Tennessee
Buying Land in Cumberland County, Tennessee
County seat Crossville, on the Cumberland Plateau roughly midway between Nashville and Knoxville. Cumberland County has adopted countywide zoning, but a large share of its residential land market runs through master-planned retiree and golf communities like Fairfield Glade and Lake Tansi, each governed by its own homeowners' association on top of county rules. Here's how the public zoning layer and the private HOA layer actually interact for a land buyer.
Zoning is countywide, but read the HOA covenants too
Cumberland County has adopted a countywide zoning ordinance, administered through its Regional Planning Commission and a separate Codes Department, along with its own subdivision regulations (last amended in 2019) governing how raw land here can be divided. That puts Cumberland in the zoned half of Tennessee's counties described on our state page, and it means a standard zoning-district check -- confirming a parcel's district and allowed uses with the county -- is the right starting point for any purchase.
What makes Cumberland County's land market genuinely distinctive is the second, private layer sitting on top of that public zoning across much of its residential land: master-planned communities like Fairfield Glade, a resort and retirement development with roughly 9,150 residents as of the 2020 Census, built around five golf courses totaling 90 holes, and governed internally by the Fairfield Glade Community Club as the property owners' association under a 1997 Declaration of Covenants and Restrictions. Lake Tansi is a comparable planned community elsewhere in the county. Buying a lot inside either community means clearing both the county's zoning requirements and that community's own architectural-review process, mandatory HOA assessments (which fund amenities the association itself owns, in Fairfield Glade's case), and any covenant restrictions on things like minimum home size, exterior materials, or short-term rentals -- restrictions that can be considerably more specific and more strictly enforced than anything in the county's zoning ordinance.
Most of the undeveloped residential inventory sits inside these communities
A land-use memo prepared for the county's regional water-supply planning found that Fairfield Glade, Lake Tansi, and the Cumberland Cove/Cumberland Lakes area together account for roughly 69% of Cumberland County's undeveloped residential parcels. In practice, that means a buyer searching for a residential building lot in this county is more likely than not to end up evaluating a lot inside one of these HOA-governed communities rather than a standalone rural parcel -- worth knowing going in, since it reframes the due-diligence checklist toward HOA documents and assessment history at least as much as toward county zoning and septic.
Before closing on a lot in any of these communities, request the current recorded covenants and restrictions, the HOA's current assessment schedule and any pending special assessments, and -- if short-term rental income is part of the plan -- the association's specific short-term-rental policy, since these communities' governing documents vary and can restrict or require registration for rentals independent of whatever the county itself allows. See our dedicated page on Fairfield Glade and Lake Tansi's HOA covenants for the full detail on what these declarations actually control and exactly what to request before closing.
Septic and the rest of the state framework
Septic permitting in Cumberland County runs through the Cumberland County Health Department in Crossville (931-484-6196) under the statewide TDEC Rule 0400-48-01 standard described on our Tennessee page, with staff also handling the county's environmental-health inspection duties. Given the Plateau's mixed soil types and rock outcroppings in places, a site-specific soil evaluation before committing to a lot -- inside or outside the golf communities -- is worth budgeting time for rather than assuming a straightforward perc result.
Beyond septic, the rest of Tennessee's statewide framework applies as described on our state page: riparian, reasonable-use water rights for any parcel touching a stream or the county's several lakes; state-level regulation of manufactured and modular housing, with the county's own zoning determining whether a given lot or HOA district allows one; and the Right to Farm Act's nuisance-suit presumption for any of the county's remaining working farms outside the resort communities.
Who to Call Before Buying Land in Cumberland County
Fairfield Glade and Lake Tansi are private communities governed by their own homeowners' associations, separate from Cumberland County government -- confirm HOA-specific rules and fees directly with each association, not the county.
Planning & Zoning
Cumberland County Regional Planning Commission
Countywide zoning district and subdivision-regulation questions for a specific parcel.
Other
Cumberland County Codes Department
Building permits and codes enforcement in unincorporated Cumberland County.
Septic / Onsite Wastewater
Cumberland County Health Department
Septic system site evaluations and permits under the statewide TDEC standard.
Other
Fairfield Glade Community Club (Property Owners’ Association)
Covenants, architectural review, assessments, and short-term-rental policy for lots inside Fairfield Glade.
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Sources
- Fairfield Glade, Tennessee — Wikipedia (accessed 2026-09)
- FAIRFIELD GLADE COMMUNITY CLUB — Crossville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce (accessed 2026-09)
- Fairfield Glade | Golf Retirement Community in Crossville, Tennessee — Private Communities Registry (accessed 2026-09)
- Addendum 1 - Land Use Memo — City of Crossville, Tennessee (accessed 2026-09)
- SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS of The Cumberland County Regional Planning Commission — Cumberland County, Tennessee (accessed 2026-09)
- PLANNING COMMISSION — Cumberland County, Tennessee (accessed 2026-09)
Last reviewed 2026-09