Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the Mount Juliet Board of Commissioners. We have a workshop here. The City of Mount Juliet Board of Commissioners will hold a workshop on Monday, June 8, 2026 at 5.15 p.m. at City Hall 2425 North Mount Juliet Road. The purpose of the workshop is to discuss intrapital transportation project funding. The public is invited to attend and comment. At this point, we can open the floor for citizen comments if there's anyone here who would like to make a comment i'd invite you to come to the microphone give your name and address for the record please All right, seeing none, we'll close public comments. Mr. Martin, this is under your sponsorship, so I'll give you the floor, sir. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate it.

Appreciate the commissioners. Everybody's having a great day. We've got some much-needed rain. Matt's got together and been working very hard on the road project because I know this commission puts a lot of emphasis on infrastructure projects, so it has for years. I think Matt's got some exciting news about some projects the city's working on, and I'll turn it over to Mr. Matt. Mr. White.

Sorry, Mr. White. Sorry. All good. Matthew White, Public Works Director for the City of Mount Juliet. Today, we're going to talk about transportation projects and how we're going to fund them in the next few years. In the background of this slide, you all get the first preview of what the Central Pike interchange will look like. Totally joking. I thought I'd get some laughs out of that. It freaked some people out. First, we'll take a look back in the history of how we got to where we're at today. Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, there was an increased demand from the citizens to improve roadway capacity and reduce congestion, especially along Mount Juliet Road. Some of our initial transportation projects in Mount Juliet were our Mount Juliet Road widening phase one, which was completed in 2004, and Mount Juliet Road widening phase two, which was completed in 2012. Being born and raised here, I remember when Mount Juliet Road was two lanes all the way through.

People complain about traffic today, but it was nothing like it was back then.

It was not fun. We implemented our adaptive signal system in 2016. We constructed Golden Bear Gateway, which aka is the eastern connector, in 2017. And then we widened the bridge, Mount Juliet Road bridge, over I-40 in 2022. Over the last 10 years, there's been an increased focus on transportation projects from you all, the BOC. In 2017, the BOC committed funding to start a new batch of large projects in Mount Juliet. Those were Lebanon Road widening, South Mount Juliet Road widening, Old Lebanon Dirt Road widening, and Central Pike Interchange. We committed $2 million to TDOT to get started on that project. From 2021 to 2023, the BOC committed funding to start another large batch of projects. Those were East Division Street widening, Pleasant Grove Road widening, Beckwith Road widening, Golden Bear widening, Central Pike widening, and Central Pike Interchange. We committed an additional $25 million towards that project to get it in the 10-year plans. Where we're at today, so our number of projects has increased and the urgency from the citizens is increasing to reduce traffic in Mount Juliet. We have over 20 transportation projects currently budgeted, yet revenues have not been increased to fund the projects. Cost of construction is continually increasing. We have a 10-year capital improvement plan that I presented at the budget workshop showing $162.4 million over the next 10 years to complete all the projects, and those are city funds only, not including any grants. To date, we've had $23.2 million in voluntary contributions committed that we haven't received that full amount, but developments have committed $23.2 million. When you reduce that, we were left with a balance of 139.2 million to complete our projects.

And in front of you, I gave you a packet that shows the updated capital improvement plan.

