Overview of Cooley's Rift

Cooley’s Rift was originally a planned, gated-community development of 81 house lots (see http://www.p-csrift-asp.wsdnpo.net/) on a 1,500 acres tract, of which 1,000 acres would be preserved as a natural wilderness undisturbed except by hiking trails. A few units were sold and a few houses were or are being constructed. However, the original owner of this property was not able to complete this vision and the 1,500 acres were sold to New Life Development ("New Life" d/b/a New Life International) of 103 Continental Place, Suite 200, Brentwood, TN 37027; 615.309.5030 (http://www.newlifeint.org/). Robby McGee is president of New Life (rmcgee@newlifeint.org). Doug Hale, Esq. (a resident of Sewanee) 231 Public Square, Ste. 312, Franklin, TN 37064; (615) 794-1312, is representing New Life as their attorney for the development.

New Life was incorporated in Tennessee in 1979 as a nonprofit entity and has been purportedly in the business of nationwide solicitations of charitable donations from the public through its charitable planned giving division d/b/a National Community Foundation (NCF). According to the Nashville Business Journal, the Pennsylvania Attorney General has filed a civil lawsuit against New Life claiming they deceived senior citizens into buying unneeded financial planning instruments. The State of Maine’s Office of Securities has banned New Life from doing business in Maine, as has the Insurance Commissioner of the State of Washington.

The present plans for the “Cooley’s Rift Development and Tribute Golf Club” as it is called, are for the development of as many as 800 dwellings, an 18-hole golf course, golf club house with swimming pool, condominiums, and commercial development such as a hotel, convenience grocery store, etc. Some of the present lot-owners in Cooley’s Rift are suing New Life Development asserting that these plans are not allowable under the present covenants on this land. Their attorney is Frederick (Rick) L. Hitchcock of the firm Chambliss, Bahner and Stophel; 1000 Tallan Building, Two Union Square; Chattanooga, Tennessee 37402; (423) 756-3000.

Although Cooley’s Rift straddles three counties: Franklin, Grundy, and Marion, the Town of Monteagle has claimed planning jurisdiction for this development. The Town passed an up-zoning request by New Life to rezone this property from 81 lots to 1,200 lots and approved a preliminary plan for New Life to build between 600-800 units on this site. To date, the Town has been willing to grant all permissions for this development despite public concerns for negative economic impacts for the Town and surrounding area, traffic congestion along Deepwoods Road and feeder roads, adequate wastewater treatment (Monteagle presently is under a building moratorium because of their antiquated systems), water quality, quality-of-life, development oversight, and public safety. The Town believes that New Life will pay a portion of a new wastewater treatment facility (presently under a TDEC no-build moratorium) for the Town in exchange for the Town giving New Life the effluent from the treatment plant to irrigate the proposed 18-hole golf course. The Town of Monteagle may be required to raise sewer rates as much as 100% to pay for the new sewers and wastewater treatment plant.

A large portion of the proposed development at Cooley’s Rift lies within the Sewanee Utility District (SUD) water and wastewater district. SUD has been approached by the Town of Monteagle to enter into a deal whereby SUD would supply all the drinking water for the development and Monteagle would supply all the sewer connections and wastewater treatment for the development. No agreement has yet been finalized with the Town of Monteagle. SUD has also been approached informally by representatives of New Life in regards to supplying water services for the Cooley’s Rift development. Again, no agreement has been finalized with New Life and New Life has not submitted a formal request for services to SUD.

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) (http://www.state.tn.us/environment/) is presently allowing the development at Cooley’s Rift to proceed under a General Construction Permit, even though a General Construction Permit was originally designed for “business-as-usual” small, 100-200 acre developments (which hardly describes a 1,500 acre development). There are also at least five additional special permits that New Life may be required to apply for, all of which require a public hearing before being granted. However, it appears that New Life is waiting to apply for these permits, one-at-a-time, only after its development is well under way. In this fashion, each permit may be granted, even though overall, the development could adversely impact the Trussell Creek watershed in which the property lies.

Trussell Creek is presently classed as an impaired stream by the USEPA based on the effects of the flow of effluent from the Town of Monteagle’s two wastewater treatment (WWT) plants into this creek. TDEC is hoping that by enabling New Life to use the effluent from the Town of Monteagle’s WWT plants to irrigate their golf course that this will improve the water quality of Trussell creek. Using effluent to irrigate golf course is pretty much a standard in other parts of the country (e.g. the Southwest), although this is rare in Tennessee. As in other forms of irrigation, there tends to be a build-up of salts in the soil over time. Whether this build-up of salts would occur in an environment such as Tennessee that receives ample rainfall will require study.

In the interim, before the Town of Monteagle completes its new WWT plant, New Life plans to use the Lake Louisa reservoir to irrigate the golf course, drawing as much as 400,000 gallons per day from this reservoir. New Life was required by TDEC to hire hydrologic engineers to assess the ability to draw this much water from the Lake Louisa reservoir without impairment. According to New Life’s engineers, this amount of drawdown will not impair Lake Louisa. At this time, it is not known whether TDEC has validated this research by New Life’s engineers.

Also, to date, TDEC has not required either the Town of Monteagle or SUD to verify that they have either the water supply or wastewater treatment facilities capacity to service a development of this magnitude. Also, neither the affected counties nor the State has required the Town of Monteagle to perform the planning studies that are typical for a development of this size such as road safety studies and a study of the economic impacts to the Town and surrounding communities of the public infrastructure that will be required to support such a large development. The Town of Monteagle is in an especially vulnerable situation, as presently the Town has no property taxes. Thus, this traditional source of revenue available from new development is not applicable in the case of the Cooley’s Rift development.