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A developer wants to build shops and condos with short-term rentals in a residential area. But residents say it will degrade the community.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this article mistakenly listed the wrong address for a community meeting. It will take place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Zion House of Prayer Community Church, 1201 Joseph Avenue.
Residents in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of East Nashville are sounding off about a developer's plan to build condos that could be used as short-term vacation rentals.
Developer Sean Roberge wants to build retail shops and about 30 condominium units on the now-vacant northeastern corner of Cleveland and North 6th streets.
But he first needs Metro officials to approve a zoning change from single-family residential to the more dense and commercial "mixed-use" designation.
Residents learned of his early plans, which include an option to use the condos as vacation rentals, from a Facebook post last week by the Realtor who managed the property listing.
"We have something exciting up our sleeves!," Moving Music City real-estate firm posted on Facebook. "Be on the lookout later this year for this gorgeous project – featuring those highly sought-after short term rentals."
Residents said they were shocked and angered by the prospect of a steady stream of tourists entering their community.
"This is a quiet street," said neighbor Joel Rakes. "It would be a pretty drastic change to have short-term rental guests coming and going all the time. I hear horror stories from friends about neighbors with raucous parties."
A petition opposing the zoning change has since gathered more than 100 signatures and a website, save6thstreet.com, was created in opposition.
But Roberge, who lives in the neighborhood, said his plans are still in the early stages and have been misunderstood.
A community meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Zion House of Prayer Community Church, 1201 Joseph Avenue.
Metro Planning Commission is set to consider the item at its February 14 meeting.
Roberge said he wants to build the condos primarily for residential use, allowing owners the option to rent them to vacationers.
"The reality is we've got a 40,000-home shortage. We're not building houses fast enough to fill the need," Roberge said. "The only way to achieve (affordable housing) is to get density."
One option he is considering is building several 3-story-tall buildings with condos and a few shops on the ground level, if the zoning change is approved.
Roberge bought the land for $1.2 million from Cleveland Street Missionary Baptist Church, which is located across the street. The church still owns a portion of the land along North 6th Street and is also seeking the zoning change.
"We plan on developing it ourselves to make money," said church secretary Lynda Fisher. "We don't know what we want to do yet."
If he isn't granted the zoning change, Roberge could build tall-and-skinny homes with detached dwelling units in the back. But those would be more expensive for buyers than the condos, he said.
But neighbor Sam McCullough said allowing the short-term rentals would erode the community's character. The land is directly across from the church, a park, and a Boys & Girls Club.
"Nobody wants this," McCullough said. "This will kill our neighborhood. We're trying to stop it before it even gets started."
Roberge suggested a compromise such as including limits in the homeowners association guidelines for how many units can be used as vacation rentals. He said residents haven't reached out to him directly to talk through the plans, but he is attending the community meetings.
Councilman Scott Davis said the short-term rentals would probably not be as destructive to the neighborhood as imagined.
"It's hard to throw a wild party in a one-bedroom," Davis said. "The people who have complained are people who hate short-term rentals. We've not agreed on this yet and I'm working to get some affordable (low-income) units (in the plans)."
Davis was accused last year by a short-term rental critic of an ethics violation for helping Roberge clear zoning variances with the Board of Zoning Appeals in exchange for campaign donations. But the complaint was withdrawn before being heard by the Metro Board of Ethical Conduct.
Short-term rentals: Nashville wants to take away an Airbnb host's permit. She says that's unconstitutional.
The 2017 UNCW softball season will go down as one of the best in program history. Right now, the Seahawks don’t have time to think about that.
What happened in the previous 48 games led to a berth in the CAA Tournament, the program’s first in a decade. The Seahawks can draw off their experiences, but cannot dwell on them if they want to succeed.
UNCW (31-16-1) closed out the regular season being swept by Delaware in a trio of one-run losses. The fourth-seeded Seahawks will get the fifth-seeded Blue Hens to start tournament play at 11 a.m. Wednesday. The winner moves on to face No. 1 James Madison at 4 p.m. later that day, while the loser gets the loser of No. ...
Getting into the CAA field was the team goal before the season started. However, being in the field was just the beginning. UNCW is looking for an extended stay in Harrisonburg. To do that, they’ll need to get all facets of the game back on track.
Since putting up six runs in a shutout win at N.C. State, the Seahawks have gone 2-6. Defensively, the squad has allowed no more than four runs during that stretch, with every loss being decided by four runs or less. Unfortunately, the offense hasn’t found its stride at times, going for three runs or less in every game...
For everyone on the roster, playing in the postseason is a new experience. No UNCW has experience playing in a conference tournament. Norton has talked with her players about to expect going forward.
She’s hoping the message sticks.
