QUIET- AS OF SEPTEMBER 2026 - NOTHING IS CURRENTLY FILED.
Zoning / Density Proposal
The April 2025 South Nashville Urban Design Overlay was deferred indefinitely in May 2025 and has not been refiled. Metro's new RN and RL zoning districts passed in December 2025, but they apply nowhere automatically — a councilmember has to propose them parcel by parcel, and nothing has been proposed in District 16. We are watching, and we will say so here when that changes.
Where we stand
Updated September 2026
District 16 is going to grow. Nashville needs housing, our neighborhoods sit on a high-frequency transit corridor a few minutes from downtown, and the tear-down-and-build-two pattern already reshaping our blocks is not preserving anything. Saying no to all of it is neither honest nor possible.
What we ask is that the growth be planned with the people who live here, on infrastructure that can carry it, in a form the corridor can actually absorb. That is a different argument from "not here," and we make it deliberately.
In spring 2025, 620 acres of Glencliff, Radnor and Woodbine were proposed for rezoning from single-family to 20 and 40 units per acre. Most of the people living on those blocks learned about it after it was filed. Whatever the merits, that is not how a neighborhood should find out what it is going to become.
THE QUESTIONS
Any density proposal in District 16 should be able to answer these. We will ask them every time.
QUESTION 2
Where does the density go?
Nolensville Pike is being rebuilt as Nashville's first All-Access Corridor, with high-frequency transit and safer crossings. Height and density belong first along that corridor, stepping down significantly as you move into the neighborhood. A proposal that treats the corridor and the interior streets the same has not considered what is best for either.
QUESTION 1
Who was at the table before it was filed?
Not who was informed afterward — who helped write it. A proposal shaped with neighbors will look very different from one presented to them.
QUESTION 4
Where do the cars go?
Zoning that sets no parking requirement is a choice, not an oversight. It can be the right one on a corridor with real transit but different choices should be considered on streets with no sidewalks. The proposal should include plans that includes the differences in the various parts of the district.
QUESTION 3
What carries the water?
Parts of District 16 are over a century old, and stormwater issues are the constraint everyone already knows about. Any proposal that increases lot coverage should say what happens to the runoff, and who pays for it.
QUESTION 6
Where do the schools do?
Our schools are near capacity now. A rezoning is not a school plan, but it should not pretend the question does not exist.
QUESTION 5
What survives?
Trees, yards, permeable ground - a tree-planting requirement for only leftover yard space is not the same as protecting the canopy that is already there.
QUESTION 8
What happens if the overlay comes off?
An overlay is a set of conditions attached to a zoning district. If the underlying zoning permits more than the overlay allows, there is a standing incentive to challenge the conditions. Ask what the zoning permits on its own, because that is the floor.
QUESTION 7
Who can afford to stay?
More units is not the same as more affordable units. If affordability is the argument for a proposal, the proposal should contain something that produces it — not an assumption that supply will.
What was proposed in 2025
Kept for the record. These are the terms of the April 2025 filing, not of anything currently pending.
South Nashville Urban Design Overlay · case 2025UD-001-001 · filed April 2025
620.23 acres in Glencliff, Radnor and Woodbine · deferred indefinitely May 2025
Base zoning
Single-family, about 5 units per acre
Proposed Near Nolensville Pike
RM-40-AN-S — up to 40 units per acre
Proposed on blocks farther out
RM-20-AN-S — up to 20 units per acre
Lot coverage
Up to 70% of a lot buildable
Height
35 feet, or 45 feet on corner lots
Trees
22 per acre of remaining yard space; existing trees not protected
Floor area, two units
3,200 sq ft combined
Floor area, three or more
An additional 1,600 sq ft per unit
Parking, sidewalks, infrastructure
No requirements in the overlay
Existing home
No requirements in the overlay
The boundary as proposed in April 2025. Nothing is currently filed under it.
April 2025
Councilmember Ginny Welsch files the South Nashville Urban Design Overlay, covering 620.23 acres. Two informational meetings follow; neither takes feedback.
Spring 2025
Neighbors from Glencliff, Radnor and Woodbine organize. 16th United forms out of that effort.
May 2025
The proposal is deferred indefinitely for lack of Planning Commission support.
December 4, 2025
Metro Council passes the Housing & Infrastructure Study's new residential districts, RN and RL (BL2025-1005, 26–10), plus new accessory-dwelling rules (BL2025-1007). These are tools, not a map: they apply only where a councilmember proposes them.
September 2026
Nothing has been proposed under RN or RL in District 16, and the 2025 overlay has not been refiled.
What you can do