City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening everyone. Uh, welcome to the Asheville City Council meeting. Uh, if you could just take one moment to silence your cell phones and please rise for the pledge of allegiance. to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, everybody bear with me for just a second. I've got a little bit of reading material. First is our chamber decorum statement. Members of the public attending council meetings or addressing the council shall abide by the following rules. Everyone shall follow the instructions of the mayor or any other presiding officer or official and shall refrain from impeding or interrupting the conduct of business. This shall include but not be limited to clapping, yelling, or other audio expressions of approval or disapproval of comments made during the meeting. Persons addressing the council are expected to observe the decorum of the chamber, to be respectful of the council and the public, to refrain from the use of profanity or foul language, to refrain from personal attacks and commentary on candidates for political office, and to refrain from making disclosures prohibited by the Personnel Privacy Act with respect to any city employee. Failure to abide by these rules may subject you to removal from the council chamber. So, um, the bottom line is there's really no clapping, shouting, yelling, that kind of a thing. So, um, just, yeah, give us your thumbs up or your thumbs down if you want to tell us how you feel about something. Um,

okay. the other announcement for this evening and we we weren't quite sure how many people to expect for this evening. Uh but depending on how many people we have signed up under each item, we we have a standing uh rule of one hour of public comment per item. And um in order to accommodate a lot of speakers, if we get a lot of speakers, instead of three minutes, we'll narrow it down to two. I apologize for anyone who rehearsed in advance a three minute speech. Um the um let me see what else is here. Yes, I mentioned the one hour. Uh so we ha and on item B under new business and its subp parts we will have one comment period even though we have to have two votes and that's what we typically do if there's a B1 and a B2 or something like that. Um and let's see public comment on any agenda item must be made during the consideration of that item. Public comment on items on the agenda will not be taken under informal discussion and public comment. So, in other words, um, don't sign up for public comment at the end of the meeting to address an item that's been on the agenda earlier or is on the agenda earlier. Um, okay. I'm going to try to tell you if you're on deck for for public comment. So, then in other words, if you're next, so you can get ready. Um, and then Maggie, you have really complicated instruction here about groups, but we'll

there it's I think it's under control.

Okay. Okay. Maggie wrote these up for me, so I appreciate the attention to detail. Um, okay. So, we have to begin with several proclamations and not in order of importance. The first one is World Facility Management Day. And I have here that we've got Tony Wthbone and quote unquote others. And Councilwoman Kimrone will um be reading this proclamation. Please join us here in the chamber. Thanks for coming to city hall today and the work you do for our community. Whereas facilities management is a vital professional discipline that ensures the functionality, comfort, safety, and efficiency of the built environment by integrating people, place, process, and technology. And whereas the city of Asheville's facilities management team serves as the silent engine of our municipal operations, maintaining the integrity of our historic city hall, public's works facilities, and the community centers that serve as the heart of our mountain home. And whereas these dedicated professionals work tirelessly behind the scenes, often navigating complex technical challenges and emergency repairs to ensure that the physical spaces where we live, work, and gather are safe, welcoming, and operational for all residents and visitors. And whereas their stewardship of Asheville's public buildings, from managing energy costs to extending the life of aging infrastructure, ensures that every dollar invested in our community works harder and lasts longer while advancing the city's commitment to a sustainable future. And whereas World Facilities Management Day provides a global platform to recognize the invaluable contributions of the unsung heroes who manage our physical world and to specifically thank the city of Asheville staff for their dedication to

the people and places that serve our community. Now therefore, the mayor, Esther Mannheimr, has proclaimed May 13th, 2026 as World Facilities Management Day in the city of Asheville and encourages all our residents to join in expressing our deep gratitude to the facilities management professionals who keep our city running smooth every day. Thank you so much. Hi everyone. My name is Should I say this way or that way? I know. Hello.

All right. So, hi, Walter Ear, the director of the capital asset management department. And uh I'd like to introduce some of the folks that we have here with us today. Tony Rathbone, our facility maintenance manager. Been working for the city of Ash for 18 years. 18 years of working on our city buildings. Um Paul Merin, uh the main supervisor. Thank you, Paul. How long have you with the city?

15 years of again working on our beautiful buildings like city hall. And Tim uh Tim Profett, electrician, four years with the city. Uh Tim started with the city as um we went from trades worker to maintenance technician, but um Tim got his electrician's license while working with the city. So we're glad glad to have him and his skills with us as well as a Marine Corps veteran. Um and Brian uh looks Thank you. Uh um so two years going on, just over

just over a year. So, um, I'm really glad that we've worked with our HR department to restructure some of our pay structures to grab great talent like, uh, both Tim and Brian. And, uh, from the Harris Center, we have, um, BL just

Greg, sorry, Greg Fischer, uh, has been with the city, um, for 10 years. Um the Harris Center is very unique and um we've given him some unique uh challenges to work with there um to help Chris keep that building running and keep our city bringing in great venues or great shows to that venue. So thank you for your service to Harris and to the city. Um it we have a lot of older buildings and a lot of older structures and uh it it takes great staff to be able to do um to keep these facilities running and we appreciate their work. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you in advance for whatever happens with the pro wrestling matches this morning. That looked like a lot.

Come see. Um the next one is National Public Works Week and we have Tiffany McCormack and several others also waiting in the hall. Please come on in. Uh, Councilwoman Maggie Olman will read this proclamation. Hey everybody. Y'all know I always love to remind folks that I started my city career working in the public works department and I love PDUB. Y'all might be my favorite department. Um, so here's our proclamation. Whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities, and services that are vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to public health, high quality of life, and well-being of the people of Asheville. And whereas these infrastructure, facilities, and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals who are engineers, managers, employees at all levels of government and the private sector who are responsible for rebuilding, improving, and protecting our nation's transportation, water supply, water treatment, and solid waste systems, public buildings, and other structures and facilities essential for our citizens. And whereas it is in the public interests of the citizens, civic leaders, and children of Asheville to gain knowledge of and maintain an ongoing interest and understanding of the importance of public works and public works programs. Whereas the year 2026 marks the 66th National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association. Now therefore, our mayor Esther Mannheimr declares May 17 through 23rd, 2026 National Public Works Week. Good evening, Amy Deon, public works

director. Um, I do have a little bit to say. I want to thank you, council, for recognizing the National Public Works Week and acknowledging our staff for their dedication and service to the community. Our employees are not only public servants, providing day-to-day core services, but also often serve as first responders, providing vital support to our emergency response partners, helping protect essential services, and restoring those services following an emergency. Public works professionals are sometimes the first on the scene and always the last to leave the scene, especially during major weather events and disasters. Their work is critical to protecting public health, safety, and quality of life. And I'm grateful for their professionalism, commitment, and service to our community. So, and and now I'm going to ask that they introduce themselves and say a little bit about what they do if that's okay.

Please.

I'm assistant for our city. I do multitude of different But I really enjoy working for the city. I've been here for almost five years. Hi, my name is Tiffany McCormack. I am the financial business manager for public works. I've actually been here for nearly two years now. I started very shortly before and since then it has been very challenging, but I've been very impressed with our staff and how they have continued to tackle those challenges. Patricia Miller. I work for sanitation. I'm an automatic side loader. I pick up trash. I eat people. I play with children. I play with puppies.

I'm Daryl Demer. I work for storm water. I inspect and install the infrastructure. I've been with the city for eight years.

I'm Dylan Wingler. I'm the asset manager. Our digital takes care of all of our data related to our operations. since I've built the city now for about two years. I'm John Engel. I'm a utility cut supervisor for the concrete crew in the street department. I've been here 15 years. Thank you all.

Okay, moving right along in our proclamations. Our next one is strive not to drive week and we've got Sandy Broadwell and anybody else you've got with you and um Councilwoman Maggie Alman will read this one again.

All right, another phone. Um okay, so this is for strive not to drive week. Uh whereas bicycling and walking remain humanpowered, energy efficient and environmentally sustainable forms of transportation that reduce traffic congestion, lower emissions and promote public health through physical activity. And whereas communities across the whole country, including the city of Asheville, are experiencing a growing demand for safe, accessible, and connected biking and walking infrastructure as more residents and visitors choose multimodal transportation. Whereas the city of Asheville's close the gap plan envisions a place where vibrant, safe, and comfortable streets and greenways allow everyone to bike and walk to their destinations and enjoy the convenience and health benefits of such. And whereas the city of Asheville has made significant investments to improve multimmoal infrastructure across the city. And whereas despite this increased interest, bicyclists and pedestrian safety remains a significant concern. Whereas transportation is the second largest household expense in the United States with car dependent households spending 50% or more on transportation than households with more accessible land use and multimodal transportation options even before the recent rises in gas prices. And whereas the city of Asheville has recently undertaken a comprehensive operations analysis for our bus system and signed a new operations contract with Ratp. Whereas strive not to drive week is a collaboration between local governments, nonprofit groups, and advocates in the Asheville metro area that encourages residents and visitors to travel by walking, biking, and riding the bus from practical. Now therefore, our mayor, Esther Mannheimr, declares May 15 through 22nd, 2026 drive not to drive week.

Thanks for having us for Strive Not to Drive Week. Um, I'm the only one here, but Strive Not to Drive Week is a monumental effort. It's taking place across five counties in western North Carolina this year, including uh Haywood, Henderson, Madison, and Transennsylvania counties in addition to Bunkham. There's 27 partner organizations that are involved in pulling it off. Um you can take a pledge online and win prizes. Uh we have lots of great things you can win this year and over 25 events happening across the week um in all five counties. So um you can check all of that out at go mountain.org. and I just really appreciate the city of Asheville's partnership um on this uh this year and in many years leading back to the 1980s. So, thank you so much um for continuing to support try not to drive week. Thanks.

Okay. And now, uh National Salvation Army Week and uh Captain Philip Stokes and Sher Stokes, if you'll join me uh in front. I didn't know they had a I clearly did. Cool.

Okay. Whereas the Salvation Army of Asheville has served our community with dedication and compassion for over a century, providing vital resources to those in need. And whereas the Salvation Army of Asheville's programs have supported countless individuals and families through food assistance, shelter, emergency social services, and disaster relief efforts. And whereas the Salvation Army of Asheville staff exemplify the spirit of service, generosity, and commitment strengthening the fabric of our city. And whereas National Salvation Army Week recognizes the invaluable contributions made by the Salvation Army through its donors, supporters, partners, and volunteers across the United States, including Asheville and Bookham County. And whereas the Salvation Army of Asheville continues to innovate and adapt its services to meet the changing needs of our citizens, especially during times of crisis. And whereas the city of Asheville is grateful for the ongoing commitment of the Salvation Army to promote hope, dignity, and opportunity for all its residents. Now therefore, I as Himemer, mayor of the city of Asheville, do hereby proclaim May 11th through 17th, 2026 as National Salvation Army Week. So, we just want to make sure that we say thank you to you guys for allowing us to come in and providing this proclamation. We would also like to extend an invitation to each of you if you would ever like to visit our facilities. Our center of hope is located on Haywood Street. Our community center is located on Hwood Road. We invite you out for tours to see what we're doing. Um, we are just so thankful for our staff. This is just a small portion of our staff. Um we have about 15 staff members um that oversee our center of hope, our food pantry, and our community center. Again, we thank you for this opportunity, and I would love to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves.

Hi, my name is Lori and um I've been with the Salvation Army for five years. I'm the business business administrator and I really love working for these captains. They're great.

My name is Elizabeth Chapman. I'm the social services director for the Salvation Army. So, I wear many hats. I'm over the shelter. I'm help with utility and rent assistance and all sorts of stuff. So, but I love this organization and I love what I do every day. And it's certainly not a job coming to work. So, thank you. I'm Teresa Clark. I am the case manager over the shelter and also part-time cook. I'm Susan Riddle. I've been fortunate enough to be with the Salvation Army for two years in their development. It's a wonderful group of people doing wonderful work for the city and I'm proud to be a part of it. So, I'm the the other half of the Captain Stokes. I'm Captain Philip Stokes. Uh we've been a part of the Salvation Army for over 15 years. Uh one of the things I love about this community and our staff is we got here in June and we do have that shelter, the center of hope, not too many people know this, but we have a 80 they have an 85% success rate of placing our clients in some type of permanent housing. Like that is something they should pat their back on every single day and we were fortunate enough to inherit that. So, thank you for giving us this opportunity to have a day. Okay. And now, last but not least, National Tennis Month. And Ron Freeman

is here. And anybody else with tennis, please come forward. Councilman uh Bohuses will present this proclamation. that.

All right. Good evening. Whereas on May 21st, 1881, the USA, originally known as the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, was founded in New York City, New York, to create rules and standards for the emerging game of lawn tennis. And whereas the USA proudly partners with the Asheville Tennis Association to showcase the important health, social, and educational benefits of tennis and make the sport available to everyone regardless of age, environment, condition, or ability. Whereas the Asheel Tennis Association works closely with the city of Asheel to provide adult and youth programs at Aston Park and other facilities, including the Terminators, a program that provides professional tennis instruction and academic assistance to atrisisk youth free of charge. And whereas recent scientific research has named tennis the world's healthiest sport, citing increases in longevity, heart fitness, and mental health. And whereas USA has declared the month of May as National Tennis Month to encourage players, organizations, facilities, retailers, tennis manufacturers, and more to promote local programs and activities at parks and facilities. to showcase tennis and spread the word about the sport and its benefits and to help players and non-players alike find courts and play opportunities in their communities. Now therefore, the mayor of the city of Asheville, Esther Mannheimr, proclaims May 2026 as National Tennis Month in the city of Asheville, North Carolina, and urges all residents to

become aware of and support National Tennis Month. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We really appreciate that. Um, I'd like to thank the council and city for the recognition of the importance of tennis in our community. It truly is the world's healthiest sport and can be enjoyed by everyone for a whole lifetime. The Asheville Tennis Association and the city's parks and recreation department partner to bring programming to our citizens, not to mention thousands of matches played each year at Ashton Park and at five other city parks. This year, the Asheville Tennis Association donated approximately $6,000 worth of nets, umbrellas, and clubhouse equipment to Aston Park, saving taxpayer dollars in a tough budget year. We are particularly proud of our Terminators program that provides combined tennis instruction and academic assistance to second through fifth graders through agencies like Open Doors Asheville and Chosen Pods. We provide transportation to Aston Park. Program time is divided between divided between court instruction and academic activities with snacks at the Aston Clubhouse. In addition to terminators, Aston Park offers a free summer camp for 50 youth. In conjunction with Parks and Wreck, free tennis clinics are offered at Shallow, Burton, Oakley, Grant, and Montford recreation centers. Thank you again. We look forward to seeing all of you on the tennis court.

Thank you. Okay, we uh we have completed the proclamations. Now on to the consent agenda. Council, do I have questions, comments, or a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second.

Okay, we have a motion, a second. I have one person, let me say, it could be more now, but I had one person signed up to speak under the consent agenda. Um, Ben Spencer, um, you will have three minutes to speak and please watch the lights on the lect turn. Green means go, orange means you're getting ready to stop, and red means stop. Uh thank you. So this is uh in regards to the Johnson Boulevard sidewalk project. Um moving a uh the utilities with Duke there. Um I just wanted to kind of as somebody who lives off of Johnston just kind of go over a little bit here. Uh this project uh came about due to a bond referendum in 2016. Is that correct? Um and so that's like where the public is approving the use of funds and approving a project there. Um in 2020 there was a public input survey uh regarding questions and information around this sidewalk. Again in 2022 there was another public input survey. Uh and finally there was actually a public information meeting just back in February kind of regarding the specifics of the sidewalk project. Um, it's actually, if you pull it up online on the, uh, community engagement hub, uh, there's a direct link to the Johnson Boulevard project there, uh, where citizens and constituents can go find out information, uh, look into what the process was for how that was approved. Um, however, there's really nothing like that for the Axon contracts here. It's really interesting that we have the ability to have public input, multiple sessions. we have the ability to have transparency and all of this information. I guess I I would like to model that in our future decisions and our current decisions. Uh presenting the public with options, asking for permission, asking for input there. Um just speaking of

input, if you uh do a Google search of John Asheville Johnston sidewalk, uh you get three pages of results. Uh that's compared to uh less than one full page of results for Asheville Axon or Asheville Fus or Asheville RTIC. Um if you go to the uh city council uh minutes archives, uh there are multiple different results for the Johnston sidewalk project when you search there. Uh no results if you search Axon, no results if you search Fus, no result results if you search RTIC. that is the city council minutes as available online. Um similarly if you search the Asheville city website uh you get all sorts of information about uh about the Johnson Boulevard project. Uh let me scroll here to get my uh results here for the other ones on ashvillec.gov. That's zero results for Axon, zero results for Fus, zero results for RTIC. Um now three results for surveillance um but that's 2010 2011 and then info from the health services about medical surveillance and workplace hazards. Um again that Johnson Boulevard project had all sorts of information available to the public all sorts of opportunity for input. Uh and I like that in my city's decisions. I like as a constituent who votes in every election, having the ability to have an open dialogue and conversation with the city about what decisions are being made, what projects are being invested in. I like that and I think we should do that with everything that is of consequence. This is again for a onem long project of sidewalk. It's been before council multiple times. It's been before the public continually. Um, not the case with this uh, Axon surveillance package. Um, again, there's just no information, not even a contract.

Thank you. Sidewalk accepted bids and was open. Okay, council, we have a motion, a second for the consent agenda. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you. Um, okay. We're going to move on to presentations and reports. We have the manager's report, the fiscal year 2026 2027 manager proposed budget presentation and our city manager DK Wesley will take it away.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. It is my pleasure to present for your consideration my proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 2027 which also includes the fiscal year 27 through31 capital improvement program. Before I start, I would like to express gratitude to city staff who supported the development of this recommended budget. Specifically, I want to recognize the finance and management services staff who did much of the heavy lifting. With me tonight, I'm joined by finance leadership Tony McDow, our chief financial officer, as well as Lindseay Spangler, our budget and performance manager, both of whom will be here to support the presentation with any technical information as needed. This is a balanced and disciplined budget. It makes targeted investments while recognizing the very real financial pre pressures facing our residents and our organization. It does not attempt to solve every challenge in a single year, but it does move us forward in deliberate and meaningful ways. You will see a continued focus on maintaining essential services, strengthening our workforce, and advancing key infrastructure and capital needs. You will also see a commitment to financial stewardship that protects the city's long-term stability. I look forward to walking through the details and to your feedback as we continue this process together. So, let's start with the agenda. Uh here's a outline of the presentation today. Uh today we're going to start with background and an overview including a brief summary of where we started the process and all the progress we've made so far leading to today's balance budget. We'll also discuss the total budget and then zoom in to the general fund

specifically. We'll go forward with the discussion around our city's enterprise funds as well as the bid fund and our capital improvement program. Finally, we'll talk about our next steps together over the next few weeks. So, this slide is familiar to all of you. Uh we've been over this pre this slide on multiple occasion. It's the timeline for our FY27 budget process. Uh and this just shows the to touch points since January of 2026 that led up to the to to today. Um it includes the budget work sessions as well as other touch points. Uh you may recall on uh February 24th we had a public comment session for our residents to provide feedback on this uh proposed presentation. Um key dates going forward will be a public hearing on March on May 26 and then the adoption of the budget is scheduled for June 9th. So early in this calendar year, staff began to share the challenges that we faced developing this proposed budget. Specifically, as it relates to the general fund, there were challenges on both the expenditure and revenue side. With regards to our expenses, there were some one-time savings implemented in fiscal year 2026 that cannot be repeated in fiscal year 2027. We are also experiencing increases in our personnel costs with the health care being the major driver for those increases. We also have non-discretionary and inflationary increases for existing operations specifically transit tipping fees recycling fleet maintenance as well as security needs around our parks facilities.

