Unless Asheville City Council decides to raise property taxes, city government will be operating with roughly $3.4 million less for its general fund next fiscal year. Lindsay Spangler, the city’s budget and performance manager, relayed the latest revenue projections for fiscal year 2026-27 during a budget work session before Council’s formal meeting Tuesday.
The biggest driver of that decrease was the loss of $5.6 million in one-time revenue, most of it from a federal disaster loan the city accepted this year. Sales taxes, which Spangler said will be essentially flat year-over year, won’t offset the hit. Neither will the slight natural growth of property taxes due to new construction.
“Looking at what you’re seeing across the whole state, it’s a similar, not great outlook,” Spangler said. “I do think that what we’re seeing here might be exacerbated a little bit by the fact that we’re still recovering economically from Helene, still maybe not seeing quite as many tourists.”
Separately, Spangler discussed increases to the fees Asheville charges residents for services such as waste collection. Both water and stormwater fees are expected to go up by about 7.5%, while trash pickup will increase by about 11%.
She projected the total annual fee increase for an average household at $67.14. Additional increases will likely be necessary in the coming years, Spangler continued, due to the city’s substantial capital improvement needs.
Council’s next budget work session will take place at 2 p.m. Tuesday, March 24. That meeting will focus on city spending, including potential changes to save money, and it will provide an update on the projected gap between revenues and expenses.
Council OKs 269 new apartments
Council members approved rezonings for two apartment complexes that will together add 269 units to Asheville’s housing supply. The first brings 180 market-rate apartments to the site of a plastics factory (and former Citizen Times pressroom) on Sardis Road. The second plans 89 affordable units on North Louisiana Avenue in the Emma neighborhood.
Both votes were unanimous, but several members were particularly enthusiastic about the Emma development. “I love this project — this is the perfect anti-displacement project,” remarked Vice Mayor Antanette Mosley.
Council member Sage Turner praised its inclusion of 58 two- and three-bedroom apartments suitable for families. Ten of those units will be made affordable for renters making as little as 30% of the area median income, or $32,150 for a family of four.
During a public hearing on the rezoning, Andrea Golden, director of the neighborhood organization PODER Emma, said her community also backs the new development. “Although we have sadness around change to neighborhood character, we trust that we can create future land-use tools to address that,” she said. “This is exactly the kind of housing that our neighborhood needs.”
Other tidbits
- Bridget Herring, Asheville’s recovery coordinator, shared an update about the city’s progress on Helene-related projects. She noted that Asheville now plans to allocate over $2.1 million in federal funding to support “resilience hubs,” neighborhood-level resources for emergency response. The decision will slightly reduce budgets for rebuilding Azalea Park and the French Broad riverfront parks. Herring invited community members to participate in an online survey about resilience hubs and join a “Day of Listening” on Saturday, April 18.
- Asheville accepted a $10 million loan from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality to support work at the North Fork Water Treatment Plant. The city plans to put the money toward designing a permanent filtration system and alternate water transmission line at the facility. The loan comes with no interest, and the state may forgive up to $3 million based on the number of city water customers.
- The city rescinded a more than $1 million loan from its Housing Trust Fund that went to Asheville-based Reasonable Development. In 2023, the company had agreed to construct 10 affordable homes for sale to residents in West Asheville, but in 2025 requested that it be allowed to sell those homes to rental investors instead. Staff said that request did not comply with city policy and that the developer had already found alternate funding.
- Council approved the Asheville Police Department’s application for $700,000 in federal grant money to support a new “Crime Gun Intelligence Center.” At a March 5 briefing, Interim Police Chief Jackie Stepp told Council that technology purchased with the funds could reduce the APD’s turnaround times for gunshot residue detection from months to seconds. She said there were no current plans to pair the equipment with gunfire detection technology such as ShotSpotter. The move comes after a weekend in which the city experienced two deaths and nine injuries due to gun violence, leading Stepp and Mayor Esther Manheimer to issue a joint statement.
- Council also OKed a roughly $606,000 contract with Maryland-based Global Public Safety to install lights and emergency equipment on 45 new police vehicles. According to a city staff report, “APD has a shortage of vehicles due to new hires and unexpected loss of vehicles due to accidents and expensive repairs.” APD spokesperson Samantha Booth told BPR that accidents had totalled seven department vehicles in the past year, less than 4% of the total fleet. She also noted that, due to city funding limitations, APD is operating with about 45 fewer new vehicles than it had requested.
Asheville City Council regularly meets every second and fourth Tuesday at the Council Chamber on the second floor of City Hall, 70 Court Plaza, beginning at 5 p.m. The next meeting will take place Tuesday, March 24. See the full recording and documents from the March 10 meeting.
