Only have 90 seconds before you throw your new property tax assessment across the room? Here is the unvarnished truth about how Metro just picked your pocket:
The “Lowest Tax Rate” Lie: Metro Council is taking a victory lap for “lowering” your taxes. In reality, they rejected the legally required revenue-neutral rate and engineered a 26.6% tax hike to fund a bloated $3.8 billion budget.
FYI: Appraised Value x Assessment Ratio x Tax Rate / 100 = Your new tax bill. (Assessment ratio: Residential = 25% or Commercial = 40%). Multiplying together creates your tax bill; the applicable rate only came because of the sharp increase in appraisals.
The Vibe-Validation (As seen on TV): The same politicians you see crying on the local news about “unaffordable” tax bills actually voted for the budget that caused them (it passed 32-6). Their tears are performance; their votes are the reality.
The “91,000-Unit” Trojan Horse: Metro is using a manufactured housing “emergency” to justify stripping away your right to participate in neighborhood planning. This density-at-any-cost model is a wealth-extraction template designed to roll out the red carpet for Wall Street capital. The result is an Instant Speculation Tax that resets your property value to “maximum density” levels overnight, long before you ever decide to sell. It is an engineered windfall for the city treasury, political donors, and a fast-track eviction notice for legacy residents.
The “Affordability-Washing” Scam: Metro is pulling a classic bait-and-switch. They are using the region’s desperate need for low-income housing as a "human shield" to push a 91,000-unit plan that almost exclusively serves families earning above Nashville’s median income. This is conflation and Math-Washing at its most cynical: blurring distinct needs into one giant bucket to justify luxury density. If they have to muzzle the neighborhood to "save" it, they aren’t solving a crisis; they’re engineering a windfall for themselves and the Metro Treasury.
The “Missing Middle” Betrayal: This planning method has been abducted by politicians and weaponized into an Extraction-Urbanism model. It is a nationally designed template for wealth extraction, not community building. It is engineered to over-represent growth demand to justify rampant overdevelopment and the hyperinflation of your taxes. It’s the ultimate political magic trick: get the media to repeat the slogans while nobody is held accountable for the math.
The End Game: Metro’s appetite for your tax dollars is growing 6x faster than your income. This isn’t an accident; it’s an intentionally government-engineered “Replacement Economy,” and your new tax invoice is effectively an eviction notice.
An Event Notice:
🗓️ Join the Fight: Come hear us discuss the reality of density, taxation, and how legacy Nashville pushes back at the upcoming event hosted by The Pamphleteer. 📍 🕒 March 26: 6:00 PM | 🎟️ Tickets/RSVP for Location, Link below
The Battle for Nashville’s Soul
Full Post: Want to see exactly how the shell game works? Read on for the full receipts:
10 min read
Channeling My Inner “Ticked-Off”
After a short New Year’s break for personal matters, I have returned just in time to watch the Mayor and a few council members (replacement Nashvillians) try to explain Nashville to Nashvillians. This stirred the Nashvillian in me and created a yearning for the old Green Hills News column, "Ticked Off."
So today, in memory of that cherished editorial column, I am channeling my inner “Ticked-Off,” partly as therapy, witnessing Nashvillians being talked to like “we ain’t got no sense.” Or, in today’s vocabulary, Truth-Grooming and Math-Washing by curated elected officials who think we will not notice, or, as recently reported to me, Metro staff communicating to seniors, “you lack the ability to understand Nashville growth,” “Holy Cow”.
Introduction: The Shakedown at ACME (plus, their peers and you)
By now, you’ve seen the headlines. You’ve read the viral email from ACME Feed & Seed’s Tom Morales detailing how his property taxes violently surged from $129,000 to $600,000. This is a tidy little shakedown that doesn’t just zero out his profit; it effectively removes any reason for a legacy Nashville business to exist.
