Buffer-Based Quarry Setback Resolutions Are Zoning and Must Comply with Tennessee’s County Zoning Act

Introduction

This appeal arose from Grundy County’s adoption of Resolution 19-5-20c (as amended), which barred quarries, rock crushers, and gravel pits from locating within 5,000 feet of a wide range of “sensitive” or occupied uses (residences, schools, churches, parks, and multiple categories of businesses). After Tinsley Properties, LLC bought land in unincorporated Grundy County and leased it to Tinsley Sand & Gravel, LLC to operate a quarry, the County determined the site violated the 5,000-foot separation requirement and demanded operations cease.

Tinsley filed a declaratory judgment action asserting the Resolution was void because it functioned as a zoning regulation adopted without compliance with the procedural mandates of Tennessee’s County Zoning Act (“the CZA”), Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 13-7-101 to -119. In the alternative, Tinsley argued the County could not rely on police powers (Tenn. Code Ann. § 5-1-118(c)) because state environmental statutes preempted local regulation. The County conceded it did not follow CZA zoning procedures, but insisted the Resolution was a valid police-power nuisance/land-use measure rather than “zoning.”

The chancery court granted summary judgment to the County; the Court of Appeals affirmed; and the Tennessee Supreme Court granted review to decide the central question: when does a nominal “police power” land-use restriction cross the line into zoning—thereby triggering the CZA’s procedural safeguards?

Summary of the Opinion

The Supreme Court held the Resolution was “tantamount to a zoning regulation” under Tennessee’s “substantial effects” test. Although framed as a countywide safety/welfare measure, the Resolution effectively created prohibited and permitted “zones” for quarrying based on distance buffers around specified land uses. Because it functioned as zoning, the County was required to comply with the CZA’s zoning procedures—public hearings and notice, planning commission processes, and related institutional requirements—which it admittedly did not do.

The Court therefore reversed the Court of Appeals, vacated the trial court’s judgment, and remanded with instructions to enter summary judgment for Tinsley. Having found the Resolution was zoning, the Court deemed it immaterial whether the County also claimed independent police-power authority: if it is zoning, it must be enacted as zoning.

Analysis

1) Precedents Cited

Cherokee Country Club, Inc. v. City of Knoxville, 152 S.W.3d 466 (Tenn. 2004)

Cherokee Country Club is the doctrinal foundation. There, Knoxville adopted an “emergency demolition ordinance” that effectively prevented demolition for properties being considered for a historic district. The city argued it was merely a building regulation under police power; the Court disagreed and adopted the “substantial effects” approach to prevent local governments from evading zoning procedures by relabeling zoning-like controls.

In Tinsley Properties, the Court used Cherokee Country Club for two core propositions:

• Anti-circumvention principle: a local government may not avoid statutory zoning “guardrails” by “labeling a zoning act a mere exercise of police power.” (The opinion reinforces this point by quoting Ellison v. Fort Lauderdale, 183 So.2d 193 (Fla. 1966).)
• Functional analysis: courts must look to an ordinance’s “terms and effect,” not its title or asserted source of authority.

The quarry setback Resolution resembled the demolition restriction in Cherokee Country Club in the relevant way: both imposed broad, land-use-limiting restrictions without the procedural protections the zoning statutes demand.

SNPCO, Inc. v. City of Jefferson City, 363 S.W.3d 467 (Tenn. 2012)

SNPCO refined the “substantial effects” test after inconsistent intermediate-court applications. In SNPCO, an ordinance banned fireworks sales citywide; the Court held it was a police-power regulation, not zoning.

Tinsley Properties adopts SNPCO’s clarification that the “substantial effects” test is a two-step inquiry:

1. Tantamount-to-zoning step: whether the ordinance is closely related to a comprehensive zoning plan, or—if no plan—uses “terms and concepts customarily associated with comprehensive zoning plans.”
2. Substantial-effect step: whether the ordinance substantially affects the use of the property in dispute.

The Court also used SNPCO as a contrast case: fireworks regulation targeted a hazardous activity “regardless of where it occurred,” while the quarry Resolution was location-based and district-like—functionally identifying places where quarrying is allowed or forbidden.

