Ahead of meeting, DOT backs off four lanes for Amboy and Meadow roads

The N.C. Department of Transportation has begun planning for a project intended to improve traffic flow and add facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists along the corridor that connects West Asheville and Biltmore Village. But with neighbors gearing up to oppose what they feared would be a plan to widen both Amboy and Meadow roads to four lanes, a DOT engineer says the agency has already taken that option off the table.

Proposed Fairview Road hotel

No new hotels emerge from Council meeting

A 170-room proposal on Fairview Road was voted down 6-1, with only Vice Mayor Gwen Wisler dissenting, while a public hearing on a 56-room project on Biltmore Avenue was continued at the developer’s request until March 26. Council members Vijay Kapoor and Julie Mayfield raised concerns about the former hotel’s place in longer-term plans for Asheville.

P&Z approves its final big hotel

Asheville’s Planning & Zoning Commission heard the last hotel zoning application submitted under the city’s previous zoning rules, which changed on Feb. 14. The commission approved a 112-room Courtyard by Marriott hotel planned for 26 Meadow Road. Moving forward, any hotel project with more than 20 rooms will have to make its case to City Council as a conditional zoning application. The conditional zoning process gives the elected officials more discretion than P&Z’s guidelines allow.

Asheville city seal

P&Z says yes to Asheville Art Museum expansion, 117-room hotel in Biltmore Village

Asheville’s Planning & Zoning Commission approved all five zoning requests presented at the board’s March meeting, including the Asheville Art Museum’s expansion, a five-story hotel on Hendersonville Road, an apartment complex in South Asheville, expansion of the day care center at the Jewish Community Center and a new use for the Patton-Parker House property on Charlotte Street.