“Whatever has happed prior to this, it’s behind us and you can’t do anything about it, but what’s in front of us and what we have in the palm of our hands is a great opportunity and let’s make the best of it,” Norton said.
Rare super bloom stuns visitors Jump to media player The golden poppy display came after a heavy rain season that has freed the state from a seven-year drought.
'Khadi' poppy marks India's WW1 servicemen Jump to media player The red flower has been made from cotton similar to Gandhi's iconic clothing.
Thousands help make human poppy Jump to media player Organisers say a world record was broken for the most people coming together to form a human poppy.
'Capability Brown meadow' in bloom Jump to media player A woodland meadow planted to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the birth of 18th Century gardener Lancelot "Capability" Brown is in bloom.
The golden poppy display came after a heavy rain season that has finally freed the state from a seven-year drought. But this year's bloom is drawing too many visitors in what the mayor has dubbed a "poppy apocalypse". The canyon was temporarily shut down but has now been reopened with new rules for visitors.
Correction: An earlier version of Dan Schnur’s commentary incorrectly said there is no penalty for refusing to pay the new health-care tax. There is no criminal penalty, although the Internal Revenue Service has the authority to take people to court to compel payment. The following article has been corrected.
The policy upheld in Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling is a rough approximation of the Republican Party’s 1993 federal proposal for insurance reform and of then-Gov. Mitt Romney’s bipartisan insurance reforms in Massachusetts five years ago. It’s fun to denounce it as socialism or the “end of America” or whatever, but in...
The Supreme Court’s decision will have three long-term consequences. First, barring a Romney win in November and repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the debate about the private sector’s role in health care has been settled. With the exception of the roughly 100 million Americans who get their care through Medicare, Med...
Washington is abuzz, tallying the political winners and losers of the ruling. More important is what this means for people. The president, Congress and now the courts have expanded access to health care, mostly using the framework already in place. That means our American system of health care will continue to evolve a...
Second, the Affordable Care Act’s heavy emphasis on electronic medical records and accountable care organizations will lead to a restructuring in the private sector on how we pay for health care. This will mean insurance companies and hospitals are likely to merge in preparation for the change in the reimbursement syst...
Third, more Americans will now buy their health insurance in the individual market, much like the approach John McCain suggested in his 2008 campaign. Small businesses, followed gradually by larger ones, will stop providing a health insurance benefit beginning in 2014, thus breaking the link of health insurance to empl...
Americans feel hoodwinked by the Obamacare decision. President Obama and his Democrat allies, in passing the legislation with no Republican votes and no votes to spare in the Senate, vociferously denied that the bill’s penalty for failing or refusing to buy health insurance was a tax. If Republicans made that accusatio...
Now the administration has succeeded, by the barest margin, in winning approval of the law from the U.S. Supreme Court — because the court has ruled that the individual mandate is a tax.
How can the American people feel anything but hoodwinked?
And now the president says we mustn’t refight this battle! He’ll be surprised to learn the American people disagree because they don’t like to be deceived.
The Supreme Court’s decision upholding the Affordable Care Act was a moral victory for those who believe every American should have a head start and a healthy start in life. For Americans with preexisting conditions, for women and small-business owners (myself included), this law helps to reduce our deficit; once all o...
Many predicted the decision would be decided on partisan grounds. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. must be given credit for rising above partisanship; his opinion reflected deep thought and a concern for precedent and legal reasoning. Ironically, he is being castigated by some on the far right for his commitment to ju...
With its decision on the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court has left it to Congress to uphold the Constitution and its limitations on the power of the federal government. It is now imperative that Congress repeal the entire Obamacare statute.
The president and his partisan allies in Congress rammed through the legislative process a law that gives federal agencies virtually unlimited power to govern health care in the United States. The people of our country oppose this legislation and increasingly fear its consequences: massive tax increases, higher insuran...
A 5 to 4 majority of the court has unfortunately sided with those who believe there are no limits on how much the government can control our lives. In short, those justices chose tyranny over freedom. Health insurance may be a good thing, but can government compel you to buy it?
The court was correct in finding that Congress does not have the authority to compel purchases under the Constitution’s commerce clause. But it erred in contorting the statute to declare the penalty a tax. And the court’s decision to allow this abuse under the government’s taxing authority, not the commerce clause, doe...
The Constitution created a government of enumerated and thus limited powers. The intention was to protect liberty by denying the federal government a roving charter to promote public welfare. Our Founders knew that, left unchecked, governments tend to grow by degrees into nanny-state leviathans.
With the Supreme Court’s decision, the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions, consumer protections and cost-containment provisions will continue to move forward. A great deal of attention was focused on the individual mandate — so the big surprise was the court’s weakening of the law’s Medicaid expansion, which was...
