Last week, the Scene published my cover story about Nashville’s property standard codes enforcement, and how the anonymous complaint-driven system is weaponized against low-income residents.
The story touched a nerve. Readers in Nashville and elsewhere responded with their own stories about nightmarish battles with codes and zoning enforcement. Current and former Metro councilmembers called for a review and reforms. One former councilmember, Duane Dominy, wrote that back in the 2000s he and his supporters had been targeted by Codes after he announced his candidacy to challenge the then-incumbent.
On Friday, Mayor John Cooper's office released a statement in response to the story. While it called for a review and declared that using the Codes system “to place unjust burdens on disadvantaged residents or communities of color is wholly unacceptable," Cooper also affirmed his support for the Codes office, its inspectors and the anonymous complaint system.
The article also prompted a wave of feedback from the neighbors of Freddie Benford, the Rosebank resident whose battles with Codes led the article. When we talked, Benford said most of the citations were related to his work on his cars, including his prized 1967 Dodge Coronet, though he'd also been cited for items he stored under his carport. Because codes complaints are anonymous, I was unable to get the complainant's side of the story prior to publication. But the day after the story ran, I heard from three of Benford's neighbors. Their accounts cut to the heart of the tension that drove the story: who gets a say in how Nashville changes and adapts as it grows.
The first to respond was Amanda Hale, a 44-year-old public relations professional who has lived next door to Benford since 2014. Hale fired off an angry letter to the Scene requesting a complete retraction. She later sent me more than 80 photos and videos she has taken of Benford and his property. Those photos and videos do show clear codes violations — violations more egregious than those Benford admitted to when I interviewed him.
Hale's photos and videos depict Benford and others on his property working on cars. She also documented tow trucks dropping cars in Benford's driveway. One photo shows a stack of tires in Benford's yard. In a phone conversation on Monday, Hale said this all proves that Benford is running an unlicensed auto repair business.
Benford says that isn't the case. "I've been a mechanic for over 40 years,” he says. “I worked at garages. In my spare time, I fix cars for people I know. Friends, family, neighbors. I've never charged anybody a dime." After I show him Hale's photos and press him a bit, he offers a concession. "Some folks do offer me some money for my time and work. So yeah, I've made a little money. But I don't ask for it."
"Freddie is no victim," Hale says. "He isn't the sympathetic figure you make him out to be." Hale then made clear that she is the victim.
But even as Hale sent me those photos and videos, other neighbors reached out specifically to defend Benford. "My realtor told me about Freddie around 2015, before I moved into the neighborhood," says Kathleen Dunn, who lives across the street, a few doors down from Benford. "He said there's a guy across the street who is always working on cars in his yard, but he's really nice and friendly. My first thought was great! If my car breaks down, now I have a guy who can fix it."
"We see the tow truck over there from time to time," says Jennifer, a neighbor who asked the Scene not to use her real name. "We're fine with it. It's usually the same faces over there. Freddie has probably fixed something for everyone in this neighborhood. He fixed our own lawn mower for us a while back. He refused to take any money, and he loaned us another mower while he fixed it."
Another neighbor says Benford is responsive to neighbor complaints. "If you have a problem with something he's doing, he'll usually try to correct it," says Fred, another neighbor. He offers an example. "Freddie used to have a big hackberry tree in his backyard. … There was an old, somewhat racist guy who lived down the road who complained that the seed pods from the tree would wash down the street after it rained and collect in his drainage ditch. I told him Freddie is a really nice guy, and he should just talk to him about it. He did, and Freddie immediately cut down the tree."
Benford says he once even fixed Hale's lawn mower at her father's request. Hale denies this, though she says Benford has helped her haul away junk in his truck.
Since the story was published, I've spoken to six additional neighbors. All but Hale defended Benford, even as they conceded he was probably violating codes. "I've seen it a lot,” says one longtime resident. “This neighborhood used to be working class. As it's become trendy and desirable, people started moving in from other places and trying to change it to something different. And part of that is telling other people what they can and can't do with their property."
Old and New Nashville
Rosebank typifies the gentrification battles taking place all over the city. Along the soft-sloping curves of Eastland Avenue, older, modest, one-story homes precariously hold the Old Nashville line against growing colonies of newly built townhomes and tall-and-skinnies occupied by transplants.
Over email, Hale insists that she is not "New Nashville." But her feud with Benford seems to perfectly fit the familiar contours of the gentrification debate. Hale grew up in Chappaqua, N.Y., attended grad school at NYU, and moved to Nashville after living in Los Angeles. She moved into the Rosebank neighborhood in 2014.
Benford was born and raised in Nashville and has lived in his current home since 1997. "There were lots of people like Freddie where I grew up," says Dunn, who is from Dothan, Ala. "There was always somebody in the neighborhood who was good with cars, and who'd do repairs for people who couldn't afford a garage."
I had a similar experience growing up in Indiana. When I mentioned this to Hale over email, she wrote back: "We are not in Indiana! Did you pay 34% real estate tax there to live in a safe secure residential neighborhood? Because I do, and he is running a commercial business."
Hale says it isn't just the unsightliness of Benford's property. She says Benford also violates noise ordinances by working on cars at all hours of the night, and that the oil, gas and other materials generated by his car work pose both a fire and environmental hazard. A male friend of Hale's, who sat in on our phone call but declined to identify himself, declared Benford's property an environmental disaster, and predicted it would soon need to be razed and dredged. When I asked what he meant by all of that, he made a vague reference to "EPA soil samples," but declined to elaborate and retroactively insisted his comment be off the record. (That isn't how off-the-record works.)
If true, these are legitimate complaints. And while the other neighbors say they aren't bothered by what Hale describes, Hale reasonably pointed out that they don't live next door to Benford, as she does.
