Chamber of Commerce Luncheon

City Update from Gerald Herman- City Administrator

First I would just like to say what a lovely luncheon the chamber put on. The room in the new building is very functional and the meal was delicious. While I was taking notes and photos of the slide show, chamber president, Mandy Christensen, offered to send me the slides in an email. She did, and they will be included in this article. Thank you to Ms. Christensen for such a gracious offer. Note- This article will be rather lengthy since there are notes on each slide. There are 36 slides, but not all are filled with copious amounts of information.

As Herman opened, he noted the room that was being used. It was designed for the chamber to be able to hold its luncheons. There is a warming kitchen and the room will be available to citizens to use as well. The new fee structure was voted on and will be in place soon. He directed our attention to the handout on the table reminding citizens of the monthly reports the city puts out. These reports come from each department and give both productivity and performance information. You can find these here. If you click on the agenda packet, the reports are in the packet after the minutes.

The city is growing. All of middle Tennessee is growing. Herman himself came to White House 15 years ago. The low taxes, no state income tax, good community with faith, values, low crime, and good schools is what drew him and his wife. The reports that the city put out show how this growth impacts the city services. The growth that is happening now was not happening several years ago. There were no houses built in the previous recession. Once that ended, new developments take time. The developers find a property, a study has to be done, the planning process starts with the board, and then there is final approval. Over the last four years we have seen growth, but some of the developments that are being finished began in the late 90’s early 00’s. Two such developments are Cambria and Springbrook (renamed Hawk View)

This first slide shows planning board final approval and permits pulled for residential buildings. 2020 was the year of COVID, so it is an outlier. In the last four years, this graph shows that about 980 units were added averaging about 2 thousand people.

The next slide included a small list of the businesses have that moved into White House. Jersey Mike’s, Caliber Collision, The Meat Sweats, The Moringa Tree, and Scooter’s are just few that were listed. Herman says that there is a lot of coffee coming to town. There is discussion of a shopping center behind the water tower as well.

We are also seeing industrial growth. The 200 acres behind Lowe’s is being discussed at the Robertson County Economic Development board. There are several industries looking at moving into White House in this area. In this photo, the lots to the right of Lowe’s is the Advanex plant and headquarters.

The city of White House employs two building inspectors. They have been overwhelmed in the last year. The reason for that is the next slide. There have been 5318 units approved in White House with 1323 completed. This slide is the project of Ceagus Clark, planning director. It is a real time GIS website that will allow citizens to see what is being built, what has been built, and what is in the works in the city.

After discussing growth in builds, the slides moved on to traffic. The Gridsmart system has been installed in WH, adding new cameras to be able to monitor city traffic. The cameras give data each day and reports are generated from that data. Traffic in WH has not increased significantly.

Road improvements are needed. From McDonald’s to New Hall Road, HWY 76 needs to be widened and turn lanes added. That project was put into the gas tax through state law. It is still pending. It is not listed in the state’s three year program. From McDonald’s to the exit was completed. The state paid 90% of that and the city the other 10%. Businesses in that area are growing faster than TDOT can keep up with. The Days Inn property is under contract with a site plan coming soon. The Love’s built the roads around it, and the city tried to keep Love’s out, with no avail. The property owner behind the Love’s cleaned all of that up and put in another road. That property is under contract. The New Hall Road development is still in discussions as well. The city does not want that one, but is asking the developer for road improvements. (that is the Lennar/Burrus Ridge property)

Crosswalks and sidewalks are coming to this intersection. The property in front of Tractor Supply is also under contract. TDOT has a contract to start this project.

This is the property behind Grace Park Church on Hester. There is a road between Lowe’s and Advanex. That street will need to be made public. This is another state project, however the state has given an access grant.

The Sage Road/31W project has been the topic of discussion. The city decided not to wait for the state on that project. The city paid for the turn lane in the center, and bought property from the bank and the church. The company responsible for the right turn lanes on Sage and McCurdy, went bankrupt. The city is now working with the bonding company to get this project completed. There is a subcontractor working on the water line to the church. The storm water and right turn lanes are all that is left.

Tyree Springs is another area of road concerns that need improvement. Safe Harbor and Lennar Homes are building over there. Before occupancy is permitted, there needs to be a light at S. Palmers Chapel and Tyree Springs. After the new elementary school is built next to WH Middle School, HB Williams will be a K-2 school which should help with traffic over there. The developer has agreed to put in a traffic signal, and sidewalks that will connect the developments to the greeway. Willow Grove will need a north bound turn lane. Cedarbrook (development to the left of the top dirt patch in photo) will connect through the new development to Tyree with a roundabout at the connection to deter speeding.

