Cheekwood Estate and Gardens has been facing what it terms an “existential threat” in the form of legal action trying to reduce traffic for its neighbors in the wealthy Belle Meade Highlands area, but the cultural institution notched a small win in that ongoing tussle yesterday before Nashville’s Board of Zoning Appeals.
The dustup focused on whether Metro made a mistake in permitting Cheekwood to start construction on a new parking pavilion. In a meeting attended by dozens of people showing their allegiances with dueling T-shirts—hi-vis green “ZONING MATTERS” tees on one side, darker green “Love Cheekwood? Save Cheekwood!” on the other—the board ruled that Metro did not error, thus allowing work on the new parking structure to continue.
Still, the broader fight continues on several fronts.
To pressure Cheekwood, the neighborhood group has also targeted its ability to host large public events like concerts. That’s raised questions about zoning decisions going back decades, and yesterday a Metro Codes official told the board that documentation from those meetings was sometimes written in an old form of shorthand that’s hard to read, or saved to formats that are now awkward to access digitally. Due to resulting delays, the two sides will be back before the Board of Zoning appeals again, potentially as soon as next month.
Additionally, the neighborhood group, Neighbors for Safety BMH, brought a case this summer against Metro, essentially arguing the city has failed to enforce its own rules around Cheekwood. Chanelle Acheson, the attorney for the Belle Meade Highland group, echoed that point in her remarks to the zoning appeals board yesterday:
“Cheekwood is beloved, and it should not close. But it must obey the law,” Acheson said. “At some point the code has to mean what it says.”
One other ongoing challenge: Following a study adopted by Metro, Cheekwood has been encouraged to develop a new road into the gardens from its closest highway. But progress on one such plan stalled last year amid a range of concerns, from protecting habitat for bats to safeguarding trails for mountain biking. It is not clear what headway Cheekwood has made on a resolution in the time since, or if another option might be in the works.
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