Little House on the Parking Lot - TribPapers
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Little House on the Parking Lot

City Attorney Brad Branham helps Councilwoman Antanette Mosley catch all the details of the revised motion. Screenshot.

Asheville – Brookstone Baptist Church, the owner of the large church building that sits on a hill at 283 Merrimon Avenue, has been trying to get a rezoning from the City of Asheville. The 3.4-acre site houses the church, a small detached residential structure, and a 180-space parking lot. The property consists of a single parcel that is split-zoned Institutional and Residential Multi-Family Medium Density, and the owners would like to change these designations to Institutional and Institutional-Conditional Zoning.

Mayor Esther Manheimer said property with a nonconforming use can retain that nonconforming use through property transfers, so she didn’t see the purpose of the current exercise. She said she had watched the pertinent Planning and Zoning meeting but couldn’t follow the argument. Manheimer has been an attorney specializing in property rights with the Van Winkle Law Firm since 2002, and before that, she was an attorney for the North Carolina General Assembly.

No site plans for proposed development were submitted to the city, and there was no indication that the property was going to change hands. It was, however, known that the owners were interested in changing the use of the church and the little house. Various people explained that, according to the city’s zoning designations, the portion of the property with the little house had to be rezoned in order for it and the larger building, when they are converted to offices, to continue to be served by the existing parking spaces. City Attorney Brad Branham said that by pursuing a conditional zoning, the applicant was giving council the power to limit the land uses of the little house and keep the parking lot as-is.

Members of city council balked, always attempting to maximize compliance with their strategic goals. They viewed the property not as a building constructed over a century ago and in need of retrofits but as too many parking spaces for fossil fuel-guzzling vehicles, sapping potential for a large affordable housing development—if only they could get a bank to foot the risk of sustaining low-rent apartments on prime real estate. Zillow reports the property was assessed at $7,776,100.

Mayor Esther Manheimer said she had PTSD from the time hundreds of citizens showed up at a public hearing to oppose rezoning a church on Charlotte Street to make way for a dog therapy practice. She said the difference between the Charlotte Street rezoning and the one considered for Merrimon was that the latter would allow dog therapy as a use by right, sealing off any recourse the neighbors had to importune council for intervention. Then again, Manheimer added, a lot of properties on Merrimon had been zoned Institutional for some time.

She also recalled, “Long ago, we once had an effort to do an Urban Corridor zoning plan for Merrimon Avenue. It predates all of us. And it crashed and burned and was very spicy. But one day we might revisit it.” (See sidebar “Whose Property Rights,”)

Councilwoman Kim Roney wanted to know how tree canopy would be preserved and if the new zoning could be used to force the owners to, presumably, clear some canopy to install solar panels. She wanted to add a condition to keep the trees along Henrietta, and the developer’s representative was amenable.

Councilwoman Maggie Ullman wanted the property to have a Residential zoning. After council batted about various ideas in search of a workable solution, Branham worked out a compromise that met the demands of all who had spoken. He proposed changing the zoning to Institutional-Conditional with conditions that would (1) allow, but not require the parking lot to be preserved, (2) allow all previous uses in addition to those allowed under Institutional zonings, and (3) allow the trees lining Henrietta Street to be removed only to accommodate residential development.

Councilwoman Antanette Mosley withdrew her less-than-satisfactory motion and then invited Branham to guide her through a revised motion as she read it into the record. The vote was unanimous.

Here We Go Again

Following that public hearing, council held another one to adopt “The South Slope: A Neighborhood Vision Plan.” Over 275 participants, 43% of whom lived in or near the South Slope, contributed about 5,000 comments. Unsurprisingly, comments largely reflected the views of the planners, with wishes to preserve trees and greenspace, make transit accessible, support small businesses, and honor the area’s history.

Following the presentation by Sasha Vtrunski, who has worn several leadership hats for the City of Asheville, Councilwoman Sheneika Smith said she had just received a text from the president of Southside Rising, a group that “works to cultivate healing [and] restore and reclaim community culture.” Smith said people had come to the president on short notice “with information that’s overwhelming her.” The president could not attend the meeting, so she asked that the matter be tabled.

Elaborating, Smith said business owners in Southside United, one of the neighborhoods defined by the plan, were not represented at the Southside United visioning meeting. People on the dais were sympathetic, but they also had sympathies for Vrtunski, who had been working on this project for a long time. They could accept delaying a decision for a couple weeks, but they wanted this project to close.

Councilwoman Sandra Kilgore called attention to the large number of plans imposing visions on the area. Vrtunski saw no harm in reviewing grassroots plans with top-down plans for consistency. So, adoption of the plan was postponed, and council moved on to adopt the Municipal Climate Action Plan for Sustainability Goals and Initiatives.