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A Few Questions with Councilmember Nancy VanReece, District 8

BY JUDITH TACKETT

Nancy VanReece is in her last year of representing Metro Council District 8. She plans to increase her focus on visual arts and has found the ideal platform to her two passions of government relations and supporting community artists in her new position as the Vice President for Strategic Engagement at LDG Development, an affordable housing developer with offices in multiple states including Nashville.

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

What are some unique characteristics of District 8 and its constituents?

With the redistricting, District 8 will move to Antioch. So, I have a bit of nostalgia for District 8 as we know it now. It currently starts with North Trinity Lane and includes North Inglewood, Maplewood, and about 60 percent of the District is north of Briley Parkway into Madison. With Dickerson Pike on one side and Gallatin Pike on the other, we have a lot of different neighborhoods with their own characteristics and personalities.

We have suburban neighborhoods with one- to two-acre lots and a heritage with a lot of country music stars who lived up here from Kitty Wells and Johnny Wright to Lorretta Lynn who had her first home here in Madison. An unusual number of folks who live in the 37115 identify as being in the creative class and are making the majority of their income from some sort of creative work.

The District is also more diverse than people realize. It’s pretty similar in diversity to the countywide population. About 30 percent are African American and 17 percent Hispanic, so it’s diverse in culture. We also have diversity in socioeconomic aspects.

What’s been your approach in terms of affordable housing?

We started that phrase “development for us and not to us” to make sure anything new coming in was actually serving those already here as well as being a welcoming place for new folks.

I’m really proud that we’ve had a kind of YIM- BYism reputation in District 8 – “Yes In My Back Yard.” With that we have been able to provide a lot of affordable and workforce housing opportunities. The last time I looked, consistently 32-38 percent of all new housing in District 8 during my two terms has been affordable. We’ve done that not by regulation but by sheer will and strategic placemaking to create mixed-income neighborhoods. When we have affordable, multi-family unit projects going in, it’s across the street from $400,000 townhomes to create mixed-income communities on purpose.

In seven years, every one of my rezoning requests at the Planning Committee got through on consent except for one that was pulled because they thought it was something else. The rest of the county may not be aware, but we have done a lot of work up here [to build consensus]. I’m really proud of it.

What are currently the main issues and concerns you hear about from your constituents?

For the last 10 years when I ask any neighbors, particularly in the Madison area: ‘what is it that you like about living here and what do you wish were different?’ People say they like that ‘it’s close to everything. I can get to transit, but I still feel like I’m not in the middle of it all, where I am is not congested.’

When it’s about what they wish was different, they say, ‘I wish I could walk to things.’

Well, one of those things does not work with the other. But people want restaurants and retail, so they don’t have to drive over the river or into Hendersonville. They also don’t want to have to drive to parks to walk. Those are the types of concerns I hear.

You are a founding member of the Metro Council LGBTQ Caucus, the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce, and the Tennessee Equality Project. What are some of the legislative wins you would like to highlight in terms of your LGBTQ advocacy?

I’ve seen a lot of change in the last 20 years, from early meetings and I’m talking about 2008, where we met in a back hallway at the Loews Hotel where the doors were closed, and you had to knock and identify yourself before you could go in.

I first ran in 2011, and when asked about my husband avoided the topic. I lost, but had 44 percent of the vote, so I ran again in 2015. When I was asked then about my spouse, I would say, ‘I don’t have a husband, but my partner and I were unable to marry.’ And then I would try to move on the conversation. I got some threatening mail in 2015. But when I ran in 2019, it was, ‘How is Joan doing?’

I was the first out woman elected to any legislative body in the state of Tennessee in 2015. Brett [Withers] was elected at the same time and we said, if we get at least 4 or 10 percent of LGBTQ councilmembers, we could form a caucus. When we got five, we officially launched the Caucus. Brett and I are leaving, but the other three are still running and I know there are a few other LGBTQ candidates running, so that this caucus can continue. The LGBTQ Caucus members consider themselves not only as district councilmembers but also as at large representatives for the LGBTQ community.

What are some of the barriers that you think still need to be addressed in terms of LGBTQ rights?

BIPOC and LGBT residents and guests have indicated that our entertainment district downtown is challenging, and we should do better. The LGBT Chamber has ongoing discussions with the Convention & Visitors Corp. to look at a program that will show welcoming locations throughout Nashville with a window sticker or the like.

Our trans community continues to be bullied by inappropriate legislation at the State, and Davidson County should and will need to be proactively speaking up and encouraging support of the Tennessee Equality Project.

What are some legislative barriers you’d like to see addressed?

From a housing side, Tennessee is only one of — I believe three states — that still taxes LI- HTC (Low-Income Housing Tax Credit). Unless you’re in a city that has PILOT program, you can’t build affordable housing. It’s the equivalent of the government taxing your down payment on your house. So, I think as far as long-term tackle on the state level, there needs to be a way for the state legislature to realize that if you want to build affordable housing for low-income workers, you have to find better ways to make sure the housing gets built.

I love that Angie Hubbard of Metro’s new Division of Housing is trying to adjust the Davidson County Area Median Income (AMI), which is currently calculated including surrounding counties, to reflect the actual affordability levels for Nashville.

We still have to do a transit-oriented development site that the state said we could do, but they’re so complicated that no one wants to do them, that needs to be fixed.

So those are a couple of things on the housing side.

On the arts and culture side, the city of Nashville still doesn’t value its creative class the way it should because we are Music City and people come here because of that and because it’s a creative environment. Yet our Metro Arts funding is still drastically behind that of our peer cities when we compare per capita spending on the arts. That’s part of living a good life and having those opportunities for everybody is really important.

The city of Nashville loves to plan. We love to do reports and have meetings, and community meetings and charrettes, showing pretty pictures and documents, but actually doing something has been kind of hard.

I’m hoping in the next five to 10 years we see a lot of really good ideas that the community has been involved in actually happen.

What approach would you like the city to take when it comes to addressing homelessness?

Listen to the experts. If I were to answer the question, what do you think we should do about brain surgery, I would say, we should go talk to a brain surgeon. Or when you talk to someone about, “How do you think we should do the infrastructure on this piece of property?” You talk to an engineer.

When you talk about making systemic changes that hopefully hold up and not just be band aids, you need to work with the experts.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would like to give a big shout out to The Contributor vendors. There are two places where I pick up my paper. One vendor is selling at the BrickTops restaurant and then my wife has been buying from Michael at Eastland forever.

My wife Joan has instilled in me to never ignore someone who is on the street. Look them in the eye, wave at them, smile at them, don’t make them invisible. Even if you don’t have any money with you, you always have a smile to give.

*from the TACIR, the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations: Tennessee is currently in the minority of states that allow local property assessors to include the value of the Federal low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) in a property's assessed/appraised value. Continued utilization of this punitive valuation method is detrimental public policy that threatens current and future affordable housing development in Tennessee.

**PILOT information is available at MHDA: http://www.nashville-mdha.org/lihtc-p ilot-program/