Benford disputes Hale's allegations of noise violations, and insists that he takes scrap metal, oil and other fluids to disposal sites. And though Hale says she has repeatedly expressed her concerns to Benford in person, Benford denies that too.
As with most neighbor disputes, it's impossible to determine who's telling the truth about some of the details. Benford clearly wasn't completely forthcoming with me in our first interview, but neighbors also say Hale tends to exaggerate Benford's transgressions. She wrote in one email, for example, that Benford's old Coronet makes her "cough and gag" every time he starts it up. I stood near the car for several minutes while it was running and didn't notice any noxious fumes.
Freddie Benford
Hale's complaints about Benford also tend to extend beyond codes violations to more general objections regarding his lifestyle. In her initial email, she complained that Benford and his brother "drink 40s of beer" while working on the cars. Of course, there's no law or code against drinking beer in your own backyard. On another occasion, she says she called the police after a car alarm in Benford's yard kept her up all night. She wrote that she couldn't just ask Benford to turn it off because she "did not feel safe knocking on his door at night."
Hale admits to calling the police on Benford on other occasions too, though she and Benford dispute the reasons for those calls. In 2018, Hale also got pushback from other members of the East Nashville Facebook page after she posted photos of some men riding motorcycles at Cornelia Fort Airpark, and wrote that she had called the police on them. When I asked about that post, she dismissed the criticism. "I was walking my dog, and what they were doing was unsafe and illegal," she says. "There were other people at the park that day too. I was the one brave enough to call the police."
One of the more poignant squabbles between the two concerns Bella, Benford's lab mix. In her emails to me, Hale accused Benford of neglecting the dog by leaving her out in the heat and cold. Benford is baffled by the accusation. "She's an outside dog," he says. "She has a doghouse. We bring her in if it gets too cold."
Dogs are hardy animals — larger dogs in particular — and outside dogs are common in rural and working-class communities. But the idea of an outside dog can be confounding to people who treat their pets as a member of the immediate family (as, admittedly, my wife and I do). According to Benford, neighbors and Hale herself, on at least two occasions Hale decided it was too cold for Bella to be outside, so she went into Benford's yard and brought the dog into her own home.
"I've had dogs all my life," Benford says. "Bella hates to be inside. She'd always rather be out. Who comes onto a man's property and takes his dog?"
Benford's supportive neighbors also point out that while the city has targeted him with liens and wage garnishment, it has mostly ignored dozens of complaints from the community about a nearby development overrun with gravel, tall grass and debris, and blocked an entrance to the Shelby Greenway. "That's been going on for over a year," Jennifer says. "It's far more intrusive than anything Freddie has done."
A Wake-Up Call
This is the aspect of this story that seemed to resonate with readers most: As the city targets low-income people and holds them accountable for violations both serious and petty, those same people have no recourse against builders and developers, who seem to avoid citations, have the means and platform to fight back when they are cited, and are widely believed to be reporting properties they want to acquire.
Though the mayor's statement did call for a review of codes enforcement and its disproportionate effect on poor people of color, Cooper also indicated the review would be conducted by Metro Legal and the leadership at Codes. Given that those are the very entities responsible for the current system, it would seem prudent to also involve local organizations who advocate for low-income residents. The city might also get input from groups who have battled similar problems in other cities, such as ArchCity Defenders in St. Louis or Fair Fines and Fees in San Francisco, as well as groups who have litigated these issues at the national level, such as the Institute for Justice or the Fines and Fees Justice Center.
As for specific reforms, advocacy groups like IJ and Fines and Fees say one big problem with systems like Nashville's is that they're driven by anonymous complaints. The state of Florida recently passed a bipartisan law prohibiting inspectors from acting on anonymous complaints.
But Cooper's statement explicitly expressed his support for retaining anonymous complaints. Metro Councilmember Bob Mendes, who also called for a review after the article was published, agrees. In a phone interview, Mendes says anonymous complaints empower marginalized communities to report absentee landlords and developers without fear of retaliation.
But groups like IJ and Fines and Fees say that isn't how it typically plays out on the ground. As Fines and Fees co-founder Joanna Weiss pointed out in our original story, people who report anonymously tend to be people who have reason to believe enforcement bodies will serve their interests. Residents who don't currently benefit from the current system — or who have had their own negative reactions with police, zoning or codes — are less likely to think the system will work for them.
Still, the city could conceivably set up an anonymous tip line for complaints about landlords and vacant lots, but require complaints about other occupied properties to include a name in order to be investigated.
Advocates like Weiss also argue that if code enforcement were truly about bringing properties up to standard, the city would actually help elderly and low-income residents mow their lawns, repair storm damage or repaint their homes. Currently, there is no such aid available.* The only remedies are punitive. Mendes says that while direct aid would be difficult, he would support city funding for nonprofits who help low-income residents maintain their properties.
In the end, how Nashville addresses these issues will determine whose interests the city values and prioritizes as it continues to grow. "I think the Scene article was the third in a series of wake-up calls about how we're treating minority, low-income residents as the city grows," says Metro Councilmember and mayoral candidate Freddie O'Connell.
"In 2016, we had the Driving While Black report about racial profiling in traffic stops,” O’Connell says. “Then we had the 37208 Committee report on the oppressive nature of fines and fees. And how we have this. I think the common theme in all of these, and what we desperately need to address, is that we're punishing too many people whose main offense is being poor."
*Update: Codes director Bill Penn told the Scene he is unaware of any such fund, but according to a representative from Mayor Cooper's office: "Metro has funded Rebuilding Together Nashville for many years via the Barnes Fund. RTN does repairs that help residents stay at home by fixing issues that may be code violations." They also point to these two reports.
