Update on last night's important Salemtown meeting with 3 developers

Monday night's monthly Salemtown Neighbors business meeting was enlightening if for no other reason than to witness the contrast between responsible developers and detached developers.

I should start off by clarifying and correcting information in yesterday's post announcing the developers' appearance in our community: only two of the proposals seek to rezone for Specific Plans. The third, which did not have any information on yesterday is not seeking any rezoning, but building according to what the zoning currently allows. The zoning allows for medium density with either single or two-family dwellings (as in duplexes).

And I want to start with the non-SP first, precisely because the development team did not have to appear before our association to get feedback on what they have planned for the 1700 block of 4th Av, N., but they appeared anyway in order to keep us informed. Got it? They can build what they want within the parameters set by land development and planning guidelines, but they still chose to seek Salemtown support for their plan.

Their plan for duplexes looks attractive and the elevations they showed appear to fit within the character of the community in my opinion, but what stood out singularly to me was their acknowledgment more than once that the neighborhood has collectively been unhappy with what recently passes for new infill in Salemtown. One of their members, Grant Hammond, mentioned that he wanted to take his group's project in a different direction along the lines of how more responsible developers have treated the association before the recent building wave got started. He expressed openness to continuing to meet with SNNA officers, passing along details and meeting with the association when necessary.

It really was a breath of fresh air, especially because he was not required to commit to any of that.

And we have already seen how developers who do not strive to go beyond what they are merely required to do take advantage of Salemtown.

Speaking of which, Aerial Development also appeared at an SNNA business meeting years after their plan for 1706 4th Av. N. was first introduced (recently delayed due to height details that were inconsistent with Salemtown's conservation overlay). To her credit, Aerial owner Britnie Turner (who thanks to the fawning Tennessean seems to enjoy more of a connection with the Salemtown name than most of us long-time residents do) at least showed up and tried to defend her company. However, her presentation consisted of the same series of defenses that CM Erica Gilmore employed at the September SNNA meeting. She insisted that Aerial relies on Metro Planning to do the communicating with the neighborhood and that her team did everything that they were legally required to do.

Incidentally, Aerial is one of those developers that have been the object of criticism in Salemtown. I have heard from several neighbors who were unhappy about quick tear downs and the disjunction between Aerial's towering roof-top-hot-tub builds and community character. I have also heard from at least one Aerial buyer who is not at all satisfied with the way he has been treated by the developers. Like Mr. Hammond pointed out, there has been criticism of recent developments in Salemtown. My eyes were on Ms. Turner when he said that.

Mr. Hammond's act was a hard one to follow, given that he was not required to contact Salemtown Neighbors and discuss his plan. However, the contrast between his group and Aerial Development could not have been more stark. Ms. Turner could not muster effective damage control to save her life. She did her own company a disservice in continuing to fall back on the line that she did everything the regulations require. She promised in the future she would contact the association president, but the impression I got in chats with other folk after the meeting is that she has a lot to prove to Salemtown going forward if she wants to have a constructive relationship.

There is some confusion over the name of Aerial's project. Metro Planning calls it "4th Avenue Cottages." Aerial presented it last night as "Salemtown Square." That seems to answer the question I asked last July after Salemtown Square websites appeared: where and how would they be? After I blogged in July, the websites (including Facebook and Instagram pages) were taken down. Then the main website came back up in a different form. Then it disappeared again. All links to a free-standing online presence appear to be broken at this point. Aerial's main page says nothing, as I write this, about Salemtown Square. Communication does not seem to be the company's oyster.

There was an offbeat, nearly cringe-worthy moment last night where Ms. Turner spoke pejoratively of another neighborhood Aerial had worked with. An SNNA member asked why, given the loads of money developers take away from sales, they cannot give back to services (like schools) that support the neighborhoods in which they build? Ms. Turner responded that Aerial had made a big donation to a fund at the request of another neighborhood, but then the neighborhood "whined" that it was not the fund they preferred. What an undiplomatic, unnecessary characterization of what another neighborhood did. What is to stop us now from assuming that she goes to other neighborhood meetings and talks about how much we "whine" about expecting developers to communicate with us above and beyond what Metro Planning requires?

