Gatekeeping the Neighborhood: Neighborhood Associations and Nashville Development
The city has an affordable housing crisis, but developments that attempt to ease the strain frequently face opposition from neighborhood advocates
FEB 15, 2024
11 MIN TO READ
Part I: History Repeating
One by one, a group of people in matching shirts emblazoned with “Save Neelys Bend” lined up to speak at an unusually lively meeting of the Metro Nashville Planning Commission. These sluggish meetings are often more procedural than entertaining, but this mid-June day in 2022 was an exception.
Staff at Nashville’s planning department recommended approval of a new subdivision in Neely’s Bend. Despite hyperlocal opposition, the project passed all zoning requirements and would add 29 more homes in a city facing a housing affordability crisis.
But to the Planning Commission, the calls from the Neely’s Bend Neighborhood Association to save the “rural heritage and character” of the neighborhood won out, and the new subdivision was denied.
Opposition to development is woven into the fabric of neighborhood associations, many of which form as a way to combat development proposals that neighbors find objectionable. Using words like “protect,” “preserve” and “save,” neighborhood associations often create a sense of urgency in their pleas to policymakers, evoking a feeling of being under attack by nefarious forces.
As Nashville becomes increasingly unaffordable, building housing — especially affordable housing — increases in priority. Development proposals that attempt to ease the strain on Nashville’s housing supply still frequently face staunch opposition from neighborhood advocates.
Two years ago, the Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association lodged objections to a proposed 95-unit affordable housing development for seniors and those with disabilities who earn less than 60 percent of the area median income. For a single individual in the Nashville area, that translates to a maximum allowed income of around $42,000 per year.
To help offset the costs of development, Inspiritus — the nonprofit organization that owns the land — secured a $2.5 million grant from the Barnes Housing Trust Fund, a city-funded initiative that provides competitive funding for nonprofit affordable housing developers.
Despite several community meetings with Inspiritus and support from the district’s then-Councilmember Freddie O’Connell — now Nashville’s mayor — the Salemtown Neighbors still felt uncomfortable with the proposal. In a letter to O’Connell, they stated that Inspiritus was unable to address their primary concerns: density and height.
They argued that the development would dwarf other nearby buildings and exacerbate traffic concerns. In a separate letter sent to Inspiritus, Salemtown Neighbors asked, “How does a Barnes project impact the nearby homeowners / business owners property value?”
O’Connell deferred the legislation on the council floor twice as he attempted to work out a compromise between the neighborhood association and Inspiritus. When the dust settled, the proposal had been limited to five stories in height — down from the original six — and would be required to “complement the look and feel of the surrounding neighborhood.”
Inspiritus site in Salemtown
The amended proposal also required specific notice to the neighborhood association and a community meeting prior to final plan approval.
The reduction in allowed height took the proposal down from 95 units to 80. Nashville needs to produce more than 40,000 new rental units for people earning less than 60 percent of the AMI by 2030 to meet current demand and account for future growth, according to a 2021 Affordable Housing Task Force report.
No-Go Zones
Opposition from neighborhood associations has turned some areas of Nashville into “no-go zones,” effectively quashing development in those neighborhoods before proposals ever materialize.
Neighborhood leaders can become “gatekeepers,” says former East Nashville Councilmember Brett Withers. One neighborhood association in particular, Historic Edgefield Neighbors, was among the biggest offenders during Withers’ two terms in office.
“They got really bogged down by that desire to not just be a gatekeeper for stuff in their neighborhood, but for everything generally,” Withers says.
Over time, Withers recalls, Historic Edgefield’s opposition to development proposals crept beyond the boundaries of their own neighborhood.
“If you sort of come to this bargain that their neighborhood boundaries are a no-go zone, that may be one thing,” Withers says. “But when they also simultaneously want to stop everything else, everywhere else? That becomes untenable.”
Former district Councilmember Russ Pulley had a no-go zone of his own: Green Hills, where a neighborhood association formed in 2013 to fight the Vertis Green Hills luxury apartment development and oppose future high-density residential proposals.
