On Tuesday, Asheville City Council members will spend one hour hearing from the public about whether to implement a new business improvement district downtown (BID).
The BID, proposed by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Asheville Downtown Association, would use an estimated $1.25 million in added tax revenue to fund beautification, cleaning and public safety initiatives. It would be funded by a new property tax of 0.0919 per $100 of taxable value for districted downtown properties.
The plan also includes a group of between eight and 16 uniformed “ambassadors” in polo shirts who would clean up downtown and engage with members of the public – from tourists looking for directions to unhoused people in crisis.
“We think of downtown Asheville as the economic heart of our region,” Chamber Vice President of Public Policy Zach Wallace said. “And we want the workers, business owners, visitors, employees – everyone who's downtown – to have the best experience that they can.”
But not everyone thinks a BID will improve life downtown.
Samuel Garner runs Asheville Crafted Edge, a kitchen store on downtown Asheville’s Eagle Street that sells custom knives. He said that while he would welcome some help keeping the area around his shop clean, he has reservations about the proposal.
Garner said he worries about whether BID-funded ambassadors would be properly equipped to deal with unhoused folks, especially those in the throes of a mental health crisis.
“They can't do anything about it. They can just call the police or call whatever service is needed,” he said. “I can also do that. So will it just inundate the police department with more calls when they're already stretched thin?”
The Community Responder Program, a growing partnership between Buncombe County’s Community Paramedics Program and the Asheville Fire Department, would be better equipped to handle unhoused populations and other folks experiencing mental health crises, Garner said.
“They're not in uniform. They don't have badges. They're not intimidating-looking, compared to police officers, so they can handle mental health crises better than the police office,” he said, referring to community paramedics.
Hayden Plemmons, president of the Asheville Downtown Association, said the association’s annual survey among downtown stakeholders found that “overwhelmingly, they think that a BID would have a positive impact in downtown.”
“The services that they would be most interested in seeing and paying for relate to clean and safe initiatives," she said. "So people on the streets doing pressure washing, litter pickup, graffiti removal and also people who are available to be able to connect people to services downtown.”
The Asheville Downtown Association surveyed 410 downtown stakeholders, according to a presentation at the meeting.
According to the study, 75.3% of respondents would consider paying for enhanced safety and hospitality services and 74.3% of respondents would consider paying for enhanced cleaning. Less than 11% of respondents did not believe Downtown Asheville would benefit from a BID, according to the study.
The survey was criticized by councilwoman Kim Roney at a March 26 city council meeting.
“I couldn’t help but notice that residents of Asheville as a whole participated at 23% of the survey results, while residents in downtown were 4%. So I am hearing a lot of concern from commercial and residential renters, concern about outreach specifically to residents downtown,” Roney said.
In 2023, the Asheville Chamber funded a feasibility study about the BID. It also established a website with key documents and talking points around the proposal. If the city approves the plan, the Chamber requested a $200,000 reimbursement over four years from the BID for the feasibility study and plan development.
The Chamber also created an assessment calculator to show property owners theirpredicted annual fee. A $500,000 property would have an annual tax of around $460.
Jonathan Liebowitz, owner of Manicomio Pizza, a commercial tenant on Biltmore Avenue, said he supports the extra tax.
“If you want to own property and benefit from owning property, you should also contribute to making downtown a better place for the people that are here on a daily basis,” he said.
Not everyone is on board with the BID’s proposed leadership
One point of contention in the BID debate is the composition of the board that will manage the district and its funds.
Under the current proposal, the BID would be managed by an organization run by a 15-member board primarily composed of local property owners. Under state law, if the BID is approved, the city will issue a Request for Proposal for groups interested in managing the BID.
Representatives of the Chamber and the Downtown Association said they plan to submit an application to jointly manage the BID.
Critics of the BID, including Garner, expressed concern that the current proposal lacks adequate oversight, since only one board member would be elected.
The board is composed of primarily commercial property owners, with the following breakdown:
- Three major commercial property owners (combined taxable value over $1.5 million)
- Two large commercial property owners (combined taxable value between $500,000 and $1.5 million)
- Two small commercial property owners (combined taxable value of less than $500,000)
- Two residents (who own a dwelling within the district that is the primary place of residence)
- One resident tenant (who rents primary place of residence within the district) • One (1) retail tenant
- One food & beverage tenant
- One office tenant
- One at-large
- One elected representative
Ex-officio, or non-voting board members, would include:
- City Manager or designee
- County Manager or designee
- Representative of the Downtown Commission
- Representative of Asheville City Council
The original proposal had a 14-person board with no elected members. A change released Sunday added an elected member and added a mandate that all board members are local. It lowered the requirements for commercial property value, which initially required five board seats to own between $4 million and $1.5 million worth of downtown real estate. It also replaced an ex-officio seat originally designated for Explore Asheville with an Asheville City Council representative.
At the March 26 city council meeting, council member Sage Turner said she supported the BID but questioned why commercial property owners would have the majority of the board’s seats.
“I see us doing more equity work to make sure those without wealth and access are at the table too,” Turner said. “I’m looking for more of a balance.”
Roney also raised concerns about the board. “Another unelected board overseeing public tax dollars is giving people an allergic response because we don’t yet have a healthy conversation and reality around our tourism development authority dollars,” she said.
Butch Beck, a downtown renter and service industry worker, said he is not happy about an unelected board managing taxpayer funds.
“We already deal with things like the TDA, where it's our taxes going to things that don't help what we see as the community in any way,” he said. He added that the ambassador program would “further persecute homeless people and people who are struggling” downtown.
Patrick Conant, founder of the Sunshine Labs, an advocacy organization for government transparency, said the concerns about the BID are similar to issues with the Tourism Development Authority, or TDA, a quasi-governmental body that manages occupancy tax funds in Buncombe County.
“When Explore Asheville as a nonprofit was created, the TDA board said clearly in their meeting minutes that this body will operate as a public entity in North Carolina. But as recently as last year, [we] submitted a public records request for their employee salaries and Explore Asheville pushed back a bit on that. They said that these employees are not actually government employees. They work for this non-profit.”
What next?
Asheville City Council will hold one public hearing on the BID. In order for a BID to pass, the proposal must go through a public hearing and two readings. The two readings are tentatively scheduled for May 14 and June 11.
Conant does not think one public hearing is enough. In an open letter titled “Lift the lid off the bid,” he critiqued the BID process for its lack of accountability, transparency and opportunity for public input.
“Our city's current plan is to allow the bid proposal to receive the minimum legal required and non-public comment,” Conant told BPR in an interview. “I feel very strongly that's a mistake. I think when our city considers new programs, new policies and certainly a municipal service district, that city council should provide multiple opportunities for the public to weigh in.”
The public hearing starts at 4 p.m. and will take place at Harrah’s Cherokee Center – a change from council’s usual start time and location.
City spokesperson Kim Miller said the location was changed originally to “accommodate several items under public comment.” Since then, several items, including the much-anticipated public hearing on a proposed Haw Creek development, have moved to other agendas.
In order to avoid confusion, the city opted to keep the meeting at Harrah’s, Miller explained.
Once the legally required public hearing concludes, the city is not required to host public comment before these votes and has not indicated plans to do so.
In an emailed statement, Miller said council can decide to extend the public comment hour, but no decisions have been made to do so at this time.
“Presently, no decisions have been made to alter the public hearing timeframe. If the need arises, the Council will consider allowing additional time during the public hearing process,” she said.
