Metro Council Makes New Push for Nashville Sidewalks

NASHVILLE, TN — There's a new push for more sidewalk construction in Nashville. A pair of bills filed with the Metro Council would put new requirements on builders to provide sidewalks as Nashville's boom continues.

Despite a record amount of money earmarked in the last two budgets for sidewalks in the city and city leaders paying lip service to the need for new pedestrian pathways, few miles have actually been built. Green Hills-area councilmember Angie Henderson wants to remove what she calls a "loophole" which allows developers, in many cases, to pay into Metro's sidewalk fund instead of providing sidewalks themselves.

Henderson’s bill would require that sidewalks be provided for multifamily and commercial development on major and collector streets in the Urban Services District as well as secondary streets that are one-quarter mile away from neighborhood centers as defined in the NashvilleNext plan adopted by Metro in 2015.

Her ordinance also would require sidewalks in front of single-family or duplexes on any street in the Urban Zoning Overlay. Sidewalks also would be mandated for single-family or duplexes on major and collector streets in the USD and secondary streets that are a quarter-mile from neighborhood centers. This move would effectively extend the sidewalk requirement to many suburban areas of Davidson County, where the current sidewalk requirements are lax compared to places closer to downtown.

The real estate and development community is already bristling at the proposal, raising the specter of the "sidewalks to nowhere," pointing at places throughout the city, even under current requirements, where there's a patchwork path of disconnected sidewalks.

Real estate agent John Brittle told The Tennessean that Henderson's proposal is "ludicrous" and that forcing sidewalk construction would only raise the cost of new construction, particularly for affordable housing.

“And they want to make us start building little chunks of sidewalks all over town?” he told the newspaper.
“Metro is the government. The department of public works builds sidewalks — or is supposed to be building sidewalks. They know how to do it. It’s ludicrous.”

Brittle said the city should instead allow builders of single-family or two-family homes to pay into the sidewalk fund; under current rules, only subdivision developers must pay into the fund in lieu of building sidewalks themselves.

The sidewalk fund and by extension, the payment-in-lieu set-up, though, has hefty criticism. The Nashville Scene reported that though former Mayor Karl Dean allocated $25 million to sidewalks in his last budget — he had allocated a total of $57 million in his first seven years in office — and Mayor Megan Barry $30 million in her first, none of the identified new sidewalks have been installed.

Meanwhile, many of the city's existing sidewalks are being regularly blocked by construction crews. Metro Councilmember Jeremy Elrod has filed a bill requiring council approval for any sidewalk closure or blocking of any public right-of-way that lasts at least one year. Elrod has also filed a resolution asking Metro Codes and the public works department to produce recommendations addressing construction equipment that blocks sidewalks and roads.

Elrod's proposals are up for initial votes Tuesday; Henderson's proposal is set for consideration by the planning commission in January.

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