Community Coalition Demands BlueOval City Benefits, Calls on Ford to Negotiate • Tennessee Lookout

A coalition of community members from the towns surrounding the new BlueOval City Manufacturing Campus in West Tennessee released a list of demands for a legally binding agreement on community benefits this month, inviting Ford to negotiate.

Their demands include the company’s commitment to hiring local workers at decent wages, creating funds to support locals as rents and costs of living rise, monitoring the campus’s environmental impacts, and give the new “BlueOval Good Neighbors Community Board” the power to supervise and enforce these provisions.

The list — which is based on community feedback collected by BlueOval Good Neighbors and the advocacy group Tennessee for All during their own community outreach over the past two years — has not yet been recognized by Ford.

The company conducted a separate two-year outreach effort to gather feedback on a “Good Neighbor Plan” that has not yet been released. This effort is overseen by an Equitable Growth Advisory Council comprised of 25 community leaders and elected officials selected by Ford.

The 6-square-mile campus will be built on approximately 3,300 acres of what was once farmland in the southwest corner of Haywood County. The $5.6 billion campus will include electric vehicle and battery manufacturing facilities, a supplier fleet, a rail connection and a wastewater treatment plant.

This massive enterprise – one of the largest battery and vehicle manufacturing campuses in the country – is just 2.5 miles south of Stanton, a small town of fewer than 600 people. Mason, a majority black town of just over 1,300 residents, is about 6 miles west of the facility.

“We want residents in every neighboring BlueOval City community to benefit from campus life and look forward to introducing the Good Neighbor Plan soon,” spokesperson Jessica Enoch wrote in an email to Tennessee Lookout. “Ford has been contacted by numerous groups who say they speak on behalf of residents, many of whom are not even from the area. It would not be possible for us to engage with all third party groups claiming to speak on behalf of residents. In fact, what residents tell us most is that they want to speak for themselves.

Community members, leaders and union representatives gathered at a Nov. 16 meeting hosted by BlueOval Good Neighbors and Tennessee for All said they want to have a voice in their future, supported by legal strengthening of a community benefits agreement.

They agree that development brings opportunities, but the growing challenges are already palpable. Meeting attendees described neighbors who lost their rental homes when owners sold their property after Ford came to town. One woman described seeing trees cut down and smelling smoke as fallen logs were burned. Some have seen rents and property taxes rise as property values ​​rise. Many have received offers to buy their homes.

“You get these little things in the mail when people want to buy your house, and they have enough courage to offer me $35,000,” Mason Alderwoman Virginia Rivers said. “Where am I going to buy a house for (this). If I sell what I have, I can’t even buy anything else.