Is Tollgate Village in Franklin or Thompson's Station?

Tollgate Village is in the Town of Thompson's Station, Tennessee — not the City of Franklin. The community is located just south of the Franklin city limit on Columbia Pike. The mailing address says Thompson's Station, the school zone is Thompson's Station, and the building permit goes through the Town of Thompson's Station Community Development Department. Real estate listings sometimes use Franklin as the closer-recognized city name, but the property record and the building jurisdiction are Thompson's Station.

Who issues deck permits for Tollgate Village?

The Town of Thompson's Station Community Development Department issues deck permits for Tollgate Village. Permits are submitted electronically through the GeoCivix portal. Two officials must sign off: the Town Planner (zoning, setbacks, neighborhood-specific covenants) and the Building Codes Official (structural review against the 2021 IRC R507 deck section). Inspections during construction — footing, framing, final — are also requested through GeoCivix.

When was Tollgate Village built?

Tollgate Village's master plan was approved in 2006. The recession that began almost immediately afterward slowed the build-out significantly through the late 2000s and early 2010s. The community recovered, with Crescent Homes and Lennar picking up much of the residential construction in the northern section, Phillips Builders building additional sections, and Regent Homes developing the Tollgate Village Town Center mixed-use multi-family component. Build-out continues through the 2020s with new sections still going up as of 2026.

Does Tollgate Village require HOA approval before building a deck?

Yes. The Tollgate Village HOA Architectural Review Committee reviews every exterior modification — new decks, replacement decks, screened porches, pergolas, covered structures, railing changes, and material swaps on existing decks — before the Town of Thompson's Station will issue a building permit. The HOA operates a "carefree lifestyle" model where exterior maintenance is largely handled across the residential sections, which means the ARC pays particular attention to changes that affect maintainable surface area. Typical review window is 2 to 3 weeks from a complete submission.

What kinds of homes are in Tollgate Village?

Tollgate Village has a mix of housing types: single-family detached homes built across multiple phases by Crescent Homes, Lennar, and Phillips Builders; townhomes in clusters near the Town Center; condominium and multi-family residential in the Town Center proper anchored by Regent Homes' Tollgate Village Town Center development; and mixed-use buildings with residential above retail. The architectural language across the community trends "southern vernacular style of yesteryears" — front porches close to the sidewalk, wood and fiber cement siding in soft palettes.

Tollgate Village, Thompson's Station TN: A Different Town, A Different Permit

If a contractor tells you they pulled a City of Franklin permit for your Tollgate Village deck, the work is on the wrong permit. This community is in the Town of Thompson's Station — its own incorporated municipality, its own building codes department, its own GeoCivix submission system. The fact that Tollgate Village is two minutes south of the Franklin city limit on Columbia Pike doesn't change the jurisdiction.

A lot of homeowners we talk to in Tollgate Village searched "Franklin TN" before they bought the house, settled on Tollgate because it's close to Franklin, and only later learned that the address on the property record is Thompson's Station. The mailing address says Thompson's Station. The school zone says Thompson's Station. The building permit, when the time comes to add or replace a deck, goes through the Town of Thompson's Station — not the City of Franklin and not Williamson County.

That single jurisdictional fact changes the whole permitting process for a Tollgate Village build. It changes which inspector shows up. It changes the code edition that applies. It changes the electronic submission system. It even changes the timeline expectation, because Thompson's Station is a smaller municipality with a different review cadence than Franklin.

This page is a working guide to what that means for a Tollgate Village deck — the Town of Thompson's Station permitting jurisdiction and submission process, the Tollgate Village master plan and its 2006-recession history, the housing mix (condos, townhomes, single-family) that affects how a deck integrates with the home, the HOA's "carefree lifestyle" exterior-maintenance posture, and the small calls we've learned to make on builds in this specific community across twenty-five years of working in southern Williamson County.

The Town of Thompson's Station Permit Process

The Town of Thompson's Station Community Development Department has three sub-departments that touch a deck build: Planning and Zoning, Building and Codes, and the broader Community Development office. The Town adopted the 2021 ICC suite — Residential, Building, Fire, Plumbing, Mechanical, Property Maintenance, Swimming Pool and Spa, and Existing Building Codes — effective January 1, 2025. So a Tollgate Village deck permit pulled today is reviewed against the 2021 IRC, which is the same code edition that applies in unincorporated Williamson County (Legends Ridge, Laurelbrooke) but a different edition than what applies in the City of Franklin (Westhaven, McKay's Mill, Berry Farms, Fieldstone Farms — all of which use the 2024 IRC).

