Form-based codes in Nashville

In 2008, Cincinnati neighborhood leaders, city staff and developers traveled to Nashville, Tennessee to learn first-hand the power of form-based codes to transform and revitalize neighborhoods, a downtown and a city. Nashville planners and developers came to Cincinnati that fall to discuss their experience at the Cincinnati Form Based Codes Initiative’s first conference.

Under the direction of Rick Bernhardt,  Nashville Metro Planning is gradually replacing its current land use policy with the policies in its Community Character Manual as neighborhoods update their community plans.

The "Community Character" approach to policy is based on the "look and feel" of neighborhoods, centers, corridors and open spaces. It sets general guidelines for the form of the built environment in seven different classifications, or "transect categories," ranging from untouched natural land to intense urban centers.

— Nashville Metro Planning website 

In 2010, Vice Mayor Qualls organized two trips to Nashville to observe a community visioning process, learn about Nashville’s new Downtown Code, a new form-based code that was adopted by the Metro Nashville Council unanimously in February  2010; and to meet directly with the developers for Lenox Village, the Hill Center, and The Gulch.