You’ve also heard Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s Marie Antoinette-style dismissal: “The market evolves,” adding that it simply isn’t his job to keep specific businesses open. It is a callous shrug that confirms our worst suspicions: Metro is no longer governing for Nashvillians. They are Civic-Ghosting the people who built the brand so they can audition “replacement” businesses for their shiny new Fantasy Economy. (link to Fox 17, interview).
But the most frustrating part of the current news cycle regarding property tax whiplash isn't just the indifference; it’s the systematic Truth-Grooming. The grooming (a polite word for framing or spin) first became noticeable in the “Choose How We Move” campaign data. Example: “Greater Nashville” describes the broader multi-county “metro region”, while “Metro Nashville–Davidson County” refers only to the city–county government within Davidson County. The data for the first is inaccurate when considering only Davidson County. This is case one for truth-grooming under the Mayor O’C administration.
Today, the Council’s Planning Chair and the administration are taking a victory lap, claiming they “lowered” the tax rate to 2.814. The clip below is from X:
Let us not forget that this is the same Council Member who famously duped constituents into believing that unless you physically build something on your property, your tax bill will not increase.
Briefly, let’s look at CM Horton’s first post from Feb 17:
Calling this the “lowest rate in history” is the setup. The real question is: lowest compared to what? When you measure it against the stated goal of revenue-neutral, the applicable portion - just one of three components - is a 26% increase.
That is the part conveniently left out.
Then comes the distraction. Toss in a “WOKE” label, stir the pot, and hope people get dragged into a side argument. Why? Because if you stay focused on the math, the narrative falls apart.
This is not complicated. It is misdirection (hoping to trigger your Hypothalamus).
Do not take the bait. Skip the noise. Stay with the numbers. More on this below.
Such a statement demonstrates a truly unique and shallow, gravity-defying brand of “subject-matter expertise.” It conveniently ignores the reality of speculative appraisals and the very zoning engine your Mayor and the majority of the Metro Council actively championed.
They aren’t lowering your taxes; they are using a Math-Wash as a PR mask for a record tax revenue windfall. Payment is due, and it will be higher next time if you forget this topic, as just another new cycle.
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Defining the Fantasy Economy: Budgeting on Ghost Data
What exactly is this “Fantasy Economy”? It is a growth plan built on the ghosts of the booming 2010s and on what might be called 2034 Mirage Metrics, highly exaggerated population projections based on a carry-forward, forever-peak-growth job market that has not sustained itself. Yet the math lives on.
Rather than picking up a No. 2 pencil and doing the simple arithmetic required for responsible oversight, our zoning officials in Metro Council and the city’s planners have taken a shortcut. They rely on curated, narrative-framed executive summaries, canned upzoning models, and nationally packaged messaging templates.
The result is a policy built on presentation rather than verification. The “hidden magic” becomes the justification for a massive budget expansion and a spending agenda designed to sustain the illusion itself, governing a spreadsheet fantasy while the real Nashville waits for someone to read the numbers.
These magic tricks are dishonest, and eventually Nashville will have to do a Governor Haslam and assess (not a superficial assessment as currently underway) Nashville’s infrastructure, a growing ocean of deferred maintenance, and little to no actual planning for prudent care. Budget obligations should not be speculations built upon SWAG’s; eventually, one must pay the piper.
The 91,000-Unit Mirage
The tip of the spear for this supposed housing “need” (not a strategy, that step was skipped, along with the state and local policy tools required if you're serious about helping the people who really need help) is the Housing and Infrastructure (H&I) Study, which declares an “urgent” requirement for 91,000 additional housing units in Davidson County. That figure is derived from job growth projections in Davidson County, built on an already failed (and not just a little) five-year trend line that assumed the extraordinary expansion of the 2010s would continue indefinitely. Despite that assumption collapsing in real time, the justification lives on as demand goals are incorporated into public policy.
Think about that: a housing forecast based solely on jobs created in Davidson County. Currently, 56% of people employed in Davidson County live outside the county in the Greater Nashville Region. Do all highways end at the county line or do we plan a barrier at the county line.