S. Constructors, Inc. v. Loudon Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 58 S.W.3d 706 (Tenn. 2001)

The Court cited S. Constructors for the structural premise that Tennessee counties have no inherent land-use authority and may exercise only powers conferred by the General Assembly. This frames the CZA as the primary delegation for county zoning power—and makes procedural compliance with that delegation central, not optional.

Brooks v. City of Memphis, 241 S.W.2d 432 (Tenn. 1951)

Brooks supplied a classic description of zoning as defining and restricting permissible uses by drawing lines—allowing some uses on one side and forbidding them on the other. The Court used this to support its conclusion that the quarry Resolution, though not labeled “districting,” draws functional boundaries by measurement.

Statutory-interpretation authorities: State v. Deberry, 651 S.W.3d 918 (Tenn. 2022); Ellithorpe v. Weismark, 479 S.W.3d 818 (Tenn. 2015); State v. Edmondson, 231 S.W.3d 925 (Tenn. 2007)

These cases guided the Court’s method for defining “zoning” where the CZA does not supply a definition: courts apply the term’s natural and ordinary meaning, consulting authoritative dictionaries contemporaneous with enactment and related sources.

Standard-of-review authorities: Falls v. Goins, 673 S.W.3d 173 (Tenn. 2023); Steward v. State, 33 S.W.3d 785 (Tenn. 2000); Johnson v. Hopkins, 432 S.W.3d 840 (Tenn. 2013)

These cases supplied the de novo standards governing summary judgment and statutory interpretation, reinforcing that the Supreme Court owed no deference to the lower courts’ legal conclusions about the Resolution’s character.

Persuasive authorities on zoning characteristics: Powell v. City of Houston, 628 S.W.3d 838 (Tex. 2021) and others

The Court referenced out-of-state decisions and treatises to emphasize a widely accepted zoning hallmark: regulation “according to districts or zones,” even if not always comprehensive in geographic scope. It also invoked Sandy Mush Props., Inc. v. Rutherford Cnty. ex rel. Bd. of Comm'rs, 595 S.E.2d 233 (N.C. Ct. App. 2004), as an example of an ordinance that effectively created zones without a formally adopted zoning plan.

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2) Legal Reasoning

a) Defining “zoning” under the CZA: “the hallmark of zoning is zones”

The Court began by grounding the analysis in the CZA’s text. While the CZA authorizes counties to regulate land uses and contemplates districts, Tenn. Code Ann. § 13-7-102, it does not define “zoning.” Applying ordinary-meaning principles, the Court concluded:

This definition is the opinion’s key conceptual move: it sets a functional benchmark against which setback/buffer ordinances can be measured. If an ordinance creates geographically identifiable “allowed” and “disallowed” areas for a land use, it may be zoning even if it never uses the word “district.”

b) Applying SNPCO’s two-step substantial effects test

Step 1 — Tantamount to zoning: The quarry Resolution created “readily identifiable” prohibited areas by drawing 5,000-foot exclusion zones around enumerated land uses. The Court accepted the State’s amicus formulation: “the hallmark of zoning is zones.” The method of drawing the zones (distance buffers rather than a colored map) was “irrelevant” because the regulatory effect was the same.

Importantly, the Court rejected the trial court’s rationale that lack of a comprehensive zoning plan prevented the Resolution from being zoning. A plan can be “probative,” but it is not required; courts also examine whether the ordinance employs zoning-like “terms and concepts.” Here the Resolution referred to:

• Property lines and boundaries as the measurement baseline; and
• A grandfather clause—a familiar zoning concept reflected in Tenn. Code Ann. § 13-7-208(b)(1).

Step 2 — Substantial effect on property use: The Resolution “wholly prohibits” quarrying in large, specified portions of the County. A prohibition that bars the intended land use by location was treated as a substantial interference with land use—akin to the effective demolition prohibition in Cherokee Country Club.

c) The procedural consequence: if it is zoning, it must be enacted as zoning

Having found both prongs satisfied, the Court treated CZA procedural compliance as mandatory. The County had not followed the CZA requirements (including hearings/notice and planning structures), so the Resolution “cannot be enforced” against Tinsley’s quarry.