The submission process runs through GeoCivix, the Town's electronic plan review portal. You upload PDF site plans, elevation drawings, material specifications. Two officials sign off before a permit issues:

The Town Planner — reviews the deck against the Tollgate Village master plan zoning, the setbacks, and any neighborhood-specific design covenants
The Building Codes Official — reviews the structural plans against the 2021 IRC R507 deck section

Both signatures are required. We've seen homeowners assume one signature was the whole process and try to start construction; the inspector shut it down. Both officials have to sign before any work begins.

Inspections during construction also run through GeoCivix. Footing inspection, framing inspection, final inspection. Each one is requested from the dashboard.

For a deck, the practical sequence in Tollgate Village is:

HOA / Architectural Review approval through Tollgate Village's HOA (typical 2-3 weeks for a complete submission)
Town of Thompson's Station permit submission via GeoCivix (Town Planner review, then Building Codes Official review)
Inspections during construction: footing, framing, final
Final walkthrough

Total elapsed time from contract to walkthrough on a typical Tollgate Village deck runs 6 to 10 weeks once the HOA approves.

The Master Plan That Survived the Recession

Tollgate Village's master plan was approved in 2006, when housing prices in Williamson County were near peak and lot inventory in the area was thin. The recession arrived almost immediately afterward. National housing prices plunged through 2008-2009, kept declining for several years, and the build-out of the Tollgate plan slowed dramatically. The community spent the recession years operating with a partial Town Center, partial street grid, and partial residential occupancy.

By the early 2010s, Tollgate Village had recovered enough that build-out resumed in earnest. Crescent Homes and Lennar picked up much of the residential construction in the northern section. Phillips Builders built additional sections. Regent Homes took on the Tollgate Village Town Center mixed-use multi-family component. The build-out has continued through the 2020s, with new sections still going up as of 2026.

The mix of housing types in Tollgate Village reflects that long, recession-spanning build-out:

Single-family detached homes built across multiple phases by Crescent, Lennar, and Phillips
Townhomes in clusters near the Town Center
Condominium and multi-family in the Town Center proper, anchored by Regent Homes' Tollgate Village Town Center development
Mixed-use buildings in the Town Center with residential above retail

The architectural language across Tollgate Village trends "southern vernacular style of yesteryears" — front porches close to the sidewalk, wood and fiber cement siding in soft palettes, rooflines that gesture at small-town Tennessee architecture from before the suburban era.

The Town Center — Retail at Walking Distance

Most Williamson County master plans either have a Town Center (Westhaven, Berry Farms) or don't (Laurelbrooke, Legends Ridge). Tollgate Village has one, on Columbia Pike, with shops, boutiques, dining, and a community plaza that anchors the daily rhythm of the residential streets around it. The mix changes over time as tenants come and go — local businesses lean toward services (salon, fitness studio, professional offices) and the food side runs toward casual restaurants and cafes.

The walkability is real for the residential blocks immediately adjacent to the Town Center; the further-out single-family sections are more car-oriented. That spatial division shows up in how decks are used in the community. The Town Center–adjacent townhomes have small back-yard decks that get used as supplementary outdoor space alongside the Town Center patios. The further-out single-family decks function as the primary outdoor entertaining space, the way they do in any conventional Williamson County subdivision.

The Architectural Review Committee

Every exterior modification to a Tollgate Village home — including new decks, replacement decks, screened porches, pergolas, covered structures, railing changes, and material swaps on existing decks — needs HOA Architectural Review approval before the Town of Thompson's Station will issue a building permit. The HOA is a "carefree lifestyle" association — meaning exterior maintenance is largely handled by the HOA across the residential sections, which keeps the visual palette tight but also means the HOA pays attention when a homeowner adds a new exterior structure that affects the maintainable surface area.

The submission packet typically includes:

A site plan showing the deck footprint, dimensions, and setbacks
Elevation drawings showing the deck's height above grade and the railing detail
Material specifications listing the decking line, the railing system, the post wraps, and the fastener system
Color samples or product cut sheets keyed to Tollgate's southern-vernacular palette
Construction timeline and crew access plan, especially for townhome and condo builds where shared driveways apply

Typical review window: Tollgate Village ARC turnaround in our experience runs about two to three weeks from a complete submission. The ARC pays particular attention to:

Material continuity with the southern-vernacular aesthetic. Wood-tone composites and PVC clear well; bright colors and slick contemporary finishes get reviewed harder.
Setbacks on townhome and condo configurations. The shared-wall and shared-driveway conditions in the Town Center–adjacent sections require precise setback drawings.
HOA-maintained exterior surfaces. A new deck increases the surface area the HOA is responsible for in some sections; that has to be coordinated with the maintenance contract.
Visibility from the Town Center walkways. Decks visible from public Tollgate streets and pedestrian areas get reviewed against street-elevation standards.

