Metro Nashville Planning Department Launches Design and Development Strategy

The Metro Nashville Planning Department has launched the Design & Development Strategy for Nashville's Urban Core (D&DS) , an initiative taking a fresh and comprehensive look at how Nashville's development tools and procedures are guiding growth in the most urban parts of the city.

Over the past decade, the number of residents living within Nashville's urban core has increased by over 250 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. This residential growth, alongside significant growth in the hospitality and office sectors, has primarily been accommodated through new mixed-use buildings and implemented in the context of existing planning efforts that include the Downtown Community Plan (2007), Midtown Study (2015), Music Row Vision Plan (2019), and Imagine East Bank (2022), among others.

These plans show consistent community aspirations for walkable and well-connected districts with a strong public realm, sense of place, and high-quality design in new development. The earliest of these studies now approach the expected timeframe for reassessment to ensure their policies are up-to-date and fit to deliver these shared goals under changing conditions.

Against this backdrop, D&DS provides an opportunity to:

1. Look holistically at how the urban core's policies, zoning, design standards, and development processes function together and how they can best support the outcomes envisioned in NashvilleNext and other planning work.
2. Integrate the goals and recommendations of recent countywide plans like the Unified Housing Strategy (UHS) and the Choose How You Move (CHYM) transportation plan into the planning framework of the urban core.
3. Investigate the feasibility of a Transferrable Development Rights (TDR) program - a tool that allows unused development rights ("air rights") to be bought and sold within a specific geographic area - as a means to preserve and protect historic and cultural assets from redevelopment pressure.

"The Design and Development Strategy Study is about making sure Nashville grows in a thoughtful and predictable way," says Lucy Kempf, the Executive Director of the Metro Nashville Planning Department. "By focusing on our urban core-where demand for redevelopment is most intense-we can direct growth to be best aligned with community goals while maintaining our cultural and natural resources and Nashville's diversity of neighborhoods."

The project establishes an "initial observation area" based on the boundaries of previous studies within which existing conditions, trends, development tools, and procedures will be evaluated, to consider where greater clarity, consistency, and alignment may help improve predictability in the process, addressing both general needs across the initial observation area and the unique goals of individual subareas.

Ultimately, the goal of D&DS is to improve predictability around growth and new development for all stakeholders while ensuring that Nashville's continued growth supports high-quality places, access, and the long-term vision set forth in NashvilleNext .

A series of public engagement opportunities focusing on an analysis and initial assessment of existing conditions within the initial observation area have been scheduled for April. The project team invites the public to attend these meetings to review this assessment and provide their perspectives.

A project website is now live and includes details on the planned public engagement events, additional background information, FAQs, initial observation area maps, and opportunities to subscribe for updates.

To learn more visit https://engage.nashville.gov/nashvilledds .