Writer: Joshua Andino
2 min read May 2023— With thousands of jobs coming to Clarksville, the city is hard at work ensuring it has sufficient housing as new residents start to settle in the area.
“Our theme for this year is thoughtful growth. We are combating sprawl by creating four new economic redevelopment districts in our Downtown core to support urban development. … We are trying to look inward to solve our housing opportunities instead of continuing to look out into the more agricultural areas,” said Buck Dellinger, president and CEO of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Economic Development Council, in an interview with Invest:.
The city is expecting 40,000 new residents and about 3,800 new jobs over the coming years as a result of a number of corporate relocations and expansions, key wins for the region’s economic development that include Hankook Tire and LG Chem – the largest foreign direct investment in Tennessee’s history.
“We’re still three years out from when those jobs will really start to arrive. The most jobs we’re expecting in the next three to five years is about 1,100 in a single year,” Dellinger said in a separate statement to the Nashville Business Journal. “Only in 2026, LG Chem and Hankook, their phase two and three [developments] are kind of rolling in at the same time, will we have over 1,000 new jobs rolling in at the same time. The rest of that 3,800 is spread out over a five-year period.”
In preparation, the city has been incentivizing development, working alongside community partners and rezoning lots to provide varied housing stock, including affordable single-family homes through its Going Local Initiative, multifamily properties developed from adaptive reuse projects and executive housing, explained Dellinger.
“Based on our growth of 7,000 new industrial jobs, there is added drive to build housing that is affordable and attainable by everyone in the community. At the same time, we are not just considering affordable housing. We are looking at the whole level of socio-economic development. As we look to recruit corporate headquarters, we know that we have to also build houses that corporate executives are going to want to live in.” Deillinger said. “That is the easy button, because developers can make money on that. On the other hand, attainable housing, from a zoning perspective, means smaller lots and higher density. Our city council and county commission have updated zoning regulations to allow smaller options in our neighborhood.”
Current macroeconomic headwinds have reduced the rate at which new housing has been built. In 2020, Clarksville saw 2,300 homes built. That number has since fallen to about 1,800 a year, explained Jeff Tyndall, director of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Regional Planning Commission, in his statement to the NBJ. Builders are no longer working on speculative projects, confident that they will sell relatively quickly. Now, most are focused on building to contract, a result of today’s higher interest rates and reduced demand. “They’ve got the lots secured but they’re not going to start a home unless they’ve got a contract in hand,” Tyndall said. As it stands, 8,500 single-family lots are being prepared and more than 2,000 have been approved. The city is seeing construction permits hold steady at just over 100 a month, providing a steady, stable stream of new housing over the next five years
Officials are well aware that additional, accessible units will be key to the city’s success. In his interview with Invest:, Joe Pitts, Clarksville’s mayor, said, “What we can do is increase the availability of housing stock. If we can increase supply, we hope it can stabilize the prices.”
For more information, visit:
https://www.clarksvilletned.com/
Images via Clarksville Montgomery County EDC
