Lea heirs seek judge's ruling that new road to Cheekwood, Percy Warner would violate deed
The descendants of Luke Lea — the man who deeded the land that became Percy Warner Park to Nashville in 1927 — are asking a judge to rule that building a new access road through the park would violate a restrictive covenant of the deed.
Lea served as a U.S. senator and founded The Tennessean. On June 9, his heirs announced that they're asking a Davidson County Chancery Court judge to rule on their 'petition for declaratory relief.' A declaratory judgment states the rights of the parties in a case without ordering any specific action, in an effort to avoid damages and further lawsuits.
In this case, the family is aiming to halt any potential that an access road from Highway 100 to nearby Cheekwood Estate and Gardens could run through the park. The ask stems from the Belle Meade Highlands Design and Mobility Study, produced by the city's Planning Department and adopted by the Planning Commission in January, which includes several access road options intended to reduce traffic in the neighborhood around Cheekwood and the park.
'We know that no final decision has been made about the proposed access road,' David Bridgers, an attorney who filed the petition on behalf of the Lea family, said in a news release. 'However, we are asking for a ruling that such a road through the park to Cheekwood would be for 'any other use' than for a park. The covenant in the deed states that the land would be used for a public park, and specifically prohibits 'any other use.''
Here's what to know about what prompted the petition.
That no final decision has been made about the proposed access road is indeed true. In fact, the Nashville Department of Transportation has yet to make any recommendation on the location for a new access road.
Cortnye Stone, NDOT's director of strategic communications and policy, previously told The Tennessean that NDOT will make a recommendation to the Metro Nashville Council, the Metro Parks Board and Mayor Freddie O'Connell's office by August.
Cheekwood's president and CEO, Jane MacLeod said she supports the effort to improve access to both Cheekwood and the park.
'Cheekwood supports Metro Planning's work to explore improved access for Warner Parks and Cheekwood to better accommodate our neighborhood and visitors to these two Nashville treasures,' MacLeod said in a statement to The Tennessean. 'This is an NDOT and Metro project, and we are confident that Metro decision makers will determine the best path forward for our city.'
MacLeod added that Cheekwood isn't a party in the Lea family's legal action — any exploration of improved traffic access in Belle Meade is "solely a Metro matter over which Cheekwood has no authority."
However, some Nashvillians have been sounding the alarm about one option in the plan — an access road running along the northern edge of park property — since February, including a group that says it could cut through the park's mountain biking trails.
The family's petition states that this road option would violate the deed, and the title of the 868 acres Lea gifted to the city would revert to the heirs — an outcome that family members say they don't want.
'We, the heirs of Luke Lea, do not want the park to 'revert and revest' to our family, as the covenant requires,' Leah Rubino, Lea's granddaughter, said in the release. 'We do not want to take possession of this land; we simply want the terms of the covenant to be honored.'
Cheekwood, the park's next door neighbor, is in the middle of an effort of its own to mitigate on-site parking capacity issues — though it's not quite as directly tied to the study's recommendations.
Cheekwood's recently announced $25 million parking project seeks to help the gardens transition off of adjacent city property used for overflow parking by the end of 2027. That partnership has been reflected in a long-standing parking agreement between the city and Cheekwood, which was most recently renewed in March.
The most recent version of the agreement comes with milestones the city wants Cheekwood to achieve as it works toward parking independence, including conducting its own feasibility study of access road options to the gardens and coordinating with NDOT's analysis.
"Cheekwood's large investment in a new parking facility is in complete compliance with Metro's desire that Cheekwood transition parking to Cheekwood's property, and is an express condition of the memorandum of understanding unanimously approved by the Metro Parks Board," MacLeod said. "Cheekwood's new parking pavilion simply relocates parking from Metro Parks property that had been utilized for this purpose for decades to Cheekwood property and uses the same access on Forrest Park Drive as it has for decades."
Austin Hornbostel is the Metro reporter for The Tennessean. Have a question about local government you want an answer to? Reach him at ahornbostel@tennessean.com.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Lea heirs seek ruling that Percy Warner Park road plan violates deed
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