David Plazas

USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee

Nashville is among the U.S. cities experiencing growing prosperity and inequality at the same time.

This is Part IV of the "Costs of Growth and Change in Nashville" series.

Editor's note: This is Part IV of the "Costs of Growth and Change in Nashville" series on the affordable housing crisis, which runs on the last Sunday of the month.

Nashville is not the only city in America experiencing booming prosperity while simultaneously witnessing the widening gap of inequality.

Nashville does not even make the Top 20 on one prominent measure.

The Martin Prosperity Institute’s New Urban Crisis Index has documented cities facing even more acute inequality problems than Music City, including Los Angeles (No. 1), New York (No.2), Miami (No. 6), Austin (No. 9) and even Memphis (No. 10).

However, if you live in Nashville and have not enjoyed the fruits of Music City’s growth, then it does not matter who comes in first.

Nashville is a city of contrasts where new creative energy and a more educated, higher-income earning workforce is coming into town while the price of land and property soars, pushing those who cannot afford it anymore away.

One recent week alone showed two different sides of the city.

On April 18, Fifth + Broadway, a $430 million 26-story mixed-used office and apartment complex in the heart of the city’s tourist district on Broadway, broke ground.

On April 19, just three miles south of Broadway, in Chestnut Hill, high school students rallied against the negative effects of growth, particularly the displacement of lower-income residents.

However, it is not just a high income versus low income problem anymore. Middle and working class families are feeling squeezed.

Cleveland Park native Omid Yamini, 43, said he worries about what that means for long-term and native Nashvillians and whether they have place in the city anymore.

“If I was to move to Nashville today, I wouldn’t be able to afford to live here,” said Yamini, who's a behavioral professional. “The cost of housing has gone up exponentially to the point that I could not afford to buy a house in the neighborhood I live in.”

“All of this growth and all of this development and all of the economic development that people are experiencing has come at some price,” he said. “There’s somebody that’s paying the price. Unless you’re making six figures or close to it, it’s very challenging to survive in this city anymore, and I think it’s going to continue to get worse.”

On the evening of April 26, The Tennessean presented a forum on affordable housing at the Nashville Public Library’s downtown building.

It was the culmination of the first three parts of this special monthly series, “Costs of Growth and Change in Nashville”: Examining Nashville’s pro-growth policies, the dilemma for low- and moderate-income renters, and an ambitious plan to turn public housing complexes into mixed-income developments to ease the affordable housing crunch.

Audience members expressed frustrations at the pace of development on affordable housing.

People who feel left behind fear they will not be able to catch up. They said they feel a lack of urgency in how the city is handling the immediate housing needs of struggling people today.

Some felt communication was lacking from key stakeholders who could make a difference.

Broker and W. Wright & Co. LLC President Waddell Wright said he felt resistance from certain members of the Metro Council toward building mixed-income and affordable housing units and developments in their districts.

Metro Councilor Karen Johnson (District 29) raised concerns about the concentration of low-income projects in her district in Antioch and demanded more communication from the Tennessee Housing Development Agency (THDA). She has argued for spreading the burden of affordable housing across Davidson County’s 35 council districts.

Some residents fear they would have to move out of town and, once they did, they could never move back.

Panelists at the forum — Adriane Harris, who is Mayor Megan Barry’s senior affordable housing adviser; Jeremy Heidt, director of industry and government affairs at THDA; and Laura Berlind, founding executive director of the Sycamore Institute, a nonpartisan public policy research organization — all called for changing the conversation on affordable housing. They advocated making it more inclusive to recognize the needs of people like teachers and police officers and their families.

For attendees who responded to the question “What does growth in Nashville mean to you?” in interviews with The Tennessean, their answers reflected a frustration with traffic congestion, rising housing prices and seeing themselves reflected among the people benefiting from Nashville’s boom.

Tanya Debro, 52, of Madison, is a native Nashvillian:

“The positive side — a whole lot of good new restaurants in town. I’m a foodie, that works … I hate Nashville traffic jams … We’re not being heard. Nashville’s immediate 100-person-a-day growth sucks.”

Paulette Coleman, 67, Bellevue, has lived in Nashville since 1993:

“What concerns me about Nashville and our phenomenal growth? I don’t want us to lose the essence of who we are as a city … What growth means to me: It needs to be equitable, it needs to reasonable, it needs to be sustainable. It should not dislocate and displace so many people.”

