How Tennessee Is Building A Center For Smarter Local Planning

Tennessee is growing fast, and the pace of change is showing up in the most tangible way possible: land. New research shared with state and local leaders shows massive conversion of agricultural and forestry acres into development, with losses continuing at a striking daily rate. 

Transcript

The Land Loss Wake Up Call

Josh Suddis And His Path

Speaker 1 0:04

In late 2022 and early 2023, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture began seeking accurate Tennessee data on losses of agricultural and forestry land to development. With support from the UK Institute of Agriculture and the UT Institute for Public Service. Collected data was analyzed by the UT Agricultural Institute of Agriculture, Dr. Charlie Martinez, and presented to key stakeholders. Data shows that from 1997 to 2017, 1.1 million acres of the equivalent land mass of four counties were converted out of agriculture and forestry production. Since 2017, a loss has equaled 86,588 acres per year, or 237.2 acres per day, or 9.8 acres per hour. The projected cumulative loss is estimated to be approximately 2 million acres, the equivalent of eight counties lost to production by 2027. As a result of those findings, a working group determined that additional attention to local planning is warranted. In 2025, the Tennessee General Assembly approved funding to create the Center for Local Planning at the Institute for Public Service. Hi, and welcome to In Touch with Tennessee, a podcast of the UT Institute for Public Service. Joining us today is the Center for Local Planning's Executive Director, Josh Suddath Welcome, Josh.

Speaker 1:47

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 1:49

So tell us a little bit about your background.

Speaker 1:53

Sure. So I'm a native Tennessean. I was uh born and raised in uh northwest Tennessee at Wigley County, a little town called Gleason, Tennessee. Graduated from high school in the in the late 90s and had the opportunity to serve, serve a country in the Marine Corps after that, spent about four and a half years in the military and uh finished that up and went to went to college and grad school at ETSU out in Johnson City, Tennessee, uh, where I studied uh planning and development. From there I went to work in back in West Tennessee again, uh for the town of Collierville, where I ended up uh becoming an assistant town administrator there. Spent about six or seven years in in Collierville, um, about six years, I guess it was, and uh went from there went to work for T D Dot, the Tennessee Department of Transportation for a couple years, where I worked in the Long Range Planning Office and transitioned from there to uh Sumner County government, where I uh I worked for the I worked as the uh the director of planning and engineering uh for about seven and a half years there and came on board here at the University of Tennessee in in in October of this past year. So I've been on board about five months now finding my footing and hiring staff and working with folks across the across the state on a variety of issues.

Speaker 1 3:10

Okay. All right, yeah. Well, that kind of takes me into my next question. I mean, what has your schedule been like since coming on board in October?

What The Center Actually Does

Speaker 3:17

It's been busy. It's been very busy. So, you know, just the the the the normal coming into a new organization and learning how the yeah how the how the copier works and all the all those things, but you know, learning how the how to paperwork and hiring process and all those things go. So that's been great. It's been you know, been tough just absolutely fantastic working with everybody here at IPS. I I can't say enough positive things about about the culture and the folks here, just how helpful and and professional everybody is. But it it's been it's been been a learning experience in that regard, just learning how everything works. But I tell you, just traveling the state is one thing I've been doing a whole lot of and of going to talk to different groups about you know what what this organization or what this this new agency is going to do. I mean talking about issues like you know, housing and rural preservation and those kinds of things on panels and and that kind of stuff. And speaking at conferences and doing doing podcasts and that kind of thing like this. It's just been a whole lot of meeting a lot of new people and and just listening, really, a lot of listening hearing what what issues are, what people need help with, and and building up a team to help address all those needs.

Speaker 1 4:28

Okay. All right. Now, how is the center going to operate in terms of assisting with local planning? I know the initial talk was, you know, the Institute for Public Service was the right place for this center because of our center, our county technical assistance service and municipal technological advisory service working with local governments.

Speaker 4:52

Yeah. Yeah. So I I I try to explain it to folks because I get that question a lot. You know, people people wonder, you know, what exactly are we going to be doing? And, you know, I try to uh explain it this way. We're gonna be be kind of like CTAS and MTAS, but for planning. So and so what what we'll be doing is is the stuff that that IPS does so well and that I I have enjoyed, you know, in my previous roles in city government and county government, working with the folks at IPS, you know, what they do better than just about anything, I think, is is they they help to extend the capacity of local governments across across our state. And that's what we're gonna plan to do with regard to planning. And so that's you know, that could take the form of assisting with you know updates to some required planning document documents that are required by by state law that every county has to have on the books. We'll we'll be looking at those and assisting counties if they want help with uh with the and cities as well of updating those kinds of documents as part of growth management and that kind of thing. We'll be be providing technical assistance, you know, in the way that that MTAS and CTAS do, very similar to that. You know, when we get questions, if if problems come up and issues and questions and concerns uh come up among city staff or planning commissioners and city city council members, commissioners, would we help to uh you know to investigate that, do some research and let them know, you know, here's here's what the the statute allows you to do or doesn't allow you to do, here's what your regulations say, and and get them a written answer on on how to how to how to how to deal with that particular issue. And we'll be you know doing policy research and guidance where we'll be doing best practice manuals. If a new statute comes down from the state legislature that imposes a new requirement on local governments, we'll we'll get some documentation out there to them to help them understand how what they need to do to comply and what the best practices are as far as compliance. That'll be a big area. We've done a little bit of that recently, and we've published a uh uh policy manual um related to some development fee requirements that the legislature has imposed as part of a new law that was adopted last year.