Since the budget workshop, I have added Lebanon Road widening in there because I felt a consensus from you all to pursue that project. So the total has gone up to 162 million over the next 10 years. Also, the second sheet in your packet in front of you is the developer contributions tabulated from all developments that have been approved so far. It shows 23.2 million total. Continuing on where we're at, Mount Juliet is emerging as leaders in transportation projects. The number of projects we have here in Mount Juliet exceeds our peer cities, yet our peer cities have higher property tax rates than we do. Andy Barlow's former role at GNRC and my current role at GNRC has led to our increased ability to receive grants on projects. We have all of our projects set up really well in GNRC to receive grant funding when they're ready to get to construction. Over the past 10 years, we've had 20 grant funded projects get to construction. So that's a large number. A lot of those are pet, bike and ped and signal projects. A lot of our major road riding projects take a little longer to get to construction, but they're coming up in the near future. Where we're going, our transportation goals have always been safety first. We do a lot of projects to improve safety of our roadways. A close second is to decrease congestion along our roads in Mount Juliet. Also to increase connectivity, whether that's through development or through our capital projects. Another goal is to maintain our current transportation network at a high quality that includes pavement, signals, sidewalks, et cetera. And a goal of ours is to get our projects shovel ready and waiting on construction funding. But that takes time, as you all know. The tough talk is how are we gonna fund everything? Some options are increased revenues, whether that's property tax or that's changing our charter to do impact fees for developments. There's several different ways we can increase revenues. Another option is cut projects. I do not recommend this option. That only makes our projects more expensive in the future and doesn't really address our city's needs of increased safety and traffic relief. An example that I heard from recently, so when we were acquiring right-of-way on Old Lebanon Dirt Road, I was talking to one of our former mayors, David Wainick. He lives along Old Lebanon Dirt Road. And he was telling me when he was mayor in the 90s, late 90s, the city was actually pursuing old Lebanon dirt road improvements. He said at the time they did some preliminary design and some cost estimates. And they came up with a total of, I think the total project cost was going to be like $3 million. And the commissioner at that time said, it's too expensive. We can't do that. So they just canned the project and didn't move forward on it. Fast forward to today, the total project cost to do that project is $25 million. So it just shows that if you wait to do projects, they're just going to increase in cost over time. We need to get projects shovel ready, which means they're ready to start construction. That means getting engineering done, getting right away acquired, getting utilities moved out of the way and then wait and then look for ways to fund the construction of these projects if we're not going to increase revenues. Another option is start implementing IDDs or CBIDs that fund capital projects. So IDD is kind of a new thing. It stands for Infrastructure Development Districts. And I think you're all familiar with CBIDs if we've recently done one here in the city. So what is an infrastructure development district? So it's a new tool for funding capital projects through development. It was just enabled last year in the 2025 Real Estate Infrastructure Development Act, or what some people call it, RETA, in the acronym. It finances major capital infrastructure that can include roads, utilities, bridges, sidewalks, parks. it uses bonds repaid by special assessments on benefiting properties there's no recourse to city general funds or taxpayers it's a public private partnership so the developer builds the project and then the reimburse through the assessments on the property the city approves and gains dedicated public infrastructure yeah

Yeah.

Yeah. As long as the project shovel ready to go, that the developer don't have to go inquire right away on other people's properties and things like that. So that's why I said it's important for us to get the project shovel ready. So then when I develop, it comes in, it's ready to go and they can build it in the front end rather than the back end.

It can actually be this law was changed last year that you were referring to. It can be used for off-site improvements. It doesn't have to be improvements that are within the development.

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. And then CBID, what you're familiar with, it's more geared towards commercial business districts and downtowns. It can fund road improvements, but it's also, it serves purposes of maintenance, safety, landscaping, things like that within the downtown or business district. The goal of this type is to revitalize or maintain a vibrant business core. uh some of the key differences as i mentioned cbids more for a downtown commercial area when idd it can be applied to a straight residential development can apply to industrial or mixed use or commercial development can can apply to all types of developments the assessments for a cbid can go on forever but an idd has a max term of 30 years for the bond repayment So how IDDs fund road improvement projects. The municipality creates the district via petition, public hearing, and resolution. The bonds are issued and not backed by city credit. The proceeds reimburse the developer for the construction of roads and related infrastructure. Multiple developers can participate in one district for shared projects. Assessments levied on properties in the district collected like property taxes. Assessments continue for the bond repayment term, not just until the developer is reimbursed. And then the infrastructure is dedicated to the city upon completion. Also, the assessment funds can be used to pay for city's admin costs and attorney costs as well.