While a small offset for “commuter out migration” might have been reasonable, our elected officials are instead promoting a “stress-test” growth scenario built on the hyper-peaks of the 2010s as the anticipated growth rate.
The consultants qualified this in their fine print, yet four years later, the Housing and Infrastructure (H&I) Study carried that “stress test” growth rate forward as an absolute mandate. Even stranger, if you compare this to the State of Tennessee’s Official Projection for the same period, the result is wildly different. My editorial note is simple: if planners had used the State’s official data, you would see that the current housing market is already building beyond the required demand.
The 91,000-unit figure today functions less as analysis and more as a mandate. We have been witness to our Metro Council justifying sweeping zoning changes that will cannibalize existing neighborhood patterns and convert low-density residential areas into high-density profit centers. The mechanism is familiar: increased entitlements (the legal term for land potential, such as apartments vs. single-family) inflate the speculative value of land, creating what might be called Value-Vampiring, a hyper-inflation of land prices that drives higher property taxes and redevelopment pressure across the city.
Ironically, the city’s proposed remedy for affordability incentives is more of the same development model that failed to produce affordability; affordability fails under the application of the working affordability land policy we are told is needed to correct it. Did that make sense? All I can say is, IRONIC.
There is not enough paper to continue about the deforestation of Nashville and density behaving like a nuclear option for trees in mature neighborhoods. Thankfully, the Sierra Club took time to conduct a review. Thank you, Sierra Club!
Because most of these “market-rate” projects target the upper tiers of the housing market, they do little to address the actual workforce and affordable housing needs of Nashville residents. (Please do not send a filtering explanation; that theory does not work in Nashville or in any real estate market already distorted by speculation.)
The behavioral tea leaves from our elected leadership are difficult to ignore. These policies are not primarily built for current Nashvillians; they are built for the next wave of corporate transplants (“replacement Nashvillians”) and speculative capital. In effect, residents are asked to subsidize a growth model that slowly prices them out of the communities they helped build. Is this good land policy or a self-inflicted wound?
Only recently has the new tax invoice for this approach begun to appear. We must understand, however, that it is the second such tax increase in as many Mayors, because upzoning and densification began in 2010. Displacement is not limited to individuals. Long-standing local businesses and early investors who helped create Nashville's vitality now find themselves facing the same pressures, watching the very system they helped build turned back against them. Ultimately, this is a choice, and today, most neighborhoods will tell you from the first presentation, “engagement” was a “talking-to,” not a “talking-with.”
The Architecture of Displacement A Strip-Mining Operation and a Battle for Nashville’s Soul
This is a manufactured outcome driven by a leadership triad: the Mayor, the Metro Council, and the Planning Department. They are Value-Vampiring our neighborhoods to fund their $3.8 billion appetite, fattening the government piggy bank while legacy Nashvillians are forced to break theirs just to stay in their homes.
Planning Creates the Speculation: The Planning Department recommends aggressive upzoning, which intensifies speculation and drives up land value appraisals. This cycle began in 2010 and has become the government’s ultimate take from you, equity-extraction magic trick.
The Commercial Flip (the extra revenue no one talks about): When a site is up-zoned, the tax calculation undergoes a Status-Shock. The assessment ratio jumps from 25% residential to 40% commercial. This multiplier is the moment the Value-Vampiring turns into a burial; it is the final nail in the coffin of local affordability.
The Council Captures the Bounty: Instead of a revenue-neutral rate of 2.222, the Council set the rate at 2.814. This 26.6% increase is the exact Math-Wash used to hide a record revenue windfall at the expense of Nashville’s native residents and entrepreneurs. Our leaders gave their budget a massive increase, funded by you!
Are your infrastructure and city services improving?
