Tennessee § 13-7-201 - Grant of power.

§ 13-7-201. Grant of power.

For the purpose of promoting the public health, safety, morals, convenience, order, prosperity and general welfare, the board of aldermen, board of commissioners or other chief legislative body of any municipality by whatever title designated, and hereinafter designated as “chief legislative body”, is empowered, in accordance with the conditions and the procedure specified in this part and part 3 of this chapter, to regulate the location, height, bulk, number of stories and size of buildings and other structures, the percentage of the lot which may be occupied, the sizes of yards, courts and other open spaces, the density of population, and the uses of buildings, structures and land for trade, industry, residence, recreation, public activities and other purposes, and identify areas where there are inadequate or nonexistent publicly or privately owned and maintained services and facilities when the planning commission has determined the services are necessary in order for development to occur. Special districts or zones may be established in those areas deemed subject to seasonal or periodic flooding, and such regulations may be applied therein as will minimize danger to life and property, and as will secure to the citizens of Tennessee the eligibility for flood insurance under Public Law 1016, 84th Congress or subsequent related laws or regulations promulgated thereunder. Protection and encouragement of access to sunlight for solar energy systems may be considered in promulgating zoning regulations pursuant to this section. Quarrying shall be uniformly defined, for purposes of all municipal zoning regulations, as the extraction, removal and mechanized processing of stone, gravel, phosphate rock, metallic ore, limestone, marble, chert, sand, dimension stone and any other solid mineral or substance of commercial value, except coal and deep metal mining, including, but not limited to zinc, found in natural deposits in the earth, for barter or sale. The definition of quarrying shall not include the reuse of these minerals on the same site from which they are extracted. This definition shall have no effect on the exception contained in § 54-1-128. The removal of borrow material from a site and the placement of the same material on a project site without mechanized processing shall not be considered quarrying. The transfer of development rights may be provided for in the promulgation of zoning regulations pursuant to this section. The creation, amendment or repeal of any regulations, districts or maps providing for the transfer of development rights shall be in compliance with §§ 13-7-203 and 13-7-204. The transfer of development rights shall not be subject to taxation pursuant to title 67, chapter 4 or 6; provided, that any instruments recorded in the county register's office as the result of the transfer of development rights shall be subject to the fees set out in § 8-21-1001. Any regulations authorizing the transfer of development rights shall provide that conveyances of development rights shall be in writing and shall be recorded in the office of the register of deeds and that whenever transferred development rights are allocated to any property, such allocation shall not become effective until the transferred development rights are noted in an instrument or on a plat and recorded in the office of the register of deeds. A town, city, county, a county with a metropolitan form of government, the state, or a not-for-profit conservation or preservation organization may be the receiving entity of a development right without allocating or designating the transferred development right to any receiving property under its ownership or control. A town, city, county, a county with a metropolitan form of government, the state or a not-for-profit conservation or preservation organization shall be allowed to receive all or part of the donating property's development rights notwithstanding any local zoning regulations pertaining to any required ratio or amount of land area a receiving property must contain in relation to the land area of the donating property or of the total amount of density that a receiving property may obtain from the donating property. Subdivision (a)(2) shall be strictly construed with the specific intent to allow a local government to establish its own plan whereby the owners of property in a restrictive area (historical, agricultural, or environmental) can sell the development rights to a developer or another individual and only with the consent of the property owner and through negotiations of development rights in the free marketplace. A property owner may donate, through gift or through testamentary disposition, all or part of the development rights of the owner's property to a town, city, county, a county with a metropolitan form of government, the state, or a not-for-profit conservation or preservation organization. Any town, city, county, county with a metropolitan government, the state, or any not-for-profit conservation or preservation organization may purchase development rights from a property owner with the consent of the property owner and the purchase shall