A vacant lot of 0.19 acres sits at 5608 California Avenue, about 84 feet east of 57th Avenue North. From 1974 until last year it was zoned R6. In 2025 Metro rezoned it to RM40-A-NS as part of the Nations package. Metro Planning staff calculate that RM40-A would allow up to seven homes on that acreage.
Seven homes may never get built there. Its owner, St. Luke's Community House, applied through Catalyst Design Group to rezone the parcel to Office Limited, a district meant for moderate-intensity office use. Metro Planning's staff report for the September 24, 2026 Planning Commission meeting recommended approval. The neighborhood was upzoned to add housing, and one of the first parcel-level requests in Metro's records since then would remove housing from a lot.
That one lot shows how The Nations works right now. The 2025 rezoning changed what most parcels are allowed to become. The construction you can see from Centennial Boulevard is mostly coming through earlier, project-specific approvals. If you're comparing West Nashville neighborhoods, the zoning on the lots around a house tells you more about the block's future than the cranes do.
What the Rezoning Changed
Metro Council passed three bills together, sponsored by District 20 Councilmember Rollin Horton. BL2025-830 rezoned 293.33 acres, including properties around 51st Avenue North and Centennial Boulevard. BL2025-831 created The Nations Urban Design Overlay across 357.29 acres. BL2025-832 authorized building-material standards. All three took effect August 29, 2025.
WSMV reported after the final vote that some areas previously zoned for one or two homes can now hold as many as 40 units per acre. The adopted overlay states its goals as expanding housing variety, protecting the neighborhood's traditional mixed-use centers and corridors, and turning industrial land into mixed-use extensions of the neighborhood.
The district name has a suffix that matters to buyers. In RM40-A-NS, the "-NS" prohibits short-term rentals, both owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied, according to Metro Planning. So on parcels with that suffix, the rezoning added density and took away a common way of earning income from a property. If your plan for a Nations purchase depends on short-term rental income, check the zoning before you underwrite it.
The Visible Projects Came Through Older Approvals
The two largest projects in the neighborhood moved forward on their own approval tracks. Neither is shown in the record as a product of the 2025 package.
| Project | Location | Size | Approval path | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wood Partners development | 5901 California Ave | 296 apartments, plus 5,000 sq ft of commercial space per the Nashville Post | Amendment to a Specific Plan first approved in February 2023 | Final Council passage July 21, 2026, as BL2026-1423 |
| Camden Nations | 5010 Tennessee Ave | 393 units, mixed-use | Not documented as using the 2025 overlay | Under construction, summer 2027 completion target |
The Nashville Post reported that 5901 California Avenue was rezoned in February 2023 for 300 units. Wood Partners then sought a Specific Plan amendment for six buildings of three to four stories. Under the revised plan, the existing industrial buildings on the southern half of the site are left out of the redevelopment. Reusing them for about 50,000 square feet of commercial space had been considered earlier. WKRN's July coverage described the same California Avenue site as a 300-unit mixed-use project with 6,000 square feet of commercial space. Legistar shows the bill passed second reading July 7 and third reading, as amended, on July 21, 2026. On August 12, nash.news reported that a master building permit application had been filed.
At 5010 Tennessee Avenue, City Now Next described Camden Nations in January 2026 as a 393-unit building with studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom flats plus townhouse-style apartments. The target for completion was summer 2027.
The incentive here is simple. A developer holding an approved Specific Plan already has a known path through Metro, so amending that plan carries less risk than starting a new project under a new overlay. That's why the first large projects after a rezoning tend to be ones that were already underway. The smaller formats the rezoning was designed to encourage come later, lot by lot.
Why Permission Turns Into Construction Slowly
Under the overlay, every new or redeveloped property inside the boundary must meet its standards. A UDO Final Site Plan has to be approved by Metro departments before a building permit is issued, and a final plat may also be required. That review sits between a zoning map that allows more and a crew that builds more.
The form rules also shape what fits on an ordinary residential lot. In the overlay's Residential Neighborhood character area:
- Two-family buildings are capped at 35 feet tall.
- Impervious surface on two-family lots is capped at a ratio of 0.50.
- If a lot backs onto an alley, cars must enter from the alley.
- No parking pad can sit in front of the primary façade.
- On two-family lots with street access, driveways are limited to 18 feet wide for the first 20 feet.
For a buyer looking at an existing house, these rules work in two directions. They limit how tall and how paved a replacement next door can be. They also apply to your own lot if you ever rebuild or add on, so the garage, driveway or second unit you have in mind has to fit the overlay too. The adopted overlay document lays out the character areas and is the place to start.
What the Change Looks Like on the Street
The California Avenue hearing showed both sides of the debate. As WKRN reported, one District 20 resident told the Council that the project's housing and businesses would add walkable places to build community. Chris Remke, president of Save Our Nashville Neighborhoods, told the station that about 2,000 units had been added over the past five years. He argued that having places to walk is different from having places worth walking to. A resident of about two years told WKRN about summer traffic, lost parking and construction noise.
Councilmember Horton laid out his reasoning in a statement to WKRN:
"In order to sustainably fund [sidewalks] from a fiscal perspective, we need residential density. In order to have businesses, we need residential density to provide customers in close proximity to make the business successful."
That statement is the economic case for the rezoning. Sidewalks and corner businesses need enough nearby households to pay for and support them, and the overlay is Metro's way of letting that density arrive. When the vote happened in August 2025, the Nashville Banner reported that supporters pointed to housing choice and walkability, opponents raised traffic, infrastructure and neighborhood character, and a neighborhood association board member called the plan an improvement over the status quo.
Reading a Nations Parcel Before You Make an Offer
Since the rezoning shows up parcel by parcel and slowly, a buyer gets the clearest picture from the zoning records, not from looking at the street. Here's an order of checks to work through with your agent:
- Look up the base zoning of the house and the parcels around it in Metro's Parcel Viewer, which the overlay document points to as the starting point.
- Check for the "-NS" suffix if rental flexibility matters to you.
- Find the overlay character area. Residential Neighborhood, Neighborhood Center, Mixed-use Corridor and Mixed-use Redevelopment each have their own standards.
- Search Legistar for nearby addresses to see pending rezonings, like the 5608 California request, before they show up as construction fencing.
- For a two-unit home sold under a horizontal property regime, ask your attorney to review the recorded master deed, plat and bylaws with you. Under Tennessee's Horizontal Property Act, these documents define each unit and the common elements, and common elements stay undivided while the regime exists. Co-owners must pay their pro rata share of maintaining the common elements and can't get out of it by giving up use of the shared area. A majority of co-owners may insure the building, and each owner can still insure their own unit separately. The full text is in Tenn. Code § 66-27-107, § 66-27-114 and § 66-27-117.
All of this is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Please confirm zoning, rental rules and HPR obligations for a specific property with a real estate attorney, your lender and Metro Planning.
FAQ
Will the house next door become an apartment building? That depends on its zoning, and inside the overlay any redevelopment also needs a Final Site Plan approved under the overlay standards before a building permit. Parcel Viewer and Legistar show both the zoning and any pending changes.
Can I run a short-term rental in The Nations? It depends on the parcel. In RM40-A-NS, a district applied to parcels in the 2025 package, Metro Planning says both owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied short-term rentals are prohibited.
What is the broader market doing? Across the nine-county region, Greater Nashville REALTORS reported a median residential price of $510,000 and inventory of 10,462 homes for September 2026. Those are regional figures, not numbers for The Nations alone.
If you're weighing a home in The Nations and want to know what the zoning around it allows, Gaston Group can pull the parcel records with you and go through the overlay standards that apply before you make an offer. Start Your Property Search.
