A Brentwood heavy haul trucking company wants to locate its business in Eagleville on a 3.6-acre lot on Cheatham Springs Road west of Clark Street.

The lot is owned by Cecil Lynch and his wife and Derrick Lynch and his wife and is zoned C-2 commercial. The Lynches bought the property from Eagleville Planning Commission vice president Bobby Turner in October 2006, according to the deed.

Jimmy Peach of Spring Hill, whose family owns the Bent Tree Transport Inc. in Brentwood, spoke at the planning commission’s March 5 meeting about the company’s plans. The item was not on the agenda, but Mayor Nolan Barhan said it could legally be discussed under the "other business" item.

Peach said the company plans to build about a 60 by 80-foot shop with an office attached to it.

Numerous trailers and between three and four trucks would be kept parked on the site, and most of the equipment would leave out on Monday and would come back in on Friday, he said.

The trucking company is looking at putting a bridge across Cheatham Branch in order for the trucks to have access on Cheatham Springs Road. The new bridge would be wider than the existing Clark Street bridge in order to accommodate the turning radius of the trucks with trailers onto Cheatham Springs Road.

Peach said that the company has already talked to the Rutherford County storm water run-off department and was told that building a bridge over the creek would not be a problem.

At the location of the proposed bridge, Cheatham Springs Road is about 18 feet wide and on the south side has about 9 feet of grassy area between the pavement and a farm fence. The north side of the road drops off steeply to the creek with little to no shoulder.

Two trailer trucks turning onto Cheatham Springs Road from the present bridge on Clark Street have run off the pavement recently while trying to negotiate the turn. It took hours for two wreckers to get one of the tractor-trailer trucks back onto the pavement.

Peach said the company looked at buying a right of way from the Eagleville Church of Christ to allow access on Allisona Road but the church denied the request.

Cheatham Springs Road along Cheatham Branch is in the Eagleville city limits, making the city responsible for its repair.

Peach said he does not anticipate the trucks damaging the road but the company would be willing to put up a bond if the city asked.

"Where we are in Brentwood and have brought stuff in and out for 20 years, the trucks have yet to tear up the road or do any damage to it," he said.

Peach said that his company "does not have a high volume of traffic going in and out." Most of the time, the trucks will just be pulling empty trailers but on occasion "we will bring some weight in there," he said.

In a telephone interview Saturday, Mayor Nolan Barham said the city would have to take care of the road with street aid money if the road is damaged.

"That’s what that money is for," he said.

When asked about how local traffic traveling west on Cheatham Springs Road along the creek can safely meet large trucks, Peach said he did not see that as a concern because of the short distance the trucks will be traveling on the road.

"For anything of larger size we may bring through here, we will have a flag person out there to stop traffic," he said. "But at most, it would be about a five-minute delay for the travel time up to our entrance."

The proposed entrance off Cheatham Springs Road would be at the southeast corner of the property, Peach said.

Bent Tree Transport has been located on Granny White Pike since before Brentwood became a city in 1969, said Jeff Dobson, senior planner for the city of Brentwood.

The trucking company’s use of the Brentwood property is considered a non-conforming use but the company has been able to continue operating there because the site was grandfathered in, Dobson said.

"The use could continue with a new property owner, but in this case it will not," he said. "Mr. Peach is in the process of selling his property to a developer who wishes to include the area as part of his office development."

Peach said his company has sold the Brentwood property to the developer of the project and now needs a new place to operate. He said the company learned about the property on Cheatham Springs Road on the Internet.

"We have been looking for a place and have always liked it up there," he said. He noted that the company has looked at no other property in Eagleville.

In a November letter to the editor in The Tennessean, Peach described the Bent Tree Transport operation at the Brentwood property as including "the manufacture, refurbishing and fabrication of heavy equipment and truck parts, truck and trailer repairs, storage and repair for large equipment dealers, sales of horse trailers and other horse and farm-related equipment from inventory, long-term and overnight storage of refuse disposal trucks and long-haul trucks and trailers and a drop-off and pick-up station for shipments."

Peach said that at the time the letter was written, the family was in the process of selling the property and in order to do so was trying to get the zoning changed so they could sell the property.

The letter "was just some of the stuff that the purchasers of the property kind of put together," he said. The reference to "manufacturing truck and trailer parts is something that was kind of done to sway the city. We build things for our own use but that is it."

The reference to the storage of refuse disposal trucks concerned the company allowing a person who handled local garbage to park his truck at the site, Peach said.

The Eagleville site would be a drop off and pickup area for shipments on occasion but not on a regular basis, he said.

The Bent Tree Transport site in Brentwood is shielded from the road by trees and bushes but contains a gravel entrance road and a rutted gravel parking area, a shop-storage building, several truck tractors and trailers, old truck tires and rims, hydraulic crane, various large timbers and steel I-beams, overflowing trash trailer and an old pop-up camper.

"The place here versus the place (in Eagleville) will be totally different because we are strapped for room (in Brentwood)," he said. "In moving up there we are going to get rid of the extra junk that we don’t use along with junk accumulated over 30 years."

Peach said on Friday that surveyors were to come Monday to get an up to date survey of the Eagleville property and percolation tests for a septic tank have been done but he is waiting for the results.