***Community meeting on June 29 at 7pm likely at the Acuff Chapel at Lipscomb Academy across from the Avalon house and log cabin off of Granny White Pike. Please make every effort to attend!!***

Calling all Lipscomb area residents! David Lipscomb University is attempting to include three properties west of Belmont Boulevard in its Master Plan, requesting that they be part of the Institutional Overlay that governs zoning and development of the Lipscomb campus. These properties consist of four parcels on the west side of Belmont Boulevard between Green Hills Drive and Shackleford Road. These proposed changes go before Metro Council this summer, including a public hearing on July 6, 2023. We request that the four referenced properties along Belmont Blvd. maintain R-10 residential zoning and be excluded from Lipscomb’s Institutional Overlay. 

Belmont Blvd. has long served as a clear and natural boundary for the Lipscomb campus, preserving the character of the residential neighborhoods that surround it. While Lipscomb would need to get zoning approval for any future plans to develop the properties, applying the Institutional Overlay to these properties will make this process easier and is a first step toward expanding the campus into the neighborhoods west of Belmont Blvd. 

Green Hills Drive and its surrounding area is a quiet family neighborhood and any encroachment into this area by Lipscomb would dramatically increase traffic in the area and could ultimately result in parking garages, dorms or other large structures that would loom over neighboring houses. These properties border or are directly across from many long established single family residences. This particular neighborhood between Green Hills Drive and Shackleford Road came together in 2006 to protect its zoning and proactively rezoned almost all properties to RS-10 from R-10 to protect the integrity and character of the neighborhood by maintaining single family residences. We ask that Metro Council and David Lipscomb University respect the boundaries of the surrounding neighbors and maintain current residential zoning on these properties.