Other projects include widening Sage Road, an extension at Pinson, widening N. Palmers Chapel, and widening Calista. Sage will become three lanes to Cardinal Drive. A sports bar is going in next to Deja Moo, storage units in front of the Standards, assisted living next to Tate’s, and town homes and single family homes next to that. Sage will need to be widened. With the almost 1100 homes being built behind Heritage HS, a road needs to be built to connect Pinson to the high school property. The design is almost done, and the only question is will there be any utility relocation. N. Palmers Chapel will be widened from the police station down. Poles need to be moved, and construction costs are up. The original quote was around $250k that is now at $500k.

Phase one of Calista road will be under design before the end of the year. There are three subdivisions on the right of Calista that will all connect with sidewalks. Concord Springs (top subdivision) is almost completed. The green space below Concord Springs is Calista Farms. They have given $500k toward the sidewalks.

Herman moved on to utilities. Recycling costs as much as trash right now. The city might need to look into charging for recycling. The current treatment plant can handle 1.2 gal/day, the new plant will be capable of 2.1gal/ day. If you look at this graph, they have found that the water increases in the system are due to high water fall in the city. As water fall increases, the amount of water in the sewer increases.

Gravity sewer connections are the most efficient of the various sewer types. The city is moving toward these connections. The grinders are the most expensive. They are roughly a half a million to replace. The city is phasing out the vacuum sewers. There are only two left, one on Calista and one on N. Palmers Chapel. As far as utility costs to citizens, there was a 3% increase for waste water but no increase for storm water.

The new treatment plant will cost $21 million. It will be completed in April. There is a new lab and electric room. Andy Cieslak, public works director, came from Florida where they had just built a facility just like this. He has previous experience with this type of plant and states that it will be an enormous improvement.

This main is at full capacity. It is being expanded from 12” to 18”. The money in orange on the graph came from COVID money from the state. The Sage Road developer is responsible for the blue private donation. The line is already completed from Sage to Advanex.

The city is aware of storm water issues. The old neighborhoods have ditches like the one on the left. They are problematic to clean. There are no issues in the new subdivisions with the new storm water systems as on the right.

Herman spent 28 years in law enforcement with 12 of those as a police chief. Fire and police departments are important to him. Fire calls are up in the city. Most of the calls are medical and not fire related. They try to add one firefighter per year. The number of medical calls will continue to rise as the population ages.

Crime rates have stayed relatively the same. Herman says, “We have well behaved people moving to WH.”

The library numbers have also stayed relatively the same over the last four years. Our library is unique in the area as we do not share it with other cities or the county. It is the same with our senior program. The senior program is the only program that saw a large decline in attendance. This dip was a combination of COVID and the director being hit by a car.

The tennis courts are underway. The new subdivision behind Kroger required the courts to be moved. The road will now connect from Indian Ridge to the new apartments. The courts themselves were old and needed to be replaced. There will be six new courts and a pavilion. The developer put in $215k toward the $1.8 million project. It is projected to be finished before March.

The soccer complex now host six fields. The lighting has been increased and there is a $600k grant to expand the parking lot. The city will need to match the funds, but the expansion will be used for the carnival. This will be completed in the next two years. The rec center is on the way. The building is 70k square feet and will be capable of hosting six practices or two games at a time.

The city is hiring. There are 120 full time positions at the city level. The city is down 7-8 positions. They are offering four weeks paid vacation when you start. The hardest positions to fill currently are police officers.

Finances are growing in the city. The city applies for as many grants as they can. The number one property tax generator is apartment complexes. In 2022, Twin Springs was completed and began paying their full taxes. Online sales taxes that could be collected in the state also led to the increase in tax money for the city. All of this will help with the new rec center.

Utility fees grow as the customer base grows. Even so, there is no property tax increase this year and the city has a clean audit.

The city of WH has a AA bond rating. There is really no set number of what a healthy city should run in the way of debt. Often people look at debt per person in straight dollars. This didn’t seem like the way to look at city debt. When you purchase a home, they look at debt to income ratio. This number is the percent of operating income used to pay the debt.

Herman closed with a video put out by Stratton DV Imaging narrated by Margot Fosnes, chief economic development officer of the Robertson County Economic Development Board.

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