Affordable homes in the River District

Posted on by Cecil Bothwell

The community is invited to attend a public meeting to review architectural plans for residential and retail/office development along Ralph and Choctaw streets. The meeting will be held at the W.C. Reid Center on Tuesday, Oct. 16, from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Mountain Housing Opportunities, Sitework Studios Landscape Architecture, Mathews Architecture and Reinhardt Architecture will offer plans and ideas and seek public comment.

MHO proposes the creation of housing and public spaces along Town Branch stream running down to Asheville’s River District that it asserts “will bring new life to one of our city’s most historic districts.” The nonprofit says it intends the new development to be inclusive and respectful of the East Riverside neighborhood, with new features to include retail spaces and a greenway connecting Livingston Park, W.C. Reid Center and the River Arts District. The heart of the development would be 163 mixed-income condominiums along Ralph and Choctaw streets.

The meeting location is the W.C. Reid Center for the Creative Arts (133 Livingston St.). For more information, click here.

— Cecil Bothwell, staff writer

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About Cecil Bothwell
A writer for Mountain Xpress since three years before there WAS an MX--back in the days of GreenLine. Former managing editor of the paper, founding editor of the Warren Wilson College environmental journal, Heartstone, member of the national editorial board of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, publisher of Brave Ulysses Books, radio host of "Blows Against the Empire" on WPVM-LP 103.5 FM, co-author of the best selling guide Finding your way in Asheville. Lives with three cats, macs and cacti. His other car is a canoe. Paints, plays music and for the past five years has been researching and soon to publish a critical biography--Billy Graham: Prince of War:
View all posts by Cecil Bothwell →

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5 thoughts on “Affordable homes in the River District”

  1. Revolu

    all the affordable housing i’ve seen by these firms have looked like @#$%

    lets through up some big boxes without figuring out how to correctly place a piece of architecture on a site

    not much diffent than a big box suburb development in my opinion

  2. Gordon Smith

    Revolu,

    Did you see the latest affordable housing apartment building on Grove St. downtown? It looks great.

  3. Revolu

    its a step up for sure…but i think some of these projects just suffer from really bad design and tons of value engineering…there are some good ones going on around town…i just hope people spend more time designing them instead of adding fuel to the fire. there is a lot of room for design potential (good progressive design) in affordable housing.

  4. Foto-Jennic

    And how do they plan to prevent serious flooding from destroying these homes next time a big storm hits the French Broad?

    Maybe they will build them on stilts.

    Affordable housing is very much needed in this city – but don’t stick them in the flood zone.

  5. travelah

    Revolu, please let me build you a home, heavily subsidize it and encourage you to bemoan your gift. If you want great architecture, pay for.

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