A Few Questions With

A Few Questions with Councilmember Colby Sledge, District 17

BY JUDITH TACKETT

Colby Sledge, a second-term Councilmember representing District 17, sits on powerful committees — Affordable Housing and Budget & Finance — and has been instrumental this year in doubling the Mayor’s proposed ARP allocation to the Barnes Housing Trust Fund from $20 million to $40 million.

Sledge says that he will not run for an atlarge seat in the next council election.

“I specifically ran for a district council seat,” he says. “I grew up in Nolensville, so Nashville to me has always been South Nashville. That’s my Nashville. I’m very deeply rooted in this community, and I want to continue to try to do good work that helps the people in South Nashville. Council is one way to do that, but there are other ways to do that, too. That’s where I want to keep my focus.”

The Contributor talked with Sledge as part of a series called A Few Questions With where we interview council members about their district’s most pressing issues.

You are in your second and last term as District 17 Councilmember. How would you describe the changes of the past seven years in District 17?

District 17 has grown at a rate faster than most other districts. In fact, when redistricting goes into effect for next year’s elections, District 17 will shrink area-wise because we’ve added so many people. We’ve seen a lot of growth in urban core neighborhoods like Edgehill and Wedgewood-Houston and Chestnut Hill — there just right outside the Downtown area. I suspect that we’re just continuing to grow a lot faster than the Nashville average over the next several years.

What are the main concerns you hear from your constituents?

Housing affordability is definitely a major issue. With the proximity to Downtown and so many different pikes and avenues that run through District 17, this is a really great area to live in because you’re so close to everything. That has caused the prices of homes and rents to go up. I think we’ll start to see that change a little bit as so many new units come online, but it’s still going to be on top of everybody’s list.

The other thing is infrastructure. A lot of this area was outside the old city county lines, and so, for many years, it was not receiving the level of services that some other areas of Davidson County did. Trying to play catch up as we grow so quickly has been a challenge. We’ve got a lot of water infrastructure being replaced. We have pipes that are 100 years old that are being replaced right now. We’re having sidewalks being built, we’re having bike lanes being built, and we’re really trying to be a community that has connected neighborhoods that you can get around safely in a lot of different ways, whether you’re walking, biking, in the car, or taking a bus.

You serve on two powerful committees, the Budget and Finance Committee and the Affordable Housing Committee. What are some of the main achievements you’d like to highlight from these two committees?

Budget is obviously extremely important in the sense that we analyze the Mayor’s budget proposal every year and then usually propose a substitute of our own. I think what we’ll see this coming year is that the budget probably won’t have grown by such big amounts as it had the last year or two because we won’t be receiving federal money to supplement it through the American Rescue Plan (ARP) dollars.

That’s another big piece we’ll be having before the Budget Committee is that we will be considering the recommendations of the ARP Committee to allocate the rest of those funds. There is more than $70 million left to allocate of these one-time funds, and when they’re gone, they’re gone. So, we’ve got to make a real effort to ensure that they’re going to areas of the highest need and places where we can make an impact immediately.

In the Affordable Housing Committee, we review items like Barnes Fund applications when the Housing Trust Fund Commission makes recommendations. We are reviewing policy items on how we encourage affordable housing, how we incentivize it, and we also have a role to play in the ARP funds because so many of them that are coming through Metro Council relate to housing.

I think we’ve done a good job last year of really digging into the why of housing, looking at why certain policies were put in place or why do we have a shortage of housing among certain populations, and how do we really drill down to address the issues that we can most directly affect. We have been talking through issues related to hard-to-house populations or populations experiencing homelessness. We’ve gotten a lot more into the depth of these policies than we have on the committee in years past. That’s a good thing because Council members are now starting to grasp all the ins and outs of what affects housing policies and we’re making more informed decisions.

You also are new to the Human Services Committee. What made you want to serve on that committee?

Human Services oversees a lot of the housing issues that we’re talking about, especially when it comes to items like permanent supportive housing or rapid rehousing. We’re having $50 million worth of housing through ARP funds we’re considering right now, and they go through all three committees I sit on. It gives me the unique opportunity to ask questions and consider our initiatives through different lenses, whether it’s the budget lens or the affordability lens or the human services/ government services lens of how we are best helping people.

We have been asking a lot of questions about the $50 million plan.

The main conversation I’m having is whether there is a portion that’s talking about direct housing in developments that have tax credits on them or other federal funding attached to them to really try to address very low- to no-income individuals. I’ve been trying to get more details on that. The one concern I have is that we may be considering new programs at the expense of programs of the Barnes Fund instead of adding to our overall investment in housing for Nashvillians. We’re kind of just moving money from one pot to another. I want to make sure that we’re increasing our overall investment.

Homelessness is a top political issue across Davidson County. Do you have any short-term and long-term goals you’d like to see happen?

The biggest goal is to get people housed. The district I represent includes the Fairgrounds and during COVID we were sheltering individuals who otherwise would have gone unsheltered. It was a program that had a lot of positives to it because people knew where they could come back to. My short-term goal would be to ensure that we are producing the open doors to ensure people are to obtain housing. We have talked a little about that on Veterans who are facing homelessness, but it has to be a communitywide initiative.

Longterm, we have to get ahead of demand. We have to ensure that we are building enough housing of all types so that the supply meets the demand, and we are able to help guide people to the housing through programs and initiatives we take on.