Asheville City Council Puts Money Where Mouth Is
Asheville City Council has been earning a reputation for demanding affordable housing, but then finding reasons to thwart proposals brought before them. This time, when presented with an opportunity to award Land Use Incentive Grants to a developer of micro-apartments, the majority went against staff recommendations and approved the application.
Council Wants Larger Strategic Partnership Fund
Some members of Asheville City Council foresaw that demand for public dollars will always outstrip supply, so they recommended setting aside more for disbursement to local nonprofits. They also want to be more generous toward builders of affordable housing, but it's been difficult for developers to discover the formula.
Council: Add Solar & Bike Lanes
Asheville City Council has taken several measures to encourage the construction of more affordable housing, but when proposals are submitted, they tend to request cost-adding modifications like solar panels and multimodal infrastructure.
Beach-Ferrara Requests Shift in Opioid Plan
Buncombe County Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara argued that her peers should begin positioning themselves to plan to spend Opioid Settlement funds for more naloxone administration. Other commissioners saw this as an attempt to override equally-important interventions they had agreed to support previously.
Council Debates Water Equity
Asheville City Council approved rate changes for the next fiscal year. They mostly followed staff recommendations, except they wanted to postpone voting on residential water rates until manufacturers and other high-volume water users could be made to shoulder more of the costs of running the system.