An Event Notice:
🗓️ Join the Fight: Come hear us discuss the reality of density, taxation, and how legacy Nashville pushes back at the upcoming event hosted by The Pamphleteer. 📍 🕒 March 26: 6:00 PM | 🎟️ Tickets/RSVP for Location, Link below
The National Template: A Wealth Extraction Machine
The "Missing Middle" Betrayal: Originally sold as a planning tool, this "Missing Middle" method has been abducted by politicians and weaponized into an Extraction-Urbanism model. This is a nationally designed template for wealth extraction, not community building. For Nashville’s residential property owners, it is nothing short of a legislative betrayal—engineered to over-represent growth demand to justify rampant overdevelopment and the hyperinflation of your taxes. The result? A massive revenue windfall for the city and developers, but zilch for those who actually need a roof over their heads. It’s the ultimate political magic trick: get the media to repeat the slogans while nobody is held accountable for the math.
Metro Planning tells us to look to cities like Portland, OR, and Austin, TX. In 2026, these cities serve as grim case studies in real estate economic depression. In Austin, values have “corrected” nearly 20% from their peak, yet the “tax invoice” from their upzoning fever dream remains. You have to look deeper than the sales pitch. In the “successful” north west, companies have their eye on Tennessee, and as one example, Starbucks flees. Do these symptoms represent success?
The Cereal-ization of Nashville:
I know this is a tough pill to swallow for my friends who bought into “Missing Middle” as an economic gospel rather than as one of many design options.
We all love a good story, and the investment industry has spent billions on schools and think tanks to make sure people believe this economic fairy tale, sweetening the pot with promises to political leaders for speaking engagements and accolades, political crack cocaine.
When the political donor class seeds enough parties with this addictive sweetener, grant money soon surfaces, further amplifying the addiction. History shows that this cycle repeats itself. The problem is that by the time elected officials become deeply involved, the private sector has already compensated, and the bureaucrats are late to the party. i.e., Urban Renewal et al.
So why does the problem remain today? Because the proposed “solutions” are structured to generate profits from institutional-scale private-sector opportunities. The narrative makes great sound bites and comforts those hoping their housing costs will improve, while the working and low-income residents who actually need help are never offered an option from the menu. There is a significant need for a burger on the menu, but we are building a bigger steakhouse.
Today, “Missing Middle” has become our modern Corn Flakes. The packaging promised “affordability,” but once you open the box and see your tax bill, you realize you paid a premium for Extraction Urbanism. A world-class sales pitch does not change the truth; it only makes the truth more expensive when the sugar high finally wears off.
Why does Nashville planning continue promoting growth targets based on trends carved in stone from the 2010 census when current data contradicts them?
Because the data from the decade we are living in today does not support the politically rewarding result.
Ask your Council member how much of your increased tax burden is subsidizing vacant office buildings and empty luxury apartments downtown and around us. Empty buildings do not pay for infrastructure and city services when they sit unoccupied and fail to generate the tax revenue the city relied on in its budget projections.
In the end, the taxpayers pay the price.
So yes, by all means - let us build bigger steak houses.
If you aren’t a national chain flush with institutional capital and credit, you are being methodically taxed out of the city you built. Under this administration’s “affordability plans,” the locally-owned ACMEs of Nashville will be relegated to the "remember when" files alongside the Arnolds Country Kitchen and Donut Den, unceremoniously replaced by the latest corporate, Michelin-star-seeking hotel chain. The template has already caused other cities to look and feel like “every other city.” Is that a “good enough” reason for Nashville?
The Receipts: Deconstructing the FY2026 “Math-Wash”
Here is the math they desperately hope you don’t print on a campaign postcard, based on a typical Nashville home:
The “Neutral” Scenario: * Home Value: $580,000
Neutral Tax Rate: 2.222
Total Bill: $3,222 (Your tax bill stays flat.)