“Vertis eventually won,” recalls Pulley, “but it cost them a bunch of time and money in a lawsuit.”
When Pulley embarked on the process of updating the Green Hills Urban Design Overlay, he brought the neighborhood association to the table. The current Green Hills UDO is optional — developers can choose to abide by the design standards outlined in the document, but they’re not required to. Pulley hoped to establish mandatory standards in response to complaints from neighbors who were frustrated with developers opting out of the voluntary standards.
After about a year-and-a-half of meetings, negotiations stalled.
“It ended up breaking down because the neighborhood association opposed it,” Pulley says. “I needed their support, and I couldn’t get it.”
Historic Edgefield
Representation for Whom?
A recent study by researchers at the University of Winnipeg in Canada found that members of neighborhood associations in Toronto and Vancouver are not representative of the broader population. Neighborhood association members “are more likely to be white, older and have higher education than the average voter.” An investigation by the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center identified a similar trend in New Orleans, where neighborhood association boards skew whiter and more affluent than the neighborhoods they purport to represent.
Jason Holleman, a former district councilmember, has made a name for himself as the “neighborhood lawyer” since leaving the Metro Council. He represented the Neely’s Bend Neighborhood Association in their fight against that 29-home development.
I mention barriers to participation in neighborhood associations — like weeknight meetings that might interfere with people’s work schedules or require them to shell out money for child care. Holleman brushes that off.
“I think you have a responsibility to add your voice,” he says. “And that’s not to say your voice doesn’t matter,” Holleman clarifies, “but a reality in any government decision is that the people who come are the people who are heard the most.”
Withers warns, however, that the process of engaging with a neighborhood association can be so taxing that residents who don’t agree with neighborhood leaders end up opting out of the process entirely.
“Sometimes folks that have a particular viewpoint advocate it so strongly, and with such exclusion, and use such personal attacks against anyone who disagrees with them, and they will not ever let it go,” says Withers.
“How likely are you to ever come back to a community meeting if you were yelled at by your neighbors?” Withers asks. This can create a sort of self-selection bias, where the only people left in the room have the same opinion. “And then they look around the room, and they’re like, ‘Well, no one supports this.’”
On the night Salemtown Neighbors voted to oppose the Inspiritus affordable housing project, only 25 people showed up on behalf of a neighborhood of 1,500.
Inspiritus’ team had collected letters of support from 40 residents of nearby Cheatham Place, Nashville’s oldest public housing project. Most of the residents there are Black. Several Cheatham Place residents, many of whom have lived in the neighborhood for decades, also spoke at public hearings in favor of the proposal.
The Salemtown Neighbors board, meanwhile, is white. On average, they’ve lived in Salemtown for fewer than four years. The board member with the longest residency in Salemtown moved there in 2016.
Earnest Morgan
Part II: Going Rogue
Earnest Morgan had an eyesore in his front yard: a defunct light pole.
After multiple failed attempts to convince the city to remove the obstruction, Morgan decided to engage in a bit of civil disobedience, turning the pole into an art installation.
Morgan and his husband purchased directional signage. Families brought their children to write their favorite cities on the signs, and Morgan installed it.
“I have a husband that’s very particular,” Morgan says with a wry smile. “We had put the signs on the pole, but they had to be directionally correct.”
Within a matter of weeks, Morgan says, the city had removed the pole. He convinced them to let him keep the signs.
He might not have succeeded in keeping his art up, but he did gain the attention of South Nashville Action People, the neighborhood association he’d been trying to contact since moving to the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood.
Shortly after receiving a call asking if he’d have any interest in joining SNAP’s board, Morgan was voted in. He wasn’t present for the vote. “I got a phone call,” Morgan says, “inviting me to the next meeting and saying that I had been voted in as a board member. I never did get a clear understanding of who actually voted.”
Soon Morgan began to develop concerns about the way SNAP operates, particularly as it relates to the organization’s status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization — the designation most neighborhood associations use to maintain tax exemption.
Legal requirements for nonprofit organizations include recordkeeping and up-to-date financial statements. “I was on the board for a year,” says Morgan. “I never saw a financial record, at all, in a year. And the more I asked for it, I got pushback. I have no idea if they have a dollar in the bank or a million dollars in the bank. No clue.”
