Asheville – People pled for hurricane assistance during general public comment at the last regular meeting of the Buncombe County Commissioners. Kim Cowart had come from Savannah, Georgia to help with the hurricane response. “I know y’all all have rules, but,” she said, “we have to make the exceptions. We usually make like 90-day exceptions to get something across to help the people get back in their homes. As of now, what I understand is that if you have property, they will not allow any home, like little homes, trailers, or campers, to be on there. We’re asking you today to help the people be in some homes for 90 days, where they can be in there and warm. Y’all are fixing to have snow. There’s people in trailers, campers, and tents. Those people need to be in a place that is warm. We don’t want an epidemic of people freezing to death here.”
Jen Hampton began saying, “I watched your last meeting and was really touched by the sense of urgency and the compassion that each of you expressed in keeping our community housed and getting folks in tents housed. I really felt inspired by your comments and your discussion about the emergency housing, and I feel confident that y’all do have the compassion and empathy to make exceptions.” She then asked the commissioners to support Just Economics’ efforts to lobby the state to enact a moratorium on evictions and, given the 30-day processing times of local charities, to provide direct rental assistance from the public cauffers. “We’ve estimated about 75% of the service industry folks are out of work right now and don’t have money to pay rent. That makes me choke up every time I say that,” she said.
Jeremy Phillips had been providing hurricane relief for all but five days since Helene. He said he had been involved in the response to Hurricanes Katrina, Michael, and many others, but Buncombe County was the first place he had ever seen that made people wait six to seven weeks for inspectors to assess whether or not it was safe to rebuild and then wait four to five weeks to get a response to a permit application. He added the only government officials some of these people have seen are from law or code enforcement. The churches were backlogged, and the government wasn’t sending anybody to help. “They’ve got tents in their yards. They’ve got generators with drop cords running into heaters. They’ve got kerosene heaters in tents.” He then suggested passing a hat to help these families stay in Airbnbs for five weeks.
People were so desperate to help their neighbors that a couple spoke during the public comment period for a land use amendment spelling out conditions for allowing BitCoin mining and data centers. “Crypto mining?” sighed George Shuling. “It’s probably the last thing.” He said the county should prioritize freeing up land for housing. “There’s people that don’t even have phones, that can’t even—they don’t even know what’s happening right now.” People in Bee Tree are living with no power. “Simple people,” who don’t have the means to go to commissioners’ meetings, were still suffering. He had heard “horrendous stories.”
William Burgess, whom Shuling had “found,” said, “I don’t know nothing about crypto mining stuff.” What he did know was his truck was impounded by officials when he was “running supplies.” Now, he’s out in the elements with his two dogs, still trying to help his neighbors. Chair Brownie Newman asked him to leave his contact information with the county clerk for follow-up.
When the commissioners came around to the public hearing on proposed standards for allowing short-term, temporary shelters during government-declared disasters, Planner Sharon Capezzali highlighted some of the conditions. She said travel trailers for short-term housing and manufactured homes for longer-term needs, provided either by FEMA or nonprofits, will be allowed in all zoning districts, including steep slopes and protected ridge overlays, subject to special requirements. Among other things, these included limiting the number of units per single-family parcel to two; spacing travel trailers at least 10 feet apart; providing parking space for no more than one automobile; and having legitimate connections for electricity, water, and wastewater management. Following her presentation, Deedee Styles asked rhetorically what public health issues the commissioners expected to see from granting people either three or six months to connect to wastewater management.