The Reality (What was voted for):
Home Value: $580,000
Adopted Tax Rate: 2.814
Total Bill: $4,080 (Your tax bill spikes 26%)
Observational note one on more sleight of hand (pass-the-buck): Our Mayor and Council members love to say, “I can let you talk with the tax assessor.” Understand this: the assessment is a mathematical by-product of land value. Zoning establishes the “highest-and-best-use” potential that the appraiser is legally required to model to value property. The Assessor does not influence zoning; the Council Members are the “chief zoning official” for property in their district, due to Councilmanic Courtesy and with the new zoning changes, that is a legalized conflict of interest ripe for abuse.
If your lot is up-zoned to allow 20 units (a rubber-stamp move with this Council), your taxes will jump even more than they already have. The Assessor just does the math; the Council sets the trap. Don’t let them pass the buck.
The Verdict
Metro is growing its gluttonous appetite for tax dollars at a rate 6x faster than Nashvillians’ actual ability to pay. (26.6% Tax Hike ÷ 4.4% Income Growth = 6.04x). That extra $858 per household didn’t vanish; it went straight into the Metro Treasury to fund a $3.8 billion spend.
Conclusion: The True Price of Growth
We are lectured by Council leaders that displacement is simply “the price of growth.” But with a dismissive shrug, the Mayor is admitting the truth: this budget is a Fantasy Economy built to stimulate land and tax inflation.
The Growth Paradox: If “growth” solves infrastructure problems, and Nashville has record-setting growth, why are our fiscal problems getting worse? Why does the tax rate need to increase? Mathematically, that logic should provide more for our community’s needs, not less. Instead, we are being forced to bend the knee to a failed national zoning experiment.
Stripping property rights without requiring a single thing in return from developers is destructive; it moves the development risk onto the backs of taxpayers. This isn’t a free market; it is political influence on steroids. The message is clear: they don’t want native Nashvillians; they want Replacement Nashvillians and the endless revenue they generate. It is far easier to invite transplants to replace you than to be a good steward of our communities.
I miss community-based planning. Do you?
The Final Word:
Ambassador Joe Rogers was right: You either get into politics or you get out of business. In Nashville today, staying “out of politics” is a luxury we can no longer afford. If we don’t hold this Council accountable for their “Math-Washing” and tax hikes, we are effectively signing our own eviction notices.
Don’t just get mad - get involved. Our legacy depends on it.
End of Post - Thank you for your time. Feel free to send inquiries.
Coming Next Week:I’ll be picking up the No. 2 pencil to again update and deconstruct the "91,000-Unit" Mirage. We'll look at the actual 2026 data to show how Metro’s growth curves aren't just wrong-they are being used as a weapon against our community. If you thought the tax bill was shocking, wait until you see the "ghost data" they used to justify it. A good reminder of past conversations here is a link to one of the previous posts evaluating the credibility of the data:
This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Event Notice:
🗓️ Join the Fight: Come hear us discuss the reality of density, taxation, and how legacy Nashville pushes back at the upcoming event hosted by The Pamphleteer. 📍 🕒 March 26: 6:00 PM | 🎟️ Tickets/RSVP for Location, Link below
Christopher Remke [AIA ret], Linked, L.L.C., Real Estate Programs Analytics with Capital Projects Strategy Support, Advisory, Leadership and Strategy Advisory, Capital Projects Navigation and Mapping for Opportunities, Risks, Critical Paths, Sequencing, and Foundations First Advisory.
Chris also served as President of Save Our Nashville Neighborhoods (SONNinc.org). SONN believes that people are the community, and community should be at the heart of the planning process.
SONN’s approach is centered on:
Fostering Stakeholder and Policy Maker Understanding: Creating workshop-style forums where neighbors and planners can LISTEN and work together to co-design solutions.
Centering Neighborhood Voices: Ensuring the people most impacted by housing policy, particularly working-class families, have a primary role in shaping it.
Building Consensus: Moving beyond top-down directives to build a shared, data-driven understanding of Nashville’s true housing needs, leading to more durable and equitable policies.
AMEN, Jack. Currently, for zoning policy, the city treats "community engagement" like a bad infomercial. They gin up a presentation, talk at the room, and then use online surveys with leading questions to manufacture the "consent" they already decided on.
