Controversial Nashville residential zoning bills put on hold pending study
Two zoning bills concerning duplexes and lower barriers for multifamily housing in Nashville's residential neighborhoods are now on hold.
At-large Metro Council member Quin Evans Segall, the bills' main sponsor, announced Wednesday that she will withdraw the bills to allow Metro departments sufficient time to complete a study on housing types and their infrastructure needs.
The two bills — which were met with questions, concerns and vitriol at recent community meetings — are part of a slate of measures aiming to lower barriers to building more middle-income housing in Nashville:
BL2024-185 would allow attached duplexes, triplexes or quadplexes to be built on single-family lots within Nashville's Urban Services District, a tax zone that covers roughly 200 square miles of the city's highest-density areas
BL2024-186 would clarify that duplexes would be allowed on residential and single-family zoned lots within the Urban Services District
This year, true to my election promises, I filed multiple bills to directly address the cost of living crisis in Nashville. Since filing, I've held and attended numerous community meetings where I've listened to concerns about Nashville’s housing-related needs, wants and fears.…
— Quin Evans Segall (@quinevanssegall) March 6, 2024
Concerns from the public centered around infrastructure burdens and neighborhood character.
At a Council meeting in February, the pair of bills stirred spirited discussion. Council members were deadlocked 19-19 on whether to advance the bill permitting multifamily uses in areas zoned for single-family residential, securing a deferral only because Vice Mayor Angie Henderson cast a tie-breaking vote to keep the bill alive for discussion.
From the outset, Evans Segall said that she would not seek a vote on the two bills until 2025 at the earliest and that they would be amended in the meantime in light of feedback from the public and Metro's departments. She and other council members had held and planned several community meetings since the bill package was introduced in early February.
A rezoning reform plan from a collaboration between Metro departments covering land use policy, infrastructure, multimodal transportation and building codes is now expected to be complete around March 31, 2025.
"Surveys and studies affirm that almost three-quarters of Nashvillians desire affordably scaled housing within our neighborhoods," Evans Segall wrote in a Wednesday news release. "For too long, we've been afraid to take bold steps toward creating a Nashville for everyone. … We must persist in making sure that all voices are heard so we guarantee comprehensive, equitable and just representation on housing issues."
The remaining bills in the package, some of which are sponsored by District 20 Council member Rollin Horton, will continue to move through the Council's review process.
A resolution sponsored by Horton requesting Metro Codes and Planning create a "pattern book" of medium-density floorplans and instructions to offer preapproved options for builders passed in February 37-1, with one abstention.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Controversial Nashville residential zoning bills on hold pending study
