At a joint workshop Thursday with the Board of Mayor and Aldermen and the Municipal Planning Commission, Burger said she believes some areas east of Interstate 65 are already saturated with apartments. She asked staff to clarify how many multifamily units have been built in the Berry Farms area and how many approved units there have yet to be constructed.

“I’d like to know basically how many multifamily has already been built in the Berry Farms area,” Burger said, adding that she also wanted figures for units approved but not yet built along the corridor.

Franklin’s 2025 Development Report lists 9,307 approved multifamily units, about 70.5% of all approved residential units. The category includes apartments and may include other buildings with multiple homes; the city tracks townhomes separately.

The total is not a count of apartments under construction. Some projects were approved years ago and may be delayed, changed or never built, so the number alone does not show how much housing will enter the market or whether the city has an oversupply.

Burger said she would prefer to limit apartment development in some parts of Franklin and include more housing in mixed-use projects. The workshop also raised concerns about traffic, emergency access and how new buildings fit into established neighborhoods.

Developers and other city leaders emphasized a different pressure: workers who cannot afford to live near their jobs. Jeff Hines of Catalyst Design Group spoke in support of a proposed workforce-housing project intended for households earning less than 80% of the county’s area median income.

The project, Hines said, is meant to help “allow folks to live in proximity to their work.” Another city official said Franklin needs more workforce housing.

Regional market figures offer context but do not resolve the question for Franklin. A second-quarter 2026 report by Matthews Real Estate Investment Services put apartment construction in the Franklin-Brentwood submarket at about 12.5% of existing inventory. Across the Nashville metropolitan area, vacancy was 5.4%, down from 6.21% in the prior quarter. The region absorbed 2,755 apartment units during the quarter, while 1,189 new units were delivered.

Those regional numbers suggest the wider market continued to absorb housing, but they do not establish supply and demand in Franklin specifically. Assessing whether the city has too many apartments would require local information such as vacancy, occupancy and the pace at which new units are rented.

Franklin’s population has grown by more than 20,000 people since 2015, according to the city’s development report, increasing demand for homes and infrastructure. The competing priorities are how to accommodate that growth, where development should be concentrated and whether housing options will be affordable to the people who work in the city.

No votes were taken at Thursday’s workshop. Individual proposals will continue through the city’s review and approval processes.