Between last night's contrast of responsible developer and uncommunicative developer was the third development team who are proposing a Specific Plan of 7 detached single family homes across properties at 1614 and 1616 4th Av N. While they did not make the same dramatic move that Mr. Hammond's development team did, they still showed better than Aerial since they took the initiative before acquiring these properties to meet with the neighborhood association.

Their SP requires incorporation of community feedback, and I hope that we can make productive recommendations. The properties are currently zoned for commercial use and I stand with those at this point who argue that residential rezoning makes more sense than commercial or mixed-use given that we do not control what kind of businesses would go in if it stayed commercial (the current resident has lived in a trailer on one of the properties for 30 years). The properties sit right behind the Fehr School building, and frankly I would not want to see some types of businesses go in right behind an educational facility, near a residential intersection. Salemtown already has a zoned commercial intersection at Buchanan and 5th Av, N, and that seems quite enough to me, especially as we already rely on Germantown's walkable businesses. I do not see any commercial enterprises clamoring to compete with this proposal for these properties, so what is the point in waiting for commerce that may never materialize? As long as residential plans meet with our expectations, we should move forward.

The 1614/16 team agreed to continue to communicate with our association, especially as plans continue to develop.

Overall, I took last night's meeting with developers as a positive sign that builders are going to be more responsible and communicative going forward. I hope that this trend continues.

Opportunity for Salemtown residents to influence three building plans tonight

According to Salemtown Neighbors president, Freddie O'Connell, tonight's association business meeting will entertain proposals from three developers on Specific Plan rezoning requests under consideration at the municipal level. Since all three seek Specific Plans, they are all required to incorporate community feedback consistent with neighborhood character into plans before getting final approval from Metro Council.

The first proposal is one that generated controversy and argument between SNNA and council member Erica Gilmore at the last association meeting. Members questioned whether CM Gilmore was interested in including Salemtown in on rezoning requests that affected them. CM Gilmore brashly questioned whether SNNA legitimately represented Salemtown. Of course, I felt compelled afterwards to rejoin Erica Gilmore, who seems blissfully unaware of her own contradictions.

That disputed proposal comes from Aerial Development who has their own track record of destabilizing neighborhoods. Aerial is lately being sued by a former partner for allegedly failing to share the profits for their projects on 5th Av., North. Aerial's proposal before SNNA is called "4th Avenue Cottages."

Aerial's plan.

Metro Planning's development tracker gives the full details:

A request for final site plan approval for property located within the Salemtown Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District at 1706 4th Avenue North, approximately 175 feet north of Garfield Street, zoned SP (0.40 acres), to permit six single-family detached units, requested by Civil Site Design Group, applicant; Aerial Investment Properties, LLC, owner.

Residents were particularly upset that CM Gilmore has spoken for Aerial on the cottages development without consulting them. They were also angry that Aerial pushed ahead without consideration for the conservation overlay passed recently. Metro Planning staff recommended approval of the development because it fits with their own higher density goals.

Are the 4th Avenue Cottages already on the market? (click-on to enlarge)

One would think that Aerial should be in full PR drive damage-control tonight if last month's meeting is any indication of popular dissatisfaction. Hopefully, they will be open to listening. The issue here is not that urban residents will not accept higher density, but that we do not appreciate being blind-sided on rezoning requests that should have had our input.

Another proposal under consideration tonight concerns properties about half-a-block south of the Aerial real estate. I have perceived no unpleasant, unnecessary drama about this proposal as yet, but little is known about it beyond what Metro Planning divulged to the community:

According to Metro Planning's development tracker, here are the complete details of the request to rezone on this property:

A request to rezone from CS to SP-R zoning for properties located at 1614 and 1616 4th Avenue North, approximately 115 feet south of Garfield Street,  (0.4 acres), to permit up to seven detached residential dwelling units, requested by Dale & Associates, applicant; T & J Holdings IV, LLC, owner.

