An agreement pausing Isaac Zuercher’s work in paving a road in Fairfield Glade remains in effect following a court hearing on a lawsuit the community club’s declarant filed against him.
As part of the proceedings Friday in Putnam County Chancery Court in Cookeville, declarant Tom Anderson was required to post a bond of $100,000, which would be used to compensate Zuercher’s financial losses should Anderson lose his argument that he has exclusive rights in developing Fairfield Glade.
Anderson is asking the court to prevent Zuercher, owner of Zurich Homes and a community club board of directors member, from covering the existing graveled Hanover Court in asphalt where he is building two houses on a cul-de-sac that also has two occupied homes.
The community club’s primary governing document, the covenants and restrictions, assigns the declarant as the “sole judge” in deciding when roads can be built and to the extent they can be improved.
Zuercher maintains, however, that he and other builders have the legal right to build roads without Anderson’s permission.
Although the lawsuit pertains only to Zuercher’s work in improving Hanover Court, presiding Chancellor Ronald Thurman, who has experience in hearing cases involving development matters, left it to Zuercher to show that other builders and property owners have constructed roads without objections from Anderson. That potentially could lead to Anderson losing his exclusivity rights.
Zuercher told the Glade Sun he can produce such a list. He said roads have been built independent of community club declarants over many years, including since Anderson took on that role in 2017.
In a telephone interview, Zuercher said he has built roads “multiple times” and that other builders and residents also have constructed them.
“The precedent has been set,” he said.
While Anderson has focused his development work on neighborhood lots he owns north of Peavine Road, other builders and property owners have at least partially developed some roads south of Peavine on their own.
The issue of road construction came to a head last year when Anderson proposed an amendment to the covenants and restrictions, commonly known as the C&Rs, that would have granted him authority to charge lot owners directly for his costs in building roads and installing water lines along their properties. Those lots are south of Peavine Road.
The membership overwhelmingly rejected the proposal in a vote.
The board of directors stated on the club’s website in support of the initiative at the time that previous declarants did not enforce their development rights. Zuercher said Anderson also has not done that.
Anderson did not respond to a Glade Sun request for comment. Board President Greg Jones has said the community club, a co-plaintiff in the suit, would not comment publicly on the pending litigation.
Among roads that could come into play in the dispute is Laurelwood Drive, like Hanover Court off Westchester Drive in the southern portion of Fairfield Glade. Zuercher built part of that road in 2020 with approval of the community club board of directors that was in place at the time.
The current board stated last year in its website posting that the board of 2020 acted without authority. Zuercher was not on the board at the time the community was deciding the proposal.
Zuercher has said he worked with then-General Manager Bob Weber on the deal and had no reason to think there was anything questionable about it.
The agreement Zuercher made with Anderson to stop working on Hanover Court is expected to continue through trial, a date for which has not been set.
Thurman was the judge in years-long disputes involving the Renegade Mountain resort near Crab Orchard. He ruled in 2021, in part, that the unincorporated community had no developer because the company that had been claiming that right since 2011 had not built a single house or engaged in other work of a developer. His ruling was upheld on appeal.
Zuercher took that case as a positive sign for his defense against Anderson’s lawsuit, saying, “My attorneys were encouraged that he was involved in this.”