The assessment is done on the land, not on the home. Whereas on a voluntary contribution, often that money is baked into the price of the house. So the buyer of the home is incurring those additional costs to recoup for the developer. That's good to know. I didn't know that part. Whereas on the ICD or IDDs, it's tagged to the actual parcel. So the individual can sell their house. the tax is still tied to that parcel. So you can sell it four or five, six times and it's paid off in 30 years. So it doesn't get baked into the physical construction of the home that's bought and sold.

Okay. Good to know. uh the key benefits of an idd is no cost to existing taxpayers growth pays for its own infrastructure it accelerates development developers access upfront capital and that leads to faster road improvements it prefers preserves the city's budget frees general funds for other priorities economic growth can it can attract new homes businesses jobs and services There's a fair cost allocation benefiting property owners paid proportionally. And then there is local control. City retains approval, oversight, and land use authority. Gallatin just did the first IDD in Tennessee. It funded major upgrades to Big Station Camp Boulevard at SR 386. The particular development was a mixed-use project. It had retail, medical, offices, senior housing, townhomes, multifamily, senior families. And it was praised by city officials as responsible, efficient growth management.

Do what?

density apartment development. It's single family homes.

Really? Yeah. I thought it could be applied to like a mixed use.

I think it can, but it's hard to, it's a little bit difficult, he said, but it can, don't get me wrong.

I guess the assessment would be to the owner of the apartment complex and then he would distribute the assessment cost to each.

He said it could be done, but it's better suited.

Yeah. so what idd could look like for mount juliet uh potential projects that could benefit from idd or our golden bear widening phase two and phase three lebanon road widening east division street widening pleasant grove road lighting and beckless road lighting i think pleasant grove and beckless road are ideal candidates because we all know there's big developments coming along those two roads that we've heard of. And what I've learned is to do an IDD, you really need an initial big development to do the initial IDD. And then if other developments come later, they can join in. But from what I've learned, you really need a big project that can support the assessments on a project. No, it cannot. It has to be built by the developer and then the developers reimbursed back or the bonds repaid back. It can't. None of the funds can go to us. None of the assessment funds can go back to the city or the state to reimburse is what I've read. There's a lot of some research we still need to do on that. I think City Attorney started doing some research, but I don't know if she wants to address that.

So... um generally how it works is it goes through the idbs our industrial development board and it can either be that the special assessment is used to pay off a bond that the id idb gets or it can also pay the developer back for costs that they already incurred that they already paid to build the infrastructure so it can go either way developer that's all for the development and then i'll also comment on another comment you both made about how it can go towards off-site improvements i just want to clarify that this doesn't expand the city's ability to require road infrastructure it's still the same essentially test that we use now so it would be the same road improvements that you ask for or that you require in puds it's no different it just shifts who's paying for it that's it So you can't expand it. It still has to have a nexus and a proportionality to the development. It doesn't go far beyond that.

But it can be done outside of the development, the boundaries of the actual development.

As long as there is an essential nexus and a rough proportionality. Like I said, whatever you would ask for now in a PUD, it's the same exact thing. there's no expansion or more authority to ask for more just because you have these districts it's the same exact thing so bill to the transportation improvement plan yes as long as that development has a tie to whatever it is you're asking for in the transportation plan okay and also um gallatin's idd while it did get approved it is currently in the middle of unraveling just so everyone knows there is not a successful one to date since this has been passed why is that because they're very difficult to set up and because property owners all have to agree and so oftentimes they fall apart because property owners can't agree

that's why i was saying like a big develop a catalyst project a big development would be ideal because they can handle the assessments on their own they don't have to partner with other developments we have to tell somebody issue the bonds too that's kind of agreed to all this want them repaid yeah and like east division corridor we're seeing a lot of development along that corridor but it's all small development so in order to do this you'd have to get them all on board to join one district so that can be difficult i don't know It's something we would have to talk to each one to see if they're interested. But a lot of those developments on East Division have to spend their own money to do improvements. So it's kind of enticing. Don't do this temporary improvement. Save your money there. Join in on this IDD. You don't have to spend any of your own money to do it.

You use this bond to fund it.

That's a selling point, I guess.

And it's cheap money, right? It just rates AAA rated, whatever they're at now.

