Glencliff Residents Sue To Stop 'Tiny House' Plan

NASHVILLE, TN — The battle over a planned village of 22 tiny houses for the homeless in Glencliff is taking moving to court, as 24 neighbors of Glencliff United Methodist Church are asking a Davidson County chancellor to reverse a decision by Metro's Board of Zoning Appeals.

The crux of the argument is that the project isn't been undertaken by the church itself, but instead by non-profits. BOZA and Metro's Zoning Administrator have upheld the requests to construct the microhomes on vacant land next to the church because religious institutions are given broad leeway in planning and zoning as a matter of course. Zoning Administrator Bill Herbert said that the project falls generally under the mission of Glencliff UMC. His decision was upheld by a 5-2 vote of the BOZA.

(For more updates on this story and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Middle Tennessee Patch morning newsletter.)

Nevertheless, the neighbors' suit argues that the village is in fact an undertaking of non-profit Open Table Nashville and includes collaboration from Vanderbilt University and St. Thomas Health, which it argues are traditional non-profits and not religious institutions per se. Vanderbilt's formal affiliation with the Methodist Church ended in 1914. St. Thomas Health is a subsidiary of Ascension Health, which is, itself, a subsidiary of Ascension Health Ministries, a non-profit that reports to the Vatican.

The suit, which asks for reconsideration of the zoning decision, names BOZA, Glencliff United Methodist, the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church and the Nashville area's United Methodist Bishop William McAlilly as defendants.

Image via Shutterstock