Two hotels face Council scrutiny at Dec. 11 meeting

Asheville city seal

Hotels, beer and affordable housing — City Council’s upcoming agenda offers an Asheville-appropriate slate of hot topics to welcome new City Manager Debra Campbell. Although she’s been in the city administration’s top job since Dec. 3, the former assistant city manager of Charlotte will take to the dais in City Hall for the first time at Council’s meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 11.

Two lodging projects will be up for debate: a 56-room hotel spread across four buildings on Biltmore Avenue downtown and a 170-room project on Fairview Road in Biltmore Village. The first proposes to convert three historic houses into accomodations and construct a new five-story structure with a restaurant, while the second would build a new six-story building.

Though the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission gave its unanimous recommendation to the Fairview Road project, the body’s approval vote for the Biltmore Avenue hotel was split 5-2. Dissenting members Laura Berner Hudson and Joe Archibald, explained city urban planner Sasha Vrtunski in a staff report available before the meeting, thought the new five-story building could be better used for residential housing and worried about displacement of existing businesses from the historic houses.

City staff supports both projects, noting their alignment with the “well-planned and livable community” goal in the 2036 Council vision statement. However, as city urban planner Jessica Bernstein noted in her report on the Fairview Road hotel, “staff also recommends the completion of the comprehensive plan policy that suggests a study of lodging uses, need and impact to aid in evaluating new lodging uses.”

The hotels will come before a Council that has recently shown skepticism toward approving any new lodging projects. Several Council members raised objections to hotel construction at their Oct. 23 meeting, including Brian Haynes. “As far as my vote goes, the moratorium has begun, especially when it comes to hotels in the central business district or near downtown,” he remarked.

In other business

Regarding another linchpin of Asheville’s tourism economy — beer — Council will be asked to approve an economic development incentive grant for Burial Beer Co. The brewery would be forgiven up to $30,000 in in city property taxes over a five-year period for an approximately $1.8 million investment in equipment and improvements for its existing facility.

In his staff report about the proposal, Community & Economic Development Director Sam Powers estimated that Burial’s spending would create 17 new median-wage jobs (at an annual salary of roughly $35,000). He added that the city would still take in approximately $19,000 in new taxes from Burial during the grant period.

Council will also hear an update regarding affordable housing opportunities on land currently owned or controlled by the city. As previously reported by Xpress, properties at the old Matthews Ford location on Biltmore Avenue, the current Public Works Garage and Fleet Management facilities on South Charlotte Street and the “Ice House” building on Riverside Drive could all be converted into affordable rental developments.

Of these locations, staff recommend the quickest action on Biltmore Avenue. On Council’s recommendation, the city would solicit proposals from developers and create an implementation plan to be approved in January. Developing the South Charlotte site would first require a study on the impacts of relocating existing city operations. Staff recommend signing a memorandum of understanding with community partners to further explore the Riverside Drive property, but its report notes that “this site was not as well-suited as the other sites for a traditional affordable housing development.”

Consent agenda

The meeting’s consent agenda contains 11 items, which are typically approved as a package unless specifically singled out for separate discussion. Highlights include the following:

  • A resolution conveying an easement over a portion of North Pack Square to the Arras Residences and Hotel for outdoor dining, access and landscaping. The hotel’s management would pay the city $76,120 for the 1,384-square-foot easement.
  • A resolution to lease five batteries for the city’s new Proterra electric buses. Although the initial $118,000 per battery pre-payment has already been budgeted, the annual $20,000 per battery lease payment will be included in future Transit Operating Fund budgets.
  • A resolution expanding the city’s previous agreement to transfer parts of its water system to Black Mountain. Staff believes the agreement will reduce Asheville’s maintenance expenses in the coming years, although it will also reduce city revenue.
  • A resolution authorizing a 10-year lease to DeWine Seeds-Silver Dollar Baseball, the owner of the Asheville Tourists minor league baseball team, for McCormick Field. In exchange for the team’s continued operation, the city will lease the field for $1 per year and cover roughly $20,000 annually in plumbing and mechanical system maintenance.