Morgan was also troubled by the way he says the board moves the goalposts for developers. SNAP has a detailed development rubric that allows the board to score developers’ proposals based on how well they meet neighborhood priorities like housing diversity, sustainability and support for artists and creatives. The SNAP website says members will use the score “to determine if neighborhood support is present.”
Morgan recalls one instance in which a developer met every requirement in the rubric, but the board opted not to support the proposal. “It’s just like, Oh my gosh, not only did you set the bar, you moved the bar. And then you still said no!”
SNAP board president Shay Sapp says the rubric isn’t intended to be determinative.
“It’s a great framework,” he says, “but it’s not exactly as rigid as it might look.” Sapp says SNAP takes the score into account, but also reaches out to neighbors who live near the proposed development. “And then we take that, along with specific neighbor input that we received through meetings and individual outreach … and present that as a resource to the elected official.”
Morgan kept quiet publicly while he worked behind the scenes to professionalize the organization. He says he reached his breaking point in January 2023, when Sapp penned a letter opposing the proposed redevelopment of The Fairgrounds Nashville Speedway. The proposal would have brought NASCAR back to Nashville. The existing speedway would have been almost entirely demolished and rebuilt.
Without prior notice, Sapp presented the letter to the board and asked for their sign-off. “This letter and our opposition to the proposed agreement,” the letter begins, “is endorsed by the boards of neighborhood associations for three neighborhoods in immediate proximity to the Nashville Fairgrounds.”
Morgan says the board never actually voted to approve the letter.
Sapp says concerns around the letter are a misunderstanding of history. The opposition to the speedway proposal was a matter of consistency, he says. “We were actually cleaning up the community center for our renovation, and we had board members finding speedway opposition signs from, like, the 1970s,” he recalls. “I mean, this is not a new thing to this board or the one before us.”
“Love SNAP or hate SNAP, we just try to be as consistent as possible,” Sapp says. “We understand the impact that this has and has had for decades on our community.” Sapp, who moved to Wedgewood-Houston in 2019, says new people in the community might not understand “the full picture” of the speedway’s impact on the neighborhood.
Once Sapp published the letter, Morgan took to social media to inject facts into a heated, emotional debate. When he saw posts from SNAP board members decrying the proposal, he would comment on the possible benefits in an effort to keep the conversation balanced.
Morgan believes his refusal to toe the party line is what led to his ouster from the board. The day before a scheduled board meeting — the first one Morgan would have to miss since joining the board, due to work-related travel — Sapp called him. He gave Morgan the option to resign or face a vote to remove him from the board. Morgan didn’t resign. The next day, he was removed.
Checks and Balances
The function of neighborhood associations has changed over the years. Before the days of Facebook groups and Twitter beefs, neighborhood associations served a critical information-dissemination role.
“I think a district councilperson’s ability to directly communicate with a wider spectrum of their districts has improved due to the evolution of social media,” Holleman notes.
When development proposals came before Holleman during his time on the council, he often enlisted the help of the neighborhood associations in his district to spread the word. “In Richland, truly, Harry Williams — he was like 80 years old — he’d get on his bicycle and hand out a flyer to everybody.” That kind of personal touch isn’t needed as much now.
Councilmembers still use neighborhood associations as a way to gauge general public sentiment for development proposals in their district. Earning only a part-time salary for their work on the council, most councilmembers work full-time jobs to make ends meet. With no dedicated staff, members are stretched thin, particularly in areas where development is nearly constant.
“I can’t have 10 meetings with 100 people,” says Holleman, “but if you guys will self-select a committee of four or five, then we can sit down with the developer.” Holleman trusted that the neighborhood associations in his district reflected the views of a larger constituency.
Asked about the possibility that neighborhood leaders might go rogue, Holleman says the district councilmember should have enough of a finger on the pulse of their neighborhoods to be able to suss out the credible from the fringe.