I am curious to know why the developers are proposing seven instead of six homes across two properties. Are they trying to squeeze as many people as possible on real estate to maximize their profits or is this a reasonable request? Given what we learned about flooding along 4th Av in 2010, I'll be interested to see what their plans are for dealing with stormwater run-off.

There is no plan for 1614/16 4th Av. up yet on the Planning's website, which puts the neighborhood at a distinct disadvantage to developers as usual. But if you want a sample of real estate Dale & Associates (owner is former CM Roy Dale) develops, especially in Salemtown, I've blogged on several. Maybe we will learn a host of details tonight and the developers will express an openness to future meetings if needed.

I don't have any details on the third SP proposal to be considered tonight. Surprise, surprise.


UPDATE: Jump to my follow-up with clarification and correction of the information above.

Salemtown Square coming to Salemtown. But where and how?

It is not unusual to read that Aerial Development is putting up houses in another neighborhood that cause concerns for some who already live in that neighborhood. Except for the real estate journalists who typically give them free advertising in the Tennessean, there continue to be some who have had concerns in the past with their ostentatious builds.

What I was surprised to see was a blurb in Getahn Ward's latest ode to Aerial about the developers starting work on "Salemtown Square," which will feature "six cottage-style homes." I haven't heard anything about this development. If builders are going to request any kind of zoning change, it is not yet showing up on searches I conducted on the Metro Planning website. If they are going to attempt the same sort of SP ("specific plan") rezoning (most zoning in Salemtown is "R6", which limits to duplexes or single-family detached), they will have to hold community meetings and get feedback from the neighborhood. That means incorporating feedback on everything from parking to capacity to design to materials used.

In Germantown AND East Nashville? (click on to enlarge)

The Salemtown Square website has a lot of imagery up of local vendors and organizations, but it is thin so far on the details and designs of the development itself. It also has some confusing pitch about the build "cresting" Germantown and "located in East Nashville's hot house market." Did the Aerial's content manager confuse the locations or this some sort of new marketing trend that only hipsters can understand? There is also a weird reference to to a bigger purpose: "creating a neighborhood association where old and new residents can protect, enhance and truly enjoy their new home and neighborhood." Funny, but I thought that had already happened a decade ago when we joined together to form "Salemtown Neighbors." Last time I checked, Salemtown's first association was still operational, so is Aerial going to jumpstart a competing association?

The images on the website, which I assume are intended to evoke historic feelings about Salemtown, bear little or no resemblance to any period in Salemtown's history that I have seen. This is also odd, because Salemtown Square developers claim to "honor [our] historic design and style." The area now called Salemtown was one of the original streetcar suburbs of Nashville and home to the blue-collar workers of the Warioto Cotton Mill and later the Werthan Bag Company. Aerial posts old photos of what look like a downtown square (Times Square?) and a Main Street in some unidentified locality. Old photos of Salemtown suggest a different kind of community. What eventually gets built may or may not have continuity with our real history regardless of the marketing hype.

Salemtown (inset photo) did not resemble Aerial's Main Street image 

Aerial developers have raised eyebrows in Salemtown in the past. I've heard long-time residents express displeasure about their disregard for the community. The people I have listened to do not believe Aerial has "honored" their history or style in the recent past. We will see what their plans are with Salemtown Square. If they eventually have to request rezoning for this development, they will have to listen to feedback from the neighborhood, and if they request an SP rezoning, they will be required to incorporate neighborhood input into their plan.


UPDATE: The Salemtown Square website seems to have disappeared. The links above take you to the Aerial website for now. The Salemtown Square domain is still registered to Aerial as this link attests. Not sure what this means, but the fact that websites can be scrubbed is one reason why I take screenshots to go with commentary.


UPDATE: The Salemtown Square website is back up and revised without WWII-era Main Street images unconnected to Salemtown of the same period. Those photos have been replaced by a photo of the old Downtown courthouse and by an aerial shot of Werthan Bag, Morgan Park, and Germantown. Closer to Salemtown, but still not Salemtown. Oh, I get it. They're going for a feeling not a fact.