Speaker 1 7:04

Right.

Speaker 7:05

Another another real biggie will be education and training. The folks here at the Center for Local Planning will be working with planning directors and planning staffs, planning commissioners, boards of zoning and fields members, city councils and county commissions to learn the basics and brush up on the you know what the law uh requires and and and also more advanced uh planning concepts and and things that that you need to do to run an effective meeting at the planning commission, that kind of stuff. So we'll we'll be doing all that to uh uh you know with regard to training for all the all those folks, which is something else that's required by by state law every year for those local governments. We'll be providing assistance with that. Data mapping is another big area. We're we're in the process of hiring a GIS project manager right now. And GIS for anybody that doesn't know is a geographic information systems that's mapping, basically assisting local governments uh with updating maps and uh making maps and maybe maintaining a repository of of maps here at at uh at UT as well. That that'll be uh I think that'll be a pretty popular uh service. That will that's one that we'll need to keep an eye on because um I think there'll be a whole lot of demand for for assistance in that regard.

Speaker 1 8:20

Right, right. Now you are based in Nashville, but your employees will be across the state, correct?

Speaker 8:26

That's right, yeah. So I'm I'm here in Nashville at the uh the the Polk IPS facility. We will have we'll have staff members in West Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and East Tennessee. Um there'll be at least a couple of folks uh in each grand division um with some more support staff here in Middle Tennessee to provide that assistance to local governments.

Mission To Manage Growth Well

Speaker 1 8:46

Okay, great. Well, and you've kind of already covered this, but what is the mission for the center?

Speaker 8:54

Well, you know, the big picture, you know, the the we're we're we're focused on assisting local governments with managing growth. As we know, there's a whole lot of growth that's going on across the state of Tennessee these days, has been for a while. And it's coming to places that that really haven't experienced it very much and don't really have the tools or the uh the regulatory ability to to to handle it. They don't have the staff and they don't have the you know their their ordinances if they exist, maybe they haven't been updated in a long time. So we'll be helping those those local governments to to meet the challenges of rapid uh development and population growth. And like I said, to function as an extender, an extender of of uh their their capacity that they have and and to help foster good planning across the state and to advocate for it, you know, whether that's you know, working with higher education institutions to have more robust planning programs at the graduate level or uh you know training and those kinds of opportunities for for younger planners and that kind of thing. But that's that's a conversation I have a whole lot with county mayors and city mayors across the state is you know is is you know invest in planning. And if that's you know, hiring hiring staff internal to your to your organization, that's great. If it's working with a development district and having a contract with that that organization to help you uh get planning assistance, that's another great thing. But yeah you can't go wrong with with with investing in planning, and that that's a big part of what we hope to to drive home across the state.

Speaker 1 10:27

All right, okay. And so I know you know you haven't been in operation for even a year now, but what do you ultimately see for this center?

Speaker 10:38

Well, you know, we'll be we'll be staffed out, hopefully, you know, this time next year. I think hopefully we'll have everybody, we'll certainly have everybody on board by then. But I actually I'll be more ambitious and I'll say by by the end of this calendar year, uh we'll have we'll have everybody on board. And it'll be a a total of probably about 12 people across the state, which is not a lot, a whole lot of people when you're talking about a state the size of Tennessee with with 95 counties and uh 340-something municipalities. What we'll hopefully be able to do is to use the resources that we have and that the General Assembly has been wise enough to, you know, they've they've been great to invest this in in planning across the state and use those resources to uh partner with local governments, like I said, to help them help them meet the challenges of growth and be a resource for them when they do confront challenges and problems and questions related to to growth and development.

Training Plans And How To Reach

Speaker 1 11:34

Right. Okay. All right. Is there anything else that you'd like to tell us about um the center?

Speaker 11:41

Uh no, I don't think so. Not not just, you know, we're we're working on on new things and we've working on a few little pilot programs and that kind of thing as far as uh planning commissioner training. We're gonna have a Planning Commissioners Academy, and that's a joint effort between my office, MTAS and CTAS, um, that we're we're gonna be rolling out here later on, later on this year. But there's lots lots of other stuff, new new staff members coming on board here in a couple weeks to get start getting the getting the office staffed up, very excited about that. And you know, just for anybody that that might be listening, that uh just just know that we're here as a resource if you work in local government and and you're here in the planning world. Um, we're here to help in in in any way that we can.

Speaker 1 12:24

Okay. All right. Sounds good. Well, thanks for uh joining us today and and telling us a little bit about the Center for Local Planning.

Speaker 12:31

Yes, well, thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 1 12:34

And thank you, listeners. Be sure to look for In Touch with Tennessee, where you find your favorite podcasts.