With regards to revenue, um, sales tax has been increasing at a decreasing rate compared to prior years, which has been the case across the state. Additionally, for fiscal year 2026, we balanced the budget using one-time revenues, which are not available to us in FY27. Um, that includes a $5 million loan from FEMA to support revenue loss from Helen. And then finally, as you are well aware, our voters approved a tax increase for our general obligation bond debt service in November of 2024. The implementation of that tax rate increase was delayed due to tropical storm hailing. So this is just some examples of the financial environment that we were facing as we started developing this budget. So in order to meet those challenges, it would require difficult decisions and tradeoffs. Accordingly, clarity through budget objectives were warranted to move forward deliberately in this budget development. As we discussed during the February 24th work session, our five main objectives for this budget process are detailed here. And I'll start from the bottom because we really tried to ground and center this proposed budget within those four recovery priorities that this body set forward in 2025 which included people, housing, infrastructure and environment as well as economy. We also move it forward with budget development to achieve a structural balanced budget. That means that we were working to aligning specifically in the general fund our expenditures with our revenues. We wanted to move towards intentionality around long-term fiscal stability. Continue to ensure the core services and

quality of life that our residents expect and then also prioritize our employees to make sure that we are retaining a dedicated and prepared workforce. This proposed budget adheres to those objectives. On this slide, I want to spend a little time here. I think it's important to spend time on this slide as it shows how we progress from our initial budget gap. In January, staff estimated a $30 million increase in expenditures for fiscal year 2027. This assumed no increased revenue or reductions in our current year expenditures. We arrived at this initial estimate through tallying of our one-time fixes from FY26, known spending increases such as healthc care and our transit contract as well as the required geo bond debt service costs. We continued to move forward. By February, through a continuation of some of those fiscal 26 cuts, we were able to refine the projected gap to about $26 million. We continue to move forward. In March and April, with the approved fees and charges and the re continued recommended balancing strategies, the actual projected gap was narrowed to $10 million. As of today, after some additional savings and balancing strategies, which we will discuss in a future slide, the projected gap has been reduced to $8.9 million. In this proposed budget, the budget is balanced by increasing the tax rate above revenue neutral, which will be discussed as well later in this presentation.

just to share a little more information about some of the reductions and strategies that we uh accomplished post the April 14th work session. We were able to identify about $1.6 million in additional budget reductions that included eliminating u additional vacant positions. Uh in our original uh estimates, we had about a $400,000 estimate to start implementing the initial recommendations from our salary study, which is planned for fiscal year 2027. Uh we reduced that and we'll be bringing forward recommendations as a part of the FY uh 28 budget discussion. We also continue to look at our community center security contract and were able to reduce in that space as well as uh continuing to suspend a contribution to our other postemployment benefits fund. So now let's uh get into some of the details. Uh we'll go over some fund summaries here. Uh starting with all funds, the fiscal year 2026 proposed budget totals $275.6 million, which represents a 19.2 million or a 7.5% increase over the fiscal year 26 adopted budget. In the upcoming slides, you'll see details uh about this as well as a general fund. Also, with regard to our all revenues off for all funds, the majority of this budget uh is funded through property taxes. It's about 37% of the total revenue across the city. Followed by that, we have about 31% in fees and charges. The remaining revenue comes from sales tax, intergovernmental

revenue and smaller sources. Again, this is all the total funds for the entire city. Also looking at all the expenditures for the city. Um this chart chart shows that we will spend uh about over half of our expenditures across the organization on personnel which is made up of 38% and then benefits such as health care and retirement which is 19%. Operating costs are about a quarter of the budget and the remaining piece of this pie is debt service. Now to narrow in on the general fund. The general fund is the largest component of our total operating budget. This chart is the general fund revenue summary. It shows general fund revenues by categories including the change from fiscal year uh adopted budget for 2026. The proposed budget includes an overall increase of 4.64 million or 2.5%. Most of these categories as you can see here are decreased from the current adopted budget with the exception of sales tax which is essentially flat as well as licenses and permits and that's based on fee adjustments and natural growth. And then we also have uh minimal growth cited here uh for natural growth and then our proposed uh property tax rate over revenue neutral of 4.9 cents. So overall our revenue budget for the general fund is increasing proposed to increase by 2.5%. This pie chart also shows the revenue in a different illustration. As you can see the majority year of our revenue budget is property tax at over 56%

uh followed by sales tax. Our total general fund budget is proposed to be $187 million.5. So now we'll walk through some of the assumptions that we have for in crafting this budget. Towards the end of the presentation, we're going to spend some time around property taxes. So we'll skip that for now. As I mentioned previously, we are holding sales tax flat based on slow growth trends. The general fund budget here includes a $1.1 million fee increase that you all adopted on March 24th, plus additional natural growth. Outside of that, we have minor changes expected in our revenue sources. Here again, we're showing a summary of our expenditures um by category, and this is for the general fund. It also shows the change from the current adopted budget. Our increase from the adopted budget is 4.77 million or 2.5%. As you can see here, the major increases are in our benefits. Again, that's driven by health care costs as well as retirement costs. In addition to that, you'll see the planned debt service for our GI GEO bonds listed here as well. Um, I thought it was important to also demonstrate our general fund revenue by function. Almost half of the general fund is comprised of public safety departments. Of course, that includes fire and police. Uh, we have our community services category that includes departments like development services, housing and economic development, uh, public works and transportation just to name a few. Uh then we have our cultural and

recreations category which is about 9% of the budget that includes of course parks and wreck as well as community and regional entertainment facilities. I previously mentioned some of the major expenditure drivers for the general fund and this chart uh shows those spending increases. Uh the bulk of the increase is health care and retirement at 5.1 million. Uh the proposed budget also includes a 2.8% cost of living adjustment for our staff to support to support our existing staff with inflation and cost of living increases. This increase is comparable to other local governments in the region and across the state. I also want to note here that the proposed budget includes a increase in the pay plan by f 1.5%. I'll go back and also share. You see here that the police department and I think this is a good news story. The police department personnel budget is increasing uh because APD has been able to successfully uh recruit and grow towards their budgeted head count um after having high vacancy levels for the past few years. Also noted here is our community center security which is another item that was included uh in our midyear budget based on incidents at our community centers last summer. You'll also see other contracts and materials increase next year. For example, fleet maintenance and parts, recycling, tipping fees, just to name a few. backwards. Go this way. Um to offset the expenditure increase and slow revenue

growth, staff worked to identify uh budget balancing strategies. Uh we talked about some of these as a part of our uh budget work session. So I won't go over all of them. Uh but just to note, um we were able to identify uh some adjustments to our city's health plan that offered some savings in the new fiscal year. Uh as well I want to note here that we are um proposing to eliminate net 16.5 vacancies and these vacancies uh these vacancies positions have been vacant over 180 days. We also had uh reductions in service services. So due to the size of the gap between spending and revenue, we've identified service reductions and these reductions are included in the proposed budget as well. Again, I won't uh read these to you, but a couple of them I would like to point out is that um after COVID, we were able to increase our community center hours to allow for more time for our residents in these spaces. This budget proposes reducing our community center hours to our pre precoid levels. So that's going to vary across community centers. Uh would also like to note uh and we've had conversations about this previously as well. Pausing the annual contribution to public art fund while leaving the existing balance intact for utilization. That balance includes $250,000 available for general public art as well as an additional $200,000 for the RAD specific art. Although we tried as much as possible to use recurring savings, we did have to identify some one-time balancing strategies in order to further close the

gap. And you'll see these noted here. Uh, one that I will point out is our transit contract, um, which was, as you know, just rebid. The contract increased by $800,000 for next year. Instead of increasing the general fund transfer to the transit fund to cover the increase, we are utilizing the transit fund balance. Since the fund balance is a one-time source, we will likely need to increase the general fund transfer to the transit fund next year. So, in the previous slides, we walked through almost $9 million in reductions and/or budget balancing strategies. I believe it's equally important to highlight the valuable services and programs that this proposed budget maintains to ensure ongoing investment in our community as well as work to fulfill council priorities. I want to emphasize that by balancing this budget with a rates above revenue neutral, we are able to continue providing critical services to our community. Just to point out a few of those ongoing investments here, you'll see investments in public health and safety. That includes the continuation of Asheville Fire Department's rest team. They're going to continue to provide the needed support, particularly downtown. Uh, I'd also like to point out that we are continuing trash and recycling pickup at the same levels despite increased costs for waste disposal and recycling. In the area of culture and recreation, our parks and recreation department will continue to provide quality and affordable yearround programming, including afterchool programs and summer

camp. We've also been able to utilize the sales tax and the bid fund to continue holiday celebrations and our downtown events in the area of community and organizational investments. Um these are the investments that we're continuing. I will point out a couple of those as well. uh support for our bus services with stricter performance standards, the addition of an on-site crisis counselor and enhanced metrics. I mentioned earlier that we're able to invest in our staff with a 2.8% cost of living salary adjustment to support staff in managing rising costs. Lastly, and to continue to iterate, reiterate that despite the reductions, this budget continues to align and represent the things that are important to our community. It includes strategic investments like continued focus on access uh and engagement for our residents, support for our neighborhood matching grants program where we provide funds directly to neighborhood groups and we're continuing to support key organizations through community services. Um, I also like to mention that we are maintaining proposing to maintain our contribution to the county's homeowner grant program. And I'll talk a little bit more about that program on the next slide. For fiscal year 2027 proposed budget, we are including $75,000 to continue the city's participation in the homeowner grant program. This program was established by Buckham County in 2021. For fiscal year 2027, uh the county is proposing to revamp the

program and transfer the program funds to its health and human services general assistance program. This program as it currently stay stands is underutilized. Over the last three years, the city has spent an average of $45,000 of our annual contribution. This change would distri dist distribute more grants because requirements will be less restrictive requiring less documentation and would expand the potential use of funds beyond homeowners after property tax bills are due. This is a fairly recent shift and staff is continuing to have discussions with the county to ensure that the new program requirements align with how the city can spend its funding. Another important change to the program is that homeowners would be now be eligible for grants even if they are utilizing other assistance program. Overall, from a staff's perspective, this seems like a good shift for our residents. We'll provide final details as the progress and the budget proceeds.

Can we go back to that slide for just a second? when we get more details, can we talk about the use beyond homeowners because I think there's been some curiosity around whether or not it could be targeted to help maintain affordable rentals as well.

Our understanding based on what we know now, renters would be included in that. Currently, the program only allows for homeowners. So, we'll provide more additional detail around that. So now if we can switch gears and start the conversation around property tax rates. One driver of our property taxes is our 2024 general obligation bonds. Again, as a reminder, in November of 2024, voters approved $80 million in general obligation bonds for critical areas, and those areas are listed here. The estimated annual debt service is approximately 6.6 million and that included one affordable housing project manager to better manage the this portion of those bonds. The city delayed the tax rate increase needed for this debt service in fiscal year 2026 due to tropical storm Helen as well as a delayed reappraisal. This budget, this proposed budget includes three4s of the debt service, the affordable housing project manager, and a tax rate increase totaling $4.95 million. As you know, this fiscal year is a reval revaluation year in Bunkham County. This process was set to occur in 2020 in the last fiscal year, but the county made a decision to delay it for one year. Accordingly, it has been 5 years since the last revaluation for Bunkham County. We are required to calculate and publish a revenue neutral tax rate. This rate reflects what the property tax rate would need to be to achieve the same amount of revenue if revaluation had not

occurred. The calculation follows a required state methodology based on the average annual tax base growth since the last revaluation. The city's current property tax rate is 44.19 cents per $100 of assessed value. Based on the estimates that we received from the county on April 22nd, city staff has calculated the revenue neutral tax rate to be 32 cents 32.89 cents per 100 of excess value. And this calculation is presented to you in the budget document. The proposed budget includes a tax rate of 4.95 cents above revenue neutral to balance the general fund and partially fund the general obligation bonds. The new proposed tax rate is 37.84 cents per $100 of assessed value. I do want to note that this rate could change if the county provides updates on the assessed valuation numbers before budget adoption. So this chart this chart shows the proposed budget including a 4.95 cents tax rate above revenue neutral to again to partially fund the geo bonds and close the $ 8.9 million gap for the medium homeowner with the property tax valued at $478500,000. This will result in an increase of $237 to their tax bill annually. This would equal

about a $20 per month increase. I always have a question about that every year and I've just never asked. So, since we're in a rebound, say if your property were $200,000 last year, $400,000 this year, is the increase based on the assumption that it was your tax bill was for400 last year, or is it the difference between what you were paying at 200,000 to what one would be paying at 400? It's not the difference.

Okay. Um this calculates based on this value what your tax bill would be. It does not take into account what it was previously. So okay so the increase is this if you had the same value last year. It doesn't take into account yes it assumes that your value was 478500 last year. Okay. Thank you. Does that

it does? Okay. I had one request in general that in how we portray this data um I'm assuming that we're saying 478500 is the new median but that's not everyone's house rate and since we're all tuned in to our revals I'm wondering if we might do our residents a favor to say if your house is 350 the impact is if your house is 478500 the impact you know just give more of a range because I don't you know you might have a 350 $50,000 reval and get a little impacted by this number and it may not be your value. We typically just share one number, but there's a variety of home prices. And then I saw today the county actually did a range as well and maybe we can fall in step with that.

Yes. So this is the medium. Yeah. Um so what you're requesting is to see an illustration that shows a range just varying values instead of just the median.

When we um do the public hearing, that would be a good opportunity to show that. Okay. So this is just a a different way to illustrate the tax rate. As you can see here, a revenue neutral rate is 32.89 cents. Um in order to close the the proposed gap as well as to fund partially the geo bonds, it would be a 4.9 cent. So this just same way, same information illustrated differently. We also wanted to update the council on some pending legislation being considered at the state level that could impact our tax rate. Senate bill 8.89 89 proposes that counties, including Bunkham County, that their appraised reappraised property effective January 1st, 2026, would temporarily be required to use the schedule of values from their previous reappraisal for next year's budget. This creates a one-year delay in implementing the updated property values. The bill would not limit local government's ability to raise property taxes. This would require that we set our tax rate based on the previous values. If the bill passes, we would need to adjust

our tax rate based on current year values. Property values would revert to the same values prior to the reval and our tax rate would need to be 51.13 cents to achieve the same amount of revenue. The next slide will show a chart further explaining the rate change. So, the medium residential tax value would then revert back to the 350,000, the same value we used last year, and the new rate would be 6.94 cents above the current rate. This would have a similar impact on our homeowners. As you can see here, it's just slightly different. So it's

$6 a year. Yeah, it's very minimal. Yeah, it's minimal. Staff, including myself, our finance director, and attorney Brandham continue to monitor this activity in Raleigh, and we'll keep you updated on the progress. Any questions about that? Thank you for Thank you for including this part though, which is helpful.

It helped me put it in context. I guess my question is something that we're keeping an eye on, but I'm part of a group of electives across North Carolina that are watching the changes in the House today because if it if the moves in the House change our North Carolina constitution, it may limit the amount that we could set the tax rate and I'm sure we'll have updates if that happens. Yeah. Well, that's different than what she's talking about. Yeah. That's a separate bill and I think we're all watching that pretty closely because it would drastically affect local governments in North Carolina. Yeah. But no mention of the cap or anything yet.

Well, that that bill got voted out of the House committee this morning. Um so it will go to the floor. They need a three-fifths vote in the Senate and the House to put it on the ballot and then it would be a constitutional amendment to allow the legislature to cap property taxes. So, it wouldn't itself be a cap, but it would allow the legislature to to do it. And and um many cities and counties have written letters to the legislators, including myself, are urging them not to to do that. Um, so you know, we're keeping our eye on that, but I appreciate the the two you're having to track both bills because the the one unfortunately sometimes the legislature can pass a bill pretty late in our budget season and you know, we got to pass our budget before the end of June. So that would be that would be something we'd have to handle at sort of a last minute.

That's why it was important to p point this one out specifically. But yes, we're monitoring all activity that could impact us locally here. Thank you.

Um, on to our enterprise funds as well as our bid fund. Uh, I don't have to tell anyone how important it is to maintain and modernize our water and storm water infrastructure. So, we'll talk a little bit about these two funds for the water fund. The fund contains uh $3.3 million in new revenue from fee adjustments approved on March 24th. This increases funding for water capital program as well as offset inflationary increases. Similarly for storm water uh we have a $626,000 in new revenue from fee adjustments approved on March 24th. Uh this funding will also be used for capital planning uh as well as offsetting any inflationary increases. Um we also plan to appropriate about $3 million in fund balance uh for one-time capital costs in storm water as well as other one-time items. Um the transit fund is and will continue to be an area of focus for us in the city. The fund is facing decreased revenue and increased costs, including $800,000 increase to the to the transit contract and a $150,000 increase to paratransit. This has led to a $1.2 million budget gap, which will be covered by the transit fund balance for parking. Uh during the April 14th budget work session, we reviewed parking fee adjustment options with the council and received general support to move forward with the expansion of meters and south slope and other minor adjustments. This proposed budget includes that expansion. Fee changes will be finalized

with the adoption of the fiscal year 2027 budget. Um for Harris Cherokee fund, the budget is up due to anticipated increase in event load next fiscal year. Um that fund balance will be used to cover the transfer from the general fund as a one-time budgeting strategy. With regards to street cut fund, that fund continues existing programs. The budget, total budget is down because we utilize onetime fund balance for fiscal year 2026 and we will not be repeating that for 27. Since the bid is a taxing unit, council is also required to set their tax rate every year and calculate a revenue neutral rate as a part of the reval process. The current tax rate for the bid is 8.77. After revaluation, the bid tax rate will decrease to the revenue neutral rate of 7.63 cents. Property tax will be used to fund the bid management contract contract with ADID Asheville uh downtown improvement district. The fiscal year 2027 budget also anticipates $400,000 in sales tax revenue in this bid fund. About $174,000 of that sales tax revenue will fund our holiday events and Asheville arts grant program. Staff is currently and will continue to coordinate with ADIT leadership and will present options for the remaining sales tax to council at a later date.

Now we'll turn to the final section of this presentation which is our capital improvement program. Our capital improvement program is for five years. So this is a multi-year strategy for our capital investments. Uh, as a part of this program, we're relying on external funding partners for some projects, especially as it relates to Helen Recovery projects. Less than two years after the storm, Helen Recovery is still a main priority for our capital program and capital project staff. Although most recovery projects are funded with federal and state resources, this capital improvement program reserves a portion of the annual CIP capacity as a funding buffer. We want to ensure that our recovery projects can move forward if other sources don't cover the entire amount. Beyond Helen recovery, staff continues to focus on long range capital planning to ensure we can achieve our long-term infrastructure goals. Based on our debt model, the general fund CIP budget is typically uh anywhere between 20 million to 25 million per year. This year, staff created a project list. That list was informed by multiple documents, our past CIPs, uh planning documents like uh recreate Asheville, the gap plan, as well as our facility study. We also utilize a cross-d departmental uh group to determine what which projects would be prioritized. You can see here the prior prioritization was based on what is required right readiness for implementation and financially feasible for capacity.