They also are touting a Facebook page (which seems to be in process).

An urban core mindset extends beyond one generation regardless of what developers say

The times Tennessean real estate reporter Bill Lewis has written about Salemtown he shows a habit of going back to the same recently arrived developers rather than talking to different people around our neighborhood. As a result, he tends to write slanted and unrepresentative copy about what happens here.

One of the developers on whom Lewis relies is Aerial's Britnie Turner, who saturated Salemtown with homogeneous three-story "umbilical chord duplexes" in order to attract young buyers. Last September Lewis gave her credit for morphing Salemtown from "fringe" to a "community of rooftop hot tubs". Of course, we are so much more than a community of rooftop hot tubs.

In Lewis's latest piece on Salemtown, he quotes Turner as saying that the "mindset" to move to the urban core is that of "a generation". She does not specify who that generation is, but we can deduce from her comments in last year's article and the context of this one that 20-to-30-year-olds are those to whom she markets her product.

Given that we moved to Salemtown a decade ago and I am 50 years old, the claim that the mindset is exclusively that of the younger generations is patently false. I know Salemtown residents who also do not fit in Turner's one generation.

Although, it may fit in with Aerial Development's agenda: to only build homes for an exclusive group of young adults not looking to lay down roots here and not likely to have children of school age. The absentee developer's agenda for growth in the urban core may be as homogeneous as her building stock is. Aerial also seems to be getting criticism in East Nashville, according to a separate news report:

Jerry Vandiver has lived in east Nashville for 28 years. He owns three homes there and is proud of the area.

"We want the people who move into it to be proud as well," Vandiver said.

But, lately, he said he has seen historic homes replaced by brand new two- and three-story duplexes.

"They don't fit the look of the neighborhood and the charm of east Nashville," Vandiver said.

Now, his homeowners' association is collecting surveys from neighbors and plans to ask Metro for a conservation overlay expansion. It would require special permission and standards before tearing down historic homes.

"You cannot build umbilical cord duplexes once the overall is in place," Vandiver said.

Britnie Turner, the owner of Aerial Development Group, builds those types of duplexes and says they help accommodate growth.

"Nashville is working very hard to welcome newcomers. Where are they gonna go? Most of them want to live within the urban core," Turner said.

She also says growth is a good thing.

"It's better for the city's tax base. It increases the walkability, and that promotes healthier lifestyles," she said.

Salemtown received a conservation overlay last year, so Aerial and other developers have to slow the pace of tear downs and the insipid cloning of their hot-tub towers. Time will tell whether they have taken us to the tipping point of losing diversity.

In her comments about growth in East Nasty, Ms. Tuner mentions nothing about diversity or other quality of life issues as fitting within her priorities. Growth can be good when it is balanced by these other priorities. But growth is not good in and of itself. It is neutral in and of itself. It can be good or bad depending on whether it is allowed to explode in extremes.

Salemtown has been diverse ethnically, culturally, economically and generationally in the time we have lived here. It is getting less diverse, and I am concerned that one of the reasons is the development that has happened recently by companies like Aerial who admit that their offerings are suited to a single generation. Salemtown has been more than just a temporary layover for lifestyle-oriented young adults between their cap-and-gown commencement and the grown-up gravitas of a future home in a Franklin or Brentwood exurb (thus, the Mayor's calls for a regional transit plan to help them to keep transitioning out of town without the cars). I believe that some companies, strictly bent on money, would like to flip Salemtown from a plural community to a stage along the path to somewhere else.

We need developers committed to market to many different types of people, not just one generation. Or maybe we just need more builders to check Aerial Development's attempted cornering of the housing market here. A diversity of developer priorities would be healthier for us. That way people will choose to move here and stay, even when they tire of their rooftop hot tubs or their wishes for a simple place to crash close to their clubbing spots.

There is enough of a niche for a young adult generation here without reducing the entire neighborhood to that niche. One way or the other, Salemtown is not going to survive, let alone prosper, on just one generation.

