Surveyors Oppose Right-Of-Way Regulations

A local surveyor spoke out against Cookeville’s new subdivision regulations for right-of-way dedications at Monday’s planning commission meeting.

The new rules expand the need for right-of-way dedications in development plans. It also allows the city to require a right-of-way easement in certain circumstances. Tennessee Association of Professional Surveyors Representative Charles Whittenberg said these dedications take land away from landowners without compensation.

“Just compensation is not approval of (a) planning commission for a two-lot or a three-lot or a twenty-lot,” Whittenberg said. “It’s money. They paid money for that property and they should get paid for any taking of their property. Now, the government has the right to take property. There’s no disputing that. But when they do, they have to pay for it.”

Community Development Director Jon Ward the regulations are based on recently codified state legislation that was backed by historic Supreme Court decisions. Ward said without these regulations they could be forced to prevent people from subdividing their land in the future because the streets could be made substandard.

The planning commission approved the new regulations despite Whittenberg’s suggestion for them to research the matter further.

“These are like a couple feet dedications, right?” Ward said. “I mean you saw today, it was five feet on one plat and three-point-six feet on another. We’ve never asked for a dedication more than thirty feet from center line on a major street like a collector street, something like that.”

Ward said the regulations only apply for projects where infrastructure is inadequate, so it only affects those subdividing and otherwise developing their land.

“If your proposal is to increase density, that’s a cumulative effect, right?” Ward said. “I mean if all the farms stayed farms, no streets ever have to be improved. That’s the nature of development. But when all the farms get cut up into lots, that’s when you’re pressed to add the pedestrian infrastructure. That’s when you have to do utility improvements. That’s when you have to do these different, cities have to take up these different projects just to manage increase in populations.”

Ward said they feel that their system and the way that they hold developers harmless does not deprive property owners of their rights.

“We don’t have any developers really that press us on it,” Ward said. “I mean they lose no benefit to the property through the process essentially.”

Whittenberg said his association feels that creating a right-of-way dedication along existing streets was initially designed for turning lanes and has evolved as a tool for other places from there.

“My question is how many roads, how many streets, how many avenues does the city have on their agenda to widen?” Whittenberg said. “Unless you have a list of roads that the city has planned to widen, then the taking of that right-of-way is pretty much a moot point. Because if they’re never going to use it, what’s the sense in taking it?”

Whittenberg said he has felt the need to address the issue of right-of-way dedications ever since 2016 when he tried to contest “an abundance of right-of-way that was required” for a property in Putnam County and got nowhere.

“When I started questioning, a lot of the answers I got was, ‘It’s in our subdivision regs, this is the way we’d always done it,'” Whittenberg said. “That was the answer I got. Well, that’s not a very good answer. That’s an excuse.”

Whittenberg said he has put together a petition about the matter that was passed unanimously by the statewide surveyor organization.

“Actually there was two other surveyors that submitted plats up here this evening that have probably never spoke up against it, but I’ve got a petition they signed at a conference saying that they support it,” Whittenberg said. “So I’ve been the local voice for it and I’ve been the state voice for it. I have nothing to gain at all from this. No one’s paying me to fight this fight or bring this debate between me and the planners.”