Expensive rent, limited housing stock and a migration of higher-income residents are just a few of the challenges in Asheville’s affordable housing crisis.
A new 113-page plan, published Monday by city officials, focused on how to stop displacing residents, especially from the BIPOC community, who are getting priced out of the city. It also paved the way for more affordable housing development.
The plan outlined a myriad of programs and strategies, some of which would require votes by City Council members to implement. The city last updated its affordable housing plan in 2015.
“What we’re really trying to accomplish with this plan is to meet the demand for increased housing supply, while at the same time taking very seriously the potential displacement of current residents,” Sasha Vrtunski, the city’s affordable housing officer, said.
“It's not just about building more housing or more affordable housing. It's about systemic support for people in our community that are already here and struggling.”
More than a third of Asheville households are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent. BIPOC residents make up a disproportionate amount of the cost-burdened population, according to the plan, leading to a “precipitous decline in both the number and share of Black residents over the past several decades.”
“People don't feel like they can afford to stay where they're at. And so they move further out or maybe they even move to another community, where housing costs are cheaper or perhaps jobs have better, higher wages,” Vrtunski said.
Compounding these affordability issues is an influx of higher-income residents moving to Asheville.
The city’s population is expected to grow from 94,000 to 124,000 by 2050. Asheville will need 14,000 new homes to keep pace.
Since higher-income households have more buying power, they can afford higher rents and housing costs, which in turn, displaces lower-income residents in a phenomenon known as “equity migration.”
Lower income residents have struggled to keep up with Asheville’s skyrocketing home prices, which increased 89% ($199,800 to $319,400) from 2015 to 2021.
How to tackle displacement?
More than half of the plan’s 40 strategies offer ideas around curbing displacement and keeping residents housed, Vrtunski said. Ideas include everything from expanded emergency rent assistance to supporting low-income households and non-profit landlords with home repairs.
Other strategies include:
- Advocating that more landlords accept housing vouchers
- Expanding tenant protections, including anti-income discrimination, increased legal assistance and Just Cause eviction protections
- Documenting rental inventory, including the creation of a centralized affordable housing waitlist and application portal
- Increasing down payment and mortgage subsidy programs, including a reparations-oriented homeownership and/or home repair assistance program
- Incorporating racial equity into all affordable housing policies and practices
- Assessing and updating property tax relief tools
- Increasing investment in community land trusts
- Preserving mobile home parks
How to grow housing stock?
Asheville will need to add new housing options as its population continues to grow.
In order to streamline this growth, the plan recommended a redesign of the city’s development process that both incentivizes and reduces barriers for developers who want to build dense and affordable units, including accessory dwelling units, missing middle housing and multi-family complexes with more than 49 units.
It also recommended streamlining the permit process and reducing parking minimums for developers.
These policies should be citywide, rather than in select neighborhoods, “preventing the concentration of poverty and opportunity in different parts of the city,” the plan said.
Other strategies include:
- Create an acquisition fund for affordable housing
- Continue to develop city-owned land for affordable housing
- Require all developments that receive city funding to accept tenants who pay with rental assistance
- Explore the implementation of a vacancy tax, which would levy a tax on vacant residential properties
- Build the capacity of local nonprofit developers, including BIPOC developers
- Educate local builders/developers on housing needs, funding and design guidelines
The plan also recommended that the city continue using enhanced versions of its four major tools: Land Use Incentives Grants (LUIG); the Housing Trust Fund (HTF); Affordable Housing Bond funds; and the use of city-owned land for affordable housing.
Who will move the plan forward?
To move forward, the plan will need action from the city and other government organizations like the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville, Buncombe County, the Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care, along with a host of nonprofits that includes Pisgah Legal, Just Economics, Thrive Asheville and Habitat for Humanity.
The most immediate next step may come from an Asheville City Council work session. On Tuesday, Sept. 24, council members will convene for a two-hour meeting that focuses on affordable housing strategy and potential zoning changes to the Unified Development Ordinance, or UDO.
