Murfreesboro workshop advances updates to city design guidelines, adds flexible open-space and material standards

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — City officials, Planning Commission members and consultants met in a joint workshop to review proposed updates to the city's design guidelines, including new open-space rules, a required three-layer "enhanced landscape" option for certain sites, separate standards for townhomes and industrial buildings, tighter guidance on metal panels, and language that would prohibit flat fuel-station canopies and apply similar requirements to car washes.

Consultant Kevin Gunther of Reagan Smith (the firm now operating as Pape Dawson) told the joint session that "one thing I do want to note is that these are adopted standards," and said the team had spent months with a stakeholder committee of local developers, architects and engineers to produce the revisions. The consultants proposed a chart that would categorize each land use by zoning to show where formal open space is "required," "optional" or "exempt," and to offer an "enhanced landscape" alternative where formal open space is not required.

Why it matters: The changes would alter what developers must provide on some sites and give staff clearer standards to apply during plan review. Committee members said the rewrite aims to reduce the…