So very collaborative process to identify these projects. As you can see here, our fiscal year 2027 capital improvement um budget is a little over $32 million. Uh over the next five years, we are proposing to uh invest about the same amount through 20 through fiscal year 31. And this just shows some of the categories of projects. All right. So, just a few notes on the sustainability fund. I'll go back to this. Uh, we have in our capital project, this is new, so I want to point this out to the council, an allocation for fiscal year 2027 for sustainability. We want to be able to provide funding to capital projects to support costs arising from the inclusion of more sustainable and energyefficient design elements. Um just a couple examples of that will include the purchase and install of a more expensive HVAC system. This will reduce the city's overall carbon footprint and result in electricity savings over the life of the system. staff in the coming uh months will continue to evaluate this sustainability allocation and include future amounts in upcoming CIPs. I already talked about the uh allocation for public art. Um you don't see a cost amount there because we're not contributing. We're pausing that contribution for 27. But again, there is funds available. There are funds available in uh this account about 250,000 available for general public art and an additional 200,000 for uh river

arts district specific needs. All right. So, just to talk about some of the um enterprise funds, going backwards, enterprise funds, capital projects. Um for 2027, we have a waterline replacement at Cox Avenue. That's funding also funding to reallocate relocate water lines impacted by uh DOT projects and regular maintenance for parking. Uh we have maintenance at Harris as well as our Builtmore garages and we have several drainage projects for storm water. All right. So to conclude, um here's the remaining timeline for budget adoption. Having presented the proposed budget to you on this evening, uh the next critical steps will be a public hearing on May 26. Uh and then final adop adoption of this budget is planned for June 9th. We look forward to engaging with council and the community over the next weeks as we finalize this budget. Mayor, this concludes the presentation of the manager's proposed budget for 2026 2027. Thank you. Um, okay. Just to highlight what you were saying that the public hearing on the budget is on May 26 and then the actual vote will be on June 9th. Um, and thank you and to all staff for all the hard work. Thank you council for the many many many meetings um discussing the budget. Pretty difficult budgeting year and your opening year as the city manager. So gave you a tall task um

that you handled very well. I will say I appreciate the time and effort that you put into working through my many many budget questions. My pleasure. Any other questions or comments um regarding the manager's budget at this time or um are we ready to move on to the next item on our agenda? Okay, we're talked out on the budget for now. I'll just briefly say that I've reached out to each of you about some ideas if we are looking for any additional cuts. So, if anybody wants to talk about that, let's talk more. I wasn't expecting to do it here tonight. I know we have a long night ahead.

Okay. So, since we're still talking about money, let's move on to public hearing item A, which is a public hearing on issuance of 2026 interim limited obligation bonds. Um, and Tony McDall, our finance director, is going to present this item. And let me just ask um quickly. I believe we need two votes, separate resolutions. Okay. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Tony McDow, finance director. As the mayor indicated, the next item on your agenda tonight is the public hearing uh for the issuance of 2026 limited obligation bonds that'll be used to fund our capital improvement program that Miss Wesley just finished talking about. Uh and as the mayor mentioned, there are two resolutions associated with this tonight. Uh the first one is a resolution authorizing the negotiation of an installment financing contract. That's a fancy way of saying the limited obligation bonds. Uh and that will allow staff to proceed with the with negotiating uh that with the banks. Uh we'll be back to you all at your next meeting in May to finalize that. And then the final resolution tonight is related to some property that we utilize as collateral as a part of these debt agreements. uh and we're going to be releasing some of those uh properties from the deed of trust uh as a part of this action as well. So just briefly a little background um the city's been utilizing a multi-year capital improvement and debt model since fiscal year 20134. So about 12 years now. Uh as a part of that multi-year financial model, the city regularly enters into short-term uh loans with financial institutions through the issuance of what we call uh interim limited obligation bonds. and that's what we're here to talk about tonight. Uh these short-term loans uh allow us uh to provide provides us with cash as we move forward with our capital improvement programs and then ultimately after about a two-year period, we usually come back and we issue the long-term debt associated with these projects. So again, this is kind of a regular occurrence for us to come to you all uh with these limited obligation bonds. The specific ones we're seeking resolute or seeking authorization for uh with this with the resolution tonight uh is about $40 million. That's kind of our standard uh amount that we usually issue for these two-year uh banknotes. Uh as Miss Wesley indicated, we usually spend

somewhere between 20 to $25 million a year on our capital improvement program. So again, these banknotes are designed to fund us for provide cash for us for two years. Some of the specific projects that we'll utilize u this funding for, some of them are already underway, some of them will be uh starting soon. They include uh repairs to the municipal municipal building as well as other city facil city facilities uh maintenance of our parking garages um imp street improvements including resurf resurfacing uh as well as purchase of fire apparatus and transit buses. So again with that um we're seeking request uh tonight for you all to approve the initial resolution. We'll be back uh in two weeks uh for final approval. And then the second part of this, as I mentioned, is a resolution uh to release uh the municipal building and the public works building as collateral that we've been utilizing for these loans. Uh and that's on advice of our um bond council. So, with that, I will turn it back over to city council to conduct the public hearing.

Okay. Thank you. Uh any questions for Tony before I open the public hearing? I'm going to open the public hearing and I'm going to close the public hearing. No one has signed up to speak under this item. Council, do I have a motion? I'll move to adopt a resolution to permanently close a portion of an unopened No, sorry. I'm on the wrong one. I just jumped to the wrong tab. My bad. Wow. My bad. See if I can beat you. Yep. Um, I got one. Go ahead. A motion to adopt a Do I have the right one? A motion to adopt a resolution authorizing the negotiation of an installment financing contract and providing for certain other related matters thereto for second. All those in favor please say I. I. Any opposed.

All right. Second. Second resolution please. And a motion to adopt a resolution requesting the release of property from a deed of trust related to limited obligation bonds. Second. All those in favor please say I. I. Hi. Any opposed? Tony, you're looking at us anxiously. Did was that the right motion? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. You just I don't know if you're just getting ready to sprint out of here or Okay.

Okay. The next item under under the public hearing agenda is a public hearing to permanently close a portion of unopened right ofway on the western edge of St. Dunston's Road between 159 St. Duden's Road and 183 St. Dunston's road and Chris KS is here to present this item. Not Jessica.

Good evening. I'm Chris Karens, a city engineer and I am not Jessica Morris and this is not Sawyer Street. This is uh should should say St. Don's the rest of it does. The the request is to close a portion of unopened rideway on the western edge of St. Dunston's Road between 159 and 183 St. Johnson's Road. Suzanne and Lane Dosy petitioned for the closure on behalf of themselves and and the property owners of the two next properties to the to the north. The closure will allow these homes to construct driveways that'll connect directly to the legal public rightway on St. Dunson's Road. When St. Dun's Road was originally platted in 1922, it included a widened area and a triangular portion that was labeled or called a parkway. Um, the Parkway was constructed. Oh, actually here's an overview of the of the location. That's basically the western end of St. Dustin's as it's coming into McDow Street. And well, actually there there you can see the three properties. Two of them, one of them does not have a home on it, but it is the same property owner, the two on the north end. The park, the parkway does exist. It was constructed. The road portion that's to the west of this parkway does not was never constructed and it has not been maintained by the city. It is it is um it's shown in the plat but it was never constructed. And this excess unopened rightway has served as a driveway for access to these uh these parcels, these properties. And until recently, the property owners didn't re realize that their properties did not legally access St. Dunston's Road.

This closure will allow the homeowners to construct driveways to access St. Dunston's directly. Historic Resources Commission on May 14th approved a certificate of appropriateness for this proposed right of right ofway closure as it relates to the St. Dunston's historic district and the TRC recommended approval of this closure. There was one condition in that TRC that I recall and that was for a 10 for the plat to include a 10 feet wide storm water easement does it I well the plat I no

I think that would be the I I think that's I believe that's the next step it would and this is the proposed motion I don't know if I read that well council any questions, comments, hearing? None. I'll open the public hearing and close the public hearing because we don't have anyone signed up to speak. Uh, is there a motion? I had it ready before. I can pick it up. Okay. Motion to adopt a resolution to permanently close a portion of the unopened rideway on the western edge of St. Dunston's Road between 159 St. Dunston's Road and 183 St. Dunston's Road. Second. All those in favor?

I I Any opposed? Motion passes unanimous unanimously. Thank you. Up next, item C, which is a public hearing to consider a conditional zoning request at 99999 Caribou Road from RS4 residential single family medium density to residential expansion conditional zone for the purposees of constructing a 100 unit multifamily development. And here to present is Will Palmquist.

Thank you. Good evening, Vice Mayor, members of council. Will Palmquist with Planning and Urban Design. I'll be presenting this conditional zoning petition for the project known as Caribou Commons. Here is the project site. Um, give you a little bit of overview. It is in the southern portion of the Shiloh neighborhood. The site itself consists of four properties totaling about 9 and a half acres. Um, you can see it's a pretty large uh wooded site. uh has a very little amount amount of frontage on Caribou Road about 50 feet um located there. Uh the main frontage area was formerly a single family house that was demolished a few years ago. Uh the site itself uh has a lot of topography associated with it. It's about a 20 or 30 foot uh drop down into the middle of the site from Caribou Road. Uh there is an unopened right ofway that exists currently through the project site between the two uh northern properties and those would be uh would would need to be closed at some point prior to any um building permits for the project down the road if it was approved. There are also a couple of streets that abut the project site. One is Forest Street that um is foreclosed by existing uh private property next to the project site. The other is Ardmore Street on the south. Uh there is a right of way that extends past where the road ends to the project site and that'll be a little bit important later on at the site plan drawings. Uh here are the existing and proposed zoning exhibits. You can see the existing zoning is residential single family medium density and then due to the size of the project which is above 50 units a conditional zoning to the residential expansion district is required and proposed. The existing future land use is traditional neighborhood as outlined in the city's comprehensive plan and no change in that would be required for

this project. So here's a site plan of the project proposed. Um it has been amended slightly um between uh when these materials were released and today. I'll go over those changes that are relatively minimal. Um but the overall project consists of 100 affordable housing units. There are essentially two areas to the site. The northern section of the site consists of four uh groupings of fourunit town home buildings, so 16 units total. Uh there's a clubhouse building located in the middle of that driveway area uh with parking off of it. Uh there's also a picnic shelter and playground proposed in that area. And then as you move further to the south of the site, uh you can see the existing stream and the stream buffer that would be undisturbed with this project. uh leading to the southern southern half of the site that includes two three and fourstory uh multifamily uh buildings with 42 units in each of them. You can see the access to the project is off of Caribou Road. Um excuse me. regarding uh some of the changes that have been made in the last uh 24 hours or so. Um these are uh in response to some of the discussions that came out of the planning and zoning commission hearing last week and we'll talk a little more about that later on in the presentation. Uh the two biggest changes proposed is a reduction in the total number of parking spaces proposed. Uh so previously proposed of 172 spaces uh with the elimination of the uh parking lot that was proposed in the southwestern corner of the project site that drops the maximum the the proposed number of parking spaces to 139. So reduction of um 33 spaces. Uh the applicant is uh proposing to modify the

project conditions regarding the parking to state that as a maximum number of parking spaces um allowed for the project. The other change is in place of that parking area um a sidewalk that would provide a direct connection to Ardmore Street that was discussed at planning and zoning commission and a way to allow residents to uh access Caribou Road, specifically a bus stop located um on that southern kind of southern end of Caribou Road or southern side of Caribou Road in a more direct fashion than what would be previously uh have been the access to go all the way up to the driveway connection at the north side of the site. Make sure not forget anything. Um so moving on to the landscape plan. Uh some fairly typical elements um that are proposed as required. These include two street trees where the uh project site uh abuts caribou road as well as other park other landscaping elements such as parking lot and building landscaping. What's shown in the green around the perimeter of the site is the required 20 foot wide type A landscape buffer which is required where uh there is a single family uh zoning adjacent to the project site. It would not be required on the southern side of the site where it is adjacent to another conditional zoning residential expansion district. Um, I'll mention this later, but this is a good time to illustrate that the applicant is requesting a technical modification to that landscape buffer in a few specific areas of the site. You can see um some of the overlaps with the proposed driveway and sidewalk along the western property line and also near the project's entrance um near Caribou Road.

That equals about 1,200 square feet of area where um typically sidewalks and driveways are not permitted in those buffer yards. So this would allow them to coexist and uh the plantings would still be required as per the um amount of square footage in in linear feet of that property line, but it would be a thinner buffer area in those locations. Here are some elevation drawings uh showing the um townhouse style buildings on the northern side of the site. They are one story in height with peaked roofs. And then here are the elevation drawings of the uh basically the two multifamily residential structures proposed for the southern half of the site. You can see the three and fourtory uh split uh with the three-story portion of the building facing towards Caribou Road and the fourstory portion facing to the south to uh work with the topography of the site. So, one of the project conditions regards the affordable housing proposed with the project um that would be that all units would be leased at those earning at or below 80% of area median income uh for a minimum of 20 years from the date of any certificate of occupancy. All the units would accept housing choice vouchers but would not be restricted to them. Um, as mentioned previously, there are a few uh technical modifications associated with this project through the conditional zoning process. The first is regarding sidewalk width. Um, instead of the 10- foot wide minimum standard for the residential expansion district, the project is proposing a six foot wide sidewalk on Caribou Road. It's a relatively limited portion of sidewalk due to that small amount of frontage that the site has on Caribou Road. Um, as well as a five foot wide internal sidewalk width. As previously mentioned, uh the

modification for the encroachment of driveways and sidewalks into the landscape buffer of approximately 1,200 square feet, uh that would be a correction in the project conditions that the applicant is requesting, whereas the previous number of linear feet uh was inaccurate and not the correct measurement. Finally, a modification is being requested for the location of street trees on Caribou Road. There is one proposed on each side of that driveway access. Uh this would be a modification to allow for the distance from the edge of pavement to be more than the maximum 20 foot distance uh not to exceed 50 feet. This is mainly due to um details with the right ofway width, utilities, and other site features that make it difficult to plant trees closer to that caribou road. The project was reviewed and approved with conditions at the technical review committee's meeting on April 6. It was reviewed at last week's planning and zoning commission meeting May 6. No recommendation was delivered uh by planning and zoning commission. Uh there were two motions uh that were made. Each of them failed um at a vote of 33. Uh the motion to approve uh did propose to include a number of conditions. Some of these the applicant has been working to incorporate voluntarily um as they um had had general support by the planning and zoning commission and and tenative support by staff as well. Uh these included the pedestrian connection to Ardore Streets um specifically a general recognition of working with the city to identify improvements to the pedestrian network in the vicinity. a uh a goal to reduce the overall parking provided on site. And then finally to um really dial in and make sure that the um encroachment into the landscape buffer was an accurate reflection of the actual

site plan. So the applicant has verified those numbers as well. And then uh just to acknowledge and these slides are new since uh the original presentation was uh prepared um but we thought it was important to acknowledge that we did receive the planning zoning commission received a significant number of public comment prior to the meeting and at the meeting itself. Uh these comments included uh infrastructure and traffic safety concerns. um concerns with um I guess I'll call it reckless driving in the neighborhood and unsafe motorist behavior, running of stop signs and um narrow roadways that um make it difficult for folks to safely share the space. That speaks to the second bullet, public safety and pedestrian risks that Kiboo Road is a welltraveled site of pedestrians and there are potential um and identified um conflicts between pedestrians and motorists on that roadway. Well, were these reasons the same reasons that the three planning and zoning commissioners voted against it?

Uh, I can't say definitively uh the rationale for not supporting a motion to approve the project. Um, but these were certainly the main issues that the planning and zoning commission um discussed internally and with the applicant to try to come to some resolution on. So, I think a combination of of some of these, if not all of these issues were likely um the the reasons for the commissioners um not voting in the affir affirmative to approve the project. I recommend approval of the project. Thank you. Can you go back to slide 11? I thought we were waiting, but since we're not waiting, sorry.

No, no, it's fine. Um, I I feel like I heard you say that this had general support, but I was in the room when it happened to sound like the Hamilton soundtrack. Um, and it did seem to me that it did not have support because it failed. One of the things that was consistent to me was that every commissioner named concerns about infrastructure, especially around the road. So, I just wanted to make sure that if that's how it was communicated, it wasn't how it landed with me when I was listening.

Um, sure. I can try to clarify that. Um, and maybe just I'll clarify what I was trying to say is that these conditions that were associated with the motion to approve the project had, I think, general support amongst the majority of the commissioners, if not all of them. Um, well, then why' they vote against? That's not how I heard it, but I just wanted to say that that's how that's how I interpret it differently. Sure. Are you trying just trying to say that the commissioner supported this these things irrespective of whether they were going to support this project? Correct. Like they saying these would be good things to do. Yes. So regardless of their support of the project itself, there wasn't

there didn't seem to be any objection at least to these ideas that were discussed. So, no one was arguing for necessarily not reducing parking or not providing pedestrian connections to Ardmore Street, but the commissioners, even if they like those amendments, uh, to the project, still did not support the project enough to recommend approval of it. Right. I just wanted to make sure that silence wasn't perceived as support. Sure. Well, that could be a good point to make is that there was there certainly was not um opposition to these uh conditions heard at the meeting. I appreciate that. Thank you.

You're welcome. And then just to summarize the remaining um issues and um concerns heard from the public, these also included the uh potential environmental impacts of um of the construction on the site which is heavily wooded today and would include a large amount of tree removal on that on those properties. There's also concerns about the neighborhood character uh the existing character versus the proposed character of this project. And then finally, uh, concerns regarding the cumulative development impact of, um, already already constructed projects, projects currently under construction, such as the expansion of the Laurel Wood, uh, development to the south, and then future, uh, potential projects as well that could have a cumulative impact on the neighborhood. So looking at the comprehensive plan living Asheville um specifically the future land use staff finds that the project is consistent with the future land use designation of traditional neighborhood. Uh the traditional neighborhood is described as a mix of housing types such as single family with ADUs, duplexes, town homes and multifamily apartments usually located seamlessly together. project also supports the following goals in the comprehensive plan. To encourage responsible growth by prioritizing greater densities of development overall throughout the city as appropriate and to increase and diversify the housing supply by increasing the supply of housing, including affordable housing in proximity to schools, transit, and parks. These slides were in the planning and zoning commission presentation and in the planning and zoning commission staff report. uh staff felt it was important to include them and add them into this evening's presentation to you all uh for your consideration and acknowledge that staff did a very thorough review of the

Shiloh community plan which was adopted in in 2010. Uh the plan provides goals and strategies for the neighborhood to achieve its long-term vision. staff identified areas of alignment with the plan and then areas that were not in alignment with the pro with respect to the project. staff found that areas of alignment with the plan included these two goals and strategies um specifically to explore opportunities for the construction of affordable housing in the Shiloh community and also to um have target areas uh for redevelopment and infill that complement existing development or can be supported by existing infrastructure. Acknowledging that uh while keeping the residential density consistent with the current densities, there's an opportunity to to promote some greater densities and development patterns and in transition areas. Staff also found that the project was not in alignment or only partially in alignment with the following goals and strategies. Uh the first being to create additional green space and tree canopy in the neighborhood acknowledging that this project would reduce the tree canopy in in this specific site and area of the neighborhood. And then um secondly regarding specific target areas that are identified in the plan. So the plan has identified about half a dozen um potential infill sites um typically larger sites around the neighborhood that could be redeveloped. And um the description for this specific property in that plan uh spoke to the opportunity uh that it could provide single family infill opportunities consistent with surrounding residential development. So staff recommends approval of the proposed conditional zoning. I do want to note um you know that when we come to this conclusion and understand and try

to evaluate the consistency of the project with adopted plans including the comprehensive plan and the Shiloh community plan 2025. uh we really consider the overall um totality of the plans and have to weigh the sometimes um sometimes contradictory or um not always consistent recommendations from those plans. But this recommendation comes to you with the consideration of the goals of the comprehensive plan, the future land use designation, and then an overall analysis of the Shiloh plan. But with that, I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have. questions.

Okay. Because we we're not doing anti-displacement analysis yet, right? The tool is not completed yet. That's correct. But there's significant work on finalizing the tool happening. Do we have the breakdown of the affordability among the units? It just says 80%, is there anything that goes below 50% maybe? Um, I'd have to defer to the applicant on those specific numbers. Um, but at this time the project conditions read as the 80% AMI number.

I had a question too and this might be for the applicant. Um, currently there's only one entrance whereas there had been kind of questions or suggestions about a second entrance on Ardmore. Do you know if that was discussed between planning and zoning and now with the applicant?

