River North UDO Update: What Nashville's Proposed Zoning Changes Could Mean

Metro Planning staff are working with stakeholders on a new round of changes to the River North Urban Design Overlay (UDO), according to an update posted on the Nashville.gov Planning Department site. The page was last updated August 11, 2026, and now includes draft text amendments and a map showing a proposed expansion of the Urban Zoning Overlay (UZO) in the area.

What River North UDO Already Covers

River North sits along the east bank of the Cumberland River, stretching from Spring Street north to the I-24/I-65 interchange. Most of the east bank falls within Nashville's Downtown Community, but this northern stretch is part of the East Nashville Community, which is why it carries its own overlay rather than falling under downtown's zoning code.

Nashville's Planning Department created the River North UDO to guide this stretch of riverfront, an area long used for light industrial and warehousing and hit hard by the 2010 flood, toward a different future: a mixed-use, higher-density neighborhood that takes advantage of its river location and proximity to downtown. The original overlay document envisions taller buildings, active ground-floor uses, and public access to the riverfront itself.

A UDO is a zoning tool, not a rezoning of allowed uses. It sets design standards for a defined area, things like building placement, height, materials, and streetscape elements, without changing what a property can be used for. Any development inside the boundary has to meet those standards before Planning staff will approve final site plans, and those standards carry the same regulatory force as the base zoning code.

What's Actually Being Proposed

According to the Nashville.gov Planning Department page, the current work in progress covers two things:

Text amendments to design standards. Planning staff has posted draft amendment pages covering revisions to structured-parking and building-material standards within the existing River North UDO.

An expansion of the Urban Zoning Overlay boundary. A companion map of the proposed UZO expansion area shows overlay coverage extending to additional parcels beyond the current boundary.

Both documents are posted directly on the Planning Department's overlay page for public review.

Where This Sits in the Process

As of the August 11 update, this is a staff-and-stakeholder drafting stage. It hasn't yet appeared as a filed bill before Metro Council.

For context on what that next step typically looks like, a previous round of River North UDO amendments did go through the full legislative process. Metro Council's public Legistar record shows an ordinance, filed as BL2024-614, that amended the River North Urban Design Overlay District across roughly 165 acres. That kind of change follows a defined path: Planning Commission review first, then a Council bill that goes through three readings before adoption.

If this current round of text amendments and UZO expansion follows the same path, expect it to move from staff drafts to a formal Planning Commission hearing before it reaches Council as a bill. Along the way, Nashville's standard UDO application fees give a sense of what that process involves: a new, amended, or canceled overlay application runs $2,800, while a modification application, used for major site-specific changes, runs $4,300. Those fees apply to property owners or developers requesting changes, not to the public process of tracking or commenting on them.

Why This Matters, and Who It Doesn't Affect

This update is squarely about larger-scale urban development. Urban Design Overlay standards, including the ones at play in River North, typically don't apply to single- and two-family residential uses. If you're planning a home renovation or addition elsewhere in Nashville, this specific change isn't the one to watch.

Where it does matter is as a signal. River North is one of the corridors Nashville has identified for taller buildings and mixed-use density along the riverfront, and this update shows the city actively refining the rules that will shape how that growth actually gets built, down to parking structures and exterior materials.

How to Follow This as It Develops

The Planning Department's Urban Design Overlay page hosts both the draft text amendment pages and the UZO expansion map for anyone who wants to review the specifics directly. Council bills, once filed, are searchable on Metro Nashville's public Legistar system, the same source that shows the area's amendment history. Watching both is the most direct way to track this from a staff draft to an adopted change.