@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.
Councilmanic courtesy is alive and well at the Historic Metro Courthouse.
After a failed attempt last month to secure approval for 62 non-owner-occupied short-term rental units in the Second Avenue building that once housed The Old Spaghetti Factory, downtown Councilmember Jacob Kupin was back on Tuesday night with a new proposal for the same location.
The number of units was decreased from 62 to 55, and in the interim, Kupin did some additional due diligence to ensure that long-term rentals would not be a viable option for the site. The last proposal was essentially sunk by a rousing speech from an audience member who called on the council to prioritize housing for residents over lodging for tourists.
This time, no one from the public spoke in opposition to the resolution. (More on this from our sister publication, the Nashville Post.)
It seems the council has come down off the high of delivering a Pyrrhic victory for the people — Metro was likely to be sued over the decision, as the council has not routinely applied this reasoning to any similar resolutions — and gathered their wits about them.
“Last time this was up, I voted against it,” said Councilmember Tom Cash. “I got swept up. There was a really good speech that I still agree with — however, I think this is a good place for short-term rentals.”
Who among us has not gotten carried away and potentially put the Metropolitan government in a position to get itself sued?
Leaving the NEST
One of the highly debated NEST housing proposals — most of which have been withdrawn in the face of intense public opposition spearheaded by councilmembers who panicked at the thought of more housing in “established” neighborhoods — is one step closer to passage after receiving approval on second reading Tuesday night.
West Nashville Councilmember Rollin Horton has labored for months on his own set of proposals within the NEST package. His bills are more technical and less likely to engender the type of fear-mongering that doomed Councilmember At-Large Quin Evans Segall’s proposals.
BL2024-187 would open up all commercially zoned parcels to the potential for housing — referred to as “adaptive residential development” in the zoning code.
During the Planning Commission presentation of the proposal, staff noted that of the 5,500 commercially zoned parcels around the county, about 78 percent are already eligible for adaptive residential development. The impact of the bill, then, would be fairly minimal, affecting a barely noticeable fraction of the nearly 270,000 parcels in Davidson County.
Naturally, the small scale of the bill didn’t stop some councilmembers from opposing it.
Old Hickory Councilmember Jeff Eslick found the proposal particularly off-putting, citing one street in his district where a few vacant commercially zoned parcels sit near an asphalt plant. If Horton’s bill passes, those parcels would be open for residential development. “I’m not looking to have residential on a road like that,” Eslick said. “It would be terrible to put housing on there.”
The city has an affordable housing crisis, but developments that attempt to ease the strain frequently face opposition from neighborhood advocates
What Eslick neglected to mention is that there’s a subdivision directly across the street from the plant. In fact, the immediate area is chock-full of subdivisions. My best guess is that Eslick gets complaints from the folks who live in the area, and more people moving in might mean more complaints.
But the simple fact is we don’t have enough buildable residential space for every housing unit to be free of potential nuisances. In fact, some of the most desirable, nuisance-free neighborhoods actively work to restrict new housing.
I don’t love that I hear the rattle of cars being emptied into a nearby tow lot every night, or experience the frequent feeling that a plane headed to the John Tune Airport is going to crash into my home. But I mostly knew what I was getting myself into when I moved into a neighborhood that’s transitioning from industrial to residential uses. And I trust other folks to make decisions that work for their lifestyle.
Registering Opposition
Hermitage Councilmember Jordan Huffman had an unexpectedly controversial bill on the agenda Tuesday night. It would require Metro’s Office of Homeless Services to maintain an inventory of homeless service providers throughout Davidson County.
Some providers have expressed concern that the registry could be used by bad actors to target service providers and interfere with the provision of much-needed housing and support services, or to harass residents of homeless encampments.
Though the registry could allow for more coordination of services — Huffman’s stated goal in bringing the legislation — consolidating information about service providers in a way that’s easily accessible to the general public could provide ammunition for malicious residents to try to shut down service providers.
It certainly didn’t help Huffman’s cause when an Old Hickory resident showed up at public comment during the last meeting to register her support for the bill by demonizing people experiencing homelessness and the providers trying desperately to just help them survive. “It’s out of control,” she lamented, reciting all the various types of trash she’s picked up over the years and the surveillance she’s done to try to figure out the sources of the refuse. “We need to have Metro oversight of what is being given out.”
On Tuesday, the council approved an amendment to the bill that would clarify that joining the registry is voluntary for service providers and that Metro will not be vetting any of the information or necessarily approving providers’ approach to service provision. While this may be an important clarification — as Metro would be hard-pressed to give their “stamp of approval” to certain organizations over others — it sort of defeats the purpose of service coordination.
The bill as amended passed on a vote of 21-15. Huffman will need to hold onto all 21 “yes” votes to pass the bill on third and final reading at the next council meeting.