Yes. Um, so looking at the site plan, you can see the uh primary and only vehicular entrance is the driveway off Caribou Road. Um but in the meantime um in between planning zoning commission and this uh evening the applicant has revised their site plan drawing to show a pedestrian connection that goes through the site and then uh through the right of way um south of the project site and then connects to um Ardmore Street formally. We've had some time to evaluate this um with our transportation colleagues. There will need to be some addressing of the it's an unopened ride ofway currently because there's no roadway in that section where the pavement ends. So, there will need to be some administrative or perhaps legislative work to um open that right ofway and allow for that sidewalk improvement to happen on it. But, we have done a preliminary evaluation of that proposal and um from what I've heard and understood, there's no significant concerns with it from a a staff standpoint. Okay. So, I want to make sure that I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing because I went over uh into Shiloh a few times now. So, that portion on Caribou Road when I drive by, it's about the length from where the cameraman is maybe to where Sheniqua is. So that's going to be the only entrance and exit for vehicles.

Correct. It's that about exists within that 50 foot wide frontage of the property on Cber Road. Um that would have a uh typical driveway and commercial, you know, driveway apron, a crosswalk, and then minimal uh sidewalks to the property edges off that driveway. So if two cars are in going at once, that's enough room for that. That is my understanding. Going one way and another coming the other way. Did you say it's 50 ft? Yes. Yeah, that's or 15. 15 or 50? 50 is plenty. 50. Oh, 50 is plenty. Not 15. Sorry if

50 feet. Um it's it's a relatively small for a commercial site and I'm just making the point that there's not a lot of opportunity for sidewalk and the sidewalks proposed are are very short due to the limited of room there. Um but yeah, that is enough for the 50 ft is enough for the commercial uh driveway entrance, the driveway, two lanes and then some sidewalks. What about I guess these would be questions for the applicant. I'm just wondering if the applicant has adjusted anything from that list of potentially supported but not voted on list of recommendations like is is this alternative road armore I don't have any topography can you make it a road instead of a pedestrian right of way is there

is it a possible or we don't know if that's a slope um so the applicant can applicant can speak a little more about that what I believe they talked uh what I believe they mentioned at the planning zoning commission meeting when that discussion came up is that it it based on their evaluation it would be feasible to uh build a road to extend Ardmore Street into the property as a as a roadway for vehicles. Okay. Um when that came up did that change any of the support? I guess I'll be mostly concerned from the neighborhood on that regard. So maybe that's not a question. My remaining questions are for the applicant.

Yeah. I mean, I think a second entrance makes sense, especially since you have all those down at the bottom and then you we can um like when you said a driveway coming off a caribou, is that actually a driveway or is that is that just a tiny road? A road that isn't there that we're going to build or the applicants going to build? Sure. So, it's it's not a driveway in the traditional sense of like residential driveway, but it's also not a a full-blown public street, per se, but it is um it is a roadway uh classified as a commercial driveway that allows for the flow of two-way vehicular traffic. That's a much easier.

I'd be interested if the applicant would be open to making a second entrance down there. That southern tip, very low, it's very low density residential. There's maybe we need to let the applicant come forward um and answer some questions. Is that all right? Yeah, thank you. Will just Yeah. Maybe they can just speak to that list because Armore's on there.

Thanks. Will and good evening, mayor, vice mayor, staff, city council members. My name is Derek Allen. I'm an attorney in Palenstone Kilborn. represent the development team on this request and also the next request. Um we do have the development team here this evening. Uh we have Will Xin and Randy Clack from Penrose. Uh Pinrose does uh this kind of housing, LITC housing, tax credit housing. Uh they do a lot of they do thousands of units. Uh and they're very interested in the western North Carolina market, in particular Asheville. Um these two projects are geographically located very close to one another. Uh the one that you'll see next is on the other side of Sweeten Creek Road. The thing that's important about that or one of the things that's important about that is instead of just the 100 units that are being proposed on this 10acre parcel, you have another 126 that are being proposed uh that are very close by. So close by that the uh community services that are part of the funding requirements for these kinds of projects can be serviced by the same staff. So that allows them to realize economies of scale and a better service for the residents of both uh of the uh apartment projects. Um I also have with me this evening uh Warren Sugg and Chris Day from Civil Design Concepts. They've done the engineering on this uh on this project. Um, and one thing that uh I wanted to uh really talk about, and we'll get back to this a couple of times, is this is where staff and I disagree a little bit about compliance with um the Shiloh plan, um is that this project is designed to provide a buffer uh from intense development uh both from if you look follow the cursor here, uh from the Laurelwood down here, which is uh a four-story project on top of the grade on top of a hill back towards the single family homes that you see up here um from the railroad tracks that are here on the east from the industrial uh and mobile home park that's here on the

other side uh of this and if you look our project with the most dense buildings here on these three four splits they're actually kind of down in a bowl and I'll let Warren our civil engineer talk about that um inside of our development it goes and tapers back towards these single uh story uh town homes which are attached single family dwellings uh that surround uh the clubhouse and playground and the clubhouse is where those supported services uh will be provided for uh the residents of uh this development. Uh a couple of quick comments and then I'll introduce uh Will because I would like for him to talk a little bit about uh Pinrose and what they do. Uh this is a normal entrance. Uh there's no reduction in terms of the width of that entrance. Uh and this connection on Ardmore was originally shown on the site plan that we presented to the neighbors at before we had even gotten into the planning process. Uh we were asked to remove that and that's why it's kind of the in between of pedestrian. Now if it is the will of the city council to have that connection reestablished uh we can do that as part of part of this this approval. Um will if you'd come up I'd like to talk a little bit about Pinrose and what they do and uh how they uh develop manage their projects.

Good evening. Uh I'm Will Xin, the regional vice president of development for Penrose. Um Penrose is a national workforce and affordable housing developer. Um, we've developed across the country, uh, up through the Northeast, down through Texas, and out in Colorado. Um, you know, we are long-term holders of the communities that we develop. And, um, we own and operate these communities um, individually with our own in-house property management. And um as you will see in kind of talking a little bit about Pinrose, we often develop in partnerships and collaborations with other organizations um to try to service the residents and meet them where they are. Um and so, you know, in some of our development work that we've done across the Southeast and specifically down in Atlanta, we partner with healthcare organizations um to build housing adjacent to healthcare clinics. um and we're doing development work in uh high-cost communities where access to affordable and attainable housing is just not um capable um or is not possible. Um we really welcome the opportunity to come to Asheville. Uh we're excited to be here and again as uh as Jerick was saying um the opportunity to kind of develop um multiple properties and have a level you know not so dense on one site but to be able to deliver units and kind of operate um as efficiently and develop as efficiently uh as possible u is really key um and kind of a good opportunity for us. Um I'm from North Carolina. I I was born in Silva. I grew up in the eastern part of the state. I I live here. Um, and this is, you know, the way that I consider this is, um, you know, doing impactful work and serving the communities where you really have, um, h have a have your heart, right? And so, uh, as you guys know, uh, housing is there's a shortage of housing across the country, right? There's a housing crisis. You guys have identified that. You guys have done a

ton of work in that space. Um, I kind of applaud your leadership um and and and the position that y'all have taken to support um and develop housing in general because without the ability to kind of go in and affect the housing supply, you're not going to be able to um really address that housing crisis that's across the country um that you know that Asheville is not immune to. You have people moving here daily. It's a desire desirable place to live. Um and you know and Penrose is excited to be here. I know there are lots of people that would like to speak. Um I'll be here all night answer questions and I know you'll have maybe some specific questions about technical access and and kind of the the site plan. Um but here to answer questions and um appreciate your consideration tonight. So thank you.

Thank you. I'll ask my evergreen question. Um is there anything about this project that um advances or gets in the way of potential renewable energy options? No. You said something that got the wheels turning in my head. Yeah, absolutely. Are there supportive services uh available for the folks that are living on this property? Yes. Yes. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah. So, one of the things that Pinrose um does and and and does well is oftentimes we'll have community impact coordinators on our staff. Um and and I talked about this a little bit at planning and zoning, but um really what that does is going to be kind of a conduit or an advocate on behalf of the residents that are going to live live in our communities. Um you know, the the the defined plan is not set in place today. Um it'll be more derived based off of feedback that we have from the residents that will going to um that will live here. Um but oftent times we're uh have you know I mentioned the the housing that we have adjacent to a healthcare clinic. those residents that live in Macaulay station in Atlanta have complete and full access to the health services at the adjacent healthcare clinic. Um oftent times when we come to a new community and this would be the first time that Penrose had developed in Asheville um and owned and operated housing in Asheville. Um you know we would seek out partnerships because there's so many folks that are already doing the good work in your community. And so being able to engage and collaborate um we don't need to recreate the wheel. Um but that really is what that community impact coordinator's goal will be is to um you know meet the residents where they are um in their current situations, be able to provide resources um and engagement for them on a level that is appropriate for them and then be able to engage with the community and establish um identify services and programs that may be beneficial to them outside of healthcare financial well-being um access to child care um you know I guess you know Pinrose really um supports that and that's a priority from the top down. It's not always the easiest. Um you know we talks about um you know bricks and mortar and then heart and soul is one of the things from a Pinrose perspective and so I think a lot of people can do the bricks and mortar piece. A lot of people can develop and build housing um but Penrose's commitment to kind of serving the residents and meeting them where

they are um is really a top- down order that we have. So, um that that's the way we approach things and this wouldn't be any different.

Um you did ask too about the the um in the earlier presentation in regards to um the the servicing of 80% AMI or less. And so that is um oftentimes dictated very much by the funding sources that we're able to secure on behalf of the project. And sometimes there will be specific targeting based off of the resources that we're able to do. So, at this point, um, you know, it will be LITC compliant, so an average of 60% of less because this is going to be financed primarily through tax and bonds and housing credits. Um, but at this point, we don't know the exact AMI bands that will be served um based off of that. So,

what's the lowest possible one that it could go down to? Um I mean you can go as low depending on the funding sources where you target and just being able to make the you know not impact the financial feasibility of the project and voucher voucher eligible could be voucher eligible absolutely and just so I you're saying I understand what you're saying if it's pretty early in the project development phase to be able to scope out what percentage but in a litec project it's an average of 60% AMI or less correct an average number of units are 60% AMI or less across You could be you could be in in a LITC

project you could have 80% or below. So that is compliant but across the spectrum of the units that you would have they would yeah they would average 60% or less. Well that's what I was saying it's going to be dependent upon funding sources that we secure but at this point it could be between 20 or between 20% and 80% depending on those funding sources. Okay. Thank you. But that and that there is going to be variability just you know throughout the process where we are.

This is a kind of a random question but it sounds like you have experience outside of the North Carolina LITC program and that you're self-managing. I'm curious in your portfolio is there an option ever where these projects become ownership after the 20 years? Is that anything you do? Have you ever seen that model?

No typically not. that's not something that they um that has you know there we will commit to a um going through this funding process a 30-year commitment um for affordability in the rental phase. So um but then home ownership I mean again you know I sit from the perspective of housing supply I'm a big advocate for home ownership. I actually sit on the board um for the Habitat for Humanity in Wake County. So being able to impact and I understand the importance of home ownership and building equity across all the spectrums of housing but and specifically we focus on you know multif family affordable and workforce rental housing um you know and that's that's where our focus sits and um but across the spectrum in other states and other places they're really I haven't seen a lot of conversion of that because to be perfectly honest there's such a demand for affordable rental housing at this point

and you just said 30 years Is the term of affordability 20 or 30? Yeah, for the litec it will be 30. This is 30. Okay. The slides say 20. But I think that that's part of the the for this specific zoning. Oh, okay. We will make that commitment. Okay. Um through our LITC application funded. Well, I have a um comment and questions for you. Yeah. Like to start off by saying that I love the project. Um Thank you. But I hate it for Shalo. I don't like the location. Um I had very acquainted with the area. I lived in the area,

right?

Um matter of fact, two doors down, two houses down from the entrance is where I used to live. Um and we're talking about the Ardmore access. My sister lives right there at that point at the access point right on the corner. Um I think the shallow community members who are here tonight, we've known about this piece of land for a very long time. And in fact, I believe I reached out because it was um advertised that the land was for sale. I reached out to Mr. Mark Morris at the time he was um listing the land. had a conversation with him and the land owner. Um, we met at Atlanta Bread Company right there on Hendersonville Road. As soon as I had a conversation with him, he opened up by letting me know the desires of the Shiloh community um, as it pertains to the development of the land. And a lot of the conversation was centered around what the Shiloh community wanted to do with the land and some um constraints with doing anything else because of the streams and the right of way um around the railroad and their vision for this piece of land was to make it a park. So my question to you is, was your conversation with the owner like my conversation was with the owner? Very clear about the Shiloh plan, very clear about the ins and outs of their process with the city. Um, just let us know how early did you find out about the Shiloh plan?

Um, I think, well, two questions. I did not have that conversation with the owner. that was not relayed to me that the um the plan was for it to become a park or the the goal was for it to become a park and I mean we did we were aware of the Shiloh 2025 plan and um and you know there I guess as staff report indicated um and what we said is that there are some parts of it that are compliant and you know deliver on affordability anti-displacement housing pieces of the puzzle um and then there are pieces of it that aren't congruent. Yeah, because I continue to hear the spirit of Pinrose is to meet people where they are, the community where they are. And I don't believe that the Shiloh community would say that you all have done a great job at doing that. Um, the community meeting was not noticed very well. If it had been, my sister probably would have been there along with my other family members who are adjacent to the proposed development. um during the meeting because of there there was a sense of urgency and it still is now you know that's driving a lot of our decision. Um because of the sense of urgency they felt like the community meeting was giving in information but there was a little patronizing tone to it. Um, so I can name all the things about this property that just doesn't fit well with um with the Shiloh community plan. And just logistically when it comes to vehicular traffic and pedestrian traffic, it's not a good look for 100 plus cars to be coming from this development. Not to mention further down on Artmore, we have um the expansion of Laurelwood and that's 54 more possible cars that we don't know the impact of that.

When the city bus comes raging down Caribou Road, you can feel it. is shaking our homes and there's no way for the city bus, school bus, or emergency vehicle to pass at the same time with a sedan. It's not a great look. And I haven't even layered in how many families travel by foot just enjoying the beautiful neighborhood. I'm looking forward to hear from um the Shiloh community members, a lot of them who are aging, a lot of them who are over the age of 55. injustice process. I've watched them meet day and night and in turmoil about what could potentially happen to their quality of life if this goes through the sense of urgency is is very distasteful and I want the council as we think about our deliberation to take the urgency of the housing crisis out of this conversation because Shiloh cannot wear that burden. also take the urgency of their deadlines for financing out of the situation and then let's talk about if this is a good project if it's the right time for Shiloh community.

Thank you for your comments. Any other questions or information that the applicant wants to provide in terms of the site do or do we want to um move into public comment? Okay. Oh, did you have more you wanted to say? Well, a couple things. Yeah, I was I was going to walk through uh the actual changes that happened from the planning and zoning commission.

That was the question meeting. And I know that um council member Kuran had asked uh if those things had been implemented and each of the things that chair Barton uh from the planning and zoning commission had asked uh be added in have been added into this version of the site plan and that means uh 33 fewer parking spaces uh which takes the parking ratio down to 1.39. um the added pedestrian connection that was asked for uh and then the clarification on the buffer um uh impact condition and that was um 1,200 square feet not 1,200 linear feet and so they were just asking for accuracy there. Um I did want to also have uh Mr. Warren Sug come up and walk us through the the site plan um if you would Mr. Sug. Hey, good evening council mayor. Uh Warren Sugg with Civil Design Concepts. Uh so I heard a little earlier just some questions on some of the um elevations of just how this sits in comparison to some of the surrounding areas. So um that entrance area that's off of Caribou, uh that's around 2195. Uh as you come into the site and go down that driveway, those units, those four uh single level stories and the uh clubhouse area are all living in the low 80s to low 70s. So they're sitting 15 to 20 ft lower than Caribou. And then as you go over to the multif family side, uh those units, those three four splits are sitting roughly at 75 top top level entry and 65 in comparison to Forest Street which is at 90. So about 25 to 30 ft lower than there. And then Ardmore is up at 2205. So that would put that um roughly, you know, 40 feet lower. And there was some discussion at planning

and zoning and and maybe today as well a little bit about Laurel Woods, the other development that's to the south and that is being built up pretty high. That's living around 2240. So that's uh 60 70 ft higher than where these units are being uh pushed down into the development. Uh there are some retaining walls that are here, but these retaining walls are actually uh allowing us to get down further. Uh the discussion on a potential connection to Ardmore. There was a connection originally shown to Ardmore. There was a lot of discussion about safety walking on Ardmore, folks driving on Ardmore Ardmore as well as Caribou. So we did remove it. Uh it could be added back. It would roughly be around a 12 to 15% grade to get down there. So it's doable. It would be steep. Uh but we did want to remove those parking spaces, those 33 spaces that were uh mentioned during planning board and add back the uh pedestrian connection. Is there any questions that you guys have of me that I can talk through on the site plan?

I guess the the NCHFA QAP talks about parks, right? Playgrounds, I guess. Not parks, playgrounds. And I imagine there's a playground in here. Is it is it substantial enough to be a park for the neighborhood like they envisioned or is it So they do they do have a playground area that's on the back side of that clubhouse area. You have to have benches. You have to have areas for people to congregate. There are some um requirements and we have we have those and more that are but it's really like the playground just basic stuff. Okay. Any other any other questions?

Okay. Thank you. Okay, we have a number of people signed up for public comment. So, um I I think uh in order to get through all of this, we'll ask everyone to limit their comments to two minutes unless you're part of a group. Uh we got two groups on here. Um and then we'll stick to the 10 minutes. So, group 10. Well, I don't What's our abbreviated version for 10? I don't eight. Well, probably, but I did not announce that.

Okay. So, let's keep that at 10. Okay. Okay. So, um everybody who uh is speaking tonight, please watch the lights on the lect turn. Green means go, orange means you're getting ready to stop, and red means stop. And you can just pull that microphone up or down, however, uh to so that you're speaking into it. The first person signed up to speak uh is Sophie Dixon. And then after Miss Dixon is Sharon Summerall,

Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

I don't know if you can let me have more than two minutes, but I'm going to take more than two. Well, I can tell you I sent I sent all of you the information so we wouldn't have to sit up here and only two or three of you even acknowledge that you received it. So, I guess I don't count. But if I had gotten that, I would know that you had reviewed it and you knew what was on our mind. One of the main things that was concerning me, and I haven't heard it yet, is that if they have those have sprinklers in in those buildings, those apartments are apartments, which we don't want in Shallow. And so, and with that, if if they have a fire that the there's no way for fire trucks to get in there, that's why they put sprinklers in there. So, I guess they have a fire and the fire truck can't get in there, you'll have a bunch of dead folk and somebody can go in there and get them. I mean, this is this is terrible and everybody knows it. And so, I don't know what this is all about. And I guess it's timing because we did not know anything about this coming up even over at Lwood where you put the senior citizens so they could have a decent place to live out their days. And when we knew anything, all these huge buildings were going up over there and they all destroyed and we tried to help take care of them through the hurricane and everything else. So, I I don't know. I guess if we don't count, just let me know. But I'm telling the way I feel and I'm sorry, but you know I'm going to say it. Thank you.

Thank you, Sharon Summerall. And then Jennifer Thomas.

Good evening. Sharon Summerl can coalition Nashville neighborhoods. GAPAVL put it succinctly, but the Caribou Road project was not vetted appropriately before Penrose submitted their application. Shiloh has always worked within their 2025 plan. The city approved these plans and should have directed more conversation with the Shiloh community. I could go into the technical modification issues I see such as the open space credits for affordable housing, but I have not heard if funding is feasible as of yet and this determination happens at final GRC. So therefore unknowable. This project in the best case scenario needs to be voted down or in a compromise redesigned. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer Thomas. And then Benny Macintosh. Hi, Jennifer Thomas, retired Asheville High chemistry teacher and resident on Imperial Court, and I'm asking you to deny the Caribou Road project. I emailed you written public comment last week detailing my concerns and asking you to drive around the proposed site so that you could see for yourselves that this project is not suitable for our neighborhood and our neighborhood is not suitable for this project. The sole vehicular entrance egress for these 100 units is directly onto Caribou Road. Um and the infrastructure of Caribou Road and the associated access roads like Ardmore is inadequate for the increased traffic volume associated with this project. These are narrow residential roads. Also, we are a residential neighborhood with adults, children, strollers, and dogs out walking on a regular basis. Given the geographic layout of our streets, we have to walk

on Caribou Road itself because it doesn't have a sidewalk in the vast majority of it. Even with the reductions that were talked about this evening, the increased traffic from the 100 units and 139 vehicles projected onto Caribou Road sign create significant safety hazards. And I want to very explicitly state that my opposition to this project has absolutely nothing to do with this being affordable housing. My comments and concerns would be exactly the same if these were luxury suites. Our neighborhood is already supporting affordable housing with the expansion of Laurawood currently under construction. So we're still waiting to see the traffic impacts of that. Um the infrastructure inade inadequacy and the multiple safety concerns with this project again remain the same regardless of what's built there. And we heard earlier in the proclamation of strive not to drive that the city wants to encourage walking and it was stated thank you

the pedestrian traffic was still a major concern. Please deny.