The (often toxic) partisan wrangling by both sides over the ACA will continue at least through the election. The decision of the conservative-leaning court is obviously a big plus for President Obama, adding legitimacy to the health-care reform law, even if it also energizes the right. But it is not a game-changer. Opi...
After the election, Washington will change the channel, focusing on the budget deficit and health care’s big entitlement programs, Medicare and Medicaid. We will shift from a debate about expanding the role of the federal government, a topic that energizes the right, to a debate about cutting government back, which cou...
The Supreme Court provided legal clarity, but no one should underestimate the policy challenges ahead. Thursday’s ruling preserves the link between the market reforms and universal coverage. The disastrous experience in states that tried to implement similar market reforms in the absence of universal coverage will not ...
With that uncertainty removed, now is the time to turn to affordability.
Job No. 1 should be to address provisions in the health-care-reform law that increase costs for consumers and small employers. For example, the forthcoming premium tax will increase the cost of coverage purchased by small businesses and individuals, as well as Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries with private coverage. ...
We must also address the unsustainable rise in medical costs that are burdening families and employers, taking up a greater share of federal and state budgets, and threatening the long-term solvency of our nation’s safety-net programs. Until we confront the nation’s spending issues, the promise of health security for a...
While the focus has been on insurance market reform, health plans have been leading collaborative efforts to reform the payment and delivery system to promote prevention and wellness, help patients and physicians manage chronic disease, and reward quality care.
Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the centerpiece of President Obama’s health-care law is an undeniable victory for Obama. But the court’s decision that the individual mandate is a tax will not make the law more popular in the long term; on the contrary, it is likely to make it even less popular.
Going forward in the 2012 campaign, Obama needs to do something that he has been reluctant to do — take on the issue of entitlement policy in the context of overall fiscal and budgetary reform. He must position Obamacare as the centerpiece of an overarching plan to address the issue of costs in a serious and sustained ...
To that end, he can talk about Obamacare in a manner that emphasizes cost-containment and innovation, within the context of fiscal discipline and budgetary restraint — specifically referring to the work of the Simpson-Bowles commission.
For his part, Mitt Romney will almost certainly say that his first act as president will be to repeal Obamacare — and in the short term, attacking the law and its effects makes sense. But with Romney’s own favorability ratings low and a new round of polling showing Obama with a consistent advantage in key swing states,...
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, all of us should put aside partisanship, roll up our sleeves and work to implement the law. Most important, states that have held off on implementation of the insurance exchanges should now move aggressively. States that don’t implemen...
Getting going on implementation is critical because positive benefits of the ACA are already apparent. Millions of young people have coverage through the law, seniors have lower prescription drug costs and medical inflation is decreasing. For decades we’ve seen national health-care costs increase at a higher rate than ...
It’s hard not to see the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act as a net victory for the White House and a net defeat for the statute’s opponents. President Obama will take a victory lap in his campaign and hope that an unattractive law now ruled constitutional will earn its butterfly wings and become beau...
The court’s protection of the individual mandate under Congress’s taxing authorities is also a complication for the administration and congressional Democrats, leaving them in the uncomfortable position of having imposed higher taxes — a label that the president and congressional Democrats objected to during the legisl...
The House has scheduled a repeal vote, but the likelihood of legislatively defeating the bill is minimal, given the balance of power in the Senate. So the nation is now stuck with an unpopular yet un-repealable bill. And that’s the lesson of politics: Elections do have consequences. Take them seriously.
Although the next few days will be filled with fireworks from both sides, it’s difficult to see how health care will remain a significant issue for the rest of the presidential campaign. Neither candidate has much incentive to talk about the issue: President Obama knows that, even though the law is constitutional, it’s...
Although health care is unlikely to matter to most swing voters, there’s more than enough fodder in the court’s decision to inspire the true believers in both parties all the way to Election Day. Democrats can celebrate that the law is still in place. And they can continue to use the portion of the law that allows adul...
The bottom line: more rhetorical ammunition and turnout motivation for the parties’ bases. Not much difference for everyone else.
Senior policy adviser at DLA Piper. Former U.S. senator from South Dakota; Senate majority leader from 2001 to 2003. President Obama’s initial nominee to be secretary of health and human services.
The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the health-care reform law is an enormously positive step for health care in America. Our country is just beginning to meaningfully address the cost, access and quality challenges in health care today. This ruling provides the green light to full implementation of insurance, payme...
The debate about the role of government in health care will go on in the chambers of Congress and in our political system through this election and, most likely, many more. But implementation can now go forward, unimpeded by questions of constitutionality, and in so doing create stability and a positive environment tha...