Hailey Flores, 14, of East Nashville, has been a resident for three months:

“Growth to Nashville to me can be both good and bad. It’s good to see places develop because they don’t always develop in bad ways. Adding more and raising prices just to do it, just to get more money, is not always a good thing.”

Floyd Schechter, 62, is a 30-year Davidson County resident who works in the commercial real estate industry:

"Growth in Nashville means change in Nashville … Change is usually hard on people that don’t like change … My biggest concern about the growth in Nashville is that it’s not uniform and it’s not addressing the needs of those who have the least among us — they’re being left behind. We need to do more.”

Frederic Hovi, 15, has lived in Nashville for eight years:

“Growth in Nashville — what it means to me: There’s improvement in buildings, there’s improvement in the economy, there’s improvement in working — a lot more jobs for people. It also means there are people losing homes.”

Elaine Smyth, 65, has lived in Nashville since 1979 and does volunteer work on affordable housing:

“I have seen some amazing changes in Nashville, especially in downtown where I do drive often and come to church every Sunday … What I notice is the skyline full of cranes and I find it amazing that we’ve turned into a tourist destination like we have … I see people being diverted to other parts. It really concerns me.”

Lyzette Garza, 26, is a LEAD Academy teacher who has lived in Nashville for four years:

“Growth for me in Nashville means that everybody’s still having opportunity and access to all that Nashville has to offer … While the city is experiencing so much growth and blossoming, and people would call all of these things progress, I also ask my students, who is this progress for? Do you see yourselves represented?”

On the morning of April 26, Mayor Barry delivered her annual State of Metro address. She celebrated Nashville’s success, but she also spent a significant part of her speech laying out an agenda inclusive of people of all incomes, especially the most vulnerable.

"Growth is a good thing that makes good things possible, but it has to be balanced with livability,” Barry added.

This was her second State of Metro as mayor, and she announced ambitious proposed investments in building and rehabilitating housing options for lower-income and working families — from tax abatements to $25 million in general obligation bonds.

That is on top of $10 million in annual investments she committed to in the Barnes Affordable Housing Trust Fund and free financial counseling offered through Metro’s Nashville Financial Empowerment Center.

She also pronounced Metro’s plans to build a light rail on Gallatin Pike and kicked off a municipal effort to persuade voters to pass a referendum in 2018 that would pay for a comprehensive mass transit system in Middle Tennessee.

Then, the mayor publicly introduced a term she has been touting for the last few months: “YIMBYism,” which means “Yes, In My Backyard” — the counter to NIMBYism, or the “Not In My Backyard” stance that can get a new project or idea killed in an neighborhood.

YIMBYism calls on residents to be open to projects in their neighborhood that would increase housing options for people of all incomes.

“Well, we need YIMBYism in Nashville, and we need it now,” Barry said.

“It means, yes, I want to live in a mixed-income neighborhood.

“It means, yes, I want workforce housing on my street for the new Metro police officers, teachers and creatives who make our city tick.

“It means, yes, I want to live in next door to people who may look different from me or speak another language.

“And, it means, yes, I want transit-oriented development in my neighborhood.”

The question is, will all Nashvillians be willing to give up status, exclusivity and privilege for the sake of extending the benefits of prosperity to others less fortunate?

Will it just be the people in the major corridors — Gallatin, Charlotte, Murfreesboro and Nolensville pikes — and the urban core who will be asked to say, “Yes”?

Will that call also be made and accepted by neighbors in affluent areas like Belle Meade, Green Hills, Forest Hills and Oak Hill?

Even now, south Nashville neighbors are questioning a plan by Glencliff United Methodist Church to build a community of 20 micro homes for homeless people.

Religious freedom laws give the church wide latitude to build the community, but given a choice, neighborhood groups may be inclined to be resistant to projects that leave them feeling unsafe, in the dark and wary of neighbors they do not know.

Butch Spyridon, CEO of the Convention and Visitors Corp., in remarks at Cheekwood in West Nashville on April 25 acclaimed the city’s record tourism growth, where hotel room bookings have broken records for 75 of the last 76 months.

Zillow declared that Nashville is the hottest real estate market in the nation in 2017.

