Asheville – Asheville City Council considered a conditional zoning of 311 and 319 Biltmore Avenue. The former site of Matthews Ford, the plot has, for a while, been better known as the torn-up earth just south of the Minnie Jones clinic. It was purchased by the city in 2020 for $5.5 million with the hope of using it for reparations promised to Asheville’s BIPOC community. This would be accomplished by gifting the land to a Minority- and Women-Owned Business, Laurel Street, for the construction of affordable housing. The public hearing was needed to change the zoning designation from business to residential.
The city has been in negotiations with Dionne Nelson of Laurel Street to increase the amount of affordable housing she had proposed. She had at first offered only 20% of units as affordable to persons earning no more than 60% AMI, but she has since decided to make an additional 10% of units affordable to persons earning no more than 80% AMI. The development would now offer a total of 221 units.
Urban Planner Clay Mitchell shared that the developer would provide neither bike lanes nor sharrows in the development. This is because recommended engineering standards indicate the roads are too short, the speed limits are very low, and there is already too much signage.
Nelson had considered building a 10-foot-wide sidewalk along Biltmore Avenue, but another proposed project for that area could impact the road alignment, and she did not want to spend a lot of time and energy laying down a sidewalk that was only going to get ripped up in a couple years. So, the city negotiated a contingency plan whereby if the developer hears what is going to happen with the road by the end of the year, she will build a 10-foot sidewalk accordingly. If not, she will build an 8-foot sidewalk aligned with the existing curb.
Three representatives of the local chapter of Just Economics, the national organization that pushes for living wages, spoke during public comment. Whitley English wanted the developer to provide childcare, a fresh vegetarian market, a basketball court, and a playground. A survivor of domestic violence who is a service worker attending AB-Tech, English suggested that vouchers be done away with and replaced with straightforward subsidized rent controls. Jen Hampton pointed out that, by HUD’s new standards, people earning $47,000 will qualify for housing vouchers. Vicki Meath asked that housing vouchers, therefore, “come out of” the units set aside for persons earning 80% AMI, and not those offered to persons earning 60% AMI.
Councilwoman Kim Roney presented her “always ask,” which was what the developer was going to do to use renewable energy to ensure energy resilience. She shared that she had been honored to be among the few who turned on the solar panels at the Maple Crest development. Roney asked specifically about solar panels on the roof.
Mitchell replied that he had discussed this with the developer and offered to facilitate meetings with solar installers, who could be pioneers in North Carolina on this project. Even so, the developer had already committed to the National Green Building Standard to operate 100% of the building’s utilities with electricity. Mitchell roughly calculated that if the developer were to attain the Bronze level, they would keep 30 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents out of the atmosphere a year. Should they build to the Silver standard, they would offset about 87 tons.
It was pointed out that equipping housing developments with renewable energy provides benefits that accrue to the residents and not the developers. Roney said she looked forward to the day that the city developed a community benefits table for renewables so she wouldn’t have to ask this question each and every time.
Roney also wanted Nelson to do something about the area being a food desert, adversely affected by the “apartheid” caused by urban renewal. Mitchell explained the developer discussed this at every stage of the planning process, and she was doing her best, but he said he wasn’t going to require a commitment for something the market wasn’t going to support.
On the idea of making vouchers available only for the units offered to persons earning no more than 80% of AMI, Nelson said they could only do that by reducing the total number of units offered as affordable. The revision to the plan would require her to return to council for site plan approval as well as a request for a check. Councilwoman Sage Turner used the opportunity to express her wishes that the city float another bond for affordable housing.