A proposal to build more than 500 apartments in the floodplain of the Swannanoa River cleared its first hurdle this week.
On Monday, Asheville’s Technical Review Committee gave an initial green light to the $75 million Britt Drive Multi-Family Development. It’s the first step of a lengthy process that will require a flood permit, several rounds of review and a public comment period before the project can come to fruition.
City planner Sam Starr-Baum called this initial review a “pre-flight checklist.”
“We're only looking to make sure that this aligns with state and regulatory standards,” he said at the committee meeting. “The legislative process at the [Planning and Zoning Commission] and city council is when you really get into the alignment with community values,” he said.
The property used to house the Altamont Vintage store, but has sat vacant since Hurricane Helene blasted the building with floodwater and sent much of the shop’s collection of art, furniture and other trinkets down the river. The vintage shop relocated to another warehouse down the road.
The 36-acre parcel belongs to CML SRR LLC, an entity associated with Atlanta-based Coro Realty. As proposed, the project would create 524 apartments and 753 parking spaces, while designating 22 acres as open space, including the wooded and steep slope near the Kenilworth neighborhood.
Part of the property sits in a Special Flood Hazard Area, a federally mapped high-risk flood zone where development is subject to additional engineering, elevation and permitting requirements.
During Helene, the Swannanoa River crested at a record-high 27.3 feet near Biltmore Village, according to a report from the National Weather Service. Nancy Watford, a city stormwater official, said floodplain remapping is underway and that she expects to see changes to existing flood maps and elevations in light of the damage from both Helene and Tropical Storm Fred in 2021.
The flood risk looms large for some community members, who raised concerns at a June 10 community information meeting about the property’s ability to withstand flooding and other extreme weather events, according to meeting minutes.
Chad Lambreth, who represented the project at Monday’s meeting, told city staff the development team is “very aware of all the flood issues,” adding that they are “working as diligently as we can to vet this out and make sure that what we're proposing works.”
Under the city’s Unified Development Ordinance, the lowest residential floors must be at least two feet above the base flood elevation, a value determined by FEMA.
Lambreth said apartment units at the proposed complex would be placed above a parking deck, in order to keep them at the required flood elevation. The developer also has an independent flood study underway.
In a staff report, the city also raised questions about how residents would reach dry ground during a flood. As proposed, one section of the development would have an emergency route to dry land, while the section containing the largest apartment building currently would not.
In its report, staff said providing such access is “highly recommended” for residential projects because flooding could put “individual lives and housing at risk.”
The project is tentatively scheduled to appear before the city’s Design Review Committee on Aug. 20. After that, there will be opportunities for public comment at the Planning and Zoning Commission and Asheville City Council, which are not yet scheduled.
