Asheville City Council approved several changes to the city zoning codes at its March 11 meeting to make it easier, cheaper and faster to build regular and affordable housing along certain major thoroughfares.
In short, Council eliminated parking requirements for residential developments in certain areas; allowed larger buildings if they include residential units; streamlined the permitting process; and gave staff more authority in approving projects so they don’t have to come before Council.
But it wasn’t without conflict. Only removing the parking requirement passed, 7-0. The rest were 4-3 votes, with Vice Mayor Antanette Mosley and Council members Kim Roney and Sheneika Smith opposed.
Tensions arose when Council member Sage Turner introduced a last-minute amendment regarding the threshold for requiring Council approval that Mosley said she had never seen.
Essentially, Turner’s change requires all larger staff-approved projects along certain corridors to include affordable housing. Turner said she completed her proposal within minutes of the meeting.
But qualification for affordable units remained the same, staying within 60-80% of area median income (AMI), which is $50,000 per a family of two, per the city’s local homeownership calculator.
In an email to Xpress, Mosley said she voted against the code changes because “communities of color are not the primary recipients of housing at 80% AMI. Historically, setting AMIs at this level has excluded long-term Asheville residents, disproportionately impacting households of color.”
“While increasing housing supply is often seen as a solution, it does not necessarily serve the needs of current residents. In some cases, adding more housing can have the unintended consequence of driving up property values and rents, ultimately displacing communities of color rather than providing them with stable, affordable housing,” wrote Mosley. “I support increasing housing supply, but it must be done in a way that does not displace or cause harm to our residents. I didn’t support this proposal because I don’t believe in trickle-down housing — building more doesn’t automatically mean our longtime residents will benefit.”
Roney said she wanted to support the changes but there were “a couple missing steps.” She wants the city to complete its affordable housing and missing middle housing plans before making zoning code changes. She also wants more assistance available to neighborhoods that are vulnerable to displacement.
The other 4-3 change was to increase building size and density limits, encouraging builders to build up, not out. The change allows projects that include housing to increase their size up to two to five times the ground-floor square footage.
Varied public comment
Sixteen residents spoke during the public hearing for the amendments, with most supporting the changes.
“I want all of this stuff being proposed today. I think we should feel good about it,” said Andrew Paul, lead organizer of Asheville for All, a volunteer group that focuses on housing solutions. “We talk about these amendments like they’re a burden or something to mitigate, but they’re going to make our city more fun and more walkable.”
Ken Brame, a volunteer for Western North Carolina Sierra Club, an environmental organization, spoke to the eco-friendly aspects of mixed-use developments within the city.
“Every time I’m out in Candler or Arden or Fletcher — any of those places — I see clear-cut forest going down for lower-density housing and apartment complexes going in, and I know that every one of those that goes in means more pollution, more carbon being burned, more traffic congestion coming into our city. The solution to that is infill development,” Brame said.
After the vote, speakers from legacy neighborhoods said they were disappointed that Council approved changes without offering long-requested protections to their neighborhoods.
“Please don’t change the transit commercial corridor zoning. Carve us out,” said Shaniqua Simuel, a member of the Shiloh Community. “Please ensure that new transplants have to go through City Council and that City Council remains abreast of our well-thought-out neighborhood plan approved by the city in 2010.”
Cottages and flag lots
Votes regarding changes to cottage developments and flag lots were also split 4-3 along the same lines.
The changes exempt certain neighborhoods that staff based on three maps: one of legacy neighborhood boundaries; another of areas most vulnerable to change as identified by the Middle Missing Housing Study; and a third combining the first two maps. The amendments were first proposed two years ago by Barry Bialik, CEO of Compact Cottages and former chair of the Asheville Affordable Housing Committee.
Bialik’s first amendment regarding cottage developments allows smaller, single-unit dwellings to be clustered around common open space.
The second amendment addresses flag lots, which allow two homes to share the same street frontage, with one home behind the other. The lot for the rear home is accessed via a narrow corridor extending to the street — the “pole” — which also serves as a shared driveway.
In other news:
- Council moved $200,000 in public art funds to ArtsAVL programs, of which $150,000 will go to artists and arts organizations in Asheville through the Arts Business Relief Grant and $50,000 to support programming and activation of the River Arts and Downtown Arts Districts through the Connection Campaign.
- The city has entered into a contract with Jarrett Walker & Associates to conduct a comprehensive operational analysis of the Asheville Rides Transit system. The $299,877 for the study comes from the Transit Operations Fund. The one-year study will evaluate service needs, ridership demand, demographic changes and growth over the next 10 years. The study will also explore new service delivery methods like microtransit similar to Uber or Lyft and environmental and financial sustainability recommendations. There will be opportunities for community engagement during the study.
- Downtown After 5 is moving from Lexington Avenue to Pack Square Park and going from monthly to bimonthly. Asheville Downtown Association Executive Director Hayden Plemmons said that the change to Pack Square allows more space and a permanent stage for the growing event.
Editor’s note: This story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Reporting and Editing.
Mosley’s “In some cases, adding more housing can have the unintended consequence of driving up property values and rents” shows how little she knows.
She knows plenty. And to suggest that one knows all the consequences lacks any humility. She named unintended consequences… so with good moves comes other things that may have harms. This happens all time. Leadership that seeks to understand how our decisions impacts others is vital. Thank you, Councilwoman Mosley.
Mosley’s comment about longtime residents benefitting is confusing…Don’t most long time residents already have their own housing ? Illogical comment imo.