Building to IRC R507 in Tollgate Village

The 2021 IRC's R507 governs every deck we build in Tollgate Village. The mix of housing types means the structural details change based on which kind of unit you're building on:

Single-family detached. Standard footing, ledger, framing approach. IRC R403.1.4 minimum 12-inch footing depth below undisturbed grade. We typically pour 24 to 30-inch sonotube footings on Tollgate's stable south-Williamson clay subgrade. Half-inch lag screws or through-bolts at the ledger, Simpson DTT2Z lateral load anchors at the corners, step flashing layered correctly.
Townhomes with shared walls. The deck attaches to the home's structural framing without transferring load through the party wall. We engineer the ledger-to-framing connection on a per-unit basis and coordinate with the adjacent owner before any structural fasteners go through. Setback drawings on townhome decks are tight and the ARC reviews them carefully.
Condominium / Town Center multi-family. Deck or balcony additions on multi-family buildings often involve the building's HOA, the structural engineer of record from the original construction, and additional permitting layers. We don't typically take on multi-family balcony work without the building's structural review on file.

Hardware is Simpson Strong-Tie joist hangers, hurricane ties, and post bases throughout. Guards are 36-inch minimum height residential, four-inch sphere rule on balusters.

Materials That Match a Southern-Vernacular Palette

Tollgate Village's design language favors restrained, traditional, maintenance-conscious materials that match the front-porch southern aesthetic the master plan was built around. Our short list for builds here:

TimberTech AZEK Vintage Collection. Capped PVC. The English Walnut and Weathered Teak finishes pair cleanly with the wood and fiber cement siding common across Tollgate. 50-year limited lifetime fade and stain warranty. Most Tollgate Village builds we do end up here.

Trex Transcend. Wood-fiber-and-plastic composite, 25-year fade and stain warranty. Spiced Rum and Vintage Lantern fit the front-porch vernacular well.

Deckorators Voyage. Mineral-based composite, lighter weight. Useful on the smaller townhome decks where weight matters for the structural attachment.

Pressure-treated yellow pine with Cabot's solid stain. Less common in Tollgate Village than in older neighborhoods. The HOA's exterior-maintenance model and the southern-vernacular palette push toward cap-stocked composites.

For railing: aluminum balusters in black or bronze are the most-approved configuration. Composite balusters work in the more traditional sections. Cable rail is uncommon — Tollgate's design language predates the cable rail aesthetic.

Working a Tollgate Village Site

A few things you only learn by working a Tollgate Village build:

The Town Center area gets congested at peak hours. Material delivery and trailer staging works best mid-morning or mid-afternoon, especially for builds on the streets adjacent to the Town Center retail.

Townhome and condo builds require more coordination than single-family. Shared driveways, shared walls, and HOA-maintained exterior surfaces all add a layer of communication. We talk to the adjacent owner and confirm with the HOA before scheduling material delivery on those sections.

The Tollgate Neighborhood Parking Plan — managed by the Town of Thompson's Station — has its own rules for crew vehicle parking. We confirm with the homeowner where contractor vehicles can park during the work window. Some streets have time-limited parking that affects all-day jobs.

Columbia Pike is the main artery and it backs up at peak Franklin commute hours, especially northbound morning traffic toward Franklin and southbound evening traffic. Material deliveries from Stock Building Supply on Murfreesboro Road or 84 Lumber on Mallory Lane time around it.

Lunch on a long day is the Tollgate Village Town Center itself if a tenant we like is open, or downtown Thompson's Station / downtown Franklin a few minutes north. Design meetings with a Tollgate Village client work well at the Town Center plaza area when the weather is right.

A Note on Where Franklin Ends and Thompson's Station Begins

The Franklin city limit runs along the south side of Goose Creek Bypass / Peytonsville Road and continues west and east from there. Drive a few hundred yards south on Columbia Pike from that line and you're in the Town of Thompson's Station. Drive a few miles further south and you reach Spring Hill. Three different incorporated municipalities, three different building departments, three different code adoption schedules, three different inspector pools.

The mailing address conventions across this part of Williamson County add to the confusion. Franklin's USPS zip codes (37064, 37067, 37069) cover both incorporated City of Franklin AND adjacent unincorporated and adjacent-municipality areas. Thompson's Station has its own zip (37179) but properties on the Tollgate Village side of the line sometimes show "Franklin" on real estate listings because the listing agent is using the closer-recognized city name as a search optimization.

For a deck permit, none of that matters. Your property record at the Williamson County Property Assessor's office tells you which municipality (or unincorporated county) you're in. Tollgate Village is in Thompson's Station. The Town of Thompson's Station Community Development Department is who issues your permit.

When you're ready to build, that's our work.

Deck Craft

A Tennessee Licensed General Contractor (TN GC #78722). Member of the Williamson County Chamber of Commerce. Building custom decks across Franklin, Thompson's Station, and Williamson County since 1999. (615) 845-9300. 231 Public Square, Franklin, TN 37064.