Asheville City Council preview: Oct. 13 meeting

The Montford Commons Urban Village project, approved in 2007, is expected to cost developers about $60 million. But the developers have approached Asheville requesting a public/private partnership in which the city would provide $9 million in public infrastructure for the project. On Tuesday night, Asheville City Council will consider whether to pitch in.

The Reid Center will also be on Council’s agenda, as it hears a presentation by the city’s finance department on how to pay for the redesign of the community center.

Council has still not picked a new URTV board member, an item which is on this agenda. But first, Council will revisit some communications it has had with URTV and evaluate its action plan for the public-access channel, for which the city, along with Buncombe County, allocates funds collected from cable subscribers.

And an energy-conservation plan comes from an unusual corner, as Council member Carl Mumpower calls for 24/7 programming to control energy output in municipal buildings.

Asheville City Council meets on the second floor of City Hall at 5 p.m. Click here for the complete agenda.

Brian Postelle, staff writer

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9 thoughts on “Asheville City Council preview: Oct. 13 meeting

  1. Avl Tao

    Regarding Montford Commons Urban Village, it is a stupid idea to use City $ for infrastructure in the ground for a real estate ‘dream’ that no longer makes financial sense in 2009 and beyond. That is throwing good $ after bad $ simply because developers cant emotionally bear to admit that dreams & passions concocted up at the height of the real estate bubble no longer make sense.

    And stop! Don’t hand us the ole “it will create jobs” line; they’re few dumber ways to create temporary construction jobs than to attempt to build condos and townhomes that would sit empty & unsold, and that’s if you could ever find a bank/investors foolish enough to finance construction.

    Like some hung-over guest stumbling into the kitchen after a crazy drinking binge at last night’s house party , we have yet another circa-2007 developer hungover from 2007’s excesses stumbling forward hat-in-hand for taxpayers’ monies to fulfill some real estate “passion” that only made financial sense during the crazed days of the 2007 financial bubble. It’s time for developers to sober up and move on. And let the land sit there.

    If that is not the case, then let’s see the developer’s make the case on why a project at that scale makes sense in this new economic world given that the influx of ‘wealthy everybodys’ has stopped, the bubble fueling tourism & hospitality has burst (just ask any number of failed boutiques and eateries), and the heavy downpour of EZ money to buy condos and townhomes has slowed to a trickle. And in-migration has reversed now that folks realize the obvious: there are No Jobs growing here that can handle a mortgage, only ones that allow stuffing 7 unrelated adults into a rented W Asheville bungalow.

    Let’s see them make their cases using 2010’s numbers and not 2007’s fantasies.

  2. URTV Producer

    I have not heard that. Who said Dale Joyner was on the URTV board? What’s your source, Tim?

  3. URTV Producer

    Interesting, Tim. But probably not a bad choice, especially if you want to irritate Davyne Dial, eh?

  4. travelah

    Avl …. yeah … A-ville might start regressing back to early 90s. Wouldn’t that be great!?!

  5. @ URTV Producer: Interesting, Tim. But probably not a bad choice, especially if you want to irritate Davyne Dial, eh?

    Irritated?????….I don’t think so, tickled pink is more like it. Speaks volumes.

  6. JamesL

    I think one of the reasons URTV will not get a free pass on their management agreement is due to their unwillingness to even show up when their management agreement is in peril. That and their continued misleading of the public about their use of TAX dollars as detailed in their recent article in the express.

    Anyone is free to consult the state as I have on the use of our tax dollars. In this case the taxes we all pay for video service if we have anything other than an antenna.

    http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2005/Bills/House/HTML/H2047v6.html

    http://www.secretary.state.nc.us/cable/

    No one can actually understand the law and not be lying if they say URTV is using $0 tax dollars. This reflects very badly on URTV if they can’t even be honest with the public and their members, or they simply don’t understand how they get funded. It also looks like complete arrogance when the board’s only response to the agency they want tax funding from is to spend more tax money on a lawyer who sends a non responsive letter. They want public dollars and no accountability. The sooner Mountain X quits publishing their lies about not using tax dollars, the sooner URTV can go about actually trying to save themselves with their funders.

  7. Well James, let’s give them the “benefit of doubt”…and say they don’t understand the law.

    For me, keying in “tax” reveals the word mentioned 44 times in the your link to the 2005 bill.

    Things that make one go hmmmmmmm?

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