A scenic river and a flood on record
A stretch of the Harpeth that passes through Bellevue is legally designated a scenic river. The same river rose in the flood of May 2, 2010, and much of Bellevue’s residential and commercial building came after that flood.
For land work, that history puts drainage first. Cleared ground no longer holds rain the way woods and turf did, so the real question on any Bellevue regrade is where the water goes next. A lot that flooded once deserves a drainage plan before a grading plan. Bellevue also takes in the Warner Parks.
What Metro asks for in Bellevue
As part of Metro Nashville and Davidson County, Bellevue falls under Metro Water Services for grading permits. Their Development Services Division wants a permit once disturbance passes 10,000 square feet. Smaller jobs stay exempt only while they move 100 cubic yards or less, and maintenance or landscaping keeps its exemption at a grade change of 18 inches or less.
None of those exemptions hold inside a designated floodplain. A low lot near the Harpeth, or near a creek feeding it, can need a permit for work that looks minor.
The 18-inch figure is the one most backyard projects run into. Raise a low corner more than that and the landscaping exemption is gone, whatever the square footage.
From railroad stop to suburb
In the 1950s Bellevue was a small community serving farms along the railroad near the river. By 2016 its two main ZIP codes held an estimated 77,862 people, spread along Highway 70S, Old Hickory Boulevard and Old Harding Pike near Highway 100, with Red Caboose Park on Colice Jeanne Road.
When a new house goes on ground first shaped for something else, the pad and the drainage get rebuilt together. We plan clearing, grading and drainage as one job for that reason, and we raise the Metro permit question when we come out for the estimate.