“There are going to be flaws and criticisms with any organization out there,” Holleman concedes. “But I think that, on the whole, neighborhood organizations help to organize that perspective in a way that otherwise wouldn’t exist.” Developers can afford to hire fancy lawyers and build a sophisticated PR apparatus. Neighborhood associations offer a way for neighbors to present a united front. If developers are organized, neighbors should be too.
Whatever power neighborhood associations might exert, Holleman says, is outweighed by the influence of developers. Developers don’t buy votes, Holleman clarifies, but they have the resources to participate in a more detailed and sophisticated way than neighborhood organizations do.
“We’re not that far removed from a time when neighbors were disregarded,” Holleman points out. “And a lot of when they were disregarded was when the government was set up.” Holleman says that disregard for neighborhood sentiment built in a “systemic pro-development” bias, which carries through to this day in a system that, for the most part, “is still oriented toward developers.”
With the potential for the Metro Council to be cut in half — going from 40 members to 20, thanks to legislation passed by state lawmakers last year, which Metro continues to fight in court — Withers thinks the impact of neighborhood associations will likely be diminished. More constituents means more neighborhood groups. “There are only so many days,” Withers says, “and if the number of councilmembers is reduced, I don’t think it will be feasible for a councilmember to meet with them on a regular basis.”
The Road Ahead
While neighborhood associations across the county turn their focus toward a series of countywide zoning reforms, first-term Councilmember Rollin Horton is quietly proposing a major change in his own West Nashville neighborhood, the Nations.
At a Nations Neighborhood Association Planning and Zoning Committee meeting last week, Horton addressed a small group of residents. In a stuffy back room of neighborhood bar The Centennial, he laid out his proposal: a mass upzoning that would encompass nearly the entire neighborhood, paving the way for additional residential density and mixed-use developments.
The majority of residential lots in the neighborhood are currently zoned to allow single- or two-family dwellings. Under Horton’s proposal, those lots would allow multifamily structures; depending on the size of the lot, this might mean a triplex or quadplex.
What would normally be a friendly crowd — the Nations Neighborhood Association has generally welcomed development to the up-and-coming neighborhood — was taken aback by the breadth of Horton’s proposal.
NashvilleNext, Nashville’s land use plan, charts a course for future development throughout Davidson County. It recognizes that certain areas of the county should be preserved, and it suggests concentrating denser development near the urban core of the city. Nearly a decade after its passage, many neighborhoods still haven’t upzoned to align with those plans.
Developing NashvilleNext was an intensive, yearslong process with significant community input. Even so, some neighborhoods continue to reject rezoning requests that allow for additional density, even if they meet NashvilleNext’s guidelines. Upon hearing Horton’s proposal, some residents bristled. It’s too much all at once, they argued. What if things get “out of hand”?
The land use plan for the Nations supports Horton’s proposal. He’s just the first councilmember to try to implement it. There’s precedent for mass downzonings of various neighborhoods — areas of the county that, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, were restricted to single-family zoning after decades of allowing duplexes. There’s no precedent for Horton’s plan to do the opposite.
There are about 1,000 underdeveloped lots in the Nations. Most are single-family structures on land zoned for two-family dwellings, holdouts from a time before tall-and-skinnies infiltrated the neighborhood. If Horton is successful, those lots will eventually be redeveloped to allow for the type of gentle density he hopes will help lower housing prices. Over time, this could make the neighborhood more accessible for people who currently don’t earn enough to put down roots in the Nations, where a typical home sells for upward of $600,000.
Later this month, Horton will ask the full neighborhood association for a vote to support his proposal. He’ll spend the next few weeks strengthening his pitch. If the Planning Commission rejects the proposal, he’ll go back to the drawing board.
But it won’t be an easy sell to some of his constituents. Horton, typically mild-mannered and steady, was clearly shaken by the opposition. One skeptical resident asked if Horton had run his idea past “the powers that be.”
“I am the powers that be,” Horton replied tersely. “I’m the district councilmember, and I’m doing this.”
A previous version of this article referred to Harry Williams as Perry Williams. We apologize for the error.
Photo Illustration by Eric England and Elizabeth Jones
