Hendersonville, TN Short-Term Rentals: Parking Rules (2026)

Hendersonville treats off-street parking for short-term rentals as a substantive condition of the Engineered Site Plan that must be approved by the Planning Department before the Use and Occupancy Permit is issued by the Codes Department. The site plan must demonstrate adequate on-site parking (driveway, lot, garage, or designated paved area) to accommodate the dwelling's stated maximum sleeping capacity without forcing guests to spill onto neighborhood streets. The Hendersonville Zoning Ordinance (Title 14 of the Municipal Code) sets the underlying off-street parking standard for the Old Town Commercial (OTC) and General Commercial (GC) zoning districts where STRs are permitted - typically calculated on a per-square-foot, per-room, or per-bedroom basis depending on the use classification. The site plan is reviewed by the Planning Department (planning@hvilletn.org, 615-264-5316) and must also address ingress/egress safety, exterior lighting, and life-safety. Once the Use and Occupancy Permit is issued, the operator is responsible for enforcing the parking arrangement against guests and for ensuring that the property's parking continues to satisfy the site plan over time. Patterns of guest-parking complaints tied to a Hendersonville STR address are tracked by the Codes Department and can be cited at permit renewal as grounds for non-renewal. For the small pool of pre-October-2016 legacy STRs in residential zones operating under TCA 13-7-603 protection, parking-related citations count toward the three-strike legacy-termination threshold that permanently disqualifies the property. The city's residential streets - particularly the Old Hickory Lake waterfront neighborhoods (Indian Lake Road, Bonita Parkway, Walton Ferry Road, Sanders Ferry Road) where investor interest in STRs has been highest - are subject to standard on-street parking rules and to neighborhood-specific posted restrictions. The Engineered Site Plan requirement is uniquely demanding compared to most Tennessee STR frameworks - many Middle Tennessee cities require only a simple parking diagram, while Hendersonville expects an engineer-stamped site plan addressing parking, ingress/egress, lighting, and life-safety together.