99-room hotel approved for Biltmore Village; Council responds to Gaza protests

A newly approved hotel slated for Biltmore Village received mostly praise from members of the public and Asheville City Council at the council’s March 12 meeting. But it also generated concern over whether some developers are keeping commitments designed to benefit the community.  

The 99-room hotel was approved through a conditional zoning with Council members Sage Turner and Kim Roney opposed. Council member Sandra Kilgore was absent. 

Owned by Kessler Asheville LLC and presented by city urban planner Clay Mitchell, the hotel will contain 4,250 square feet of retail and amenity space, as well as a 100-seat restaurant and bar. The project also includes 186 under-grade parking spaces, 10 off-street parking spaces, 10 bike racks and the installation of a signalized crosswalk on Hendersonville Road connecting transit routes to the site and to each other at Boston Way. The building was also designed to complement Biltmore Village’s historic architecture, including features such as dormers that match the style of the adjacent All Souls Cathedral. 

The project is within both the city’s hotel overlay zone and the Biltmore Village Historic District. Under city hotel regulations established in 2021, a new project in the hotel overlay district with fewer than 115 rooms could avoid a Council vote if it meets a series of design requirements and contributes to equity-related public benefits, such as donations to the city’s Reparations Fund or offering employees a living wage. 

But Mitchell explained that due to site limitations and since the project was also located in the Biltmore Village Historic District, that historic designation would take precedence over the hotel overlay requirements. The historic designation required the project to come before Council for a vote on the conditional zoning. 

Christian Sottile, an architect representing the project, noted that even though the developers were not required to contribute to the city’s community benefits table, they intended to voluntarily donate $6,000 per room to the city’s affordable housing or reparations fund and $300 per room to the city’s Public Art Fund, among other investments. Those donations would total roughly $629,000 for the city.

While the developer’s ability to work with neighbors and offer benefits to the community was mostly well received, Council member Turner wasn’t convinced by the promises of voluntary benefits alone. She expressed concern that, as the motion was written, the city had no way of enforcing the voluntary commitments after the conditional zoning was approved. She also questioned whether other hotel projects that included voluntary commitments had maintained those agreements. 

City Attorney Brad Branham noted that including the voluntary conditions in the city’s conditional zoning motion could open the city to a lawsuit since it cannot require the developer to include them, but also that when Council approved similar motions in the past, no legal action had been taken. 

“As your legal counsel, my job is not to look out for the best-case scenario but for the worst-case scenario, and I do believe that by extending ourselves in a position where we are including conditions without legal authorization … you’re potentially jeopardizing the integrity of your decision,” Branham explained. 

Responding to Turner, attorney John Noor said that the developer had no issue including the contributions in the motion, thus making them binding. Turner then made an amended motion to include the commitments, but that motion failed after it was not supported by any other members of Council. A second motion without the voluntary commitments passed without support from Turner. 

Speaking with Xpress after the meeting, Turner said she has requested a full report on the status of all hotel projects with similar promises to fund various city programs and initiatives. 

“My motion did not receive any support from other councilwomen; I stand alone in this concern apparently,” Turner wrote in a March 12 email. “I want us to be doing everything we can to ensure these hotels are fulfilling their commitments. In years past, we included this language and to date, there have been no issues, rules challenged or lawsuits filed that I am aware of.

“If we were to be sued, the suit would most likely come from the developer/applicant, the very same group that made the promise and volunteered the contributions in the first place,” she continued. “That doesn’t seem likely to me.”

Council responds to cease-fire resolution requests

After weeks of protests and hours of public comment both for and against a Gaza cease-fire resolution, Mayor Esther Manheimer addressed the issue at the March 12 meeting. Currently, the mayor explained, Council did not have plans to consider such a resolution, which other cities have passed to protest Israel’s war in Gaza.

“I find it difficult to speak on this issue myself; it’s very personal to me,” she said. “And I know, it’s actually very personal to everyone on Council. We care very deeply about this issue, about our community and about our world and all the people that live in it. So please don’t take our lack of considering a resolution to mean that we don’t care deeply about this issue. I know this is not satisfying for many of you that I can see that on your faces, and I appreciate that. It is not satisfying for me and it is not satisfying for this Council, I promise.”

Manheimer also emphasized that Council members could individually express their opinions on the issue. For her part, Council member Roney said that she had signed on to a national cease-fire resolution.