Business View Civil and Municipal | March 2021

122 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL MARCH 2021 LA VERGNE , TENNESSEE Located in Rutherford County, La Vergne is only 20 miles southeast of Nashville and directly borders Antioch to the northwest, Smyrna to the southeast, and Percy Priest Lake on the northeast. Interstate 24 and U.S. Routes 41 and 70S run through the community and the Percy Priest Reservoir on the Stones River sits north of the municipality. La Vergne’s proximity to the world’s country music capital, plus its wealth of outdoor recreation opportunities, has boosted the city’s population from just over 32,000 in the 2010 census to more than 42,000 in a special census taken in 2019. Economic Development Specialist, Thomas Broeker, reports, “The growth that has already happened and the growth we are expecting has caused the city to jump into action. Estimates project that we’ll go as high as 65-70,000 in the next 10-15 years. I would say in the current Nashville region we’re pretty much experiencing explosive growth.” To help accommodate that growth, Mayor Cole and city aldermen have spent two years developing a new master plan: updating zoning regulations, finishing a major thoroughfare project, completing parks and recreation master plans and have come up with a strategic plan spanning the next 20 years to ensure infrastructure keeps up with growth. Because, as Cole attests, “It’s important for our municipal government to try to pilot this city. We’re land- locked, so our growth is limited to what we already have, and we have to use that wisely.” Fine tuning the ordinances is something the city has worked hard on to spur the growth. Broeker states, “We know it’s coming, it’s coming all around us. It’s just being part of the Nashville region, but the current and the previous Mayor and aldermen have worked very hard on updating ordinances that are getting us on the same page as other cities and other municipalities around us. While we don’t like to Mayor, Jason Cole Economic Development Specialist, Thomas Broeker