Proposed Unionville store plan approved

Bedford County Planning Commission on Tuesday night approved a site plan for a Dollar General Store in Unionville.

The Goodlettsville-based discount retailer will pour a pad this week at the site of its first rural store in Bedford County, just south of Deason. The Unionville store would be the second located outside Shelbyville.

Real estate agent Monte Turner and engineer Rex Northcutt presented the site plan for the Unionville store on Tuesday night. The store would be located on a lot between Crowell Road and U.S. 41-A just northwest of Community Elementary School.

Northcutt said the lot was "as flat as a pancake" but that drainage retention ponds would be put in and the property would not drain onto the highway.

The site is already zoned C-1 (commercial), although planning commission chairman Kennon Threet said the commercial zoning in the Unionville area was a mistake made by state mapmakers when zoning was first enacted more than a decade ago.

Planning commission member Michael Watson said the store needs landscaping to prevent a nearby subdivision from having an unattractive view of the back of the building. Turner and Northcutt indicated that such landscaping would not be a problem; vegetation could be planted on a berm which is already planned for that side of the property.

The site plan was approved without opposition.

In other discussion:

* Planners deferred action on enacting the 2009 edition of the International Building Codes so that issues such as fire sprinklers for residences can be reviewed.

The county currently follows the 2003 edition of the code, which is published every three years. If any city or county is using a version of the code more than seven years old, the State of Tennessee has the power to come in and impose its own minimum building codes, and its own inspection fees, according to county zoning enforcer Kay Demonbren. Planners said they definitely favor adopting the 2009 code in some form; the only question is whether or not to exempt the county from any specific code provisions. The 2009 code requires sprinkler systems on single-family and two-family dwellings, which Threet said may not make sense for Bedford County given that some rural residences don't have public water at all, and others have insufficient water pressure to operate a sprinkler system.

The City of Shelbyville opted out of the sprinkler system requirements the last time it adopted the code.

Even so, the state is talking about making sprinkler systems mandatory, said some planners. That would force those without sufficient water pressure to install dedicated water tanks just for the purpose of a sprinkler system.

Planners deferred action on adopting the 2009 code until the changes in it can be studied more thoroughly by the county zoning office and planners can decide which provisions, if any, the county wants to opt out of.

* Planners continued their review of a proposed rule allowing accessory structures to be built before a primary structure has been placed on a lot. Current subdivision rules allow only one primary structure per lot -- if a property owner wants to build more than one house on a lot, they must have it divided into separate lots, so that each lot meets the existing size and setback requirements. But accessory buildings -- such as a garage, storage shed or even an apartment for a family member -- are allowed.

The current rules for accessory structures define them in terms of the primary structure on a lot. For example, an accessory structure must be placed behind the primary structure. It's currently not allowed for someone with undeveloped property to build a shed or other non-agricultural accessory building if the property owner doesn't have immediate plans to build a house. Planners want to change the rules so that an accessory building can be placed on undeveloped property.

Planners suggested changes to the most recent proposed rules and sent them back to state planner Pat Schipani to be rewritten incorporating the changes.