@startleseasily is a fervent observer of the Metro government's comings and goings. In this column, "On First Reading," she'll recap the bimonthly Metro Council meetings and provide her analysis. You can find her in the pew in the corner by the mic, ready to give public comment on whichever items stir her passions. Follow her on Twitter here.
On Tuesday night, the Metro Council debated a proposal to allow more friends to live with each other, entered its Upzoning Era, and approved a giant TIF deal for Madison Station.
“Seven Unrelated Vehicles”
Among the most hotly contested items on Tuesday’s agenda was a bill from Councilmember Sean Parker to redefine “family” in the context of living arrangements. Currently, the Metro Code limits the number of unrelated people who can live in a “dwelling unit” to three people, regardless of the unit’s size; it could be a 10,000-square-foot single-family home or a 500-square-foot studio apartment. This poses an obvious problem for people who need multiple roommates in order to afford to live in the city. Parker’s bill would increase the limit to seven.
I was interested in how we got to three people, so I dug into Metro’s legislative archives and found that, before 2001, you could have as many as five unrelated people living together. A comprehensive rewrite of the zoning code in that year lowered the cap to three. The sponsor of that bill was then-Councilmember, once-Mayor, now-Judge David Briley. I reached out to Briley, who doesn’t specifically remember any discussion about that particular provision — I can’t blame the guy since it was more than two decades ago and some things have happened in the meantime — but he vaguely recalls the limit as the codes department’s response to the “sentiment of folks back then in the most active neighborhoods.” Affordability wasn’t on the city’s radar, at least not enough to think we needed to start opening up the floodgates to unrelated people and their unrelated vehicles. Back then, Briley says, you could buy a decent-sized house in East Nashville for $60,000. “Now? Add a zero.”
WeHo Woes
We have officially entered Nashville’s Era of Upzoning. Of the 40-plus zoning bills on public hearing Tuesday night, not a single one attempted to reduce residential development rights for a property. CM Colby Sledge is the undisputed MVP, a man hell-bent on single-handedly saturating the housing market and providing all manner of walkable/bikeable amenities for his constituents. Change like this doesn’t come without heartburn though.
During the public hearing on a bill to rezone an industrial property to allow for a mixed-use development, a couple of Sledge’s constituents expressed frustration over the constant noise and disrespect while developments are under construction. In the now-immortal words of one speaker, “We’re living the plot to a real-life Avatar. But in this movie, the bad guys win.”
Neil Kornutick, an area resident whose baby famously took down parking minimums, says he doesn’t mind the growth, though he understands it can be hard on some neighbors. “We moved into the neighborhood because of the development happening here,” he says, adding that while he and his neighbors might not always agree, “I’m happy they made the space for me and are willing to make space for others.”
Renaissance or Gentrification?
Tax increment financing: boring as hell to talk about, but unfortunately important to understand, as this mayor and this Metro Council seem intent on breaking the city’s record for TIF deals by, like, a lot. TIF is, at its core, a subsidy that pretends not to be a subsidy.
Here’s an example of TIF in action: A developer comes to town with a proposal to build out an entire mixed-use campus on an underutilized piece of land. It’s going to be awesome, they tell you. Not only will it spur economic growth and lead to even more private investment in the surrounding area, but it will have the fanciest streets with the widest bike lanes and the biggest trees you’ve ever seen. Here’s the catch: They would totally love to build it just like they told you, but they can’t. They only have enough money to build Soviet-style apartment blocks. Factory-issue streets. Definitely no bike lanes. But if you, the city, will just pitch in some equity — in the form of future property taxes that you’ll use to repay their loans — you’ll get all the bells and whistles. And then in 30 years or so, when you’ve paid off the loans with all those property taxes, you’ll have a windfall for the city’s general fund.
Sounds like a great deal, right? Well, maybe. Sure, the property isn’t generating much in the way of property taxes right now. But was the developer ever really going to build Soviet-style apartments? Probably not. Were they going to let a developable piece of real estate in Nashville sit vacant? Definitely not. So it comes down to a judgment call. And if a decade from now we realize we’ve struck one too many TIF deals, and we’re unable to fund basic city functions? Well, that will be someone else’s problem.
On Tuesday, the council approved an economic impact plan for Madison Station, the third-largest TIF deal in Metro’s history. The plan for the 32-acre parcel features a mixed-use project with pocket parks, a greenway, a neighborhood transit center and more. It also promises to bring affordable housing ... sort of. The project documents contemplate providing up to 170 “affordable” housing units for people making between 60 percent and 80 percent of the area median income — for a family of four, that’s roughly $60,000 to $75,000 per year in gross household income, which translates to rents of about $1,500 to $1,900 per month — and/or offered as senior, artist housing. “Up to” and “and/or” putting in quite a bit of work here, folks.
And what if, by infusing all this capital into one site all at once, we gentrify the surrounding area to the point of creating an affordability crisis where one didn’t previously exist? These are complicated, messy policy questions that our elected representatives are supposed to answer. As of now, they haven’t answered any of them. But there’s a committee for everything.
PSA: Pat Nolan is a national treasure, and Nashville is beyond blessed to have him. Do yourself a favor and watch his recap of Tuesday’s meeting. Happy New Year!