be through negotiations of the development rights in the free marketplace. Any town, city, county, county with a metropolitan government, the state, or any not-for-profit conservation or preservation organization may preserve the purchased or donated development rights unused for a definite or indefinite period of time and may at any time sell the development rights so held to a property owner in a designated receiving area with the purchase being one negotiated in the free marketplace. In order to accept a donation of development rights or for the purchase or sale of developments rights by a town, city, county, or county with a metropolitan government, the donation, purchase or sale must be approved by that government's legislative body. It is the legislative intent that the provisions of this section relative to the transfer of development rights are permissive and not mandatory. Such rights shall only be transferred by contract and not by operation of law. In any county having a population of not less than two hundred eighty-seven thousand seven hundred (287,700) nor greater than two hundred eighty-seven thousand eight hundred (287,800), according to the 1980 federal census or any subsequent federal census, the chief legislative body of any municipality is further authorized and empowered to rezone properties conditionally or based upon contract, where the agreed conditions are designed to ameliorate injuries created by the rezoning to surrounding property interests or to municipal interests. In any county having a population of not less than eighty-five thousand eight hundred (85,800) nor greater than eighty-six thousand one hundred (86,100), according to the 1990 federal census or any subsequent federal census, any municipality may, by ordinance or amendment adopted by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of its legislative body, rezone properties conditionally or based upon contract, where the agreed conditions are designed to ameliorate injuries created by the rezoning to surrounding property interests or to municipal interests. Acts 1935, ch. 44, § 1; C. Supp. 1950, § 3407.1; Acts 1957, ch. 306, § 1; 1979, ch. 259, § 9; T.C.A. (orig. ed.), § 13-701; Acts 1984, ch. 952, § 1; 1987, ch. 361, §§ 2, 4; 2001, ch. 265, §§ 5-7; 2001, ch. 409, § 1; 2008, ch. 1150, § 14; 2011, ch. 217, § 2; 2012, ch. 755, § 2. Compiler's Notes. Public Law 1016, 84th Congress, was compiled in 42 U.S.C. §§ 2401-2421; however, these provisions were repealed by Pub. L. 90-488, § 1377, part of the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, which is presently compiled in 42 U.S.C. § 4001 et seq. For table of U.S. decennial populations of Tennessee counties, see Volume 13 and its supplement. Cross-References. Airport zoning ordinance appeals, hearing by board, §§ 42-6-108 , 42-6-109 . Borrow excavations, exemption of certain road work construction from local and regional zoning and planning regulations, § 54-1-128 . Establishment of foreign-trade zones, title 7, ch 85. Local plans for street and highway systems, title 54, ch. 18, part 2. Local regulation of junkyards, § 54-20-122 . Zoning classifications, residences of persons with disabilities, title 13, ch. 24, part 1. Zoning regulations in metropolitan governments, § 7-3-304 . Textbooks. Tennessee Jurisprudence, 19 Tenn. Juris., Municipal Corporations, § 29; 26 Tenn. Juris., Zoning, § 3. Law Reviews. Growth and Its Implications: An Evaluation of Tennessee's Growth Management Plan, 67 Tenn. L. Rev. 983 (2000). Real Property — Zoning Ordinances — Validity, 39 Tenn. L. Rev. 542. Redefining Trademark Alteration Within the Context of Aesthetic-Based Zoning Laws: A Blockbuster Dilemma, 53 Vand. L. Rev. 717 (2000). Sunny and Share: Balancing Airspace Entitlement Rights Between Solar Energy Adopters and Their Neighbors, 72 Vand. L. Rev. 1075 (April 2019). Attorney General Opinions. Jurisdiction and appeals from rulings of board of zoning appeals, OAG 98-082, 1998 Tenn. AG LEXIS 82 (4/8/98). Statutes which empower municipalities to regulate land use preclude the regulation of agricultural uses of land through zoning ordinances, OAG 08-184, 2008 Tenn. AG LEXIS 229 (12/11/08). Building permit and plan review fees for construction and/or renovation of a school located within the city limits; applicability of planning and zoning regulations of the city for school district-owned property located within city limits. OAG 10-27, 2010 Tenn. AG LEXIS 22 (3/8/10). An ordinance or regulation imposing a design standard is valid unless it violates any state statute or positive constitutional guaranty or unless it is “clearly arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable, having no substantial relation to the public health, safety, or welfare.” Accordingly, whether any given ordinance or regulation requiring the observation of appearance-based residential building design standards for the construction of single family dwellings is valid is a fact-intensive inquiry, the answer to which will depend on the particular facts and circumstances related to the particular community. A given design standard may be reasonable in one community, but not in another. OAG 17-44, 2017 Tenn. AG LEXIS-44 (10/3/2017).