Planning commission forwards amended Foxland Harbor Marina plan to city council after lengthy public comment

The Gallatin Planning Commission voted to forward the amended preliminary master development plan for the Foxland Harbor Marina (Resolution 2025-069) to City Council with a positive recommendation and staff conditions after extended public comment and debate. Staff and the applicant described the proposal as a reconfigured marina-area development that removes previously proposed dry storage and a hotel and increases residential units on the land portion.

Jim Carpenter, staff planner, told commissioners the amended plan covers about 7.38 acres and would replace previously proposed dry storage and a hotel with four condominium buildings (112 units) and two mixed-use buildings with roughly 5,000 square feet of potential restaurant and retail space on the property. Carpenter reminded the commission that “what is in the water is controlled by the Army Corps and their permitting process. The city of Gallatin only has purview really to review what is on land.” He said the amended plan would raise the total unit count for phase 2 to about 170 units, lower than an earlier 2008 approval of 284 units for the overall plan.

The applicant’s planner, Matt Huff of Gamble Design Collaborative, said the project team had removed dry storage and the hotel in response to community feedback. “We removed the dry storage. We removed the hotel,” Huff told the commission, and said the amended plan ties a waterfront restaurant and an outdoor plaza to the condo and mixed-use buildings.

Public speakers represented a broad cross-section of neighbors and regional interests and raised repeated concerns about traffic, shoreline and water-quality impacts from dredging and boat wakes, lighting, building heights, short-term rentals and the project’s scale relative to residents’ expectations. Representative comments included:

- Nick Federer (Foxland Harbor resident): “I respectfully urge you to require a formal and independent traffic study prior to any approvals, mandate restrictions that prohibit rentals, particularly short term rentals, [and] reject any inclusion of public retail restaurants and entertainment venues within the neighborhood.”

- Tim Weeks (Sierra Club Middle Tennessee Group): “This marina proposal is contrary to these values…These problems will only multiply due to the size of this marina and its plans to accommodate very large boats, let alone the dredging, during the construction process.”

- Tom Lee (attorney, Nelson Mullins, representing Friends of Old Hickory Lake) cited state boating law and the statutory definition of a marina in Title 68, saying in part: “A marina is a dock providing mooring for watercraft and boathouses and offering supply, repair, or other services, including electric power supply for remuneration.” Lee argued that the combination of service uses and residential units near a marina merited additional time and study.

Residents from Foxland Harbor, Fairview Plantation and adjacent neighborhoods presented homeowner survey results they said reflected strong opposition to many aspects of the amended plan: higher-density condominiums, a fuel dock, dry storage and a hotel. Neighbors and interest groups asked that any condominium units be restricted from short-term-rental use and that the commission require traffic mitigation, streetscape buffering and written, enforceable conditions on building materials, lighting and access.

Applicant representatives said the plan had evolved over 15 years and that recent changes sought to respond to community concerns. Huff and other members of the design team said the amended plan reduces overall unit counts relative to some prior approvals and that the team had removed the most controversial elements (dry-storage and hotel) after hearing neighbors.

Commission deliberations focused on whether the amendment should be classified as a major or minor change to previously approved plans and on the sufficiency of materials and traffic analysis submitted so far. The commission first voted to treat the filing as a major amendment. On the question of a recommendation to City Council, an initial motion to forward the plan with a positive recommendation resulted in a tie; commissioners then voted to reconsider, and, after reconsideration, the commission voted to forward the plan to City Council with staff conditions. The transcript-recorded roll call on the final recommendation included Vice Chair Morrell — yes; Mr. Perrier — abstain; Mayor Brown — aye; Councilman Phan — yes; one commissioner recused. (A final, detailed traffic review and any required off-site mitigation will be reviewed as part of engineering and the FMDP process.)

What the commission can and cannot decide: several speakers and staff reiterated that Army Corps of Engineers permits govern what can be built in the water and that the city’s authority is limited to land-side elements — building locations, access and site design. Several residents asked the commission and staff to require that any future approvals include codified, enforceable conditions addressing building facades, lighting limits, buffering and explicit prohibitions on short-term rentals if the community desires them.

Next steps: Because the commission classified the application as a major amendment, the matter will go to City Council for review. Council will receive the staff conditions and the commission’s recommendation; additional traffic, stormwater and engineering review remains part of the next steps for permitting and any future final master development plan submission.