Early Learning Center at the Martha O’Bryan Center, August 2023
Following an influx of young people who helped fuel Nashville’s population boom in the 2010s, young families are now struggling to find affordable child care citywide. Mayor Freddie O’Connell and three councilmembers — Clay Capp, Rollin Horton and Jennifer Gamble — introduced a new effort on Friday to cut "red tape" that has kept child care providers from opening locally.
“ Dating back to the ’90s, our zoning code unfortunately treats child care services as something that communities need to be protected from,” said Rollin Horton, the District 20 councilmember who helped draft the legislation and frequently focuses on zoning reform as a key to progress. “We've imposed a self-imposed shortage on our child care services. What this legislation does is help make child care more accessible and more affordable by removing a lot of those barriers that are making it very expensive and nearly impossible to operate — build and operate — a day care center in Nashville.”
Reports from the state and the Nashville Chamber of Commerce have called attention to the shortage, which the latter estimated at around 2,750 spots in Davidson County. The spots that do exist command lengthy wait lists and can easily cost families more than $1,000 a month per child. Accessible child care also helps bring child caregivers — disproportionately women — into the workforce.
Two related bills, both drafted with the mayor’s office, will be considered by the Metro Council as part of the city’s child care accessibility push. The first bill, carried by Horton, would remove a 1,000-foot buffer requirement between day care facilities currently written into the city code. This urban planning tool is commonly used to prevent the concentration of unwanted businesses like liquor stores. A second bill, backed by East Nashville Councilmember Clay Capp, would remove a current requirement for child care providers to secure a special exemption from the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Looking at scarcity, cost burden and workforce issues — and how the state will try to dig out of it
“ It's a similar process for expedition that we set up a few years ago for affordable housing projects, which has led to a really significant reduction in the time that it takes to review those projects,” Capp explained at a press conference introducing the legislation outside Brighter Day Child Care off Brick Church Pike. “It doesn't change the review itself, the rigor of it or the criteria for it. It just puts child care up to the front of the line right after affordable housing for departmental review.”
The legislative package — termed “Codes for Kids” by Horton — aims to bring more child care providers online quickly, especially in denser parts of the county. Mayor O’Connell said the issue is one key to improving overall affordability in Nashville and shared his own experience growing up at a home-based preschool child care provider.