An open letter to council member Erica Gilmore

Dear Erica Gilmore,

Last night's Salemtown association meeting certainly could have gone better. Not that we do not need to our council member to show up to our meetings. I certainly wish you had attended more during your term on the council.

But last night we got more of the same that we have seen from you in recent years, CM Gilmore. All you seem interested in now is doing the absolute minimum that you are required to do instead of going a few extra steps for ordinary constituents who are not big finance cash cows. We were not asking you to go an extra mile like the Mayor is in getting you to sponsor ballpark and luxury sidewalk resolutions.

Some of us merely want you to keep a neighborhood association president in the loop about Specific Plan requests. That's not unfair or unreasonable. SPs call for community input and yet you seem to be bent on minimizing community input.

It was not always like this. I remember early in your first term you made efforts to stay in contact with us regardless of where we were located in Salemtown. Remember the failed "Ardelia Park" development? That was blocks away from where I live, and yet you encouraged me to attend the community meeting on it.

What a difference six years makes. On Aerial Development's latest proposal you could have done the decent thing and asked developer Britnie Turner to confer with the president of Salemtown Neighbors last spring before seeking approval. Notifications would have gone out from there, which would have forestalled the criticism I heard last night regarding your lack of communication.

Instead, you lectured us on Monday and repeated ad nauseum that "communication is a two-way street". You never gave us a chance to go down that road. You let Metro Planning send out the post cards on a community meeting to residents within several hundred feet of the property, which covers a small geographical area as well as your proverbial ass. It gives you the ability to say that you did everything the law requires to notify the community.

But are the rest of us who are affected by this development supposed to have a special sixth sense to know when a developer approaches you to formulate a resolution that requires community input? Is that really realistic, given the information and access advantages developers enjoy over neighbors?

Nope. You never gave us a chance to go down the road. And frankly you did not come down that street yourself. Relying on the planning department alone is not good enough; as if it were not made sufficiently clear from all of the feedback you got back at last night's association business meeting (which Aerial chose not to attend). Planners have no skin in the Salemtown game.

Moreover, your subtle criticism that communication is a two-way street is bad faith. I receive global email blasts from you regularly on subjects that I may or may not be interested in. Sometimes those blasts contain rezoning and development information or information about community meetings. In 2014 I have been notified of a meeting on Jefferson Street HUD development and on the meetings concerning the new ballpark. But I received nothing directly from you on a specific plan in Salemtown. Metro planners like these plans because they want to see higher density everywhere regardless of questions other departments have about differences with the contexts of neighborhoods.

Aerial's plan promotes higher density, but it has also sent up red flags due to its differences with Salemtown context, especially since the property falls within Salemtown's conservation overlay.

So, why now do you expect me to keep tabs on this under-the-radar proposal when you have made efforts to notify me about others?

But you really hit an all time low last night when you resorted to insinuating that Salemtown Neighbors--which celebrates its 10 year anniversary next February as Salemtown's first association--is not representative of the views of Salemtown. You do not even know that to be true, because you never gave the association the chance to participate in the community discussion about this development. Your inference was spurious.

That kind of foolishness undermines the credibility of our own process, and ironically, since you have done enough to undermine your own. You were not going to hold a community meeting on the ballpark proposal until a fellow council member asked you in open meeting to do so. You stood in front of the council and vowed that your constituents opposed any requirements put on the Nashville Sounds ownership as part of a ballpark agreement, after a number of us argued to the contrary. You ignored requests to hold public meetings on the Metro Water toxic dump site near Salemtown and punted any advocacy you could do for the community to PR specialists at MWS.

For you, CM Gilmore, to try to cast aspersions on Salemtown Neighbors as if we have not over the years tried to represent fairly the interest of the neighborhood amounts to unbridled hypocrisy. Your lack of broader advocacy on the Aerial proposal indicates to me that you have given up representing all of us. The fact that you wrote a letter to the Metro Historic Zoning Commission asking them to re-hear Aerial's proposal, after the developers failed to appear before that body, shows with whom you have cast your lot, and it is not with Salemtown. The quick approval timeline last spring indicates an interest in minimizing community feedback. And you have the gall to suggest that we do not strive to be representative.