Thank you. Um Benny Macintosh and then Michael Bessiel. Good evening. My name is Benny Mintosh. I heard the bill say that he built the same projects that he's trying to put shallow in Atlanta. I checked with Atlanta and I found out that these projects was put in the area where people of color live. They moved them from the nice area the projects and moved them to another area and they use that property as prime property and I feel like they going to do the same thing here. Where are these people coming from that going to move to shallow? Are they moving from Hill Chris cuz that's prime property now. Water didn't run up the hill when we had the flood. Are they moving from Leew Walker height? Water didn't flood Lee Walker height. No trees there. No trees fell down on our power line. We had all our flooding in shallow. So if you move these people from Leew Walker height, you move these people from uh Leewa uh from Hillrest, you move these people from uh Le uh um down by the uh district art center, that'll be prime prop for the district art center, that'll be prime prop for AB Tech. Move them to shallow cuz those are the people you going to bring out there from those other areas. And now you can put hotels, you can put McDonald's, you can put anything over there by Astra tours that look good. Especially if you move Leew Walka Height, especially if you move Hill and I feel that's what you going to move the shallow and now they going to put uh retaining walls. It going to make us look like we in jail. I mean those walls going to hold up the property on Cal Road. How would it look in your neighborhood if you put this in your neighborhood? Why you bring this to our

neighborhood? We ask you to vote no on this. We vote for you, you vote for us. Good job. Good job. Michael Spiel and then Scott Duncan.

Good afternoon, council. Good evening. Uh, I'd like to offer a couple points of clarification. Uh kudos to the planning and zoning commissioners that stood up against this as they analyzed the Shiloh community plan and stated exactly why um which is all referenced in the plan. So you can go back and research if need be. Kudos also to Chairman Jeffrey for playing politics and knowing that he had the votes to not do it. Um, thirdly on that, every one of those commissioners had reservations, high reservations, but with commissioner Jeffy's leadership helped move to a three-3 tie. That furthermore, I look in this room doing what you're saying here, mayor. I look up at these wide open expanses in these pictures and I'd ask us to move out to a macro level. If we think we're going to solve the affordability housing crisis in this nation that started with the impact of the housing bubble during the great recession by simply moving the supply cur the supply curve, we're woefully mistaken. That's above our level here. That's legislative action at the congressional level to take power away from the companies that currently hold the housing stock that was bought up during the bubble. We can't build. We're limited already.

Reference your plan. Reference the zoning that's already there. provided by your professional staff. Thank you so much. Um the next person, Scott Duncan, has three people seating their time. If you could just raise your hand when I call your name. Charlie Benning. Thank you. And Kevin King. Kevin King, are you in the hall? Um and Cynthia King. Are the Kings in the hall? Are you Kevin King and Cynthia King? Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you so much. Okay, our clerk will assist you.

Yes.

Hold it. Just takes a second. the drums. It's a little bit of a glare, but we get it. The glare is impactful. Thank you. My name is Scott Duncan. I've lived in China for 24 years. I'm happy to be there. Um, it's a modest neighborhood. Most of the homes are stickuilt, one-story homes. This is an illustrative. This photo was taken on Ardmore Street. It's I counted 36 courses of retaining wall before you get to the three-story building. The UDO states that developments level three developments are expected to have a significant impact on public services and infrastructure and need to be managed for the benefit of the neighborhood. This is not for the developer sake. This is for the neighborhood's sake. Additionally, in the UDO under residential expansion, it states under design and operation standards, when a proposed project is located adjacent to residentially zoned areas and were all RS4, it should be compatible with the immediate neighborhood context in the following ways. Building scale, setback, and the relative height of structures should transition to the existing neighborhood fabric. Also, the proposed development shall comply with adopted neighborhood plans and design guidelines. This this photograph shows that there's zero transition from the three-story to the one-story homes on Ardan. This would be the same thing where we have large four-story buildings facing one-story homes for Sarah and Jacob, for myself. Uh the entrance to Charlie Williams is here. He's adjacent to the entrance. Mr. Mr. Biddick, a retired city firefighter, is next to Mr. Williams. Um, one of the things I'm disappointed was in was how we were given street

signs at the end of Ardmore. Street sign with a notification of pre-application at the end of Forest Street. Nobody goes down to the end of those streets except one or two residents. So, this information on the pre-application was limited in scope. Additionally, um the distance is only 400 ft from the proposed site. This is a list of names that notices were sent to. There are four people on Taft Street given on this list. Nobody on Jeff, nobody on Shiloh, nobody on Deanwood, nobody on Booker Street. When people come out, they're going to go down Booker Street to get to Chapel Road and get to Sweden Creek. Um there is no notification. The people that will be affected by this permanently will not have an input and also limiting the one-hour time for public comments on several of these. Um it was a Zoom meeting. So as someone pointed out, not all the elderly residents are adept at computers or adept at using a Zoom meeting. I have a couple points about traffic. A single car accident on a pedestrian is lifealtering. One one incident, one single incident would be lifealtering. It's it's it's a major deal. And we're not talking about just 100 units and maybe 100 cars might be in our mind. But there's also Amazon trucks. There's post office. There's the door dash. There's home and health services. Those things are all coming and going daily to these this development. And we have the we have the additional 54 units on Caribou at the Laurelwood Apartments that are not being taken into consideration because they're not there yet. We're not feeling the impact. pedestrians are the ones and dog walkers after CO where people were isolated and

after the devastation of Hurricane Helen. I'm finally seeing dog walkers daily, joggers, families with strollers. I've I've met Ian with his baby walking down with his stroller. Amy and Winston, I'm meeting people by walking out on the street and they're walking and enjoying the safety and nature of the residential neighborhood. This is what we signed up for when we bought our affordable homes in the Shiloh community. Um there's a bottom line and that bottom line is the people that live there right now. If you do this, our bottom line is affected. One of the things, you know, I I do give credit to Penrose and to the city planner and they pointed out there are some things that are not compatible with the Shiloh Community Plan 2025 and some are. One that wasn't mentioned was goal number three which is improving livability specifically improving safety. Goal number three was important to the Shiloh community and putting this number of traffic addition the additional Laurawood 100 here cars and trucks buses moving over on a narrow lane is difficult. It's not the simplest thing to just to pass. Also on Forest Street, when people leave this complex, they will be going down one of the streets for primarily Forest Street and there's not a way for people to make a left turn on to Hendersonville Road in the morning. It gets backed up immediately. Um, it'd be a lot worse with a lot more traffic. I have a lot of I think there's a lot of slices to this pie. I think it's complex. I appreciate the work that the city planners and the engineers with CC CDC have done. Um there are a number of reason it's it's sort of like a clockwork to make this all mesh to make the deadlines occur. Some of the planning includes some of the planning includes underground storage uh of water for

retention and for dispersement during uh flooding. Um it's a bowl. It's a topographic bowl. The bowl will reflect sound and heat um just by itself. There's two portions of the Shiloh community that have tracks of land. One is about four acres, one's about nine acres, this one. And wiping out this nine acres, part of what's already gone from the expansion of Lurwood, but taking out the rest of it reduces the green space uh in opposition to the livability, Asheville, etc., etc. There's a number of slices to this pie from the environment and the topography, particularly the traffic. There's no equity here. The people want homes that they can, you know, like me, buying a home, you buy it, you pay for it, you you build equity, you can pass it on to your family. There's no generational wealth. Apparently, there's still quite a number of vacancies in Asheville that can be converted or revised. I'm urging the city council on behalf of myself and all of my neighbors to not take this extreme measure of changing the density to residential expansion. Thank you.

Thank you. Mark Morris and then Emily Argonatada, Mayor and City Council. Uh Mark Morris, I am the broker for the property. This property has remained a non-performing asset for years. This is within the city is 10 acres in the city with infrastructure. Okay. There has been no meaningful economic activity on this site. There has been no productive use of this site. And again, it has been on the market for years. The developer, the property owner attempted to reach out to the association group multiple times, no response. The landowner attempted to reach out to have open dialogue to discuss options for the property. And those options were anything from single family development to a park to potential apartment use. But to no avail, the association would not engage. We did have one meeting with a member of council uh who does live in the shallow community. That was the extent of the engagement with the neighborhood to discuss alternatives and uses for this property. In 2022, the city explored acquisition of the property, okay, for single family residential development, an option that we thought would align with neighborhood preferences. Yet, that proposal was likely likewise rejected.

And again in followup, no willingness to have open dialogue. The landowner attempted to discuss a potential park or green space opportunities involving the property, but you can't negotiate when one side will not come to the table. And I say that emphatically. The landowner demonstrated repeated good faith efforts to collaborate with both the city and the surrounding residents. Those efforts included exploring single family development, park space concepts, and other alternatives. Thank you. Thank you.

Um Emily Argonatada and then uh then we'll do Sarah Jones who's got jobs who's has several people yielding time.

Good evening, council. Thank you for taking the time to listen to what I have to say this evening. My name is Emily Ergonado. I'm here to stand with my neighbors of the Shiloh Community Neighborhood Association to ask you to vote against the Conditional Reszoning Project. The residents of Shiloh spent nine years of what I presume was unpaid laboring to develop a plan for their community. Y'all should really not need us here. And the gentleman before me says, you know, they needed some input. There's a plan in place already that was in develop that was developed in collaboration with the city and adopted recently. This is a group of homeowners from one of the very few remaining historically black neighborhoods in our city. Y'all are aware of the impact of urban renewal and gentrification on our city. you voted for reparations. I'm a native of West Asheville and I currently live in West Asheville, but important parts of my life were spent in Shiloh and my best friend owns her home there. The city has already taken so much from the black people of this city. They have devastated generational wealth. Let them okay.

The city has already taken so much land and wealth from black people. Let them keep what's left and let them keep it nice. The black people in our city deserve better. Asheville is tired of developers thinking we are stupid because our city government treats us that way. The developers don't have our interests in mind, but y'all are supposed to. Thank you. I appreciate you for voting against this project. Um Sarah Jes and Sarah Job has three people yielding their time. Jacob Cook, just raise your hand.

Jacob Cook, come out of the hall. Very good. Thank you. Um, Kirby Marorrow, thank you. And Kate Johnson, thank you. How many more people are in the hall? Are there a lot of people in the hall? Eight, maybe. Okay. Okay.

Oh, did I'm sorry. Did Miss Bullinger, did you want to yield your time, too? You're signed up to speak. I want my time, please. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay, please.

Hello. Thank you, council, for the opportunity to speak and be heard here today. My name is Sarah, and I am speaking on behalf of myself, my partner, Jacob, and my neighbors Kate and Kirby. Thank you all again for allowing me to be your voice. I apologize now if this is not my best work as there was very little time to prepare. We are asking you to vote no on the resoning request today for Caribou Road. Reszoning in the the area in this way would be harmful not just to the existing neighborhood but also to the potential residents. After last week's meeting, I started to wonder what makes affordable housing successful. I don't have time to do a detailed report here, but the consistent theme I found was these factors. The public services available to assist lower income homes, access to medical care, desirable location, sustainability and infrastructure, and ability to obtain a consistent income and education. I know everyone in this room is just trying to survive and I want to believe that everyone has their best interest put forward. As I mull over the many words said last week, I am still bothered by the contradictions, lack of answers and general narrative put forth for this traffic. It was a rainy topic and understandably the first thought that comes to everyone's mind for this. I don't know if you've been down Forest Street and Caribou or the surrounding roads, but they are small. It fields any traffic cutting between Hendersonville Road and Sweeten Creek, but there was not a study done. It doesn't meet the threshold to need one. Yet, when asked when the last traffic study had been performed, no one could answer. I personally asked Bill Palmquest if the new Laurawood units, 60, 50, however many it seems to be, had been taken into account when considering this study, and the answer is no. The Laurawood development isn't even completed yet, but it borders the property of this project and will let out onto the same small road. We can't talk about traffic without also talking about pedestrians. What I took from last week is there is no plan to incorporate or improve any existing or new sidewalks. Existing is a funny word to use though as there already aren't any. Connecting and ensuring access to public services is an

integral integral part of helping those who need affordable housing thrive. In addition to the lack of sidewalks, none of the bus stops I am aware of in the neighborhood have so much as a bench next to them. It is dangerous to be a pedestrian and this is again will increase cars foot traffic and the danger. With that thought in mind, it seems very counterintuitive for the applicant to request that all required buffers be haed. The requirements are there for a reason. Why make an unsafe situation even more unsafe? And in addition to that, why um they're asking to request or they're requesting to encroach on the surrounding properties in order to make their entrance and exit just big enough to be acceptable. The roads of this neighborhood barely fit a city bus. The major concern is for emergency services. Parking is a hot commodity here. And if you have enough drive to park your cars, bully for you. But it is not a rare occurrence for someone to be parked in the street. And I don't mean a little. I mean straight up parked in the road. Does not even look like they tried to get out of the way parked. And so again, what happens when just one car is blocking a firetruck or an ambulance from getting down that road? Access to medical care is a vital component of making affordable housing successful. The design, as it is, borders on hostile to all of the residents they wish to bring in. The applicant was asked about a possible connection through Ardmore Street and they said yes. After all, that was only removed from their design after feedback from the one community Zoom meeting. I was at that meeting. I It's disheartening to hear that the tone and sentiment of that meeting appeared to have gone over their head. True, it would add another entrance and exit, but again, we hit the same issues of the roads being too small to handle such an increase in traffic. Another main pillar to making affordable housing successful is connection to social services and the like. The applicant spoke about their pride in working with local organizations, but when questioned by commissioners last week which ones they may be considering, they could not name a single one. It's troubling to hear no research has been done for this. It seems like that would be worth at least

a Google when considering the needs of the community. Another main focus last week was infrastructure. I'm not an expert about sewage and water lines, but I do understand the basic concept. If I'm correct, the plan is to just tie into the main line. Whatever system it is, they say can handle it. Well, if I may, that is a really nice pipe dream because I can't resist a terrible pun. But it's true. That sounds like a perfect plan when you won't be the one footing the bill for every single patch to burst to a burst line up and down Forest Street alone. For real, Forest Street looks like a patchwork quilt as I stand here today. They also have a plan for storm water and such, but that is a flood area. It's literally shaped like a bowl. Once the trees are removed, trees that survive tunneling, mind you, no, there will be nothing to stop the wash out. It takes years for buildings and walls to settle. And in the meantime, all of the shifting ground caused by removing the trees and runoff from the higher elevated areas of this property was spilled to the surrounding homes like mine. And my neighbors Tommy and Kirby, who have so graciously donated their time to me today, have spent thousands of dollars trying to mitigate the the wash out damage that happens to their home. They are the lowest house bordering this property, and I shudder to think what this would cost them. Sustainability and infrastructure. Infrastructure is imperative to the success of affordable housing. Another topic addressed last week was the height and design of the buildings themselves. I really struggled to picture how a three and four story building on a hill because it is on a hill um would not tower over the single family homes around it. The community associate the Shiloh community association has a clear path for housing and growth that was adopted in 2010. This would not be in compliance with that agreement. As a commissioner pointed out last week, the Shiloh plan specifically calls out this area as an opportunity for growth for single homes as to fit the fabric and character of the neighborhood. The proposed design simply does not fit. It would irrevocably irrevocably change the nature and character of the Shiloh

community. The Shiloh agreement goes on to lay out a path for areas where forest can be maintained. This is the only area in Shiloh that still has an uninterrupted canopy, forest canopy. And here's where I must reintroduce myself. Hello, I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. We have seen everything from bears, turkeys, turtles, owls, coyotes, frogs, groundhogs, lunar moths, raccoons, monarch, butterflies, and the list goes on. And as I mentioned earlier, the trees that there survived Telen. And any of us who experienced Helen know that it's nothing short of a miracle. If they are removed, it would not only exacerbate flooding, but there will be no barrier to traffic noise from Sweet and Creek and the active train that runs direct directly along this property. With these things in mind, it is again counterintuitive for the rules rules to be changed. Yet, the applicant is requesting they only be required to replace half of the vegetation that will be destroyed. I do feel it prudent to state my personal stake in this project as it will border 50% of my home and prop of our home and property. It cannot be understated how fortunate my partner and I to bought a home. Truly, I don't know how we did it. The mortgage process is blocked from my mind like a bad dream. We are on the dead end of forestry. The proposed road would run directly along the entire length of our backyard. We chose a dead end for a reason, and this will put a busy road right next to where we spend most of our time. I really struggle to understand how these multi-story departments would not have the ability to look down straight down into our yard and into our life. It's not It's hard not to feel like this is being shoved through. It's hard not to feel incredibly misled. This simply cannot fulfill the promises offered. The applicant spoke last week on their outreach to the community on this project. But I wonder what community were they in. This would be right next to me and somebody could have knocked on my door. But the only people who did that were my neighbors from this community. And from what I can tell, the community is here in the room with us and in the next room and outside asking

you to vote no. The last topic I want to mention tonight is another crucial component of the success of affordable housing. Quality of life. I don't believe in warehousing people and that's what this feels like. Is the only option for those most vulnerable among us to be shoved into a crowded space regardless of what's around it or the lack thereof? Is it truly responsible to add more people to an environment that can't sustain it? Does it really make sense to resone an area for new builds instead of reszoning for existing structures that can be repurposed? Is this small space truly conducive to helping those who need it or even those who just want to move there? Quality of life is essential to everyone. I know I'm almost out of time, so I'll wrap with this. I feel the overarching message from our community was lost last week. Not one person then or now has said we don't need housing. We do need housing. But I cannot stress enough that the opposition to this is sheer lack of volume or the sheer volume, the lack of consideration to the Shiloh agreement placement, and the lack of longevity to success. Following the path for growth laid out in the Shiloh agreement would allow us the space to truly wrap our arms around new residents and families regardless of their socioeconomic status and genuinely incorporate them and support them into the fabric of our Shiloh neighborhood. We are asking for the chance we are asking for the chance to grow with the new instead of having it placed on top of us. Please vote no. Thank you.

Thank you. Michael Bozas I say and then Marilyn Bullinger.

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to address and um I realize that there's been quite a few statements and I'll try to add things that uh will help illuminate it a little more I hope. Um, one thing I wanted to point out right away is, uh, this beautiful property, but not a great property for this plan. I don't think you have to be a civil engineer to look at it and say, "Gee, uh, that's a very small space for these cars to get out." But what really impresses me about that plan is how much bigger those streets within the property are than Caribou. They dwarf it. Caribou is 18 ft wide right there. And that is the wide point. My wife and I walk it all the time. It wasn't difficult for us to take a tape measurer with us when this started and start measuring. Turn to the right to go to Sweeten Creek. And by the way, that is the only way to get to Sweeten Creek and you are going to go down Booker. and you're going to turn onto West Chapel and you're going to go through parks that are 14 ft wide with no curb with no room and with trees that encroach on the prop on the road throughout the year. So when you look at this, the problem I see is that already between Hendersonville Road and uh Sweeten Creek Road, we have cheaters that come through the neighborhood. They don't want to go down Rock Hill. So they fly through our neighborhood. The city has worked with us already on this. We have stop signs. We have speed bumps. It does not matter. They fly through the neighborhood. What I think really causes a problem here is these are going to be very frustrated people. Lots of them who cannot get out of the property. And when they do get out of the property, they're going to be speeding where they go. 70 years of my life. I was lucky. I didn't know a single person in my social circle

who was killed as a pedestrian. And then I moved to Asheville. Oh, in the past year, two people in my social circle, pedestrian and a bicyclist have been killed in their own neighborhoods. Please don't let that happen here. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I lost my Oh, here we go. Marilyn Bolinger. And then, um, Jeff Alexander. Make sure everyone Yeah. turns their cell phones off. Thank you.