Achieving this goal demands America’s best thinking and innovating. One of the primary keys to success will be public-private collaborations that create new and innovative approaches to affordable, value-based and efficient care.
The convergence of crisis and leadership brings about transformational moments in history. This is one of those moments. Now everyone, including all members of Congress, needs to work together to build on what President Obama has started.
Florida Georgia Line's song "Colorado" is one of the best country songs of the week.
An unexpected musical direction from Florida Georgia Line, the latest from troubadour Jason Eady and the reverberating new single from Michigan Rattlers help make up the 10 country and Americana songs you must hear this week.
Guitarist Graham Young and bassist Adam Reed fleshed out the sound of their folky L.A.-by-way-of-Michigan band with the addition of keys player Christian Wilder – and the result is riveting rock & roll with a country edge. New single “Just Good Night” pulses with organ, as Young sings of almost maddening time spent alo...
“We’re bound to float that Malibu / with that flip-flop attitude, with that old-school mixtape playin'” Karen Fairchild sings in the opening verse of Little Big Town’s new warm-wearther anthem, just before the danceable chorus hits full groove. It all adds up to make it another lightning-in-a-rum-bottle hit for the voc...
Taking its name from the location of a music festival he once played in Northern California, “Calaveras County” finds Americana troubadour Jason Eady in a jauntier, more lighthearted mood than the gritty storytelling of his self-titled LP from 2017. Eady shares vocals with his wife Courtney Patton as he relays a feel-g...
Harper Grae reckons with the ghost of a mother she never really knew in “Bloodline,” the Alabama native’s new single and first release from a forthcoming EP and video series. Her uptempo, stomp-and-clap arrangement has traces of the rafter-rattling folk of the Lumineers, but Grae’s a platinum-voiced country-pop singer ...
With new song “This Town’s a Drag,” Cordovas announced That Santa Fe Channel, their latest album, due August 10th, and their first for ATO Records. Produced by the Milk Carton Kids’ Kenneth Pattengale, “This Town’s a Drag” takes stock of a “straight-laced” town with “no drugs” or anything too fun to be found. The track...
Sometimes the fear of god is more unsettling than any demons the mind can muster. In “I’m Afraid,” ex-Show Ponies member Jason Hawk Harris channels the confession of a childhood friend scared stiff by his mother’s unsettling piety, pairing it with a ripcord beat, boogieing piano, and electric guitar that tears off note...
With their two newest songs, Florida Georgia Line took something of an unexpected left turn into roots-pop, suspenders and all. While the duo’s new single is “Simple,” the rollicking song they performed at the CMT Awards, it’s the b-side “Colorado” that really steals the ole medicine show. With its twangy guitar and Ap...
Husband-wife duo the Dryes sing their origin story in the slinky “Amen,” mingling potent sexuality with the salvation of love. “I met him singing in the church choir, lit up my heart like that holy fire,” sings Katelyn Drye over a scuzzy guitar riff that recalls Norman Greenbaum’s classic “Spirit in the Sky” and a stru...
While other songs on his exceptional LP Passionate Kind mine social issues and a worldly view, the title track, a gentle folk ballad about a complicated woman – whose complications are worth dealing with – is as romantic and refreshing as it is barbed with cautionary wisdom. “She knows every line of Shakespeare by hear...
Whistles, horns and a slew of New York City allusions highlight Ana Egge’s “Girls, Girls, Girls,” the breezy opener of the Brooklyn folksinger’s new album White Tiger. Egge celebrates a New York that felt welcoming to all: singing with a Joni Mitchell croon and the wide-eyed optimism of an artist new to her city. But t...
FEAR continues a late-career renaissance that began with 2004’s Marbles. It’s a totally uncompromising record; 68 minutes made up of just five lengthy songs with no obvious radio-friendly singles. Politically charged lyrics alternate between sadness and anger, and rich, layered instrumentation references common Marilli...
The FBI has opened up an investigation into cyberattacks that targeted a California Democrat who eventually lost a tight House primary race earlier this year, according to Rolling Stone, citing a source close to the campaign.
The inquiry centers on distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the campaign website for Bryan Caforio, who finished third in the June primary. He was running in California’s 25th Congressional District, which is represented by Republican Rep. Steve Knight and is considered a seat that Democrats could flip ...
The attacks involved creating artificially heavy traffic on his website that forced the hosting company to block access to bryancaforio.com four times before the primary, including during a crucial debate and in the week before the primary. No website data was accessed from the site during the attacks.
An FBI spokesperson told The Hill that the agency “does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations."
Two other California Democrats — Hans Keirstead and David Min — were also victims of cyberattacks against their campaigns, raising the question of whether sufficient protections to guard against cyberattacks were put in place. They, too, were running in tight House races.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report lists all three races as toss-ups.

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