Nashville Pushes New Zoning to Expand 'Middle' Home Choices
After many upbeat years, Music City’s housing market has been strumming a different tune lately. Home sales have slowed considerably, and thousands of apartments sit vacant.
Despite the market shift, affordability remains a concern for one of the hottest Sun Belt cities.
As Nashville looks to address a need for 90,000 new homes over the next decade, city leaders have been taking steps to address affordability, like many cities and states over the past several years, some with success. Much of the effort has centered on upzoning and creating conditions that lower building costs.
In the face of stiff opposition, a significant step came on July 24, when the Metro Planning Commission approved a massive upzoning in one of the city’s largest neighborhoods to allow missing middle housing types.
The upzoning covers some 300 acres in The Nations, a revitalized neighborhood that still has remnants of its industrial past. It would allow developers and builders to build up to 40 housing units per acre by right. That would mean no more of the slow and time-consuming administrative process of rezoning individual parcels in the neighborhood.
It still must get through the Metro Council, another hurdle where opposition could sway a majority of the 40 council members.
The planning commission's move follows the council passing legislation about two weeks ago that put Nashville among the few cities in the country to allow “smart stair” design—a single stair in a building instead of two—for buildings up to six stories.
Both are part of a larger effort to increase housing density throughout the city. Earlier this year, the city released a draft of the Housing and Infrastructure Study that made initial recommendations, including allowing middle housing development. The study was updated in June after community meetings.
One challenge that we struggle with in the department is that the city—starting in the 1990s or thereabouts—underwent massive downzoning,” Lucy Alden Kempf, executive director of Nashville’s planning department, noted during the commission meeting. “We downzoned whole parts of the city to single-family.”
The study and the proposed upzoning reflect efforts to reverse such thinking in Nashville neighborhoods that have the street grid and other infrastructure in place to handle the changes.
Nashville’s housing prices had been rising rapidly for nearly a decade, largely the result of an influx of jobs brought by such companies as Amazon and AllianceBernstein. Business and civic leaders boasted about 100 people a day moving to Nashville.
Home prices rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, similar to those in many Sun Belt cities. Median home sale prices have increased by more than 73% over eight years, according to Zillow.
Apartment rent prices followed a similar trajectory until recently. Developers made the city one of the top places in the country for apartment construction during the pandemic. So many have opened that the vacancy rate has risen to 12%. More than 4,000 apartment units are sitting empty across the Nashville metro area.
Rents have come down as a result. Demand for units has remained steady, but not enough to narrow the gap substantially with supply yet.
The apartment market is such that developer Tony Giarratana, who has built several downtown apartments and condominium towers, recently converted a 38-story downtown apartment tower that opened last year to condos, adding 350 for-sale units to the listing supply.
Through it all, those seeking to buy their first home have been pinched by the higher prices.
The intentional downzoning that our city focused on many, many years ago has brought us to this, to some degree,” Stewart Clifton, a long-time planning commission member, said during the commission meeting. “It was a new thing that was done for wealthier people, frankly, and forgetting about everyone else.”
The city is now focusing on other priorities. Passing the stair legislation and obtaining approval from the commission for the upzoning are key objectives.
Take One Stair at a Time
Seattle and New York City have allowed single-stair buildings for decades. Honolulu adopted the single stair building code in 2012. Los Angeles made the change in April. In May, Colorado passed a law requiring Denver and other significant cities in the state to allow single-stair buildings up to five stories by late 2027.
Other cities are considering similar changes.
For Nashville, the revised building code allows multifamily residential structures up to six stories to be constructed with just one staircase, a break from traditional codes requiring two stairs for egress.
The change is projected to lower construction costs and spark a wave of smaller, “human-scaled” buildings previously unfeasible under older rules. Building footprints would shrink by eliminating duplicate corridors and stairs, allowing buildings to rise on constrained lots and fill urban gaps.
The change includes strict safety standards such as enhanced sprinkler and fire safety systems and caps the number of units per floor to four.
City estimates suggest units built under the reform can rent at rates up to 22% cheaper than those in traditional larger complexes. Critics suggest that the savings may be more in the single digits.
Then there’s the question of whether developers would build more affordable units, instead of opting for higher-end construction targeting wealthier tenants or owners.
Councilmember Rollin Horton, a chief sponsor of the ordinance, has described the measure as a needed reset for a city now too expensive for many residents. Horton also represents The Nations and is shepherding the upzoning.
The Nations
The neighborhood is about five miles west of downtown Nashville. It was a rough area for the longest time, but it was where someone could buy a house 15 years ago inexpensively compared to other parts of booming Nashville and be close to work.
Homes date to the 1900s, and many two-bedroom, one-bath houses under 1,000 square feet, which factory workers likely occupied. A decade ago, you could buy one for $225,000. Today, they are worth double.
The area became more desirable when other urban neighborhoods became less affordable, eventually attracting national builders such as Toll Brothers, which is building townhomes and condos there.
Interestingly, density has been increasing in The Nations and other urban areas because of a local ordinance change about 11 years ago that allowed detached duplexes. That type of construction was made easier with updates to state law on horizontal property regimes.
The result has been that many of those small houses with deep lots in The Nations have been demolished and replaced with “tall-skinny” homes— two to a lot and many rising two stories. The “tall skinnies” started going to three stories and fetch more than $1 million. It’s now become difficult for the average person to buy into The Nations, unlike in the past.
Horton’s proposed ordinance would limit height to 35 feet in two stories for single-family homes. Multifamily would be limited to 45 feet tall and three stories.
Detached alternative dwelling units are permitted on single-family lots.
The new zoning also shifts commercial areas to mixed-use to help encourage design flexibility in buildings.
Planning officials don’t expect a wave of new development to erupt because of the large upzoning. They noted during the meeting that 53% of the existing parcels have already been redeveloped.
Horton said during the meeting that a goal of the ordinance is to create more walkability, preserve the neighborhood character, provide different housing options, and help local businesses thrive.
This plan is about more than accommodating growth. It’s about planning for it,” Horton said during the commission meeting.
Taken together, these policy changes mark a significant turning point in Nashville’s ongoing effort to rethink housing, reflect on its past decisions, and reshape the city for the next generation.
The next big hurdle is August 5, when the Metro Council holds a public hearing. Opponents will probably step up and once again talk about traffic studies, preserving single-family zoning, and the lack of communication with the approximately 3,000 people in The Nations, despite a nearly two-year process that included community meetings.
This likely will be a preview of what the city will endure when planning officials and lawmakers seek to remake zoning based on the study.