I'm Marilyn Bolinger, retired teacher from Asheville Middle School, and I certainly understand the need for affordable housing. However, I live on Forestdale Drive, directly off of Caribou Road, and I am absolutely opposing the Caribou Commons development, our aging water and sewer systems, the power grid, and the potential overload. How can we support a 100 unit um development? People have already mentioned traffic, traffic safety. People do fly through the intersections routinely despite the four-way stops. Children, senior citizens, uh moms and dads with strollers are all at risk when we add additional traffic to our already crowded neighborhood. I wonder who will pay for the infrastructure to mitigate problem issues that develop if this is approved. Do you honestly believe that the developers are going to pay to mitigate the problems that develop once this uh project is proposed? The impacted community, that is me and my neighbors here, should not bear the cost of that. We currently have Laurelwood Apartments for affordable senior living on Caribou Road. The three-story addition is already under construction. Many of the neighboring streets are already impacted by the traffic of construction vehicles heavily barreling. They're obeying the speed limits, I think, but the impact on our roads is significant.

We are a wonderful, diverse community, but more construction is not feasible, wise, or necessary. Please do not allow the developers to alter and damage the character of our neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. um Jeff Alexander and then Stephen Rible. My name is Jeff Alexander. I'm a resident in the Buena Bueno Vista community that's just north of Shiloh. Um, a few questions here. Um, I know one person has lived in Shiloh. Has anyone else lived in Shiloh or one of the neighbors around there? Does anybody live in the neighborhood? Any members?

Um, I just want to say that none of what none of our concerns as far as a neighborhood and community um have been addressed today. uh whether it's from the developer or the council for the city. Um none of those things have been addressed and the biggest thing that everyone's concerned about is traffic and our safety, our family safety. Um I'm my oldest child is 17. Um he's autistic, he is uh visually impaired and he is hearing impaired. Um by increasing the amount of traffic in our neighborhood, that's just putting him in further danger. Um, we're all concerned about the already concerned about the level of uh traffic in our community. Um, another point may have already been brought up was that the city of Asheville was going to um add uh decided or recognized that the Caribou Road corridor needed um sidewalks and that was in 2005. Nothing's been done over 20 years. Mhm.

Um so, u we're already experiencing some serious issues in our neighborhood. Um um I also want to mention that when we're hearing from people that work for corporations that are going to be building in our community, while they may be doing some good, they're also here for money. Let's not let's not mince words about that. Um whoever they are, whether it's the council or everyone, these people stand to benefit from this project. Um, the other thing, the other point that I'd like to make is that everyone that I know and everyone in the community is all for affordable housing. We recognize that our community needs affordable housing, but taking it and putting it in the middle of a com, you know, residential community, it's just short-sighted in my opinion.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. We have 20 more minutes of public comment. 20 20 minutes before the hour. Okay. Yeah, that Steven Ribblet. Yeah, I think we should. And then um Sheniqua Sim Simua, they're doing

Hello. Um, I just want to start off with saying that change is inevitable, but that doesn't make it any less challenging or scary. We could have the type of change as a community in which citizens are leaving our city and we're struggling to find funding. We have the opposite problem in which more and more folks have moved. Oh, I'm sorry. Two minutes has changed.

I hope not. I don't have two more minutes of content. Um but yeah uh thankfully we have the opposite problem. That doesn't mean it isn't without challenges in which we need to adjust for and more folks coming to the region. The downside is it puts pressure all over this city and the county to house people. With that it is inevitable that affordability is strained. Even more so when you consider other causes such as the cost of construction and labor going up. When we allow some neighborhoods to limit their share of the burden, it displaces that burden somewhere else. By saying no, the price for everyone increases both inside and outside of the neighborhood, affecting everyone eventually. The future neighbors of an area cannot speak for where they do not yet live. We've needed to say yes. We need to keep saying yes. Thank you.

Thank you, Chenika Samuel. And then um Eric uh Shider. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. My name is Chenika Samuel, and I'm speaking as neighborhood navigator and as a young person who grew up excited to be in and a part of the Shiloh community. I also appreciate all the commentary that has come before me. In a historic African-American community like ours, land should be used in ways that help local families build ownership, stability, and generational wealth. Instead, this proposal brings large-scale multifamily housing that many residents fear will primarily benefit outside investors rather than the people who have sustained the community for decades. Today, through my work with the Shiloh Community Association, I have helped residents think about how to keep their homes and protect what they have built. We host estate planning workshops, digital literacy classes, and help connect residents to home repair resources because we want families in Shiloh to remain in Shiloh for generations to come. This is why the development matters so much to me. For many years, our neighborhood has worked side by side with the city of Asheville to plan for our future. The Shiloh Community Association's 2025 plan was not created to stop growth, but to make sure growth happens in a way that is thoughtful, balanced, and respectful of the people who already live there. Our adopted plan calls for harmonious growth, quality housing, and preservation of the original character, integrity of the community. I understand Asheville's needs for need for housing. But I also believe growth should create opportunities for people to stay, own, and build a future there, not make long time, longtime communities feel like they have been they are slowly being pushed aside. I ask council to think carefully about what kind of future we are creating for Shiloh and whether this project truly reflects the values of equity, preservation, and community partnership. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Eric Scher and thank you. Um I I'm resident of Forest Street with my wife and my daughter and I'm a school teacher. Um I'm here to suggest to you that denying the zoning tonight is not a no to housing. It is a yes to a sustainable and stable housing market that works for Asheville businesses and all of our residents. We do need affordable housing, but we need council to look deeper than the headlines. Asheville is already straining under the burden of over speculative development. Our gross vacancy is 25% above the national average and that results in affordable entry- level home supply that is 25% lower than the national average. When working residents are priced out of home ownership, they are trapped in the rental market, causing a downstream crisis that affects the labor market for local businesses and lower income rentals. This resounding pro proposal only worsens that cycle. The Shiloh community plan designates this exact site for single in single family infill for working family home ownership as the only reliable protection against displacement and the only way out of the rental trap. Now, I have to assume that there's no discriminatory intent in the proposed zoning conditions, but passing this proposal would effectively eliminate any opportunity for residents to build equity on this land for generations, long after Penrose is gone and the market bubble has burst. What's more, maintaining current zoning ensures safety on Shiloh's narrow roads and honors decades of community collaboration. When you respect local area area plans, the whole community benefits from a political system that is based on trust. They won't argue it tonight, but developers also benefit from consistency. By defending your own comprehensible comprehensive planning priorities, you signal to city staff and national investors that Asheville values sustainable growth over speculative overreach. When Penrose brings their Sweet and Creek proposal before you later in the meeting, they'll know that the city protects the value of that investment against destabilizing

arbitrary development elsewhere. And that's what I need from you as well as a homeowner in the city. Thank you. Um Scott Adams and then Eric Wilder. My time starts.

Okay. Hi, I'm Scott Adams and I support this project as a volunteer member with three groups. The city's affordable housing advisory committee, Strong Towns, and Nashville for all. And I support this project with two comments. First, the project should have a secondary full street connection to Ardmore Street on its south side. Rightway acquisition and street widening to the south side of our north street as exactions and conditions of this project have a rational nexus to traffic distribution, route choice, and emergency access. The Laurelwood apartment's property that's to the south is large enough to accommodate this. The developer initially proposed the second connection and both planning and transportation staff should require this per the city's standard specifications and design manual or SSDM. Section three, transportation divi design standards notes, for existing right ofways above property to be developed, streets shall be built to connect to rights of way as feasible. Right ofway acquisition and street widening don't happen quickly, but they're indeed feasible as a latter supporting phase of this project that would benefit existing and future residents. Second, this project could serve entry- level police officers, firefighters, and teachers. 80% MI for a single person household is $57,000. Starting salaries for police, fire, and school staff start at just shy of $50,000. And as of 2024, 85% of police staff lived outside of city limits. Some of that's by choice, but a lot of that's by affordability. As of 2019, 64% of fire staff lived outside of city limits. Survey other city departments and Asheville city schools, and you'll likely see similar numbers. Thank you, sir.

Um, Eric Wilder and then Charles Phillips Green, right? Um, I'm pretty late on the uh list tonight to speak because I wasn't prepared to speak tonight till I heard the uh gentleman from Penro speak about commitment to the community. I actually live I can watch Laurelwood being built from my back porch. Um, that was very open. We knew what was happening. We had a chance to speak about it. Um, but I live right there. I didn't know anything about any of this happening until almost after the fact. They didn't address anybody in here and give us a chance to to speak about this. Talking to people in the neighborhood, nobody's got any uh qualms with medium density housing, affordable housing going in there. But this is just jammed into a spot where it doesn't fit is is really what it is. The roads are tight. Everybody walks the neighborhood. Lord help you if a bus is coming down Caribou now. Um if another car is coming. But this was secretive. It felt dirty fast. We're rushed about this. It It's just not right for Shiloh. Thank you.

And then Charles Phillips and then Judy Williamson. Are they in the hall? Are they hungry and tired and went home?

I think Judy's Oh, okay. Oh, there she is. Judy, please. Yes. Judy Williamson, you are the last person signed up to speak under this item. Well, there there was Charles Phillips, but I don't believe we have Charles with us. So,

good evening and thank you for this opportunity. My name is Judy Williamson. I have lived on White Avenue in Shiloh since 1998, the last millennium, when the American dream of affordable home ownership for working people like me was still alive. Everyone should be so blessed to live in such a community rich in history and diversity with wonderful neighbors who look out for each other. You've heard many, many concerns, but I want to address one that I think deserves more attention. Loss of tree canopy. It contributes to climate change. Remember Kobarine Asheville? We don't hear about it much anymore because we've lost so much tree canopy and our climate has changed. Our temperate rainforest is now suffering drought conditions. According to a February 9 watchdog article, Asheville lost 900 acres of trees in the decade leading up to Helen. And then Helen took out or damaged another 40% of what remained. And yet development just keeps on keeping on without a lot of concern from in my opinion about the effects. Um meanwhile um there's supposed to be mitigation measures in place for remedying some of this but um I just also read that Asheville has a fund that the developers can pay a fee instead of taking mitigation measures and that fund just keeps acrewing money because there's no mechanisms for accessing it.

That is unacceptable. We can We must do better than that. It's time to pause, regroup, re-evaluate. Please protect Shiloh, protect neighborhoods, make affordable home ownership available again to working people. Say no to Caribou Common. Thank you.

Um, Canyon Duca Hello to the council and hello to all my fellow citizens of Asheville. And I was moved to speak here kind of at the last minute because while I am here for surveillance, I can't help but notice why do things always move so fast? Why is it always we need to get this done? We need to get this approved. Why is it always that the public has to come here and fight tooth and nail to get to be heard when the developers get to just walk in the front door?

Asheville, a city. It's I think it's fitting that our city is called has the baseball team, the tourists, because is it a city for the people or is it a city for the tourists? Okay, that is the last person signed up to speak under this item. Um, council, do you have any other questions for staff or for the applicant? Do we need to take a quick break? No. No, no, we'll do it after this item. Okay.

Okay. Okay. I make a motion to deny the conditional zoning request for the property located at 9999 Caribou Road from residential single family medium density RS4 to residential expansion conditional zone Resp.

Don't put that and find that the request is unreasonable. It's not in the public interest. is inconsistent with the city's comprehensive plan and does not meet the development needs of the community and that the request does not provide greater it does provide greater density but not density that's needed um from the development overall and throughout the city as appropriate and I think I'll stay right there because second we have a motion and second any other do Did you get that? Sorry. Okay,

Brad. Any good? We're good with the motion. Good. Good job.

Um I would uh just offer on the uh the just to address the issue around speed of this application. at and I and maybe people on HCD can speak more to this, but one of the factors that's somewhat out of anyone's control um is that there is currently funding available for affordable housing in Asheville and in the state of North Carolina through funding mechanisms that have deadlines. So, um, so I appreciate that we normally don't need to move quite like this quickly, but I understand that applicants have to meet various deadlines for these other funding sources to be able to provide affordable housing under these programs. So, I just thought I'd offer that explanation in terms of the um, it's not it's not our deadline. these are not, you know, these are we're just we're just the hearing body for the uh zoning issue. So, uh anyway, I just wanted to explain that, but um I was surprised to see that this had so many stumbles to at PNZ and that is a red flag for me because usually planning and zoning will support affordable housing projects. Um so that that you know we we all did a lot of due diligence around this one to understand uh what was involved in this project. This land is actually familiar to some of us uh from as a council because we actually looked at buying it um to land bankank it for future housing. And ultimately and I think Shenikica you and I were on that council. I don't remember if anybody else was there. It was a long time ago. Um and ultimately we decided not to do it. It's a challenging uh site topographically. I mean just has some issues. Also the city is not the

best uh developer. Um we're struggling to do our do our own affordable housing projects. Um, but but I appreciate that someone is trying to do something with this site that does include housing, but I I hear the neighborhood talking about um fulfilling the plan to put single family homes there. And so maybe there's a way to revisit that in the future. Anyway, that's all.

Yeah, I I'll add on to that. I find that piece really interesting. I wasn't on council at the time and I just learned that today. Um, I consider myself an affordable housing advocate. I'm not sure if I've ever voted against affordable housing actually and I'm going to be voting against this project tonight. Um, but it's not, hold on because I might upset you. It's not because of traffic. It's not because we're jamming this project into a small space. I feel like this city has a housing problem and we're going to have that reality everywhere. And my my vote for no is because I feel hyperprotective of our legacy neighborhoods. I feel hyperprotective of Shiloh. And if there were an opportunity to do something there, I would like to look at it. We don't have the means now. We don't have the opportunity now, but it's been sitting there for sale a long time. And I think that says something, too. Um, so I'm going to have a a new thing. I'm going to vote against affordable housing tonight and that's not a norm for me. Um, and I do hope that something comes back that can be better there and I'm I'm sensitive because I know we also have a potential new affordable housing developer in the room and I will likely support the next project. I don't want that developer to be run off to feel that this is a bad experience. We have a problem with our legacy neighborhoods and with gentrification around them and this council's pretty focused on it. So, let it be known, right? Um, let's build a affordable housing where we can when we can. This I don't think is the right fit tonight.

I have one little thing to say and it may seem kind of off track um in preparation for this meeting. I was um speaking with someone um who said it it just it started with we want affordable housing but nobody wants affordable housing in their neighborhood. And then we went back and forth about the history with which some of the um speakers have already mentioned. And then she said it just seems like legacy neighborhoods are the ones that always come forward to be against it. to which I said that's because they are the prime targets. What do I mean by that? Um, you'll recall, Sage, at an HCD meeting, we saw data points for what we have approved in what the last five years or definitely since I've been on council. And I looked and I said, "Oh, the majority of these have been either in or adjacent to Legacy Neighborhoods or South Asheville. Shiloh is both in a few minutes we're going to see another project really near where Shiloh so I was wondering because we are going to work on the UDO I thought if we can come up with a way to kind of spread the affordable housing around and I was wondering what it would look like if we decided to just get rid of RS2 throughout the whole city and did an RS4 Is that something we could do before the UDO plan? And what would that look like?

For Make sure I understood it. Could you repeat the first part of that question? Would you do get rid of RS12? Yeah. Yeah. Make four the make four the bottom density throughout the city. Throughout the whole city. I The council's got wide legislative latitude as part of Let's talk about that at HCon. Let's talk about it. The short answer is absolutely yes. She's talking about eradicating. Yeah, that's what I heard, right? Eradic cityide city all districts. No, let's talk about that at HCD. No maps or you can talk about P no car rout. Well, is that what they're already higher than two for the most part? Yeah. You're not and you're not talking about a special map. It would be a citywide.

Yeah. All on Minneapolis and other cities that have done to talk about that. Yeah. So, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it, but we're not talking about it tonight. We're gonna finish this item. Okay. So, it's a motion to deny. All right. So, we have a motion to deny. So, this is one of those confusing ones because if you vote for it, you're denying the project. Everybody clear? So, a yes vote for the motion denies the project. Ready? Get set. Everybody in favor of the motion, raise your hand. Everyone opposed to the motion, raise your hand. OKAY,

for those listening and for for those listening at home and those who um couldn't see the hands raised, it was unanimous. Yeah, thank you very much. Um, okay. Now, we are actually going to take a break. Um, just and let everyone do a little musical chairs, too. Um, thank you all. We'll be back in 10 minutes or so.

That might be a little Okay, we're uh everybody we're live. We're back in action. Welcome back to the Ashley City Council meeting. All right, we're gonna We got it. Believe it or not, we're like not even halfway through. Okay. Oh my god. Got you, babe. Dang. Okay, we're doing our last item under our public hearings agenda. Um, and we are going to hear from Clay Mitchell, who has been very patiently waiting.

Mayor, counselor, it's good to see you. It's been a while. Glad to be back. Uh I'm here preparing uh presenting a a a project that is in some cases similar and different than the last project. It's brought forward by the same applicant team. It is dealing with the same uh deadlines for financing and it is also located in the Shiloh neighborhood. Uh this project however is located on Sweeten Creek Road. Uh here on the map you can see uh to the north of this location while I have this image up at at the intersection there is an art uh bus stop to the south just off the screen is another art bus stop for route S1 just targeting that because of the um the detail in the map. This is a property that is um elevated from Swen Creek up to the road Rockill Road in the back. the the elevation diff difference is about 60 feet um where Sweeten Creek is lower and Rockill Road is 60 feet to the north or to higher up. The existing zoning is there's a couple of complications with this parcel. Uh it it it has a zone line right through the middle of it and later you'll see that that zone line corresponds also with a future land use designation. The front portion of the parcel is part of a corridor of commercial industrial zone land. And that one back area of the parcel, the eastern edge of the parcel is RM16. It is isolated. Uh all around it is RS8. this this I I'm sorry I could not find um what happened in the past to create this kind of dichotomy between uh the two areas of of the unified parcel. On the right shows you the the uh result if if you vote in favor of this and it would be residential exam expansion conditional zone and it's before you because of the number of units in the

application. Um here is the the essentially the same split in the types of future land use. The rear portion is residential neighborhood. The front portion is urban corridor. Although it would be convenient to have them both in the same our analysis of the future land use supports the kind of densities and um the mixed use nature of the front portion, the transitional neighborhood in the back. Um both of which support the types of densities even above this. And in fact, um, in both the or urban corridor and residential neighborhood future land use, it talks about appropriate zonings being that RM16, which has a density of approximately 40 units per acre. Here's the site plan. It is comprised of two buildings. Um, the the northern building is a larger building. It's L-shaped. Um, it is a four-story building. The building to the south is a smaller building. it the buildings respond to the shape of the parcel. Um the parking is interior to the site. The access is through a drive to Sweden Creek. Sweden Creek at that location is a four-lane divided highway with a dedicated left turn. Um the uh the exterior of the parcel, you'll see that dark green line is is a landscape buffer between the property and the adjacently zoned RS8. Um there are single family homes down in this area. You can see them uh outlined on the map. Uh the applicant's uh plan set shows an attempt to maximize the preservation of the ex existing mature trees as well as planting new trees to reach our requirements for the landscaping uh buffer area. The rest of the landscaping is distributed throughout the site. Obviously, uh lots of landscaping in the parking area, street trees all along Sweden Creek. I'll use this uh image to to show. It's a five- foot sidewalk up

and down Sweden Creek on this side of the road. Unfortunately, it's a backup curb sidewalk, which isn't the most comfortable pedestrian um environment to walk on. But for the portion of the frontage of this site, they're pulling that sidewalk back and putting in a grass um buffer between the sidewalk and the roadway. Uh the buildings, this is the fourstory building, shows you the general design capability, our design results. Um the project conditions uh similar to the last one. These are the 20-year requirements uh for affordability. If uh the application is successful in securing uh the other funding that will have they will be providing that same type of um uh 30-year period with the averaging of the AMI. But this is uh the most appropriate and gives other options for future development uh if that funding uh application is not successful. The modifications on this are a reduction in and we've seen this a lot, a reduction in the sidewalk width. Um we we feel that that's supported along the front because of uh the the the ability to provide that um wider grass buffer internal to the site. It gives some flexibility to keep the buildings as as internal as possible. There's an extensive amount of connectivity within the site. Uh with sidewalks is you can kind of see the different directions of the sidewalks. One thing that this plan does not show that will be on the site is a passive recreational path that'll connect the front building at the corner all the way around the site in the exterior to the central area which is where um some of the common amenities are. There's a playground here, a pavilion for barbecue and then some seats and and seating there. And so that path would go and this is again a passive path would go all the way around kind of the outside staying out of the buffer a little bit and then connecting there.

