Joey Garrison

USA Today Network - Tennessee

Affordable housing has become a popular battle cry in Nashville politics, with everyone from the mayor to Metro Council members calling for more of it.

But a planned 96-unit apartment project in Antioch for low-income residents might get blocked legislatively — and with help from council members who have touted affordable housing the most.

One reason for their resistance: They contend the project, called The Ridge at Antioch, which Arkansas-based RichSmith Development wants to build with help from federal low-income tax credits awarded by the state, would result in the concentration of too much poverty on the same block near Murfreesboro Pike.

Two other existing multi-family apartments that were built with low-income housing tax credits — Hamilton Creek Apartments and Weatherly Ridge Apartments — are immediately next door to the 7.8-acre property on Forest View Drive that RichSmith has targeted. Two more are approved down the road.

“I think everyone in this city supports affordable housing, but we don’t support a concentration of affordable housing in one block,” said Councilwoman Karen Johnson, who is spearheading legislation that has 29 council co-sponsors to downzone the property and effectively block the developer’s plans for The Ridge at Antioch.

Johnson, who represents the neighborhood, said she started pursuing the zoning update before she realized the developer had received the tax credits. Even so, she said she worries about pushing the poor and minorities to the same area if the project moves forward.

“I think if we’re not careful as a city that the overconcentration of tax-credit affordable housing properties in one part of the city will take us to pre-desegregation days with our school system and the city,” Johnson said.

Nashville dilemma

The fight over the Antioch development underscores a dilemma as Nashville seeks to counter gentrification with housing options for the working and lower classes — finding places to build them.

For years residents of rapidly growing Antioch have felt like a dumping ground for development and city projects that are unwanted in Nashville's other more affluent neighborhoods.

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The Metro Planning Commission is set to consider the zoning ordinance Thursday before the council takes up the matter. Because Johnson had reached her annual limit on amendments to planned unit developments in the area, the legislation has been formally introduced by Councilman Fabian Bedne, who chairs the council’s Ad Hoc Committee for Affordable Housing.

The Ridge at Antioch proposal is allowed under the area’s current zoning.

But the ordinance backed by Johnson would cancel the property’s current planned unit development — which often contain various types of land uses within a specific project — that goes back to 1985. It would downzone the property so the developer could only build single-family homes instead of single-family and two-family homes. The ordinance would, therefore, cap the number of residences allowed on the site to just 34.

Affordable housing repercussions

If the project is thwarted, there could be repercussions on the affordable housing front. That’s because the Tennessee Housing and Development Agency last year awarded the project $11 million in low-income housing tax credits for the next 10 years. THDA serves as the vehicle for a program that is a credit against federal income tax payments.

THDA Executive Director Ralph Perrey said his agency’s board in July may look at changing guidelines in rewarding these tax credits if the project is stopped. He said the board could opt to reduce the maximum number of low-income tax credits that could go to Nashville moving forward, among other possible actions.

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“What concerns us in this instance is we gave tax credits to a place that was properly zoned a year ago, and this is an attempt to zone that place out from under the developer whom we’ve given the tax credits,” Perrey said.

“If that succeeds, we will essentially have wasted an award of tax credits that we could have put to work in Greenville, Johnson City, Jackson, any number of other places,” he said. “And at that point, it raises some troubling questions for us, and then we and the board would be obliged to consider: Does it make sense to send tax credits that’s going to waste it in that matter?”

The proposed apartments are targeted for a working-class neighborhood, next to a fire hall, CVS pharmacy and 430 feet from Murfreesboro Pike on Forest View Drive.

Arby Smith, manager of RichSmith Development, which specializes in building affordable housing in the Southeast, said The Ridge at Antioch would target residents who earn 60 percent of the area’s median income.

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RichSmith closed on the land in February after Smith said his company had worked on the project since 2013. He said he’s put around $885,000 into planning. Smith noted that the planned 96 units are significantly less than the 212 he could build under current zoning.

“Nashville has made affordable housing a major priority, and we were astonished that Metro Council was trying to kill a project to provide almost 100 families with affordable housing in a great place to live,” Smith said.

“Can you really have too much affordable housing?” he said, responding to concerns about the overconcentration of affordable housing in Antioch. “These are for families. These are for police officers, nurses, firefighters, military people.”

Staff recommends current zoning

The planning department has recommended disapproval of the ordinance, noting that the Antioch-Priest Lake Community Plan calls for higher density uses near corridors — like the current zoning offers.

The ordinance has been met with fierce opposition from pro-business groups and others in the real estate world, including the Greater Nashville Apartment Association and Nashville Business Coalition.

In a statement, Mayor Megan Barry’s spokesman Sean Braisted said that the administration has not taken a position on the legislation.

“We are concerned about any legislation which may have unintended consequences for the development of affordable housing in Davidson County," he said.

Johnson, a second-term councilwoman, said residents in the area have expressed concerns about an oversaturation of one housing type — multi-family housing — that could negatively affect infrastructure in the area and hurt property values. She said she hopes to come up with new zoning that is more appropriate for the area by striking a greater balance.

Johnson accused RichSmith of not acting transparently on plans for the project. She said she started a review without knowing about the tax credits.

“That’s where the problem starts," she said. "If they had communicated, then maybe a lot of the things happening now could have been avoided.”

Fair Housing Act concerns

In its attempt to defeat the ordinance, RichSmith has hired Hall Strategies, a Nashville-based public relations and lobbying firm, and attorney David Kleinfelter, a former councilman.

In a letter to Southeast Nashville council members last month, Kleinfelter said it would be “extraordinarily bad precedent” if the council decided to downzone property in which a developer invested substantial time and money.

He also argued that blocking The Ridge at Antioch would violate the Federal Fair Housing Act by preventing an apartment complex where minorities would primarily reside. Kleinfelter said RichSmith is prepared to pursue legal action under the federal Fair Housing Act if the council rescinds the existing zoning or obstructs the project in other ways.

The nonprofit Tennessee Fair Housing Council has also relayed concerns to Johnson that blocking the apartment development may be illegal under the federal act.

"None of us want to see concentrations of poverty, but Nashville being what it is right now, there's very limited locations in which a developer with pretty low margins can find affordable land to build on," said Tracey McCartney, executive director of the Tennessee Fair Housing Council.

But Johnson has argued the opposite, maintaining that the construction of the project would actually violate the act by concentrating too many low-income tax credit developments in one block.

Perrey of the TDHA, which awarded the low-income tax credits, disagreed with Johnson’s interpretation. He said the Antioch development is “not remotely comparable” to instances that were in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

Affordable housing developers are watching the council’s consideration of the rezoning closely. Some say they see both sides of the issue.

Eddie Latimer, CEO of Affordable Housing Resources, said he understands the argument of those who worry about Antioch carrying the entire burden of affordable housing and “ghettoizing our poor.”

But he worries how THDA might respond if the city prevents the project from happening.

“I really think it’s a valid argument by the two council members, but the repercussions are monstrous,” Latimer said.

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236 and on Twitter @joeygarrison.