Over 25 members of Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest Alliance joined an extremely informative session hosted by the Metro Nashville Planning Department on August 28th, 2023. Deputy Exec. Director Todd Okolichany provided how his professional relocation in January of this year from serving as Planning Director for Asheville, NC, brought him direct experience with the special nature of the slopes and forest of Nashville’s Highland Rim. 

Mr. Okolichany introduced Joni Williams, Manager of the Design Studio, who had Planners, Harriett Brooks and Seth Harrison, present on the forthcoming Ecological Design Framework which included data and very effective graphics conveying how environmental variables can be incorporated more fully into their land-assessment and planning data. It helped us to even more fully appreciate the challenges they face in balancing growth, sustainability, and respecting valued aspects of Nashville’s cultural elements.  Mekayle Houghton, Executive Director of the Cumberland River Compact, spoke on behalf of the Alliance and provided an overview of its mission and current priorities focused on conserving forest lands on the Highland Rim.  Metro Council Member Burkley Allen was present and continues to help us strategize carrying the goals of the Alliance to the next mayor and Metro council members.

The Metro Planning Department’s Ecological Design Framework combines local watersheds and the “hubs and spokes” of Nashville to develop four main areas – Northwest Highlands, Historic Core, Eastern Bends, and Nashville Basin. The goal of this framework is to be able to use it to look at existing community character policy and transect to see how they match (or don’t!), and where they may need to update transects and make sure the policy and zoning are consistent. The hope is to develop tools to address specific conditions in these areas. One thing we took away is that this is an additional framework and currently does not inform actual zoning, policy, and land use decisions. 

Strategizing an approach for implementing aspects of the plan is particularly relevant to the Bells Bend / Beaman / Whites Creek corridor given development pressures. 

The Metro Planning Team included the Nashville Highland Rim Forest Conceptual Plan as part of their work plan, but noted that funding has not been allocated. Hopefully funding can be identified for a study to identify particularly critical environmental areas within the Highland Rim to prioritize for conservation measures. We anticipate focusing on the capital spending plan which will move the funding request from the capital improvements budget (aka the wishlist) into action. 

Mr. Okolichany and the Metro Planning Team expressed appreciation to our Alliance for drawing together local partners across a broad range of interests in order to filter feedback to various Metro agencies as they plan policy moving forward. They pledged to continue the dialogue with Alliance members.