Nashville development records: the Planning Commission case, the Metro permit and the daily sale

Nashville publishes its sales with the price and its permits without a phone. The Davidson County Assessor posts every sale daily with the buyer and, on most, the price, which Texas and Georgia do not. Metro Codes publishes each permit with the applicant's name and nothing to call. And the Metro Planning Commission publishes its cases, which in Nashville is where the big projects first appear. Here is the order those three records come in, what each carries, and what Tennessee does not record.

The Planning Commission case

Most large Nashville projects go through the Metro Planning Commission before anything is permitted, because Nashville zones many of them one site at a time. The case types that matter:

• Rezonings, to a base district.
• Specific plans (SP), a zoning district written for one site with its own standards. The SP is Nashville's workhorse for multifamily and mixed-use: the case carries the plan, the applicant, the agent and the parcel.
• Planned unit developments (PUD) and PUD amendments, the older equivalent.
• Subdivision plats, which precede any lot split or a new street.

The Planning Commission publishes its agendas, staff reports and case files; Metro Council hears the zoning cases after the commission's recommendation. Groundbreak reads the planning cases daily; the last 90 days carried 86 of them, two in three with an address. See the glossary on zoning cases and site plans.

The case is the first public record of the project with a name on it. The applicant is the owner or the developer's entity, the agent is a civil engineer or a land-use firm, and the plan sheets show the building. An SP filed in the spring is a building permit the following year.

The Metro Codes permit

Metro Nashville's Codes Department issues building permits for Davidson County (the city and the county are one government), and publishes two feeds through the Metro open data portal: permits applied and permits issued. Each record carries the address, the parcel, the permit type and subtype, the work description, the declared construction cost, the applicant and the contractor. Groundbreak reads both daily; the last 90 days carried about 500 issued permits and about 430 applications.

What the Metro permit does not carry is a phone or an email. The applicant and the contractor are named, and the name is the lead; Groundbreak shows the applicant on the Pro plan and the company file carries what the public record has for the firm. The coverage page flags Nashville as a market without phones for exactly this reason, so no Groundbreak page for Nashville promises one.

The applied feed is the earlier signal: a permit applied in March and issued in June tells you the GC was chosen by March. Hendersonville, across the county line, publishes its own permits, which Groundbreak reads too.

The daily sale

Tennessee states the consideration on the recorded deed, and the Davidson County Assessor carries the sale onto the roll: owner, sale date, sale price, every parcel, published daily. Groundbreak reads the roll every morning; about three in four Nashville sales in the last 90 days carried a price. See deeds and owner of record.

In Nashville the land deal is public: who bought, from whom, and on most sales for how much, within days. A sale to a new LLC at a price per acre that only works as a tower is the earliest lead, and it comes with a number.

What Tennessee does not record

No notice of commencement: Tennessee has no equivalent of Florida's start notice, so the permit is the start signal. No loan feed: the Davidson County Register of Deeds records every deed of trust, but Groundbreak does not yet read an index of them, so the construction lender is not in the Nashville data. No phone on the permit. No trade sub-permits named the way Miami-Dade publishes them. The coverage page lists each Nashville source, what it carries, and what is off.

Reading the three in order

1. The sale, usually with the price, from the roll. The land changed hands; the buyer is named. Developers, brokers and lenders read this one.
2. The Planning Commission case. The buyer has filed an SP or a rezoning; the agent and the plan are public. Architects, engineers and pre-construction read this one. The design team is being assembled and the GC is not chosen.
3. The permit applied, then issued. The GC is named. Subs, suppliers and equipment read this one, by name.

A project at step 2 has its contracts still open and most of a year to run.

Who this is for, and who it is not

If you need a phone number to work a lead, Nashville will disappoint you, in this database and in the public record it comes from. Metro publishes names. If you need the construction lender, that is not here either; the Register of Deeds records it and no daily index is read yet.

If you follow a few sites, Metro's open data portal and the Planning Commission's agendas are free and complete. The records become worth having as a database when you want the sale, the planning case and the permit on one project across the county, in order, with the names. For that reader, the Nashville development database carries all three with the applicant and the buyer on the Pro plan. The largest permits this month and most active developers tables are free.