Um the technical review committee approved this in April 6. Uh the the planning and zoning commission met in on May 6 and approved it unanimously. There were no additional conditions placed on the plan. um the future land use again like I said despite the fact that there is a um a bifurcation of those different areas uh the the nature of both uh future land use contribute to this type of development with with the uh neighborhood designation increasing densities transitional from corridors into neighborhoods in the front portion along the urban corridor mixeduse development along a transit corridor and I know that this doesn't have mixed uses on the parcel but it represents a mixed use in the area of that corridor. Um we feel that uh it is generally consistent therefore both with those seed designations as well as encouraging responsible growth increasing mixeduse development along transit corridors uh increase and diversify the affordable housing supply. Um I will make one more comment about the the transit corridors. The one thing that initially we were somewhat concerned about is it's very difficult to get to the other side of Sweden Creek, but because of the nature of the S1 route, it is a loop in that location. So whether you're leaving or coming, you will be getting off that bus on the same side of Sweden Creek, which is where the development is. So um that concern was to a certain extent mitigated. Based on that, we concur with the planning and zoning commission's recommended approval of the proposed conditional zoning. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Ah, transitoriented development of housing that goes at least once an hour. We should probably keep that transit funded. Um, can you let me know, Clay, if there's anything about this development and maybe the um developer can speak to this that um either advances or prohibits the future um installation of solar renewables.

I I would tell you my my recommendation to developer is always to prepare for the opportunity to add renewable energy. We all know that the current climate um pardon the pun uh in in dealing with uh the incentives that formerly were available is is as has become a political issue rather than a rational issue. So, um, it's it's hard to make hard recommendations to consider installation of of those types of energy systems, but it's very easy to have conduits and prep work in in the likelihood that some sanity returns to our government,

right? So, that's for the public um benefit. One of my students asked me u when I first joined council, why don't you just ask every time? So I ask every time and one of the reasons why I ask is because some um designs were set up so there were air conditioning units all over the rooftop and so it limited future installation. That's why I asked it the way I did. Thank you. And coincidentally these buildings are they have substantial roof faces facing to the south which is optimal for maximum solar gain.

Any other questions for Clay? No. Um, the developers welcome to say some words if they want to, but we don't have anyone signed up for public comment on this one, unlike the last one. Yeah. You want me to You want me to make a motion, mayor?

Okay. So, I'll open the public hearing and then I'll close the public hearing. And yes, I'm ready for a motion. Make a motion to approve the conditional zoning request for the property located at 1116 Sweeten Creek Road from commercial industrial and residential multif family high density to residential expansion conditional zoning and find that the request is reasonable in the public interest is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan meets the development needs of the community in that the request one prioritizes greater densities of development overall throughout the city as appropriate and increases the supply of housing including affordable housing in proximity to schools, transit and parks. Second. All right, we have a motion to second.

The only comment I would add is um I've shared from the dis before a concern of how much multifamily is going along the Sweeten Creek corridor. Um however, this project is um really along the northern section where it's still four lanes and it doesn't whittle down. And so um I think that that that alleviated some of that concern. that's still in a place where there that infrastructure exists in the shin community. Nope. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you.

Uh, okay. The next item on our agenda is new business item A, a resolution authorizing the award of community development block grant disaster recovery multif family housing funds to Mountain Housing Opportunities/South Creek Development uh parentheses Terrace at River Hills, Commonwealth Development Corporation District East Commons and Laurel Street um at 319 Builtmore. Elma, you're here and not Nikki, but Nikki is there behind you. So, Elma King, take it away.

Thank you so much. Um, good evening, council. Nikki will be taking on half of the presentation this evening. Um, thank you so much for your time. My name is Elma King. I'm the CDBGDR program manager, and I'm here to provide some housing updates applicable to the community development block grant disaster recovery program. First, we'll give a brief overview of the substantial amendment to the single family program as well as recommendations for the CDBGDR multif family housing awards along with a suggested motion this evening. In terms of the proposed allocation to the single family housing program under CDBGDR, here's some information that we have for you this evening. The final cost of serving all Asheville applicants to RenewNC is yet unknown, but estimated to be 30 to40 million. staff proposed pursuing a substantial amendment to the CDBGDR action plan to reallocate 19.2 million to the state's renewenc program comprised of 9.2 million from the affordable multif family housing construction program and 10 million from the CDBGDR infrastructure program. City staff identified 10 million in estimated design costs associated with the North Fork Water Project as funds likely to be reimbursed first through HMGP and therefore believe this funding amount can safely be reallocated to the single family home repair program. Now, the single family home repair and reconstruction program would be allocated a total of $22.2 2 million should this substantial re um allocation change take place, which the states state estimates will serve 55 to 65 Asheville households. Here we have a a timeline for the substantial action plan amendment. We're here to tonight um to provide a housing update to council and with a multif family vote regarding the affordable construction affordable housing construction. On May 15th, this Friday, we'll publish the draft amendment. Uh, and the public comment period would start, a 30-day public comment period would start. At that

point, we would go to the housing recovery board on June 3rd for informal comment, seeking informal comment, and then come back to council for a public hearing on June 9th. The public comment period on the substantial amendment would end on June 14th, and we would seek a vote from the Housing and Community Development Committee on June 16th. We'd return to council on June 23rd for a vote on the substantial amendment alongside an associated amendment to the renewency agreement should all go as planned with the public comment period. Then at that point um should we receive an affirmative vote on the 23rd, we would submit the substantial action plan to HUD for approval on June 24th with the hope of finalizing and publishing that updated action plan to the CDBGDR program in July. Some knowns and unknowns informed staff's recommendations tonight. Um, city residents eligible within the Renewency program are among our most vulnerable and at greatest risk of displacement from tropical storm Helen. Investment in this program provides impacted residents with the ability to build wealth and equity within their home. And data since December has confirmed that the cost and demand for single family repair requires a more robust commitment to meet our community's recovery goals. Transferring the additional funding now will ensure verified eligible program participants are able to get in their homes before the full cost of the program is confirmed. It allows reconstruction to move sooner. Um and the full cost for city in terms of the unknowns the full cost for city residents in the renewency program won't be known until later this year. And as mentioned, staff has identified alternative funding as the at the lowest risk, but does not yet know if HMGP funding will be approved to any degree for city infrastructure applications, and that is not likely to change within the year of 2026. And additional CDBGR programs outside of infrastructure may need to be re-evaluated to support single family home repair down the line. In terms of next steps, as mentioned, the demand for home repair and the cost associated exceed expectations and the total need is estimated at 30 30 to 40 million.

Proposed CDBGR. This proposed CDBGDR amendment reallocates 19.2 million to the RenewNC program, bringing the program total to 22.2 million again with a council vote in on June 23rd. The 2024 affordable housing bonds will provide additional home repair funding via the Archer Coalition to address unmet needs. A home repair policy and bond allocation will also come before council on June 23rd. This strategy combines and balances the the needs between the multif family development to address the needs of displaced renters with homeowner repair programs including Renew and Archer to stabilize residents, preserve generational wealth, and prevent further displacement following tropical storm Helen. And with that, I will turn it over to Nikki Reid for our recommendations around the CDBGDR multif family housing construction program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Nikki Reid. I'm going to walk us through the CDBGDR funding recommendations. So, thank you for being here tonight. Okay. So, top of mind, just to really do an overview of deal structuring in affordable housing. Actually, this slide came from our presentation in the summer of last year when we were presenting the 319 Builtmore project. So, um, just to understand, public subsidies are usually anywhere between 10 or 20% of a total project's cost. 4% LITC projects require more public subsidy than 9%. 9% tax credits are usually reserved for smaller projects. There's a difference this year and I'll get into that when we talk about the project that we're putting forward as our 9% project to fund. But affordable housing developers have to find multiple sources of funding to create a capital stack that allows the project to pencil. There's traditional lending, private lending, and they require a certain cash flow and debt coverage. Projections include increases in rent over time, but they also must provide for operations, maintenance, and reserves. And then costs, the cost to build, interest rates, insurance premiums, cost of construction, they're increasing, but rents are not escalating in our current market. And so that increases the gap for projects. But really, what we're focused on tonight is the return on the public investment. So investing public dollars upfront into projects with long-term deed restrictions really impacts the household budgets of the low-income families that we serve that live in those units for decades. So now focusing on our CDBGDR multif family program priorities. So of course this must comply with the federal regulations from HUD and with along with that the city issued a notice of funding opportunity that reflected additional priorities. First we really wanted to focus on disaster resilience characteristics because this involved our CDBGDR funding. And so we integrated

enterprise green community standards to mitigate hazardous risks. And so that included adaptive planning, resilient site design for advanced flood protection, etc. The other piece and we um really wanted to ensure that we covered a mixed income project. Properties developed under this program needed to have units at a range of incomes and operated as mixed income. So that's 80% and below. But the other thing that we heard so clearly in the action plan development process was the need for deep affordability in our community. And so each of the projects that we present tonight must set aside at least 5% of the units at rents affordable to 20% AMI and for occupancy by households with incomes at or below 30. So really these units may be overlaid with project-based rental assistance by offering housing to the even most financially vulnerable. So again, really reflecting what we've heard from our community to offer lower rents and strategic. We want to make sure that these funds provide a lasting impact to Asheville's overall affordable housing. So, a little bit about our notice of funding. So, that was issued on February 25th. 13 applications were received and 12 eligible applications have been considered. So, that was a lot of units. So, over 1400 units proposed in terms of total development costs. That represents 453 million with the ask of the city being 70 million in our CDBGDR funds. So really more more responses than we can fund which I think is why it makes having a strategy very critical in this point. Scoring criteria was published. We used 100 point scale but really we looked at financial efficiency. So making use of our dollars, the affordability, that deep affordability that I I spoke about and compliance with that, the disaster resil resilience characteristics, commitments to long-term viability, making sure that those projects are going to be maintained for the future and shovel readiness and recommendations being

aligned with the results of the evaluation is what we're framing framing up tonight. Evaluation criteria. So applicant capacity, so ensuring that they have experience with LITC within the past five years. um really understanding the way that structured rents can really support low-income households, the soundness of approach, looking at leverage of resources, how they're advancing their project against um private capital, etc., and then achieving the results um related with the enterprise green certification. This slide also speaks to our overall strategy because I think this is what we really honed in on as we started to look at what we consider shovel readiness and how to really make sure that the projects that we get behind are projects that can be supported and that can come out of the ground. This is the um overall context that we find ourselves with. So right now tax credit projects are not facing one but two issues as they proceed. So yes, the tax credit cycle is something that we know well that we've done in the past, but this year the new element is the state's role in providing their CDBGDR funding into the current cycle. So they have put out a notice that says they're going to fund one maybe two projects in Bunkham County. And with that, we listened. We wanted to make sure that we didn't duplicate those efforts and that the projects we put forward would have the chance of securing that state CDBG funding or the state would be able to fully fund other projects that could come to Bunkham County. The other piece that we really wanted to also be attentive to was our timeline. So our CDBGDR resources are time bound and that right there is that we must spend that within six years of the obligation date. Tax credit financing is complicated. We won't know the outcomes of these awards at the tax credit level until August. So there we already are baked in additional time into this process. The multif family development process is complex. So with entitlements, with building permits, getting all the other sources of

financing and construction takes time. With all that in consideration, we wanted to provide again the best way to minimize the risk of all the different contingencies that often accompany affordable housing. So, in this case, full funding is recommended for these projects. In our opinion, this positions Asheville's projects as the most competitive and shovel ready in the NCHFA tax credit pool, and it minimizes the risk of losing leverage from those private sector resources or failing to meet our federal expenditure milestones. We want to provide recommendations that we can really see come out of the ground. So, here we go. Here is our our recommendations um for council's consideration. So first is the recommendations that align with our NOFO evaluation process. So we put forward a NOFO for 10 million and the top ranked proposal was Terrace at River Hills for 9.5 million in funding for 126 units and that's a 4% LITC. We'll go into details about each project in the coming slides. Second ranked proposal was District East Commons with an ask of 1.385 93 units. That's a 9%. And from our perspective, Terrace at River Hills really represents the most shovel ready because they're asking from funding from the city alone and not the state. They are ready to move forward as soon as they get their tax credit award and can be shovel ready in that regard. District East requires a state funding investment and yet it was the second highest scoring application and a 9%. So our dollars that we invest there are able to stretch further because it's a 9% project and 93 units to be supported. Now, with that, we're also again very much wanting to present council with the option to have a supplemental project recommendation, and that's 7 million to 319 Builtmore. 319 Builtmore is a project that the city has worked on with Laurel Street to really have a robust redevelopment of the site adjacent to Maplerrest. The city has worked with 319 Builtmore to develop a long-term ground lease to preserve long-term

affordability and has funded phase one already last summer with a housing trust fund investment and a land use incentive investment. This really helps to bring the second phase across the finish line. So we felt that we really needed to make sure that council had this option on the table as well that is above and beyond that initial 10 million that was noticed in the NOFO. So now getting a little more detailed and we do have representatives from the development teams here tonight. So if you have any questions they're here and ready. So Mountain Housing and South Creek Development are partnering on this project. CDBGDR request of 9.5. the site is vacant and has no existing building improvements. The housing type, it's family units. We have another project that's a senior housing. So, just wanted to make that distinction. And here you're seeing the breakdown of the units. So, 126. So, these numbers represent how many units will be at different area median income bands, right? So, seven at 20% AMI, seven at 30, 65 at 50% AMI, and so on. Per our NOFO, all developments are required a 35-year affordability. So, a big return on investment with that 35-year horizon to save those rents for our low-income families. Total development cost is listed there, and you can see that they have a spread of one, two, and threebedroom units. So, with this project, the capital stack is actually simpler than we normally see for affordable housing because we are recommending that full funding of the CDBGDR request. And again, that rationale is based on the desire to have projects that would have minimal contingencies such that they could come out of the ground and meet our deadlines for spend expenditure. The next project that we're uh recommending tonight is District East Commons that is Commonwealth Development Corporation. Their request is 1.385. This is an infill development on Tunnel Road. This is senior housing, so provides um an opportunity for seniors in this mix of funding recommendations.

And you see there as well the 93 total units at different AMIs, five at 20% AMI and so on. Same criteria applies with this as well. 35 years of affordability. Um you can see their total development costs that they're investing into this project here with also one, two, and three bedrooms. Their capital stack is more traditional that we see with tax credit projects where they're seeking to have a multitude of sources really be able to fund um the entirety of the project. And you can also see that they have asked for three million in state CDBGDR and again the state is anticipating funding one perhaps two in Bunkham County. Lastly through 19 Builtmore. So phase one you can see on the map has been funded by the city. Phase two is what we're here to discuss tonight. The request 7 million. This is the site formerly known as Matthews Ford. Um and has a community room, exercise facilities, a playground, and some commercial space included. family units, a 4% tax credit. Again, same uh parameters apply with the 35-year affordability period. Their capital stack again is showing a simpler because we are recommending fully funding their uh funding gap at 7 million. So with that, I wanted just to share the construction NOFO timeline from when we published on January 1st to being here tonight on May 12th to take the vote, knowing too that once we provide our contingent letters of award, they'll be conditional upon being awarded tax credits as well as being awarded any additional funding that they're pursuing from the state. And we should find that out in the August time frame. All right, that wraps us up. I did want to conclude by saying that HCD reviewed these projects voted to support two to one um to advance this forward. I'm happy to answer any questions. Also wanted to share again that developers here if there's uh project specific questions that I can't answer or I can turn it over to them.

I do have a question about the one or 131 tunnel road. It came up I think when I was watching HCD but it is really close to Swanoa River on the Aelia roadside. So, can we confirm flood maps of any kind like where it did flood? Did this lot flood? It just seems a little tricky to put our um neighbors with the most need for affordable housing so close to harm's way. It did not.

So, I did have a chance to speak with the developer. They're also here to address that if you'd like to hear more. Um, as I understand, the parcel did flood, but the building footprint is outside of the flood maps, the flood plane, the 100red-year flood plane and the floodway along the Swan Noah. um with our uh enterprise green certification and the resilience standards, they are building to um the first floor of of occupiable space outside of even the hundred-year flood that we experienced with Helen. Um so I'm happy to answer any more questions or have Justin Mitchell represent on that. Would you like to hear from Justin or

I think we I think we do need to hear as much as possible. I know there's no way we can know what happens next time, but it floods here. Great. Justin, go ahead.

Thank you. Justin Mitchell with Commonwealth Development Corporation and the District East Commons project. That is a great question and one that uh we tried to hit straight on right away. So, um the project is approximately site is approximately 7 acres and um the three and a half acres closest to the river will be preserved as flood plane. uh mitigation land. So there will be no development activity in that area at all. Um we kind of took the approach of um one of the important things of of controlling and managing floods, flooding happens um is that you have a place for the water to go and so we thought we were positively contributing to that by preserving that back half. So no development activity will happen in a 100-year flood plane. Um there the only activity actually that will happen is uh potentially planting some trees and then we've had some conversations with um so bad at their name one of the North Carolina or the

Greenworks

Greenworks Asheville uh about bringing in some uh native plants uh to to make it a healthy community and to give opportunities for the seniors at the site to do some hands-on volunteering and whatnot. Um that said um we also have uh committed where the lowest level of um occupiable space andor mechanics mechanicals for the project will be 30 ft above the rusting uh height of the river if you will. Um and so that would have withtood the 27.2 feet that um the river rose um this last flooding episode. So we uh further had an independent um surveyor um provide a certificate that we shared with city staff affirming that our foot footprint of our plan doesn't impact any uh flood plane areas. Um as part of our submission to NCHFA um they restrict development in a 100-year flood plane. Um so the extent of our development will be outside of a 500year flood plane as well. Um and then of course with this development uh we will be achieving um you know energy star green certification but also um the the standards um that were just presented which includes um certain resiliency things. So, um, we've agreed, we agreed to everything, every every provision that the CD CDBGDR, um, program said, we'd like to see this, we'd like to see that, we'd like, we uh, incorporated every one of them, which includes providing u backup battery power for common areas so that if there is a disaster, um, the residents would have access to all uh, like amenity space. So there would be air conditioning, there would be refrigeration, that sort of thing.

Being able to charge your phone and communicate with people. Yes, that wasn't one that I had on my list, but absolutely communication as well. Um and then um there also is um we've committed to providing uh a portable water source as well. Um I haven't seen that happen in any of our other projects anywhere, so that that'll be new for me as well. But um those are all the steps that we've tried to take to not just have a development uh for affordable housing but to somehow contribute positively to um the community's disaster response. So thank you.

Okay. Um Nikki, can I ask you a question about um on the uh for the 319 Builtmore we're doing we're looking at just phase two. Is phase two are they applying for any other funding for from any other resource other than the city?