Asheville City Council meets at 5 p.m. in council chambers on the second floor of City Hall at 70 Court Plaza, Asheville. A work session for the fiscal year 2019-20 budget will be held in the same space starting at 3 p.m. The full meeting agenda and supporting documents can be found here.

SHARE

Thanks for reading through to the end…

We share your inclination to get the whole story. For the past 25 years, Xpress has been committed to in-depth, balanced reporting about the greater Asheville area. We want everyone to have access to our stories. That’s a big part of why we've never charged for the paper or put up a paywall.

We’re pretty sure that you know journalism faces big challenges these days. Advertising no longer pays the whole cost. Media outlets around the country are asking their readers to chip in. Xpress needs help, too. We hope you’ll consider signing up to be a member of Xpress. For as little as $5 a month — the cost of a craft beer or kombucha — you can help keep local journalism strong. It only takes a moment.

About Daniel Walton
Daniel Walton is the former news editor of Mountain Xpress. His work has also appeared in Sierra, The Guardian, and Civil Eats, among other national and regional publications. Follow me @DanielWWalton

Before you comment

The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.

7 thoughts on “Two hotels face Council scrutiny at Dec. 11 meeting

  1. Enlightened Enigma

    Brian Haynes needs to understand that the city cannot ‘create’ affordable housing by denying new hotels. Absolutely idiotic. He is NOT a leader, and he should be embarrassed to appear so stupid.

    • Lulz

      You assume people in government are smart. Elizabeth Warren showed us all what the intellectual class is really made up of. Dimwits, Problem is these same dimwits need to spread hate and fear in order to seem relevant.

      • SpareChange

        Agree with EE about Haynes. In the past he has as much as admitted that he is in over his head. Having a well known brother from an entirely unrelated field is not / should not be viewed as a qualification for office, and it would be very, very difficult to argue that he would have had the name recognition or positive reputation on his own, absent that connection, to ever get elected to the council.

        That said, although moratoriums in general are usually the unthinking person’s approach to public policy (because they give no weight to the specific merits or demerits of given proposals) as applied to the question of downtown hotels, I do think it is appropriate to be drawing some lines in the interest of promoting a more diverse economy, and a more diverse life for downtown residents and for the city as a whole. What I do not know is how much discretion and authority the council even has over these issues, given (just as an example) their inability to thus far stop the Embassy Suites project on Haywood & Montford.
        Note: What any of this has to do with Elizabeth Warren is quite beyond me. Brian Haynes is certainly not part of the “intellectual class,” and whatever his relative talents or failings as a council member, certainly has not “spread hate and fear.” Stick to facts about the person under discussion, and maybe (“maybe”) you’ll have a point worth making.

        • Lulz

          LOL just wait and see what happens when people are taxed out of heat to satisfy the intellectuals. Especially as illegals costs them upwards of 70 grand a year each. While their own children are starving.

          What does this have to do with Warren you say? Becuase the same mentality that put her into office is the same that put Haynes there. Zilch real world experiences, focused on big government regulations, assumes intellectuals in government can cure poverty. Doesn’t expect any effort of those in “poverty” to get ahead. And makes excuses as to why they continue to be in it year after year. Assumes preventing one thing will cure another. Or endless subsidizes will make people suddenly realize that they need to get up in the morning and go to work.

          • SpareChange

            The point is that an endless spew of broad brush smears rooted in political caricatures and stereotypes is not going to result in your convincing anybody of anything.

  2. jason

    I hope the two proposed “affordable housing” projects on public property will scrutinized just as much.

Leave a Reply to jason ×

To leave a reply you may Login with your Mountain Xpress account, connect socially or enter your name and e-mail. Your e-mail address will not be published. All fields are required.