A Greensboro-area developer is asking Buncombe County government to approve plans to build nearly 700 living units on Asheville’s western outskirts, potentially sparking another debate over a large residential project near the city.
Fall Line Development wants to build 585 apartments or condominiums, 80 townhomes and 32 single-family homes on Pond Road, not quite half a mile north of the road’s intersection with Sardis Road in Enka.
The 83-acre site proposed for The Farm at Pond Road currently holds a mulch and compost business and open fields. The site sits in an area with homes, farm fields and some businesses, and the property’s zoning allows for residential or commercial uses.
Developer Brian Wise says the project fits the criteria of Buncombe County’s zoning ordinance and has “great proximity to retail and jobs.” However, neighbors have raised concerns about the development’s potential impact on traffic and the character of the area.
The county Board of Adjustment is scheduled to consider the project on Wednesday, March 11. However, Wise said March 4 that he will ask the board at that meeting to postpone the matter until April so engineers can make minor revisions to a traffic study in response to comments from the state Department of Transportation.
Neighborhood opposition recently stalled plans to build 802 apartments, along with retail and office space, on property off Bear Creek Road just outside Asheville city limits to the west. An overflow crowd turned out at a December meeting of the Board of Adjustment to voice its concerns; the board continued consideration until late January, but developers withdrew their proposal before that second scheduled meeting could take place.
this is old news and stalled by the developer…should be named Farm ON Pond Rd instead of ‘at’ …dumb.
What are the odds that local NIMBYs prevent housing inventory from being built again, and then act absolutely shocked that rents and housing prices continue to climb into greater heights of unaffordability?
I no longer have any sympathy. You cannot cut off supply and expect prices to go down. Not until the area becomes undesirable. And this is one way to make the area undesirable: make sure that anyone who wants to live here can’t.
The morons will press for rent controls which will take even more rentals off the market.
Foothills of South Carolina are looking better each day. New homes from the 160’s, Low taxes, better quality of life. Asheville area is way past the point of being dreadful.
We continue to embrace the following:
For affordable housing , but opposed to adding to the supply.
Opposed to sprawl, but also opposed to density.
For more/better public transportation, but opposed to the density that allows sustainable improvements.
There will be 50 million more people in the US by 2040. Some of them are going to live in our area. If our inept city leadership follows their current path, supply will be added just outside the city but in the county. If county commissioners follow the Asheville city council silliness, the supply will be added just out side the Buncombe line. Of course new residents will continue to drive to Asheville and Buncombe for jobs and entertainment. Result: fewer Asheville and Buncombe tax $, more miles driven, more sprawl, more congestion and public transportation improvements foregone.
what this article fails to mention is that a quarter mile down pond road; another HUGE development is already in the works. Coupled w/IC imagine charter school (parent drop off… NO BUSES!) the traffic will be unbearable as POND RD and Macintosh road are very narrow curvy roads. ID have not issues (as im very closeby) if NC DOT expanded the infrastructure BEFORE the development. EVERY “outtatowner” is blown away at how these developments are ” “OK” then built; and THEN DOT get inundated w/ complaints and accident reports….