Eagleville Mayor Nolan Barham announced after Thursday’s council meeting that the city’s zoning laws will not allow a long haul trucking company to locate on a Cheatham Springs Road site that is zoned general commercial or C-2.

"That is all there is to that," he added.

Jim Peach, owner of Bent Tree Transport Inc. of Brentwood, is challenging the conclusion, however, saying two trucking companies are already operating within the city limits in C-2 zones.

"They need to take it up with our attorney who has filed a letter with the (city’s state planning service) because (the planning commissioners) are already allowing two trucking companies to operate in the same kind of zoning in Eagleville," Peach said in a telephone interview Friday.

"You cannot make part of the rules for part of the people and exclude some of the people," he added.

Peach said his attorney sent the letter last week to the city’s contract planner, Bo Logan, who works for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development’s local planning office in Nashville, and to Eagleville’s City Attorney Adam Dodd.

Barham said that as of Friday afternoon he had no knowledge of the letter and said he could not comment further if the company’s attorney has sent a letter.

"I still say that the current zoning does not allow (the trucking company to locate at the proposed site), and I will let the legal people take care of that," Barham said.

Peach said the two trucking companies in Eagleville that he referred to are one that operates behind the former tourist court across from the Rutherford County Co-Op, and the other is a resident who lives at the corner of Allisona Road and Clark Street and operates a car hauling truck from his home.

City planning officials have said earlier that the trucking business behind the former tourist court on North Highway 41-A was grandfathered in. The term "grandfathered" refers to a use that was allowed on a site prior to the adoption of the current zoning regulations.

According to a federal transportation department Internet site, Rodney Kelley, who lives at Allisona and Clark Street, does business as Kelley Transport, has one truck and one driver and is authorized to carry motor vehicles interstate. Kelley could not be reached Sunday afternoon for a response to Peach’s comments.

Bent Tree Transport wants to locate its business in Eagleville on a 3.6-acre lot on Cheatham Springs Road west of Clark Street. The company plans to build about a 60 by 80-foot shop with an office attached to it. The trucking company is looking at putting a bridge across Cheatham Branch in order for the trucks to have access on Cheatham Springs Road.

Staff members of the state planning office said in a memo presented at the April planning commission meeting that Bent Tree’s requested use is more appropriate for an industrially-zoned parcel of land rather than for C-2.

The planners said that the C-2 zone is designed to provide space for uses that serve the needs of those who drive to the C-2 district to patronize establishments located there. Bent Tree operates trucks that mostly haul freight over long distances and thus would not be serving the needs of this motoring public, they said.

The uses allowed in the C-2 zone, including wholesale sales of consumer goods, do not apply to the trucking company because the company provides a service and does not sell physical goods, the planners said.

Peach said that the city planner was a "little premature" when he wrote the letter about the trucking use not fitting the C-2 zone.

"There were a lot of procedures that he didn’t follow, and that the C-2 zone does include what we do and the industrial zoning does not," he said.

Peach charged earlier that the city had first said the trucking company’s proposed operation met the criteria for a C-2 zone and he then spent about $10,000 getting surveying and soil testing work done.

"We spent a lot of money and we don’t want to walk away from it," he said. "We want to locate there, and it is zoned for it."

The trucking company’s request to locate on Cheatham Springs Road has drawn strong opposition from residents who live on the road and from others.

The residents’ comments have mostly concerned safety issues because of the 18-foot width of the road and the steep drop off on the north side of the roadway to Cheatham Branch. The residents said they are not opposed to the trucking company coming to Eagleville but are opposed to the proposed location.

The planning commission has taken no official action yet on Bent Tree’s request. The next regularly scheduled planning commission meeting is May 5 at 6:30 p.m. at city hall.