In the forest between Warner Park and Cheekwood, Nashville wants to build a road

In the summer, the Warner Park forest hums with cicadas, birdsongs and herds of deer. The tight, green canopy intertwines with fungi and boasts hundreds of species. 

Ecologist Terry Cook is a fan of bats. He marches past a possibly 200-year-old oak to locate a shagbark tree, where bats often hide from sunlight.

“They love to get in under this bark that looks like it’s flaking off,” Cook said. 

But these trees — and other big, old trees — could soon be cut down.

In January, Nashville officials proposed building a road through a forested area in Warner.

Warner shares a border with Cheekwood Estate and Gardens. The idea is to connect a major roadway, Highway 100, to both, to improve access and reduce traffic on other neighborhood streets.

Courtesy Terry Cook

The proposed road would cut through tree canopy at the border of Warner Park and Cheekwood Estate and Gardens.

In February, Cheekwood bought a property on Highway 100 for $1.1 million. The 1.3-acre property includes the house and driveway furthest right in the image above — if approved, this is roughly where the road would be constructed.

Nothing has been decided. The city’s planning commission made a recommendation for the road, based on a study of the Belle Meade Highlands neighborhood, and the Nashville Department of Transportation is now reviewing the feasibility of the road. The analysis will take the “duration of the summer,” spokesperson Brendan Scully told WPLN News in an email.

Many parkgoers, conservationists and the family of the man who donated the land for Warner Park are upset with the proposal.

Cook thinks the road is hard to justify, even if it is at the border of the forest, because the city has already lost so much nature.

“To trivialize it, to say it’s just a little bit … It really flies in the face of what we know,” said Cook, who formerly headed the Nature Conservancy in Tennessee. “Anytime we lose something that’s been in protection for nearly a century, it’s an overall loss to the community.”

How roads affect forests, rivers and geology

The proposed road would cause a wide range of impacts on the forest.

“When you have a road, it’s permanent,” said Mark Ashton, professor of silviculture and forest ecology at Yale University.

He said every forest is different, so it is best to avoid generalizations about fragmentation. But roads tend to have some typical effects.

When you clear trees to pour pavement, the road becomes an axis of entry for invasive species. The forest floor loses the ability to grow back along and around the road. Sometimes the relative humidity and air temperature below trees will change nearby, and storms may cause more damage, as winds can more easily penetrate.

Roads also affect water.

“The biggest source of sediment pollution in streams is roads,” Ashton said.

In this case, the Harpeth River flows through Warner Park. Ashton said city planners would need to find ways to store and catch runoff, such as constructing artificial wetlands, if they choose to build the road.

Another thing to consider is the terrain. Warner contains slopes that are vulnerable to landslides. In 2010, a heavy rainfall caused more than 500 landslides across Nashville — including some in Warner.

“If you hike any of those trail systems in the park, you will cross one of those 2010 landslides,” Francis Ashland, a former U.S. Geological Survey researcher previously told WPLN News.

Mountain biking path crosses proposed route

The forest in Warner Park does change from time to time.

Naturalists are currently removing invasive species in the park as part of a goal to be invasive-free. And, about 12 years ago, the park added a new mountain biking trail.

The proposed road would likely cut through part of this trail.

So, after the city announced its plan earlier this year, many residents, mountain bikers and children crowded Nashville’s parks board meeting in February.

Courtesy Metro Planning

The proposed road, shown above in red, would be located somewhere between the border of Cheekwood and Warner Park, shown in green.

Whit McDonald, a senior at Hume Fogg High School, was one person to speak out against the road. He said he’s on some local bike teams and has biked a lot of trails around the state. But he favors Warner.

“It is one of the few places that I feel safe riding as a minor in Middle Tennessee,” McDonald said.

At this same meeting, staff from Nashville’s planning department gave a presentation on why they wanted the road.

“This could ultimately be a zero-sum game, and that’s not what we want. We want to look holistically about the mobility needs in the whole neighborhood,” said Planning Director Lucy Kempf, who suggested that a public conversation should wait until after a traffic analysis was complete.

Within days of this meeting, Cheekwood bought the property on Highway 100, sparking concerns among some folks that a decision had already been made.

Cheekwood bought the property not knowing whether they would need it, according to spokesperson Emily Luxen.

Separately, Cheekwood will also soon construct a 750-space, $25 million parking facility. Cheekwood has long been using Warner Park as an extra parking lot but is now under deadline with the city to complete a new parking solution by the end of 2027. But the parking facility is not contingent on the proposed road.

Family of original land donor sues the city over proposed road

In June, the family of Luke Lea, who donated the land that became part of Warner Park, sued the city over the proposed road.

The lawsuit alleges that the road violates the terms of the 1927 property deed, stating that ownership will revert back to the family if the city proceeds with a road since the deed prohibits park land for “any other use.” The family argues that the road primarily benefits Cheekwood, a private entity.

Cheekwood generates the majority of peak traffic on surrounding roads in Belle Meade, according to the city’s Belle Meade Highlands neighborhood study, which found that Warner Park also contributes an “unsustainable amount” of traffic volume.

Green space is common target for development

The easiest place to pave new roads is often in areas considered “undeveloped.”

But what is the definition of developed?

Warner Park is technically split into two parks, Edwin Warner and Percy Warner. The collective 3,100 acres contains hundreds of native trees and shrubs, nearly 300 species of birds and more than 400 species of wildflowers. Warner also connects to the Nashville Highland Rim Forest, the city’s nearly continuous 97,000-acre urban forest system on its western, hilly border.

The land is part of Nashville’s history, with trees old enough to provide clues to long-lost landscapes.

Warner Park deserves protection for current and future generations and provides the most value when its forest remains largely intact, according to Cook, the ecologist.

“Those of us in the conservation or recreation side think of it as being fully developed, because it’s in a natural state,” he said. “That’s its highest and best purpose.”