Yet the needs of less fortunate people are growing. Housing advocates have called for building 20,000 to 40,000 units of affordable housing,

So far the Barnes Affordable Housing Trust Fund has built 100 units, and about 900 will have been completed after Barry announced earlier this year $10 million in grants to nonprofits that build or rehabilitate affordable housing apartment units and homes.

Meanwhile, the mayor has proposed the largest budget in Metro’s history — $2.2 billion — thanks to rise of tourism, new construction and record median increase of property values of 37 percent.

The final results of the every-four-year property reappraisal were released on April 21.

The effect of that growth will be a record drop in the property tax rate.

In the urban services district (USD): From $4.516 per every $100 of property value to $3.155 — a 43 percent decrease.

From $4.516 per every $100 of property value to $3.155 — a 43 percent decrease. In the general services district (GSD): From $3.924 to $2.754 — a 29 percent fall.

This will be very good news for many people. However, in the fastest growing areas of city — where many longtime and lower-income African American families have historically lived — taxes may rise considerably due to the explosive rise of property values.

Those areas include Inglewood (66 percent median increase), Germantown and Jefferson Street (63 percent), 12South and Wedgewood-Houston (55 percent), and Edgefield and Lockland Springs in East Nashville (53 percent).

The way Metro’s tax system works is that homeowners in areas that have experienced growth above the 37 percent median are likely to see a tax increase while those below the median will see drops in their tax bills.

It is a way of equalizing the tax burden since Nashville cannot collect more from existing properties than it did four years ago.

However, this can also create the perception of lack of fairness and inequity given the income of homeowners in growth areas versus those in established, affluent areas.

Consider: A home in Germantown in the USD that was appraised at $250,000 in 2013 is now $500,000 in 2017. Under the new tax rate, that homeowner’s annual property taxes will rise from $2,822.50 to $3,943.75 — a 39 percent increase. Meanwhile, a homeowner in Forest Hills in the GSD that saw his or her property value rise from $500,000 in 2013 to $700,000 in 2017 would see a reduced tax bill from $4,905 to $4,819.50 — a 1.7 percent decrease.

The more affluent areas are still paying a substantial amount in taxes, though they are getting some relief. Meanwhile, there will likely be sticker shock for those in high-growth areas.

Davidson County Property Assessor Vivian Wilhoite, who attended The Tennessean’s housing forum, is calling on residents to appeal their reappraisal if they think they have a case.

The deadline to file an informal review is May 19 and can be initiated by going to the assessor’s website at www.padctn.org or calling 615-862-6059.

The contrasts for the haves and have-nots were explored recently by educator Lyzette Garza's freshman class at LEAD Academy. Their work came a result of a pilot initiative called Citizenship in Action by the Nashville Civic Design Center.

LEAD is in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood just south of downtown and the area is seeing significant change.

Students who had never understood the effects of growth and change on a city spent weeks doing research and conducting interviews, culminating in a presentation, rally and march at the school on April 19.

For many of them, the term “gentrification,” or the displacement of low-income people because of revitalization of a neighborhood, is a four-letter word because they have seen friends and families evicted and shut out of their neighborhoods.

Student Hailey Flores said: "I don’t want things to be gentrified. I want things to stay the same.”

They held their event the day after the groundbreaking of Fifth + Broadway, the mixed-use apartment and office complex in downtown, which will also house the National Museum of African American Music.

A recent story in The Tennessean said: “It is being touted as perhaps the largest single mixed-use project ever undertaken in downtown Nashville and one of the largest in history of the state."

That project is a symbol of Nashville’s growing status and prosperity.

It will become part of the skyline that the LEAD kids can see from their school, where they can enjoy prosperity from afar.

Photographers George Walker IV and Larry McCormack contributed to this column.

Reach Opinion Engagement Editor David Plazas at dplazas@tennessean.com or 615-259-8063 and on Twitter at @davidplazas.

This is the fourth in a series of monthly columns on growth, housing, displacement and the future of Nashville’s neighborhoods.

Opinion Engagement Editor David Plazas and photographer George Walker IV are telling the stories of the community and individual residents.

We welcome topic ideas and are looking to interview people of diverse perspectives on this issue. Email us at dplazas@tennessean.com or gwalker@tennessean.com.