development in Middle Tennessee.
Back in 2016, Hillwood got its feet wet in the Nashville market by beginning development of nearly a million feet of industrial space at the airport in Smyrna, Tennessee’s fourth largest airport.
Three years later, the Rutherford County Commission voted to approve a warehouse development tax-break deal for Hillwood before Property Assessor Rob Mitchell had even been able to prepare an analysis of the deal. His staff had sought lease records for two years but had not been given the documentation that they needed.
Now Hillwood has submitted plans for what would be the largest industrial complex ever built in Wilson County on land that is surrounded by working farms. Because the land in question is currently zoned as agricultural, the plan requires an amendment to the land use plan and a formal property rezoning request.
If a rezone and land use plan amendment is approved by the commission, Hillwood intends to create 10.35 million square feet of industrial style offices, warehouses, and light manufacturing spaces. The proposal also includes a retail mix in the northwest corner, and a conservation easement.
In January, Hillwood reached out to the surrounding community. Then a meeting was held at Crossroads Fellowship Church in February.
No Industrial Park spokesman Michael Swope talked to The Tennessee Conservative on Tuesday and recalled, “They said if you don’t want us here, we will leave. Well, we told them we didn’t want them here but they didn’t leave.”
The group says that once the “industrial zoning genie” is out of the bottle, there will be no stopping it and serene, rural towns like Watertown, Alexandria, and Carthage will be destroyed.
Swopes says that the proposed development “doesn’t fit” the community, and that there simply isn’t any infrastructure to support the kind of commercial entities that Hillwood wants to bring to the area.
Just off of I-40 at exit 245, Swope said that the land could be zoned instead for up to 650 homes which would be welcomed by the surrounding residents. There is currently a petition against Hillwood’s “Legacy Park” industrial plan.
One of four plaintiffs in a suit brought against Wilson County last year, over a number of new zoning regulations that were allegedly illegally approved, said last September that he believes county commissioners made the changes to cater to big companies.
“They did this thing behind people’s backs,” said Frank Bryant. “They’ve brought in all these companies and now they want to change the rules. A lot of people would never know that this would affect their farm.”
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
So frustrating to be sold out by people who are supposed to represent the local citizens. So glad you are standing up to be heard.
JUST look at what they have done to NASHVILLE what a shame
We need to protect our land, especially the farmland and stop these mega corporations from commercializing it.
Money talks. These politician only care about how much kick back they can get.
SO very TRUE and BILL LEE had a chance to pass a law that would stop BIDEN from flooding TN. with ILLEGALS. WHAT are they going to do with 8 MILLION new ILLEGALS?
This is beautiful land. What a horrible way to ruin perfectly good farmland.
Something like this was tried in Jefferson County about ten years ago, and it all came to nothing. The perps came on like gangbusters — all the local newspaper stories were simply rewrites of the perps’ press releases, talking about all the companies that were searching for sites to build on.
It all fell apart when county council members, or their staffs, discovered that there are hundreds of industrial parks all over the US, and most of them are largely vacant.
Glad to see that Tennesseans are responding to the californication of Tennessee. As one of the most popular states for center/left transplants to invade, too many are escaping the extreme garbage of their home states but still bring a mentality that’s way too liberal for this wonderful state. They need to leave all of their WOKE crap behind.
I so agree JAMES we don’t need any more left wing thinkers in our state, JUST look at what is going on in NASHVILLE
Good for them. Stand and be counted. A lot of these industrial parks house nothing but shoestring operations soaking up our tax dollars then LEAVING and moving to another state and doing the same thing, Industrial parks do not put food on the table Farmers do. You have to have a Balance of both.