On a different note: Developers are now allowed to participate in community meetings via Zoom, usually with a proxy or two who can hook up a video feed and point to a drawing. WTH? Having spent years in "developer shoes," I can tell you that you don't connect with a neighborhood over a webcam; you may as well be texting. It's hard to read the room when you're just a 2-inch square on a screen.
The even larger indictment is the shift in the crowd's temperature. People used to arrive at these meetings anxious about change; now, they arrive angry. That isn’t just a disagreement; it’s a pre-existing trust deficit. This administration's "remedy" for that anger? Removing even more citizens from the rezoning process. Brilliant.
If you point this out, you’re immediately labeled a "NIMBY" to discredit your participation. Even stranger, many in the local media have swallowed the hook, line, and sinker, promoting these divisive terms that only serve to polarize the city while leadership gives speeches about "transparency and unity."
The salt in the wound is that leadership actually banks on this polarization because they have nothing more intellectual than campaign slogans to offer. That is how you get "math-washed" by X posts declaring that "Woke Nashville" is lowering taxes. Does any intelligent person honestly think that’s a calming thing to say in the middle of a fiscal storm? It's like telling passengers the Titanic is just stopping for ice.
Appalling, but Nashville is a city that has to relearn civic engagement. Only ten percent of the population normally votes in local elections. Every few cycles, after tax increases have become too oppressive, it turns out in larger numbers and elects virtually indistinguishable representatives--there have been three one-term mayors in a row and it appears to be heading toward a fourth, but it is difficult to differentiate one from the others. As things stand now, there is a race between replacing the local population with vastly higher wage earners or the city imploding financially (the safest bet is on the latter). Either way, the state will have to engage eventually and that is more of a ringing indictment of the citizenry than of the officeholders wreaking havoc. If voting matters at all and anywhere, it is locally.
AMEN, Jack. Currently, for zoning policy, the city treats "community engagement" like a bad infomercial. They gin up a presentation, talk at the room, and then use online surveys with leading questions to manufacture the "consent" they already decided on.
On a different note: Developers are now allowed to participate in community meetings via Zoom, usually with a proxy or two who can hook up a video feed and point to a drawing. WTH? Having spent years in "developer shoes," I can tell you that you don't connect with a neighborhood over a webcam; you may as well be texting. It's hard to read the room when you're just a 2-inch square on a screen.
The even larger indictment is the shift in the crowd's temperature. People used to arrive at these meetings anxious about change; now, they arrive angry. That isn’t just a disagreement; it’s a pre-existing trust deficit. This administration's "remedy" for that anger? Removing even more citizens from the rezoning process. Brilliant.
If you point this out, you’re immediately labeled a "NIMBY" to discredit your participation. Even stranger, many in the local media have swallowed the hook, line, and sinker, promoting these divisive terms that only serve to polarize the city while leadership gives speeches about "transparency and unity."
The salt in the wound is that leadership actually banks on this polarization because they have nothing more intellectual than campaign slogans to offer. That is how you get "math-washed" by X posts declaring that "Woke Nashville" is lowering taxes. Does any intelligent person honestly think that’s a calming thing to say in the middle of a fiscal storm? It's like telling passengers the Titanic is just stopping for ice.
Appalling, but Nashville is a city that has to relearn civic engagement. Only ten percent of the population normally votes in local elections. Every few cycles, after tax increases have become too oppressive, it turns out in larger numbers and elects virtually indistinguishable representatives--there have been three one-term mayors in a row and it appears to be heading toward a fourth, but it is difficult to differentiate one from the others. As things stand now, there is a race between replacing the local population with vastly higher wage earners or the city imploding financially (the safest bet is on the latter). Either way, the state will have to engage eventually and that is more of a ringing indictment of the citizenry than of the officeholders wreaking havoc. If voting matters at all and anywhere, it is locally.