Remnant school plan deferred

City Paper (Nashville, TN)/August 25, 2005
By Bill Harless

The Remnant Fellowship church in Brentwood failed to get approval from the Brentwood City Commission this week to rezone its property to open a kindergarten.

The commission Monday essentially deferred its final vote on the matter, asking Remnant to wait until three nearby churches — Fellowship Bible, Brentwood Baptist, and Otter Creek Church of Christ, complete a traffic study that will project their Sunday morning traffic through the year 2015.

Brentwood Mayor Joe Sweeney suggested Remnant join the study.

The Brentwood Planning Commission, at its Aug. 1 meeting, had recommended the deferral.

In July, Remnant had asked the City Commission permission to accept 90 kindergartners — to match room it has made for 90 preschoolers — but the Commission, in a preliminary vote, gave approval for only 25 during the school’s initial year.

The commission said this number could be increased by eight each following year provided the maximum number of kindergarteners not exceed 100 beginning in the 2015 school year.

Otter Creek Church of Christ, which is building a church and kindergarten nearby at the intersection of Franklin and Concord roads, has permission to accept 100 kindergarteners in addition to its preschoolers.

The state, not local governments, regulates preschools, and Remnant leader Tedd Anger has said the church will proceed with plans to open its preschool this fall.

Representatives from the church have said the church has already conducted a traffic study in preparation for the kindergarten and that the study of Sunday morning traffic will not have bearing on traffic to and from the weekday kindergarten.

Residents who live near the four churches have said traffic from Remnant, located at 1230 Franklin Road, and the other large churches nearby have made it difficult and dangerous to leave the Stonehenge subdivision when turning onto Franklin Road from Longstreet Drive, a road leading into and out of Stonehenge.

At the City Commission meeting Monday, no commissioner seconded the motion to bring the kindergarten rezoning to the table, so no vote was actually taken. The vote will now wait until a commissioner decides to bring it forward again.