12 Bones in the crosshairs of development; property-owner Chris Peterson promises to sue

A fight is brewing over the possibility that the city’s Riverside Drive Development would require the closing of 12 Bones Restaurant in the River Arts District. The Tribune Papers reports:
Those who have followed Chris Peterson’s business and political careers are aware he has never been known to go quietly. Last week the former Vice Mayor, who owns the riverfront property occupied by the popular “12 Bones” restaurant told Asheville Area Riverfront Redevelopment Commission he will take legal action to prevent his land from being taken by eminent domain as part of the AARRC’s plan to “revitalize” a stretch of Riverside Drive abutting the River Arts District.

Response to Peterson’s promise to sue has been spirited and at times vitriolic on the Facebook public page Buncombe Politics, with comments coming from former Asheville Police Department Capt. Tom Aardema, former Asheville Director of Risk Management John Miall, among others. And Bernard Carmen added his objections in a separate post on Buncombe Politics.

The Riverside Drive Development project includes a traffic roundabout that relocates Riverside Drive and would impact part of the property which houses 12 Bones. It is uncertain whether or not the property would be taken by eminent domain as an “economic remnant,” according to an article in the Asheville Citizen-Times. That decision is not expected until until early 2016. The owners of 12 Bones, who rent from property-owner Chris Peterson, told the Citizen-Times that, if forced to move, they would want to relocate elsewhere in the River Arts District.

A PDF of the Aug. 15, 2014 city of Asheville staff report recommending adoption of the Riverside Drive Development Plan is here.

A map of the Tourism and Development map showing the main features of the Riverfront Destination Development plan is here.

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About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes

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2 thoughts on “12 Bones in the crosshairs of development; property-owner Chris Peterson promises to sue

  1. EminentDomain

    You can fight eminent domain, but you will lose. Sorry, but the Champs-Elysees in Paris was once over the poorest section of town, too.

    • Jim

      You can also tar and feather cronies. Bothwell and his sidekicks Smith and.that thieving clown Newman would all look real good dressed in it.

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