Development roundup: Asheville proposes changes to manufactured home rules

Manufactured home at Wellington Community Estates in Buncombe County
MAKING HOME: Proposed rules would make it easier to replace existing manufactured homes with similar housing within Asheville. Photo by David Floyd

City of Asheville

The public will be able to provide input on two conditional rezoning requests and one proposed zoning text amendment at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, which will take place in person at City Hall’s first-floor North Conference Room at 70 Court Plaza. A pre-meeting of the same body to review the agenda, which is open to the public but does not allow public comment, will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the fifth-floor Large Conference Room.

The Design Review Committee will meet virtually at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, with a pre-meeting held at 12:15 p.m. the same day. The agenda for that meeting was not available as of press time.

Planning and Zoning Commission

Residents can submit comments over email and voicemail until 24 hours prior to the meeting or provide in-person comment during the meeting itself. Instructions on how to attend and comment, as well as the full meeting agenda, are available at avl.mx/c1n.

Ingles #79 (780, 852, 856 and 848 Hendersonville Road, 28803)

Ingles Markets Inc. requests the rezoning of 15.81 acres on Hendersonville Road from Office and Highway Business I to Highway Business – Conditional Rezoning to rebuild an existing store and surrounding businesses.

Currently, the site houses an Ingles, a dry cleaners, DMV tag office, post office, mattress factory and mattress retail store. The proposed site plans would demolish the existing buildings to construct a 84,533-square-foot Ingles market, 6,918-square-foot Gas Express station and a 4,858-square-foot Zips Car Wash. Three additional retail spaces are also listed, totaling nearly 44,000 square feet; one of these spaces will house the mattress store and factory.

Recommendations for the project listed in the most recent city staff report include building two bus shelters to support the development’s location along a high-frequency transit corridor. Project documents, including landscape and tree canopy plans, can be accessed at avl.mx/c1j.

Orange Capital Multifamily Development (110 River Hills Road, 28805)

Orangeburg, S.C.-based Orange Capital LLC requests the rezoning of 10.8 acres on River Hills Road from Commercial Industrial to Residential Expansion – Conditional Zoning to construct a 153-unit multifamily building and a clubhouse. Of those units, 31 (20%) will designated as affordable for residents making 80% of the area median income ($45,000 for one person or $64,250 for four) for a minimum of 20 years; 16 units will accept housing choice vouchers.

Orange Capital requests that the 10-foot width requirement for sidewalks be reduced to 5 feet, both for internal sidewalks and a sidewalk on River Hills Road itself. The developer also requests an unspecified modification of the landscape buffer requirement on the eastern line of the property.

This project is tentatively scheduled to come before Asheville City Council on Tuesday, Nov. 15. Project documents can be accessed at avl.mx/c1k.

Manufactured homes zoning text amendment

Asheville planners Ricky Hurley and Sasha Vrtunski will present a series of proposed amendments to the city’s United Development Ordinance rules regarding manufactured homes.

The first proposed change concerns the acceptable timeline for replacing manufactured homes. Currently, section 7.17-5 of the UDO prohibits the replacement of any manufactured home in established housing parks, locations zoned for manufactured housing (known as “overlay” districts) or where a manufactured home once stood after the spot has been vacant for 180 days.

The city proposes to remove that barrier completely for spaces in manufactured housing parks and to change the replacement cutoff date for overlay districts from 180 to 365 days. Current zoning also states that replacement homes must be no older than previous homes on the site, a stipulation that the city proposes eliminating.

“This update is a small, incremental change that addresses the replacement of manufactured homes where they previously existed,” Hurley and Vrtunski wrote in a Sept. 26 presentation to the city’s Neighborhood Advisory Committee. “This change will stop the slow attrition of affordable housing units that are desperately needed in our community.”

Finally, the city proposes changing the UDO’s definition of manufactured housing to conform to the state’s guidelines. The move would eliminate campers and trailers from qualifying as “manufactured homes” because they do not fit North Carolina building codes.

Land Use Incentive Grant program presentation

Vrtunski will also give a presentation on the city’s Land Use Incentive Grant program, which is designed to give developers incentives to build affordable housing. Vrtunski says that the presentation will review the basic structure of the program and provide specifics about the number of projects approved, units built and other statistics.

Xpress previously examined this program in detail in a July “WTF” feature (see avl.mx/c1s). The current LUIG standards, last updated in June 2021, can be accessed at avl.mx/prx2.

Buncombe County

Three projects requiring special use permits will be on the agenda at the Buncombe County Board of Adjustment meeting, taking place at noon Wednesday, Oct. 12. The in-person meeting will be held at the Board of Commissioners Chambers, 200 College St.

Information on how to attend and apply for comment can be found at avl.mx/anq. No email or voicemail comments will be accepted.

Hawthorne at Sheehan Road (145, 183, 231 and unaddressed parcel on Sheehan Road, unaddressed parcel on Baldwin Road, Limestone Township, Fletcher)

Greensboro-based developer Hawthorne Residential Partners requests a special use permit to construct a 260-unit multifamily development over seven buildings on 28.49 acres between Arden and Fletcher. The buildings will stand between three and four stories, depending on the site. The density is 9.13 units per acre, less than the maximum allowed 12 units per acre. An outdoor grilling area, community clubhouse and walking paths are also proposed.

Detailed project documents can be accessed at avl.mx/c1m.

Glen Bridge Rental Units SUP (824 Glen Bridge Road, Avery Creek Township)

Alpharetta, Ga.-based developer TR 35 Glen Bridge Rd LLC requests a special use permit on 10.46 acres to build a Level 1 Planned Unit Development, consisting of 120 townhouse-style rental units across 20 buildings, a clubhouse and a pool. The property is currently a vacant hayfield.

Each unit will have a driveway and one-car garage. Sixty-eight additional parking spaces will also be built for a total of 308 spaces. The developer requests permission to have 15 feet of distance between buildings rather than the current requirement of 20 feet. The density will be 12 units per acre, the maximum allowed under R-3 zoning requirements.

An N.C. Department of Transportation traffic study conducted for the project recommends widening the westbound approach on nearby Brevard Road to include a shared straight/left-turn lane and a right-turn only lane.

Detailed project documents can be viewed at avl.mx/prx1.

Pleasant Grove Townhomes SUP (9 Pleasant Grove Road, Reems Creek Township, Weaverville)

Fletcher-based Pleasant Grove of WNC LLC requests a special use permit to build a Level 1 Planned Unit Development on 6.73 acres. The development will consist of 40 townhouse-style units across ten buildings. A playground and other open space areas are also planned. The density will be 6.0 units per acre, half of the maximum allowed density of 12 units per acre in the R-3 zoning district. Each unit will have a two-car garage.

Detailed project documents can be accessed at avl.mx/c1l.

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About Sara Murphy
Sara Murphy lives in Leicester. Her work has appeared in 100 Days in Appalachia, Facing South, Polygon, and Lifehacker.

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One thought on “Development roundup: Asheville proposes changes to manufactured home rules

  1. Lou

    Sure more ugly AF tin cans, but gawd forbid we should want to build a smaller than 1000 SF home on our own property. Screw Asheville and your archaic policy. Cannot wait to leave.

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