Plans for a new Asheville apartment complex in the River Arts District squeaked through the approval process at last night’s city council meeting.
The plan for the 240-unit complex includes a small number (12) affordable units. The seven-story, 400 feet long complex will be built where the historic Asheville Cotton Mill once stood. The mill was a denim and flannel factory that was mostly destroyed in a fire in the 1990s.
Last month, when a conditional zoning request was originally scheduled for a vote, council members criticized the project for its design and low affordability. They agreed to postpone a vote on the project to further negotiate with the developer.
BRN Development, the Tampa-based development firm behind the project, made some design changes to the original proposal, including new “green” features and a commercial space for food trucks and kayak, canoe and electric bike rentals. It also added more sidewalks and glass building breaks in three sections to help break up the wall of apartments in the complex.
This time around, council approved the plan in a 4-2 vote, despite no increase in affordable units. Esther Manheimer, Sandra Kilgore, Sage Turner and Antanette Mosley voted for the project; Maggie Ullman and Kim Roney voted against. Sheneika Smith was absent..
Council member Sage Turner said she originally was going to vote against the development due to affordability and design concerns.
Earlier in the meeting, she criticized the project, calling it “troublesome” and “a bit of a lost opportunity,” compared to other projects in the River Arts District such as New Belgium Brewery, which included environmental remediation along the French Broad River and was “something everybody was able to get behind.”
But when it came time to vote, Turner changed her mind.
“I’m surprising myself and going to switch to a yes,” she said, citing the city’s need to ‘jump start’ housing in the River Arts District. “I guess we’ll have to double down on affordability in other ways,” she said.
Kilgore, who was also previously skeptical of the project, changed her mind, too.
“One of my main concerns was the affordability component,” she said. “However if you look at where this project is being built, in a flood zone, which basically requires additional expenses to actually be able to bring it out of the ground and make sure it’s sustainable. And as you know, we’ve had previous developments that have been permitted but have not come to fruition.”
She continued, “We do need housing everywhere. And any housing is better than no housing.”
During the meeting, council also negotiated with the developer to add four additional provisions: the installation of public art on the north side of the building, additional ADA accessibility, preservation of a historic smoke stack on the property and seating and dining areas for the proposed food truck area on 144 Riverside Dr.
Not everyone came around to the project. For Roney, it did not “get a passing grade,” due to the project’s lack of bus stop connections.
Two hot zoning issues pushed to back burner
Council punted a vote on two citizen-proposed zoning amendments, again.
The amendments would loosen regulations around the development of cottage housing and flag lots, long and narrow parcels of land which have space for an additional housing unit that’s not street-facing. They were first placed on city council’s agenda in April 2024, a full year after resident Barry Bialik submitted a petition to council that requested these zoning changes.
Bialik is a former chairman of the Asheville Affordable Housing Advisory Committee and owner of Compact Cottages, a local cottage housing manufacturer.
In April, council opted to delay a vote on the amendments due to worries over displacement in vulnerable neighborhoods like Shiloh and the Southside.
As proposed, the cottage housing amendment would eliminate a 200 foot separation between small housing units, eliminate a clause that requires the units to face towards a primary street, and reduce the number of minimum units in cottage development from five to two.
In their report, city staff opposed the amendment and recommended that the city not decrease that minimum to anything less than three as that would “undermine the primary intent of the cottage cluster: to create community-oriented living and shared open space.”
The flag lot amendment would reduce setback requirements for developments that are on flag lots and allow more property owners to either develop or sell land parcels to developers, increasing housing density in city limits.
City staff did not back this proposal because of the timeline. They said they want more time to develop “anti-displacement strategies.”
Last night, council decided to delay again, though more council members, including Kilgore and Turner, seemed sympathetic to the zoning changes around flag lots this time around.
During the public hearing for the two amendments, more than 10 residents spoke in favor of council passing the zoning changes. No one spoke against the zoning amendments.
“People are being displaced every day and they're being displaced because they have no options. They are not being displaced because of infill; it's because we aren't allowing it,” Andrew Paul, a member of the pro-housing group Asheville For All, said.
“The idea that these very modest reforms are going to stir up all these problems is pure fear and we need to get over the fear. I’ve talked to countless people who have moved out to Canton or Marshall because they can't find a home they can afford.They were displaced,” Paul said.
Elyse Marder said she was confused by the city’s concern about flag lots causing displacement. Marder said she was able to afford purchasing the home on a single income because it was a flag lot.
“I hear that these flag lots could cause displacement but honestly, as a lay person looking at it, it seems like a displacement mitigation strategy,” she said.
Turner countered by explaining that legacy Black neighborhoods are “exceptionally vulnerable” and that the city wants to make sure the zoning changes wouldn’t displace residents.
Kilgore, who often works with these neighborhoods as a real estate agent, also offered an explanation.
“People think that if this passes, then ‘I'm going to have to sell my lot.’ Or they think that predator builders will come to them and swindle them out of their lot and then build these expensive houses,” she said.
“They fear that they're going to be swindled because that's what's happened to a lot of Blacks in the community for years.”
But Kilgore maintained that with proper education and outreach in these neighborhoods, loosened flag lot regulation could be an economic boost for homeowners.
“Every day I sell homes in a lot of the legacy communities and I’ll tell you something, plenty of times I've seen situations where if this would have been available, I could have given that option to that client to keep them from losing their home,” she said.
Council members debated passing a measure where the flag lot amendment would go into place on January 31, 2025, leaving the city time to prepare its long-awaited anti-displacement strategies.
Ultimately, not enough council members appeared in support of the amendment to bring it to a vote, so they agreed to continue discussing the ideas at its upcoming affordable housing work session on Sept. 24.
Bialik’s amendments will come back around for a vote, for a third time, next February. This will give city staff time to finish its anti-displacement recommendations, which are expected to wrap up in January.
Other tidbits
- City Manager Debra Campbell delivered two reports, including an update on changes to the city’s Human Resources Department and an annual report on the city’s accomplishments in the last year.
- Council appointed Jane Margaret Bell and Anna Zuevskaya to the Planning and Zoning Commission. They also reappointed Geoffrey Barton.
Every second and fourth Tuesday, Asheville City Council meets at the Council Chamber on the 2nd Floor of City Hall, 70 Court Plaza beginning at 5:00 p.m. See the full recording of the Sept. 10 meeting and the agenda.
