By Wall Street Journal
Smack dab between the swelling urban centers of Nashville, Chattanooga, and Huntsville, Ala., rural Coffee County was poised to become Tennessee’s next boomtown, with subdivisions rapidly replacing farmland.
But when the county’s pro-growth mayor, Judd Matheny, died under unusual circumstances last year, it unleashed a development battle with a Southern Gothic twist that has split this deeply red area over the fundamental question of what it means to be conservative.
County officials are pushing hard to limit development across the area’s vast farmlands. In March, the county imposed a three-month moratorium on all large subdivision projects in areas zoned for agriculture. After that ended, officials passed an ordinance ruling that property owners in agricultural areas could only sell land in a minimum of 5-acre-lot increments, effectively halting large subdivisions in those areas.
