Planning Commission Approves Zoning For Mackie Farm Area

The Cookeville Planning Commission has approved a Commercial-Industrial Mixed use zoning for the Mackie farm area.

Voters approved the annexation of the 250 acre property last month. Planning Director James Mills said the city has had a couple of prospects considering the property for industrial use.

“We’ve had a couple of prospects, which is why the property was annexed,” Mills said. “Because it took so long to annex, that prospect may have gone elsewhere. The state statutes make it so difficult to annex it took us several months to go through the process.”

Mills said state lawmakers approved legislation this year, relaxing annexation requirements in certain situations.

“If we have an area of nine property owners or less and a majority sign a petition for annexation, then we can speed up the process,” Mills said.

Cookeville had to hold a referendum for the annexation because not every owner of the nine parcels of property asked to be annexed. The nine properties consisted of 14 registered voters. During the May election, a total of three people voted for the area to be annexed.

Senator Paul Bailey introduced the Senate version of the bill.

“There were several property owners who were more than willing to allow the annexation, but some were not,” Bailey said. “It was having to actually go through a referendum for just those residents, which costs tax payers a lot of money.”

The referendum cost Cookeville $1,000 because it was an election year. During a non-election year it would have cost the city $5,000.

The Cookeville City Council will have to approved the commission’s recommended zoning for the property.