Neighbors Fight Plan To Sell Edgehill Park

NASHVILLE, TN -- An Edgehill park is on the chopping block as part of Mayor David Briley's budget and its potential sale rankles area residents.

In an effort to help fill a funding gap for Metro Nashville Public Schools, Briley proposed selling the Murrell School property. While the functions of the school itself - it's currently an alternative learning center - can be transferred elsewhere, it's surrounded by park space which includes a community garden, basketball courts and a historic homesite, that of famed sculptor William Edmondson, the first African-American to have an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.

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Metro values the property at $13 million, all of which would be assigned to Metro Schools' general fund. The Metro Development and Housing Authority has offered to buy the property at that price, but there are a bunch of hoops to jump through first: the school board must declare the property surplus and approve its sale, most simply. The Metro Council, in addition to approving the budget that includes the sale, would have to rezone the property, as it's currently zoned for civic institutional use. Furthermore, the area's neighborhood plan calls for a housing density too low to justify a $13 million price.

Plus, the $13 million the school system gains by selling the property is one-time revenue and wouldn't help any funding shortfalls in the future.

Councilman Colby Sledge, who represents the area, calls it a "dilemma" - he agrees MNPS needs to be funded properly - and that he doesn't support the plan.

"But there’s a bigger issue with putting this in the budget: it creates an artificial timeline for sale and rezoning, and a ticking time-bomb for schools. If this property doesn’t sell in the next 12 months for its necessary funding, it blows a $13 million hole (or however large it would be, based on the sale price of the land) in the MNPS operating budget. It would create an even bigger shortfall than the one facing the system now, with even less time to recover and plan. It would create chaos, and in conversations I have had this week, MNPS has no clear answer for how that gap would be funded. So we would be right back to where we are now, budget-wise, but worse," he wrote on Facebook.

Sledge said better alternatives are selling a bus maintenance property on Woodycrest or, more controversially perhaps, implementing the 50-cent property tax increase proposed by Councilman Bob Mendes, which would fund the schools shortfall and provide the long-promised cost-of-living raise for Metro employees and wouldn't require the Murrell School sale.

At a neighborhood meeting at Progressive Baptist Church Wednesday, area residents discussed ways to fight the plan and they hope to gain countywide support because of the precedent the sale might set,

“It is being stolen out from under residents,” Mark Schlicher, co-chair of the Edmondson Home Site and Community Park Coalition, said according to Fox 17. "Why should Nashville as a whole be concerned? Well, it could happen to you. Your neighborhood could be next."

The coalition is circulating a petition in opposition to the sale.

The mayor's office issued a statement on the proposal and the pushback.

“The Mayor’s Office has been in touch with Metro Schools, MDHA and Councilman Colby Sledge about the future of the Murrell School property. Once the operating budget process is finished, we’ll start a robust community engagement process to talk about what needs to happen there. We’re committed to working with everyone to find the right answer for Edgehill and for Nashville.”