Another local builder is challenging Metro’s practice of requiring infrastructure improvements before granting project permits.
In a complaint filed last month in Davidson County Chancery Court, Fair Lane Properties contends that Metro’s requirement that it pave two alleys and the street in front of its Edgehill-area residential project was unconstitutional. According to the complaint, the work cost more than $69,000, and the company is seeking a return of the costs and a court declaration that the permitting demands are unconstitutional.
The company built four million-dollar homes on Alloway Street.
The developer’s lawyer, Dominick Smith, has represented builders seeking to recoup sidewalk costs incurred under a policy since thrown out by a federal appeals court. The Alloway project already has recouped its sidewalk costs, he said.
The other permitting conditions are “unconstitutional for the exact same reasons,” he said.
“Metro is always trying to see what they can squeeze [and] get them to do,” Smith said, calling Metro’s permitting regime “the Wild West.”
The newly filed case echoes the complaints of another developer, which sued Metro in federal court in September. In that case, a company alleges that it was forced to replace a waterline as part of Metro’s “extortionate” permitting regime.
Though Metro has declined to comment on the cases, city lawyers filed a response in the federal case last week. In the filing, Metro denied that any of its requirements were unconstitutional and reiterated that the expanded waterline was necessary for modern fire protection needs.
“The conduct and actions of all Metro officials regarding the issuance of the building permit that is the subject of this complaint were objectively reasonable and justified under the circumstances,” Metro lawyers wrote.