“Land use planning in Tennessee will become a thing of the past.”

This was said by George Nolan, the Tennessee director of the Southern Environmental Law Center. “There will be a cottage industry of lawyers who specialize in suing local governments on behalf of landowners that are upset about zoning restrictions.”

Tennessee lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow property owners to sue governments for enacting land use regulations.

The bill would work like this: A local government passes a zoning law or other restriction on land use on or after July 1, 2027. A property owner, likely a developer, can request an exemption to the law to change the use of their property. If the government says no, then the landowner can sue the government for lost property value and attorney fees.

The legislation is sponsored by Tennessee state Rep. Tim Hicks, R-Gray, a housing developer who owns Hicks Construction Company near Johnson City. He said the goal of the legislation is to protect property owners from losing financial opportunities to develop their land in the future.

Tap link in bio for the full story and follow along for more updates from our Environmental Reporter, Caroline Eggers.

Photo 1: Courtesy Nati Harnik/Associated Press
Photo 2: Pierce Gentry / WUOT
Photo 3: Courtesy Devin Schultz
Photo 4: Courtesy Richard R / Unsplash

Country music artist John Anderson had every intention of carrying on with his bluesy, downhome crowd-pleasers like “Black Sheep,” “Swingin’ ” and “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be a Diamond Some Day)” among them.

Then hearing issues stopped him in his tracks.

Roughly 25 years ago, he first had an issue with an ear that had been scarred by numerous childhood ear infections. The doctor he initially saw was doubtful he could perform the procedure Anderson required. " ‘I’m afraid to do any work on this ear at all,’ ” the singer recalls, ‘but I have a colleague who, if anybody can fix it, he might can.’ ”

That colleague was Dr. David Haynes, professor of otolaryngology, neurosurgery, hearing and speech sciences at Vanderbilt Health, with the top anechoic chamber in the world.

Tap link in the bio for more on this story by Senior Music Writer Jewly Hight @jewlyhight

Photos: Jewly Hight

Brooke Vespoli proudly claims the pop genre. She is a pop musician in Nashville, a place not known for pop music.

"Claiming pop is important to me" she told Music and Culture reporter Justin Barney. Adopting the genre of pop is a bit of a turn, because for the past couple decades there has been an effort to get rid of music labels to broaden the industry and up inclusivity.

When she moved to Nashville she didn’t even know what a mix was or how to produce music at all. She started experimenting. “I wanted to do performance art in Nashville” she said. At the time she was trying to figure out the connection between her music and her body.

She focused on movement. It planted the seed. And then one day, the way she should make music clicked and the Dancer First Philosophy came to her.

Follow along for more music reporting and tap link in bio to subscribe to the NashVillager — our 5-day-a-week newsletter with local and national stories + ticket giveaways.

Photo 1: Elizabeth Marsh
Photo 2 & video: Justin Barney
Photo 3: Elizabeth Marsh

Sports, education, music — quotes of the week is back, bringing you the quotiest quotes from our local stories.

We had a lot of gems from @thisisnashville_wpln profiles including an Olympic Gold Medalist, a public school teacher who performs drag, one of the few Black artists to ever crack the Billboard country charts and a director from Music City Baseball.

Plus a quote from Nashville musician book NOT brooke, who proudly claims the genre of pop (and wants to make you dance).

Tap link in bio for more stories and to listen to This is Nashville.