Rural ground, county rules
College Grove is an unincorporated community in Williamson County, between Franklin and Murfreesboro, and still mostly rural. With no town government, the Williamson County Engineer issues land disturbance permits here.
The county’s policy, dated August 2020, applies once disturbance passes an acre. It also reaches smaller work when the lot belongs to a larger common plan, or when the project adds at least 10,000 square feet of impervious surface.
Cutting a first home site
The community grew between 1880 and 1920, around roads such as Cox Road and Parks Place, and much of the land has stayed in pasture or woods since. Turning a piece of it into a home site usually means clearing a pad and a driveway route, pulling stumps and roots, and grading so water runs away from the house.
A pad on open pasture and a pad cut from woods are different jobs. The wooded one adds felling and taking out the stumps and roots, and all of that material has to go somewhere.
Close by, the King’s Chapel subdivision has passed 420 homes. Every lot cut from a tract like that sits inside a larger plan, and the county can treat even a small one accordingly.
When a clearing job gets bigger
Clearing a tract for several lots brings in the state. Tennessee’s construction stormwater permit covers disturbance of an acre or more and wants the application at least 30 days before work starts.
There is a contractor rule too. Tennessee requires a license before anyone bids a prime contract of $25,000 or more, with materials and labor counted together, so on a job that size the license number is a fair thing to ask for.
We’ll sort out which county and state filings apply when we walk the land for the free estimate.