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Why is the Bells Bend/Northwest Nashville area so empty/bare?


MagicPotato

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49 minutes ago, jmtunafish said:

The May family did want to develop their property in Bells Bend which they said would "rival CoolSprings."

 

That could have balanced out Nashville a bit.  If it was successful,  it probably could have caused the housing market in that area to blow up. Probably make it dense enough to flow into Ashland  city.  Any reason why it failed?

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16 minutes ago, MagicPotato said:

That could have balanced out Nashville a bit.  If it was successful,  it probably could have caused the housing market in that area to blow up. Probably make it dense enough to flow into Ashland  city.  Any reason why it failed?

Probably local opposition. They want a quiet community that is separated from the hustle of the rest of the city. I’m cool with it, let the rest of the city dense up. Think of this area as a “reserve” for future expansion considerations ;)  

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Local opposition, high cost of development, very little infrastructure in place to name a few. The closest fire station is a good 10 to 15 minute drive from BB. That is station 24 on Clarksville Pike. There are no schools close by. One elementary off Eaton's Creek a middle school off Kings Lane I think,  and the closest HS is Whites Creek that serves all of northwestern Davidson.

The people in this part of the county want it to remain agricultural. Any major development will be fought tooth and nail by those same people. 

When Bells Bend was proposed, they fought it and the roads are not in place to handle the additional traffic. It would have cost a lot to put another bridge over the Cumberland too.

 

Development here, not in the next 20 years as the last 20 has seen nothing but a subdivision a the Eaton's creek and  Briley area. It may be longer than 20 maybe even 30 or 40 years before anything substantial happens out here. I could be proven wrong, but I doubt it.

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It's beautiful country out there, but I wish it were completely natural, because it'd make a perfect nature preserve/wildlife sanctuary.  Instead it's mostly agricultural land pockmarked with a few spotty sections of old growth forest.  

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Ah, Vancouver...I love that place. Only spent like 12 hours wandering the downtown and Gastown areas and I was amazed by it. It's like the city was built by an extremely talented player of SimCity.

15 hours ago, MagicPotato said:

Bells Bend area looks great for building new neighborhoods. It's still relatively flat. Over the Cumberland river it's like straight nothing lol.  

There's zero need to develop it. Let already built up areas get some infill before we even consider taking more precious farmland, green space, and natural area... A little part of me dies every time I see open space turned into another lifeless, cul-de-sac "Bumblefudge Reserve" or "The Plantation at Farmtown" development.

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10 hours ago, Nathan_in_DC said:

Ah, Vancouver...I love that place. Only spent like 12 hours wandering the downtown and Gastown areas and I was amazed by it. It's like the city was built by an extremely talented player of SimCity.

There's zero need to develop it. Let already built up areas get some infill before we even consider taking more precious farmland, green space, and natural area... A little part of me dies every time I see open space turned into another lifeless, cul-de-sac "Bumblefudge Reserve" or "The Plantation at Farmtown" development.

methinks you misspelled "the plantation at farmtowne".

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Topography and relative isolation are biggest reasons. It's just like how the metropolitan area sprawls significantly to the east and south because it's flatter and easier to build upon versus the steep grades and hills to the north and west. That said, eventually you could see Joelton and areas like that up on the higher and flatter side upon the Highland Rim versus the interface between it and the lower Nashville Basin. 

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3 hours ago, NashRugger said:

Topography and relative isolation are biggest reasons. It's just like how the metropolitan area sprawls significantly to the east and south because it's flatter and easier to build upon versus the steep grades and hills to the north and west. That said, eventually you could see Joelton and areas like that up on the higher and flatter side upon the Highland Rim versus the interface between it and the lower Nashville Basin. 

This is one reason why I get so incensed when some people sneer at Nashville's lack of "urbanity."  They simply look at Davidson County's population and divide it by the number of square miles and presume that the entire county is nothing but sprawlsville.  Yes, there's quite a bit of sprawl in Nashville, but, really, a huge chunk of Davidson County's population lives in some pretty densely populated areas.  Huge swaths of Davidson County are very sparsely populated, namely the northern and western parts of the county as you mentioned.  It is almost astonishing how few people live in Joelton, for example, even though it's directly on I-24.  There are some incredibly beautiful, thoroughly rural drives out that way that are more like rural Morgan County than Davidson.  I imagine there are people who live in Davidson County who don't even know what Bell's Bend is, even though it's just a few miles west of downtown, simply because there's nothing there and it's not easy to get to.  I like that Davidson County has those areas.  The following pictures are all in Davidson County.

Valley View Road in Joelton:

Image result for joelton tn sky

Bell's Bend:

Image result for bells bend

Ashland City Hwy which is between Joelton and Bell's Bend (literally just a few miles NW of downtown):

Image result for joelton tn aerial

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1 hour ago, MagicPotato said:

I never really been in that area, but the landscape looks magnificent.. They should at least turn it into a national park. That would be pretty cool. 

I’m not sure how that’s how it works, making an area a National Park. 

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Metro does have an 808-acre park in Bells Bend.  I've never been, but it looks like someplace I would love to explore:

http://www.nashville.gov/Parks-and-Recreation/Nature-Centers-and-Natural-Areas/Bells-Bend-Outdoor-Center.aspx

I think this is such a tremendous asset to Nashville.  By all means, Bells Bend should be kept the way it is.  I love that Nashville reveres its agricultural and rural heritage.  Not too far from Bells Bend is the 1700-acre Beaman Park which is another environmental education and recreation facility run by Metro.  Nashville is in such a beautiful area which, in my opinion, should be preserved and celebrated as much as possible.   Along with the nature centers at Bells Bend, Beaman Park, Shelby Bottoms and Warner Park, the state also runs the magnificent Ellington Agricultural Center and Tennessee Agricultural Museum smack in the middle of Crieve Hall.

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18 minutes ago, jmtunafish said:

Metro does have an 808-acre park in Bells Bend.  I've never been, but it looks like someplace I would love to explore:

http://www.nashville.gov/Parks-and-Recreation/Nature-Centers-and-Natural-Areas/Bells-Bend-Outdoor-Center.aspx

I think this is such a tremendous asset to Nashville.  By all means, Bells Bend should be kept the way it is.  I love that Nashville reveres its agricultural and rural heritage.  Not too far from Bells Bend is the 1700-acre Beaman Park which is another environmental education and recreation facility run by Metro.  Nashville is in such a beautiful area which, in my opinion, should be preserved and celebrated as much as possible.   Along with the nature centers at Bells Bend, Beaman Park, Shelby Bottoms and Warner Park, the state also runs the magnificent Ellington Agricultural Center and Tennessee Agricultural Museum smack in the middle of Crieve Hall.

It really is a blessing, you know. Having so much scenic, undevelopable land surrounding the city. I can be downtown and in 15 minutes be at Radnor Lake in the middle of mother nature. It's an appeal Nashville has over other metros IMO.

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