By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — The Metro Planning Commission met Tuesday evening at the American Legion Building, and before the agenda’s final item was done, Planning Commissioner Jeff Ross asked a question that’s been hanging over Retreat at Whiskey Creek like the fog off Mulberry Creek on a spring morning for months.

“Where is the money?”

Ross directed the question at the Retreat team — attorney Madison Haynes and project manager Spencer Haithcote — after laying out the arithmetic in terms no one in the room could misunderstand.

“Y’all sold all these lots,” Ross said. “Supposedly, all these people gave you money. Where is the money? Y’all selling these lots for over one hundred something thousand dollars.”

Of the 79 lots platted for Phase 1, roughly 62 have been sold, according to Retreat officials. Eight remain available and Oakstone Land Management maintains ownership of the rest to be used as rentals. At original asking prices north of $100,000 each, that represents millions of dollars in lot sales. As of Tuesday’s meeting, four homes have been built on the development — and none of them have running water.

Ross put it another way: “It would be just like I go to the bank and I borrowed money to build five houses. And I don’t build them, but then I go back to the bank two years later and say, ‘Hey, I need to build 10 more, and I ain’t even started these other five.’ That’s where I am getting at.”

The Retreat team did not provide a direct answer to where the Phase 1 proceeds have gone.

{Editor’s Note: Public meeting coverage is crucial to the health of any community. This article remains free to all readers thanks to reader support and our community partners at Barrel House Barbecue. Please support the local small businesses that support your community newspaper.}

THE 75 PERCENT PROBLEM

The exchange came as Haynes discussed Phase 2 — a more complex expansion of the Whiskey Creek development involving steeper terrain, flood plain considerations, and significant access challenges. To commissioners who have been watching Phase 1 stall since 2021, that’s a problem.

The Metro Council has already placed a condition on any Phase 2 consideration: Retreat owner and General Contractor Chip Hayes must reach 75 percent completion on Phase 1 first before the Planning Commission or the Council will considered approvals of Phase 2. Planning Commission Chair Dexter Golden made clear Tuesday that the county put that threshold in place in good faith.

“This started back in 2021,” he said. “They have built and sold lots off Phase 1 with no services to these people — no septic, sewer, water. This has been something the county, in my mind and opinion, got drug through the mud on.”

The 75 percent requirement was designed, he explained, to keep contractors on site and working rather than allowing them to move to the next job.

By his own account, Hayes is not close to that threshold. In the April Planning meeting, Retreat officials told the Commission that the infrastructure progress sat at roughly 50 percent. However, at two recent public meetings, MUD Manager Ronnie Cunningham described the utilities at the Retreat as, “leaking like a sieve.”

THE BRIDGE PROBLEM

Access to the development runs across a 16-foot wide covered bridge on Main Street — an Insta-worthy landmark featuring a mural in homage to The Lincoln County Process that has become, in practice, a significant liability for the project.

According to Chair Golden, county insurance officials recently stated that county vehicles responding to emergencies at The Retreat might not be covered under Metro’s insurance. The bridge, he explained, is rated at 15 tons, and county insurance prohibits vehicles over that weight from using it. For the people who own lots and the four households who have built homes at Retreat at Whiskey Creek, that means emergency response might be impossible by the primary route in.

At a previous planning meeting, Hayes represented that the bridge had state certification. Planning Commission Chair Dexter said Tuesday that representation “is in fact not the case” — the letter Hayes cited does not establish what he claimed.

The Phase 2 plan calls for construction of a second bridge to provide an additional access point. That bridge, per the discussion Tuesday, would be built to match the existing 16-foot width. Whether a second 16-foot bridge would meet the weight capacity and width requirements for county fire vehicles remains an open question — one that commissioners indicated will require engineering study and TDOT review before any Phase 2 consideration moves forward.

Haithcote acknowledged the access challenges and said the development team is working through them. “I live here,” he said, “and I want to make sure it’s done right.”

A BROADER WARNING

Before the meeting adjourned, Commissioner Scott Fruehauf raised a concern that extended beyond Whiskey Creek — one that developers, the commission, and the Metro Council may need to address as growth continues.

Fruehauf pointed to a pattern of developers keeping subdivision roads in HOA control rather than turning them over to the county — a practice that leaves those roads outside of public scrutiny, maintenance standards, and emergency access requirements.

“Those are all things you assume you get when you buy a house,” he said, listing school bus access, fire trucks, ambulances, and mail service. “All the public services.”

He called for development standards that would require shared access drives to be built to specifications that could eventually be turned over to the county — closing what he described as a loophole that has been allowed to persist.

The Metro Planning Commission meets every first Tuesday at the County Building located at 241 Main Street in Lynchburg at 5:30 p.m. •

About the Lynchburg Times: The Lynchburg Times is Moore County’s locally owned, independent news source. Our reporting is supported by readers, small business partners, and underwriters who believe community journalism matters. If this story was valuable to you, consider becoming a supporter at lynchburgtimes.com.