I understand that at this point you are likely just playing out the string of days in your last term as our CM. I understand that house flippers with some cash make more difference than voters do in that context. Even so, neighbors in Salemtown ought to have at least as much credibility with you as the outside developers who make no bones about wanting "to tear up some real estate" to generate more wealth to take out of the community:

Things could have gone better last night, CM Gilmore. Unfortunately, you missed your chance to make it better last spring.

Sincerely,
Mike Byrd

Developer watchdog: Mike Kenner proposes SP for edge of Salemtown

Last year I described problems with perceptions of a 5th Avenue development and I suggested that we keep our eyes open in the future for any other rezoning requests by the developer, Mike Kenner. The future is now: the Nashville Post has the latest spin on properties along Rosa Parks and I-65 that Mr. Kenner wants to rezone for "cottage-style" abodes. He is seeking a "specific plan":

For Salemtown Cottages, Britnie Faith Turner serves as principal of Aerial Development, with Michael Kenner the principal of MiKen Development.

Kenner said the next step in the process is an April 10 [date changed; see below] community meeting (one has already been held) at Morgan Park Community Center. Metro Councilwoman Erica Gilmore, within whose district the proposed development would sit, is expected to attend.

“We want to develop in Salemtown with the support of Councilwoman Gilmore,” said Kenner, adding that Civil Site will serves as the project’s main engineer, with Village Real Estate Service’s City Living Team to market and sell the homes. He did not disclose the name of the architect.

“We’ve already submitted an SP (specific plan) and are waiting for comments from the Metro Planning Department,” Kenner said. “If everything goes well, we’ll get Planning and Council support and break ground within 90 days.”

Kenner said the development team will purchase eight different parcels on which Salemtown Cottages will be built only after all Metro approvals are finalized.

Rezoning for a specific plan allows a development to integrate elements of the neighborhood and allows neighborhoods a voice through community meetings and public hearings. It has been used well and misused, but it is generally designed to address "the unique characteristics of an individual property" while ensuring that "the surrounding neighborhood and community at-large are not adversely affected".

The concept posted here to keep our community informed.

In his interview, Mr. Kenner did not say he was seeking the support of Salemtown neighbors, even as he admitted that he was seeking CM Gilmore's support. However, the spirit of the original SP legislation is that developers seek the support of the neighborhood and not only the council member. Feedback about integration with community character and plans are welcomed in the process of this, and the council member is supposed to facilitate that process. In exchange the developer does not have to navigate pre-existing zoning that itself may no longer fit community character and hampers the build. It is vital that Salemtown residents attend the meetings and public hearings and give feedback that can be incorporated into the SP. It is also important that Mr. Kenner, who lives in the Sylvan Park neighborhood, listen to feedback in good faith.

I emailed Erica Gilmore to tell her that I did not receive an announcement about the April 10 meeting advertised in the paper and to ask her for all the details. She replied that the meeting had been moved to April 17 and that she was working on a mailer. I will post the details here when I am made aware of them.

Former CM Mike Jameson held an SP community meeting process almost 7 years ago that gives us a good idea of what it is supposed to look like:

JAMESON: “If you build a coffee shop in a residential area, right now you just get zoning variances or terms of conditions and it doesn’t say anything about hours of operation, so many parking spaces and so forth. SP allows that and it becomes your zoning. This coffee shop will have 6 parking spaces and will close at 9pm and it won’t play loud music or live music after 9pm or whatever you want to put in and that is the zoning.”

Both traditional and SP zoning have to go through the same process: planning commission approval, public meetings, and three readings before the metro council. But SP lays out the land usage up front, and neighborhoods have the opportunity to change what goes into a given property ....

