The Metro Planning Commission’s bimonthly Thursday night meetings are familiar territory for property-use attorneys and real estate developers. They field councilmembers’ bills about zoning changes, property peculiarities, land use questions and infrastructure ideas that happen in Davidson County’s 526 square miles.
The Jan. 8 meeting was instead a heated debate floor for competing visions of Nashville’s fastest-changing neighborhoods — so packed that the fire marshal had to step in to enforce the room’s max capacity.
“It’s not a protest, it’s a public hearing,” Chair Greg Adkins warned early in the meeting. “If we continue to have outbursts, we’ll ask everybody to leave, and one by one we’ll have people speak. Let’s keep it professional.”
Familiar advocates and activists, as well as organized neighbors and business owners, sparred over several controversial land-use changes that they consider crucial to determining the city’s future. Many appealed to worries about gentrification, the much-discussed socioeconomic phenomenon of a neighborhood’s longtime character and residents upended by wealthier transplants. Alongside its counterpart — displacement — gentrification has become an urbanist buzzword for the many ill symptoms of real estate capitalism.
Commissioners reviewed a bill from District 26 Councilmember Courtney Johnston to allow areas to exclude detached accessory dwelling units (DADUs), small freestanding units commonly found in backyards of single-family homes. Johnston, who told the commission she didn’t plan to implement the exclusion in her district, clashed with those pushing for more dense and creative residential forms to help diversity housing in historically single-family neighborhoods. The council has frequently wrestled with DADUs, building an entire permitting and regulatory apparatus for DADU development in recent years.
Also: Proposed Midtown Business Improvement District moves forward, bill restricting residential building heights advances
“We know which neighborhoods are going to use this tool — more privileged, wealthy neighborhoods,” said resident Jeremiah Wooten. “Access to prosperity improves all. Creating more affordable small housing allows more access to prosperity for all.”
Commissioners deferred action on the bill until its Feb. 12 meeting.
Four hours into the marathon meeting, debate renewed over a new regulatory tool from Councilmember Brandon Taylor: a Commercial Compatibility Overlay aimed at one short stretch of Buchanan Street in North Nashville. Historically the heart of the city’s Black community, North Nashville has seen house-flipping from speculative real estate development, uneven public investment from the city and slow commercial revitalization.
Residents wary that planning, zoning or decisions could set off a rapid real estate frenzy have preached careful steps toward a more robust future for the area. North Nashville’s Democratic state Rep. Harold Love sat just behind the speaker’s podium.
Taylor’s 16-acre overlay seeks to control development on a critical local strip with particular restrictions against liquor stores, cigarette markets, nightclubs, automotive industry and “alternative financial services,” a legal category including payday lenders. Opponents frequently referenced an 11 p.m. business curfew that they say would hinder business.
“It’s a good intention but it will cause harm to the businesses there,” says Leon Luke, owner of Traphouse Wingz, one affected business. “While it was busy being ignored, we put our blood, sweat and tears into this street because we believed in it, while everyone else, like The Gulch, had their eyes on other things. We believed in that street.”
Simone Boyd, a neighborhood advocate who has written for the Scene and lives off Buchanan Street, heralded the guidelines. She brought the room back to Feb. 7, 2024, when she first noticed city trash cans on Buchanan Street, and spoke about protecting the area’s steady progress.
“For those of us who have endured the pain of disinvestment and lack of public infrastructure, it was a cause for celebration,” Boyd said. “While we do have new trash cans — and they’re being emptied on Buchanan — we do not have the public infrastructure, like trash or parking infrastructure, to support robust nightlife. As rents continue to rise, businesses have been displaced from downtown Nashville. Like my neighbor says, we don’t want to be a ‘baby Broadway.’”
Others said Buchanan was unfairly targeted for nightlife while spots like Five Points and Broadway regularly see late-night chaos. Commissioners emphasized the public’s apparent confusion over certain aspects of the bill and the need for more community dialogue. Commissioners deferred the bill for two meetings to foster more public input. Taylor told the room he would simultaneously defer the bill in Metro Council.