The Court then made an important doctrinal “gatekeeping” point: even if police powers could independently authorize a regulation, that does not excuse noncompliance with zoning procedures when the regulation is, in substance, zoning. The opinion explicitly reaffirmed Cherokee Country Club on this point.

d) What the Court did not decide (and why)

Tinsley’s preemption argument—invoking Tenn. Code Ann. § 5-1-118(c)(2) and state environmental statutes—was central in the lower courts. But once the Supreme Court held the Resolution was zoning enacted contrary to the CZA, the case could be resolved on that basis alone. The opinion thus leaves open (for another day) the precise boundary between: (i) permissible county police-power regulation of operational aspects of quarrying, and (ii) state-law preemption limits under environmental regulatory schemes.

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3) Impact

a) Practical impact for counties: “buffer ordinances” are high-risk if they function like districting

The decision sends a clear signal to Tennessee counties: location-based exclusions that carve out where a land use may occur—especially broad setbacks from multiple categories of existing uses—are likely to be treated as zoning. Counties that enact such measures by resolution under general police powers, without CZA procedures, face a substantial invalidation risk.

b) Doctrinal impact: zoning can exist without an adopted comprehensive zoning plan

The opinion reduces a potential safe harbor some local governments might have inferred from the trial court’s approach. A county cannot argue “we have no zoning plan, therefore our land-use restrictions cannot be zoning.” The Court confirmed that the absence of a comprehensive plan does not prevent an ordinance from being “tantamount to zoning” where its terms/effects are zoning-like.

c) Litigation impact: a clearer screening test for zoning-procedure challenges

By emphasizing that zones may be “readily identifiable” even when implicit, the Court provides a more administrable way to litigate CZA-procedure claims:

• Does the measure create mapped (or mappable) permitted/prohibited areas for a use?
• Does it regulate by reference to property boundaries, setbacks, nonconformities, or other zoning concepts?
• Does it materially restrict or eliminate the proposed use in substantial portions of the jurisdiction?

d) Anticipated downstream effects: shifting local regulation toward formal zoning

Expect local governments to respond in one of two ways:

• Formalize quarry location restrictions through CZA zoning (districts, hearings, notice, planning commission involvement, and boards of zoning appeals); or
• Reframe regulations as operational standards that apply regardless of location (closer to SNPCO), while avoiding de facto districting—though even operational rules may implicate preemption and other statutory limits.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Zoning vs. Police Power (in plain terms)

Police power regulation generally means government rules aimed at health, safety, and welfare (e.g., controlling dangerous activities), often applied broadly without dividing land into different “permission areas.” Zoning is different: it is about where certain land uses may occur, typically by drawing boundaries—explicitly or functionally—so that a use is allowed in some areas and forbidden in others.

The “substantial effects” test

Tennessee uses a two-step test to prevent local governments from evading zoning procedures:

• Step 1: Is the ordinance so related to zoning (or so similar to typical zoning concepts) that it is effectively zoning?
• Step 2: Does it substantially affect the landowner’s ability to use the property?

Both steps must be met; here, the quarry setback Resolution met both because it created exclusion “zones” and barred quarrying in large areas.

Why “5,000 feet from X” can be a “zone”

Even without drawing a district map, the rule produces a mappable result: draw circles (buffers) around each protected use, and the overlapping buffered areas become places where the quarry use is prohibited. Those are, in effect, zoning districts created by measurement rather than by name.

“Grandfathering”

A “grandfather clause” (often discussed as “nonconforming use” protection) is a common zoning feature that lets existing uses continue even after new restrictions are adopted. The presence of grandfathering reinforced that the Resolution operated like zoning.

Summary judgment and de novo review

“Summary judgment” is a pretrial ruling that the law entitles one party to win because there are no disputed facts that matter. “De novo” review means the appellate court decides the legal questions fresh, without deferring to the lower court.

Conclusion

Tinsley Properties, LLC v. Grundy County establishes a clear Tennessee rule for counties: a location-based quarry setback that creates identifiable permitted/prohibited areas functions as zoning, even if framed as police-power regulation and even if the county lacks a comprehensive zoning plan. When a measure is “tantamount to zoning” and substantially affects land use, the CZA’s procedural requirements apply—and failure to follow them renders the measure unenforceable.

The opinion’s broader significance lies in its functional understanding of “zones” and its reaffirmation that statutory zoning procedures are not optional guardrails but conditions on the exercise of land-use control.