Chairman: TVA likely to restrict sale of its lands

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee Valley Authority's chairman says the public utility's board will likely vote next week to ban the sale of its federal land for residential or commercial development.

Such a ban could force local officials and those with the Retirement Systems of Alabama to rethink a proposed project for Veterans Park in Florence, Ala.

RSA has an economic development partnership with Shoals governments. So far, that partnership has produced the Marriott Shoals Hotel and Spa in Florence and Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail courses in Colbert County.

The partnership included an "attraction" for Veterans Park that would be mutually agreed upon by all parties. A Bass Pro Shop and other retail establishments have been proposed but not approved for the park. That proposal has sparked many Florence residents to appear before city officials in protest, with many saying they don't want to see the park lost to a shopping center.

TVA owns Veterans Park and leases the property to Florence as a public-access recreation area.

TVA has been working toward its land plan since May when an expanded TVA board of directors took office. The board is scheduled to take up a committee's draft policy Thursday.

"I think the board is probably close to where this committee is,'' said Bill Sansom, TVA's chairman. "They recommended no residential and no commercial.''

The land proposal, affecting some 293,000 acres TVA manages along the 652-mile Tennessee River system and its tributaries, was crafted after TVA agreed to swap public lands to allow two high-end residential developments on Nickajack and Tellico lakes in southeast Tennessee.

While the projects had supporters, the land deals behind them unleashed a storm of criticism from the environmental community and those who believed that land bought for public purposes generations ago should remain in public hands.

The directors imposed a moratorium on new shoreline developments until the agency could craft a protocol for managing the land. Under the proposed guidelines, public land now designated industrial could be sold for those purposes. The guidelines also would allow the leasing of land designated for commercial recreation, like marinas, for those uses.

But the sale of public land for residential, retail or other non-industrial or commercial use, like the proposed commercial development of Veterans Park, would be banned.

Board member Bill Baxter said he is unwilling to commit his vote until he sees a final proposal. But he did say he thinks "the first draft recommendation is too restrictive and penalizes economic development.''

TVA, the country's largest public utility, serves about 8.6 million people in Tennessee and parts of Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama.

The TimesDaily contributed to this report.