Planning Department Releases Initial Report of the Design and Development Strategy for the Urban Core

The Metro Nashville Planning Department has released an Existing Conditions and Trends Report to conclude the analysis phase of the Design and Development Strategy (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.

The Existing Conditions and Trends Report examines approximately 3,000 acres across the study's initial observation area, spanning portions of five Metro Council districts. It is organized into four subareas, each with its own character, planning history, and existing development patterns: Downtown, Midtown, Music Row and the East Bank. Together, these areas capture the full range of conditions Nashville's urban core presents: established districts managing success, historic areas navigating change, and emerging neighborhoods still being defined.

The report assesses present conditions across eight topic areas: policies and plans; zoning; development processes; development conditions and trends; historic resources; transportation and mobility; environment and the public realm; and community facilities, services, and utilities.

Understanding whether current conditions and planned investments across these topic areas are supporting the outcomes envisioned by prior planning and policy documents is a key task of this report and the D&DS study.

Key Findings

The Existing Conditions and Trends Report identifies several key findings across all topic areas that share a common theme: Nashville's urban core has grown faster than the tools designed to guide it.

• Growth has outpaced policies and regulations - Nashville's planning and zoning framework was built in and for a different era. It has not been comprehensively updated to reflect the scale and character of growth the urban core has experienced in recent years, resulting in a system where predictability is low and outcomes are inconsistent.
• Tools designed for exceptions have become the rule - Specific Plans, Overall Height Modifications, special exceptions, and regulatory modifications were created as mechanisms for unusual circumstances. They have become standard practice. That pattern is a signal: Nashville's by-right zoning tools are routinely misaligned with the market, with adopted plans, and with the community's vision for the urban core.
• Public investment shapes where growth goes - Private development has consistently followed public infrastructure. Choose How You Move (CHYM), the East Bank redevelopment, and investments along the Cumberland Riverfront all represent opportunities to use strategic public investment to shape where and how growth happens. The study will examine how policy and zoning can capture the full benefit of these investments.
• Historic resources face increasing pressure - The tools available to protect the historic buildings and cultural resources that define Nashville's identity and sense of place within the urban core are limited. Preservation cannot be treated as a secondary concern to growth. Metro should assess existing and new preservation tools and evaluate how they can work alongside current growth and market conditions.
• Good quality urban design requires clear rules - Development processes including clear, enforceable standards, rigorous design review, and regulatory frameworks that align incentives with shared goals are associated with more consistent, high-quality built outcomes. Where design review is limited or absent, results are more variable and frequently fall short of community expectations.

Next Steps for the D&DS Study

The report marks the completion of the first phase of the D&DS. The second phase will focus on translating findings into goals and actions by developing potential policy and regulatory scenarios in collaboration with various stakeholders.

That work will explore what tools can best address the gaps identified in the report. These potentially include updates to community character policies, zoning districts, development standards and approval processes, as well as stronger historic preservation tools such as a more robust Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program.

Public engagement will continue throughout the process, with community input helping shape recommendations and potential implementation strategies.

About the Design and Development Strategy

The Design and Development Strategy (D&DS) is a Metro Nashville Planning Department initiative examining whether the policies, zoning regulations and development processes governing the city's urban core are effectively guiding growth toward outcomes that work for residents, businesses, property owners and visitors. The initial study area includes Downtown, Midtown, Music Row, and the East Bank. Analysis of these areas will be informed by relevant prior and ongoing studies such as the Unified Housing Strategy and the Ecological Conservation Strategy. Additionally, nearly 85% of the area lies within a quarter mile of an All-Access Corridor selected by the voter-approved Choose How You Move (CHYM) transportation improvement program.

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