The question of whether a permit for Cheekwood Estate and Gardens to build a new parking facility on its property should stand is now settled, but the battle between the botanical gardens and a group of Belle Meade Highlands neighbors appears to be far from over.
On Aug. 20, Nashville’s Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously to uphold Zoning Adminstrator Joey Hargis’ decision to approve a permit to construct the $25 million parking facility, part of an effort to abide by a city mandate to transition overflow parking off city-owned property by the end of 2027.
It’s all been prompted by a group of Belle Meade Highlands residents who live near Cheekwood, dubbed Neighbors for Safety.
Their representative, Jackson Moore, filed the zoning appeal.
It targets not just that construction permit but also Cheekwood’s existing zoning classification, which was granted in 1996 as a special exception allowing for the gardens to provide “cultural, educational or historical enrichment to the public” but barring it from hosting large gatherings.
Questions about whether Cheekwood is or isn’t violating its zoning restrictions weren’t on the table for any decision-making Aug. 20, though, just whether Hargis should have approved Cheekwood's construction permit without approval from the board. But it’s clear that the answers will soon crystallize, as several board members sought more information and Hargis told the group he was working to investigate historic city records to address them.
“Even though I’m struggling with it, too, maybe it is best to deal with this narrow issue and then know that this likely is going to come back,” board member Ashonti Davis said.
Here’s how we got here.
Cheekwood celebrates, and neighbors plan another appeal
The meeting was packed with a sea of green and highlighter yellow T-shirts, indicating supporters on both sides of the issue. Some of them urged board members to “Save Cheekwood.” Others reminded them that “ZONING MATTERS.”
Ultimately, none of them spoke up during the hearing, which allotted just 10 minutes of time to anybody who wasn’t on either side’s legal team to address the board. Instead, the discussion largely ran through Hargis, Cheekwood’s legal team and Chanelle Acheson, the attorney representing Neighbors for Safety.
Following the meeting, Acheson said the issue’s far from settled. She said the group plans to appeal to the Davidson County Chancery Court.
“It was pretty clear that the board was not happy about having to make this decision,” Acheson said. “It was pretty clear that they understand that Cheekwood is in violation of its approved uses. I think we’re going to be back here in short order, and they’re going to have to make decisions on all the other stuff.”
Jane MacLeod, Cheekwood’s president and CEO, nevertheless said she was very pleased with the outcome of the meeting and thanked the now more than 56,000 people who have signed on to a Change.org petition to protect the botanical gardens.
Jon Cooper, one of the attorneys representing Cheekwood, called the Aug. 20 vote a win for Cheekwood and said the team will return to make its case again if needed.
“We believe Cheekwood is a grandfathered use, and it has operated consistently with prior approval,” Cooper said. “We will continue to defend our existing operations.”
Cooper and his counterpart, Bill Harbison, made the case that state law protects Cheekwood’s nonconforming uses, even if they don’t mesh with the current zoning code. That’s a sentiment Lora Fox, Nashville’s associate director of law, agreed with, noting that they’re grandfathered in under Nashville’s zoning codes from nearly 80 years ago in 1947.
Hargis, for his part, said his decision to issue the construction permit without any need for a hearing before the board was largely because the new parking facility doesn’t represent an expansion of the permitted uses on Cheekwood’s property.
Cheekwood’s attorneys noted that the new parking facility, coupled with plans to get overflow parking off city-owned property, actually represents a net reduction in 112 parking spaces compared to the nearly 950 total parking spaces currently available at the botanical gardens.
“What it really boils down to, for me, this is not an expansion of Cheekwood’s use as Cheekwood,” Hargis said. “This is parking associated with it.”
What’s going on with the lawsuits related to the conflict?
A week after Neighbors for Safety filed its ultimately unsuccessful zoning appeal, the group also sued in Davidson County Chancery Court in another legal effort to stop construction on Cheekwood’s planned parking pavilion.
But Cheekwood’s not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Instead, it targets the city. The lawsuit says the city has failed to enforce the conditions of Cheekwood’s current zoning category and its 1996 special exception permit, and has now issued construction permits that further violate those zoning restrictions.
In the most recent turn in the case, the city on Aug. 14 filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the neighbors haven’t demonstrated any standing to sue. In part, the city says that’s because Cheekwood, “an indispensable party whose interests would be directly affected,” isn’t named as a party in the suit in the first place.
“Notably, the complaint does not identify any legal interest plaintiff or its members have in these requests for declaratory judgment,” the filing reads. “Nor does it identify any legal interest Metro has in Cheekwood’s use of the property, outside of the enforcement of the ordinances themselves. The other party clearly affected by plaintiff’s request relief would be Cheekwood, who is not a party to this lawsuit.”
The city’s motion to dismiss also argues that Neighbors for Safety has missed the 60-day windows to appeal either the permit to construct the new parking facility — that passed on July 13 — or the 1996 special exception permit, which lapsed nearly 30 years ago on Dec. 30, 1996.
The court’s set a Sept. 18 hearing date to rule on the city’s motion to dismiss.
Meanwhile, another lawsuit whose resolution could be key to resolving the conflict between Cheekwood and its neighbors not only saw its first activity in nearly a year Aug. 14 but also now could end up being resolved by the end of September.
The descendants of Luke Lea, the man who deeded the land that became Percy Warner Park to Nashville in 1927, sued the city in June 2025 aiming to block a potential access road connecting the botanical gardens to nearby Highway 100.
It was one of several access road options posed in a 2024 study on traffic in the neighborhood, which found that traffic levels there were about triple the volume recommended by the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
An access road to Highway 100 would be intended to divert traffic to and from Cheekwood, and it’s become the crux of Neighbors for Safety’s campaign.
Until Aug. 14, there’d been no action in that case since a pair of subpoenas was issued Sept. 10, 2025. But Davidson County court rules hold that civil cases must either have concluded or set a trial date within 12 months from the date they were filed, unless the court specifically directs a shorter or longer time frame.
That led to the Aug. 14 filing, an order notifying the parties that the court has assumed case management responsibility “due to the age of this case and inactivity.” The court’s also extended the case’s disposition date through Sept. 30.
“This case must be concluded, an order obtained setting the case for trial, or a proposed agreed scheduling order submitted for court approval providing dates for the progression of this case on or before Sept. 30, 2026,” the filing reads.
Otherwise, the filing reads, the court will dismiss all the Lea heirs’ claims without prejudice, which means the plaintiffs could file the same lawsuit again later. But they’d also be on the hook for court costs for failure to proceed.
Austin Hornbostel is the Metro reporter for The Tennessean. Have a question about local government you want an answer to? Reach him with questions, tips and story ideas at ahornbostel@tennessean.com.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Cheekwood wins zoning appeal, but its battle with neighbors continues
