GALLATIN, Tenn. (WKRN) – Gallatin is growing quickly, but one city council member said that growth needs to be more responsible. 

​

Councilman Pascal Jouvence moved to Gallatin from California to get away from all the homes, traffic, and construction.  

 

“We came here to avoid that and what’s happening now, and what I see happening it’s what happened in California where very piece of land is going to disappear in order to be built up, and that’s not what Tennessee is and that’s not what Gallatin is,” said Jouvence, who represents District 3.

​

However, Jouvence did say Gallatin is on a path to be like California in no time. He showed News 2 the number of new homes in the pipeline.

 

“I actually printed it because there’s so much going on that I can’t remember everything,” said Jouvence, holding the city documents with the list of future projects.  

 

News 2 met Jouvence off St. Blaise Road where more than 500 homes will be built, including multi-family, townhomes, and single-family homes. 

 

“We’re going to almost double the population in five to 10 years,” he said. 

​

Jouvence said the recent census shows 17,000 households in Gallatin, and the city documents have about 13,000 new units at all different stages. He believes the city’s utilities will be able to keep up, but he’s concerned about paying for new roads, civil servants, and schools. 

​

“When we grow the population without growing public services, we’re going to have a problem somewhere,” said Jouvence. “Not anti-growth…understand that growth needs to be there, because the city needs the revenue, but that needs to be responsible and what I see right now, it’s not.” 

​

Jouvence is calling for an impact fee that would be paid by developers. In fact, the idea passed the first reading at the city council meeting. With a second reading coming up, it will eventually need approval from the legislature, too. 

​

Overall, Jouvence would like to see a pause on Gallatin development and a comprehensive plan for its future. 

 

“We need to stop approving every rezoning medium or high density in the city.  If it’s zoned for low density, we need to do that,” he said. “I think of these people who live there where just a year ago there was farmland, and now they have that noise all day long. It’s ridiculous.”