So if we were able to get all these projects funded by an IDD, which is, I mean, it's a long shot. But if we were, our 10-year CIP goes down from $162 million to $99 million, with the $23.2 million in voluntary contributions, the city's cost on that goes down to $76 million. And also, if we implement impact fees in the future, we change our charter, we would still be collecting those impact fees that would go to reimburse us for our engineering and right-of-way costs on these projects. In your packet, the third sheet is the revised CIP, assuming we did IDD on those projects I've mentioned. that just shows 99 million total over the next 10 years. So our next steps is city staff will try to meet with Gallatin to see how theirs went wrong, I guess, and learn from what they did and did not do. In July, I just learned that at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, there will be a speaker there discussing IDDs. So it would be good for you all can attend and ask any questions you have. I think we can learn a lot. Maybe a follow up workshop will be needed and to discuss more candidate projects for this type of funding idea. So the third sheet is assuming we did IDD on those projects I mentioned. projects there. If we were able to get it partnered with a developer to do IDD on those projects, our 10-year capital plan will go down $63 million. But again, that's a long shot. I mean, like East Division, it's going to take us to partner with a bunch of smaller developments to make that happen.

I think it's doable, but Any questions from you all?

Any other ideas to help fund these projects?

Well, we've got one from each division on the agenda tonight. Second reading, I believe.

Yeah, that's true.

And you can even go back to developments that have already been approved that have to commit road improvement funds towards road improvement.

You can go back to them and say, hey, join this. We'll do everything all together at once. It actually saves the developer money.

That would be an incentive.

Yeah.

Commissioner Giles got two things. I would think, though, that it would be it would be a little bit cleaner if we could get the developer to do that before second reading. Is that not correct? would have to be willing to do it they have to petition us it's not us telling them that they have to yeah we can't force anybody okay and then what i understood a while ago you said that um it has to do if you if you have other off-site improvements it has to do with that development in other words you couldn't have something on central pike that would benefit lebanon road

Correct.

Okay.

Yes. Even though the statute allows for you to do this, there's still constitutional limits to it. And that's what I was talking about, is those limits.

Okay. While we can't require it, we could sure educate some of the developers that's coming and at least give them some idea about because in order to get infrastructure first that's what that's what people want they want the infrastructure first before it comes which helps everyone in the city people want

People want infrastructure first and they want somebody else to pay for it. This is the only mechanism I know to get infrastructure paid for by somebody else first. Because if you point out why does an infrastructure come first and then you ask the question who pays for it, that only leaves them. So this is the only option that I know of that we can get to have infrastructure first and somebody else still pay for it.

Yeah. So quick question, and I think this is going to go back to the attorney. Is this going to basically, you know, like for these smaller developments, is that going to kind of push them out of the mix of development or is it only going to be, because again, I'm thinking, you know, if it's going to be a larger project, you know, is that going to be a concern there or is this only just for?

The developers have to ask for it.

there's going to be a cost to the smaller projects, right? If it's, say, a 20-acre parcel, obviously, the infrastructure cost can be

I would think it would depend on what you're asking them to build. Yeah. I mean, if you've got a 20-lot subdivision, you want to build a $10 million road. Sure. I don't think that's going to.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to look at is that, you know, is there a threshold that we need to be thinking about? I guess that's my question is, you know, because, again, I know the voluntary contributions is typically right around $7,500, but, you know.

That's what I was trying to explain, that it doesn't change your authority to ask for more. infrastructure improvements. It's still the same as we've always been doing. It's just changing who's paying for it. The taxpayer is paying for it instead of the developer. That's it. Okay.

The property owner. Yeah. Yeah.

The taxpayer.

Yeah.

Okay. Any other questions?

Great presentation. Yes, it is. And it always fakes the question. It's always been

Yeah. Multi-million dollar question.

They don't call me Million Dollar Matt for nothing. No, but please try to attend the July 15th thing.

We can get some more questions answered.

Anything else?

Thanks, Matt.

Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Nothing else before the board? With that objection, we will adjourn until 6.15 for public hearing. Hearing none.