SP can be used to apply design guidelines, or even regulate what types of businesses are in an area. Councilman Jameson wants to use SP to curb the number of duplexes built in his district. He hopes that including the neighborhood on the front end will give his SP duplex regulation smoother passage.

In the case of Mr. Kenner's request, the SP process actually allows us to keep tabs on what he is doing with his development and how whether he is responsive to community feedback. Once the SP is approved, the developer has to abide by the terms and we can verify whether he is or not. During a separate SP in 2007, I documented how another development team initially reversed course on installing brick veneer, which had been mandated in the SP. They would have had to go through whole rezoning process again if they had not gone back and installed it.

Let me reemphasize the important point that all neighbors interested in the character of our neighborhood should attend community meetings and public hearings on the Salemtown Cottages SP and keep up with the process. If you are a property owner who lives out of town, follow the news on it and write CM Gilmore with your feedback ("Erica.Gilmore@nashville.gov"). If you have concerns about parking, noise, signage, landscaping, design, number of homes, square footage, density, etc. you should involve yourself in this process. You can be sure that both the developer and the council member will. You cannot have any influence over them if you do not participate.

Salemtown developer focused on building "tiny" homes

Last month a local business and commerce tabloid interviewed developer, Mike Kenner, who in recent years made waves in Salemtown with tear downs and new builds. The article focuses on "tiny" houses that are being snapped up by the millennial generation, but I am most interested in what the article leaves out:

MiKen Development, is preparing to launch a development of 60 homes ranging from 850 to 1,600 square feet on a 5.5 acre site at 1206 60th Avenue N. in West Nashville across from West Park.

Unlike Baby Boomers, the millennial generation is less interested in large houses in the suburbs.

They want smaller homes in the heart of the city, “not the big McMansion in Brentwood where you drive an hour and a-half to work.

Value systems are changing,” Kenner explains.

Floor plans and home sizes are evolving to keep up with modern lifestyles. There’s no reason to build-in space for a master bedroom sitting area because that’s not where millennials are spending their time. The same is true of dining rooms.

“They want to walk out the door and see their friends at restaurants and bars, not entertain in a formal dining room,” Kenner says.

Smaller houses have another advantage. They have prices that put ownership within reach of young buyers. Kenner expects prices in his small-home development to range from $199,000 to $350,000.

That’s more than the median price of houses throughout the Nashville region, which was $195,000 in March, according to the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors.

I would be interested in hearing from some millennials out there on whether they agree with how they are characterized here.

In my opinion, what slips through the cracks in this piece is the enduring presence (and in some places the increase) in urban neighborhoods of families with children. In one of my previous discussions with Mr. Kenner I mentioned that I have seen an increase in young couples in Salemtown pushing strollers around. Now, I'm a baby boomer who moved to Salemtown stroller-in-tow 10 years ago and there were small children then too (although, the neighborhoods was more ethnically and generationally diverse than it is now).

I'm concerned that these developers seem to ignore the needs of families, even millennials with children, in the name of marketing to empty-nesters. Likewise, I wonder if they conflate millennials and empty-nesters. On the one hand, they claim that the younger generation wants to live in places around West Park and in the North End. On the other hand, their tiny builds seem to assume that millennials are going to move to bigger suburban house when and if they have children.

Their contradiction begs the question that I have posed to Mr. Kenner repeatedly one-to-one as well as at community meetings: why not build a diverse stock of housing in urban neighborhoods that meets the millennials' preference for smaller houses while also addressing the probability of future family planning with larger offerings, including adequate yards (even common ones)? Higher density need not mean either "tiny" or family-unfriendly. Why not build to demands of both empty-nesters and families? Why not commit to long-term quality of life and retention of neighbors instead of merely maximizing short-term gains?


[On a side note: the last time I spoke with Mr. Kenner, he was still moving ahead with his SP in northern Salemtown called Salemtown Cottages. One of the changes that has occurred is that he bought Aerial Development out of that partnership. Since this is "special plan" zoning, we need to make sure that all of the provisions that the community agreed upon in exchange for MiKen getting its requested rezoning are met].