Not okay. And then um on phase one, what what all do you do you recall what we put into that? Yes, I have it in front of me. So this is from the council presentation from I think it was July of 2025 when we presented really the entire picture of the project, but then council voted that night on phase one. So um so that evening we shared um the plan phase one being 109 units with 33 projectbased vouchers um and that's a mixed income including some workforce units as well. The city funded 3 million in housing trust fund and then granted a tax uh grant so a land use incentive grant of up to 100,000 per year for 20 years and that's based off city taxes. I will share that that night the city also approved a tax grant for phase two of up to 100 tax grant per year for 20 years on that side as well.

So the per unit subsidy for that phase one is $27,522 if I'm doing the math right. I'm just doing all 109 units. And the per unit subsidy on this phase 2 would be $62,500 if I'm doing the math right. Plus the land. Plus the land, which I think we paid Yeah. $5.3 million for.

Yeah. Yikes. That's a lot of money. Um so on the um mountain housing proposal for tonight, I understand they're not applying for funding from the state or from the county or or anyone else. The per unit subsidy if we went all in on this would be around $75,000 per unit. Um if I'm doing the math right I think it's higher. I just did the 9 million by the total number of units now that 20% of them or something are 80% of AMI. So um 9.5

um for the smaller project or the smaller funded project I'm forgetting the name of it. Um, it's only $15,000 per unit, but I that you said they're going for the 9% tax credit. Yes. And so that's super competitive. What What would happen if they don't get it? I mean, I would I think we they would need to figure out another funding strategy. So, um, so that our our funding is contingent on them being awarded the 9% tax credit to make their numbers work. Yes, it would meet our funding. Mountain housing is 9%. As well, no, no, all three of these are contingent upon

Oh, I Yeah. Okay. No, I thought you just Yeah, I got that. Um Okay. I um just am curious and this is just kind of a This is rhetorical. It's not I and I have you know I was talking to the manager before this meeting and we've talked about this before but with the cost of new construction and and uh land acquisition I mean the total all-in for these given the size of a city's budget I mean our total city budget annually is $265 million or 200 much 275 I'm sorry 275 but I mean when we're talking about having to provide taxpayer money to subsidize a single unit for $75,000. And that doesn't that's assuming that's pretending all of the units are affordable. Some of them are you know 80% of AMI is barely below uh market. I guess I just want to say I think we need to start asking the question of whether this makes sense um or whether we should be directing these funds towards home repair or

you said it every time. I know. Amen. So that means yes, we should be. Okay. Well, I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep saying because I So, is this the time you Well, I I Yeah, I mean, this has given me a lot of heartburn. $9 million in one project that we is I get like what we're trying to do is get it to the finish line. We're trying to make it like we're trying to slam dunk this this one project instead of giving five projects a couple million. But there's another piece too because right after Helen we when the bonds passed we allocated 10 million of the bonds to a loan fund that these applicants are also applying to after this loan doesn't give me quite as big a heartburn. At least that's revolving. I mean

but it's our $10 million in taxpayer money is my point. So there's a greater subsidy that's also not on the screen. But a loan in theory is repaid and then there's more funds for the next applicant. This is a full-on these are grants. These are these will be repaid. So the so that is the way these are structured is that they're only payment during the course of the 35 years is surplus cash but then at the end of the 35 years the note is due. So that is how the CDBGDR is going to be structured. Surplus cash surplus you know extra cash or after all their expenses have been

I got plenty of that. Well, Esther, before we derail in the numbers too far, I just I want to echo I want to echo what you're saying because my primary concern is ensuring that we repair the damaged homes from Helen with the DR money. And I appreciate that we're trying to reallocate money from infrastructure to do that and bolster that fund, but we still with that still don't know that we have enough to repair all the homes. We don't have all the data. So, for me, that's like top of the list. Can we repair all the damaged homes? We also had damaged apartments. I'm not saying we don't need to re repair apartments or rebuild them. And we also have I don't know how many studies on the shelf that say we need thousands of apartments. So I'm not overlooking that either. But you know we we boast that our subsid our subsidy per unit is about 25,000 and a couple of these are into the 75,000 90,000 100,000 range. And it's making me step back similar to the mayor and say is this is this the appropriate level investment? And it since we know the NCHFA is lifting this this cap saying we might actually get more than one award 9% this year and we might get several 4% awards this year. I'm wondering if a better strategy is to support four or five of those applications in the hopes that we get four or five awards not just two. I think the only challenge is is you're correct in that there'll be multiple tax credit awards but only one maybe two CDBG funding awards. Correct. Nine out of the 12 applications. So all but three are seeking state CDBGDR.

Correct. So if we if we even put forward four that we say let's let's fund four still only one maybe two of those might be funded by the state. So then we're only having one project that comes into Asheville. Like it would be great if we got two nines and two fours. But again, if they don't if they can't make their capital stack work with the lack of state funding into the deal, then we can't guarantee that they would even be built even if they got credits. It's about the state CDBGDR funding. And that's what that's how we have made these recommendations. I agree that it's a little I'm a little uncomfortable that one of the applicants didn't want to use that program. I guess I'm seeing both sides of that argument because on the one hand, it's why wouldn't you the state program?

Yeah. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you also apply for the state program instead just coming to the city for all of it? They they've sent some million well and they've sent some strong signals that they may not fund any multif family housing in the city. So heard that that because we have our own DR money and so they they may look in the county where there's not other DR money because the county has no DR money. So

well I guess one of the points I was going to make is that when we sat down as a council and said how do we want to do these buckets? We said we would do 10 million. Well, first we did the 10 million for the bonds and then we said let's give DR money. Let's do 10 million. So now this is an additional 7.89 million on top of that on top of the 10 on top of the second 10. And I just I kind of feel like it should be in the single family column.

So So for um tonight we're being asked to vote on this allocation of funding for multif family housing. these three projects. We will not be voting on the um whatever it's called, the major change to to move funding into single family home repair because it requires that 30-day uh comment period. So, we can vote on that in June.

This um I do like I mean just to go back to the first half of the presentation, I do like uh moving the funding into the single family home repair program. That brings us up to 22.2 2 million in the single family home repair program through the RenewNC program. So this is just people who have applied for funding for their home to be repaired or completely replaced due to hurricane Helen damage and they have to be income qualified. So this is this is not for just anybody. So, of the 285 applications the city um the that went the state is administering the program but that went to the state that are located in the city only 110 of them are even eligible and the state has worked through their list to the extent that they have been able to identify uh that at least there are about $12 million in repairs ready to go um in the that application pool. applications have closed, by the way. Um, and so us bringing our funding level from 3 million up to 22.2 million will provide plenty of money in there as the state continues to work through those applications. They are projecting that they'll be done reviewing all 110 applications uh by the end of the year. So, we will need to do this one more time when they're kind of firmer on their final number. they have they think their final number will land somewhere between 33 and $ 38 million in single family home repair. Um so we c we have that number but they're finding as they work their way through the list some people have already gotten their home repaired. Some maybe the charitable organization helped them already um different circumstances are popping up as they make their way through the list. So just to kind of forecast what that looks like. It's a little bit interesting. We're kind of conflating these things, making a decision about the multif family funding because it's

really is sort of a I mean it is related to the single family home repair and that we have to figure out where to get the money but to me this is a little bit of a separate decision. I feel even though the subsidy for the second part of 319 Builtmore is 625 per unit not including the land acquisition. Um I feel obligated to see that project through. We started it years ago. It's been a tremendous learning experience for us uh to see how difficult it really is to develop city-owned land in partnership and we have a great partner on this project. It it's just um obviously extremely expensive to develop these sites.

I know we're being asked to focus on this tonight. Um, I guess I still have heartburn around pulling it out of the um the single family home repair out of the infrastructure funds because among the things that the 2004 flood damage reduction task force recommended that we haven't gotten done yet, auditory alarm systems for evacuation, draw down schedule for the North Fork reservoir in response to rainfall pred predications. Uh early alert systems for residents below the flood zone. um land use suggestions both in the flood plan and continuing areas for to reduce runoff. I it I really wish we were looking at moving some more of the planning funding in that direction. Um but I know ultimately we have scarcity and we need more funding. Um yeah, I just I know that we're going to move forward and we got to expedite the home repairs. Um but we're going to need more money for that.

Okay. Okay. So, um, council, are we clear as mud? Are we What do we want to do? Is there a counter proposal? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. I don't know that I have a counter proposal, but I was wondering. So, are we saying we don't necessarily want to fund the other two and just

I personally feel I feel good about going ahead with 319 Builtmore Laurel Street. Okay. I am I I love Mountain Housing. They're a great fantastic partner. They've been able to do the the projects we've funded and that's been terrific. I we have not ever given them $9 million to do a project. So, I'm just having a little heartburn with that. So, then would the desire be if we didn't go with MHO to take the fullness of that 9.5 L I mean over to Yes. single family or there's just another project I was kind of interested in the Emma project county projects it was um

be a good partner to the county it was a really good anti-displacement they're an applicant but they were under the no so for for everybody who's watching we had anou with the emmo community apex on hazel for 4.5 do so Dicki um when we put out the no we got about Just remind me of the number about 10 applicants. We got 13 total. 12 were eligible because they were tax credit projects. Okay. Um what was and so again like I think our proposal so I think Apex at Hazel Mill was the project that you're referencing that was in Emma. So they could go to the state and ask for full funding from the state. What was their ask? 4.5.

Um I can't remember off the top of my head. I'm so sorry. But it was but they had capacity because the state's cap was 15 million. So our request from them and the state's request that they had in their application did not exceed 15 million. So from my perspective, they can still advance their application to the state applying for full state funding. And I think that's a I think that stands a better chance of getting more tax credit projects with funding from the two different entities than us just funding one. So again, wait, so the state's cap on their funding, we'll get into that a little bit. So for for 9% tax credits, they've said that they would fund up to 3 million. Is Apex 9%.

Um they're they're not they're not a 9%. So just this is a little background just for information. So the state has agreed to fund up to three million for their um for their portion of state CDBGDR and or 15 million for 4%. So right now applications can apply if they're 9% for three million and you're saying 15 million per county per per bunk for Bunkham County total. Right. So they took their for one project. So they're they're also saying they're going to fund one project maybe two. Well and they're ask should be lower then the asks of us should be lower because of these ex these other programs that are out there helping with the funding. And yet our asks are higher.

But here hold on a second. The total set aside in the state CDBGDR program for multif family housing is $60 million I think isn't it? Anybody know for all the counties? Yeah, for the whole pro program. And they have been pretty clear that they are not going to spend it all on one county. I mean they're correct. So they're saying that they're going to yes fund each county one tax credit request of the state CDBG funding and maybe two. But they do want to see that equitable distribution across the region. So it's a highly I mean you can't you can't take that to the bank. I mean because we just don't know what they're going to

exactly which is why again we hope to put forward proposals that we felt confident that we could support and that would get built anybody but us. Yeah. So then we were back to this idea of Laurel Street and I think was it called district? I can't remember the name of the other one on tunnel road and hold out the 9.5 back for single family or I guess we make the single family decision later to your point but we don't necessarily fund all of this. Yeah,

it would get us back to near our cap that we decided as a council that we would invest 10 million of the DR money into this. The the only thing I'm I'm just curious about in terms of what we're required to do for the notice and the 30-day comment period for a change to the action plan. Uh I think we can keep it like it is and not necessarily say what we're doing with that 9 million yet because right now it's still we don't have to designate it tonight. We would just have to withhold it from this tonight. Yeah. Yes. So what what everybody Well, I think I could get behind that. What is that? Tell me.

That would be supporting the 319 Builtmore phase 2 and supporting the tunnel road that I can't remember the name of. Ask for 1.4. Terrace Hill. The terrace. Terrace Hill. Thank you. Terrace. No, no. Terrace is a district east. District district east. Um for its 1.4, I believe. So whatever. And then the I I have to see what that counter proposal is. Can you pull up what these options are? You want to go back? I'll go back to the no changes to just removing the one that Yeah, we're just not I feel better about that.

Okay. So, let's You know what? We have a few people signed up to speak while we stew on option B. Okay. Uh, I'm sorry. And just the distilled why, because I don't know, hopefully the public is feeling similar that it's kind of hard to track some of this conversation. The distilled why is that you feel like it's too expensive, that the public subsidy for the MHO project is too expensive and that we could get better value or better outcomes by doing something instead to which we don't know what that would look like

something or nothing moving it. Yeah. And I don't want it to sound like any of one of these are bad developments. These are all good developments. I'm not trying to put that in your mouth. I really just am trying to synthesize because there's a lot happening here. We could say that out loud. These are all good developers with great development history. What I'm saying is possibly for this level investment, $17.9 million, we should probably be getting more than the 330 units that if we have such a demand for units that maybe we should be getting the best bang for the buck. And what would the alternate be that would be better? Is it hypothetical or theoretical or I'm not sure. It's an uncom that's one uncomfortable thing on top of the other uncomfortable thing of not having enough funding for single family.

Why don't we table the No. Well, we actually I was just reminded we do since we're now out of the public hearing agenda, we do need a motion. Um uh and then we can take public comment. So the motion so does if somebody wants to make make a motion regarding 319 Builtmore and I move to authorize the city manager to award Are we going to make two possible motions? Yeah, just remove the one name one motion or just remove the one. Okay. A move to authorize the city manager to award CDBGDR multif family housing program funds to Commonwealth Development Corporation District East and Laurel Street 319B Billboard.

I'll second that.

All right. So, we have a motion and a second. Um, I have one person signed up to speak with three people seating their time to Mr. Howell. Um, Mr. How I the three people who have seated their time, please just raise your hand. and Craig, uh, Susan Kitson, and Nina Tovish. Okay, you guys are all pros, you know. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, city attorney, city manager, assistant city managers, and the glue that holds everything together, Maggie. I was reading about this 225 million in HUD community development block grant disaster recovery funds which is intended for Asheville's recovery from Hurricane Helen. I was kind of confused because when I looked at the definition of recovery and my understanding of recovery is that it's a comprehensive multi-stage process of returning a property to its pre-loss condition or improving it to be more resilient after disaster or structural damage. Then I went back to reading about the 250 million and I see that only a small portion is designated for direct residential home repair. I mean we got 125 million for the infrastructure. We got 52 million for economic re revitalization. We got 31 million for housing. 28 million of that is for affordable housing construction, new units. Three million that's for reconstruction and rehabilitation of existing home

owners existing owner occupied homes. Now administrative planning 14.9 million public services 2 million. Okay. The 3 million set aside for home rehab is estimated to be sufficient for only about eight homes. And it says that the weight list as of April 2026 reports indicate that over 100 approved families are on the wait list. Okay. So now we spend 3 million to do eight homes while we got 100 people that still remain homeless basically from their homes being damaged. Now, if we take some of that money that we spend to put more so-called affordable apartments up, which nobody can afford to move into, maybe we can get more people back into their houses that have been out of their homes for the 20 months. I mean, it's for recovery for people that's lost, not to bring something in new using money that's for recovery. If I'm not mistaken, I think that's what recovery means. But, uh, it's hard for me looking at this right here knowing that we need affordable housing, but we also need to get people back in their homes. I mean, how what do 3 million for eight houses? I mean, dang, what do they have? Mansions. So, now you got 28 million. We take that 28 million. Well, let's say take 24 million of that. We can put 64 people, 64 homeowners back in their homes. That'll cut a big deficit in the people that we got waiting to be rehoused.

Everybody wants to have affordable housing. We need it. But at the rate we're going, we don't have it. I mean, the houses down, the apartments down there on Ash Ash a Ashlin Avenue that just got built, people can't afford to move into them. People sure enough can't afford to move into them condos over on Hwood Street that start at 700,000 that just got built. So, I mean, we going to keep going saying that we going to be uh providing affordable housing yet nobody can afford to move into them.

I don't understand. I don't understand. The people that aren't in their houses still got to pay their property taxes. So they paying taxes on something where they can't live. H strange. Very strange. I hope that y'all I was up here when they came up about the apartments on John Walker. That's been a long time to make it. But some of this other stuff can wait. Some of this other stuff got to wait. Let's get people back in their houses. I'm quite sure nobody up here likes being up out of their house if they got to be up out of their house.

If there's funding available for you get back in your house, you you like that fun to be applied to your house so you can get back in it. So, let's uh let's take a good look at what we can really do here as far as putting up apartments. Apartments, apartments, apartments, apartments, apartments. And let's go back to getting houses restored, restored, restored, restored. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Jeffrey Barton,

Mayor, City Council, and staff. I'm Jeffrey Barton, the president and CEO of Mountain Housing Opportunities. Thank you for the opportunity to speak um on behalf of our development Terrace at River Hills. I understand the concern about the high cost per unit. Let's go back in time to when the zoning was approved for this with a prior developer in 2022. The city committed 80,000 per unit for 31 80% AMI units. 75,000 a unit is a great deal to guarantee production of a significant number of affordable homes. I get that 9.5 million is a very strong ask. The reason that it's so strong is to get certainty of units produced. I worry that by not following the consultant's guidance, we're going to hobble ourselves into this tax credit cycle and come August when awards are made, Ash will be will be left with crumbs. We have an opportunity to get a significant number of multifamily rental units and it takes strong investment. You have tough decisions to make. This is a woefully underresourced recovery operation, but multif family rental is critical and I suggest that you please follow your consultants guidance. Thank you. Um that that is uh concludes the number of people who have signed up to speak under this item. Um, do we want to ask Mr. some questions?

I don't.

Jeffrey, can you come back up here? Uh you I mean Mountain Housing Opportunities is an amazing affordable housing partner in our community. You heard the conversation we were having. I mean is there is there a way for us to reduce the amount awarded to this project and still allow it to be viable? It feels a lot like our eggs are kind of all in one basket.

Yeah, I I certainly hear that. And that was in response to the NOFO which requested shovel readiness. This was the best prospect of not subjecting ourselves to the state competition. So um sure a reduced award we would go into the tax credit application cycle and request some state CDBGR.

That's 60 million spread across a huge disaster area. So there's no guarantee. And to your point, the city's or the states made it quite clear that because the city has DR funds, they're not going to fund multif family. So, you know, I I couldn't say that the proposal is viable with a lesser award. We'll make an attempt. Um the application deadline is Friday. So, you know, it's a Right. Right. It's it's tough to find another commitment between now and then. So this is kind of it. Yeah.

I you know I mean I guess just just kind of zooming out here. I mean I guess I'm just wondering if anything's going to change if we're going to always see these kinds of funding level requests to be able to leverage this type of a project.

Yeah. You know, the county's strategy in their housing bond is to go big on 4% LITC development. It's seen a significant number of affordable units produced because it is still leveraging significant private investment to solve our community's affordable housing crisis. Um, Mountain Housing Opportunities has not been alone in successfully using county funds to bring 4% tax credits to our community. Um there have been several developers who have done that preheline and the the numbers are the numbers. You know 300,000 a unit total development cost is what it takes to build these and the reliance on local subsidy is what it is. Um the the county has been going big to the tune of 8 to10 million per development to get this number of units for the last several years. So I know it's new to the city uh to put that level of subsidy in. The CDBGDR is the mechanism that allows it to happen. And and it's it's great strategy. It it does leverage, you know, significant private investment. Um even well above and beyond the 75,000 a unit that we're requesting. I guess I was under the impression the county was not not doing it quite at that level, but

yeah, they there there have been I think three 4% developments, MHos and Ardan is one of them um that have gotten between 7 and a half and 9.5 million to do 120 to 130 units. Well, council, he's got a deadline of Friday. Everyone does. Everyone Everyone has a deadline of Friday. Thank you, Jeffrey.

Um, yeah, that being in a scarcity mindset is really hard. Um, especially because we have to get the units done. Um, so for the community, when we're talking about shuttle ready, this isn't like we can allocate funds to a project that won't be finished in time. We're working on a very tight deadline. So, we've got to make sure that we um allocate the funds in a way that the project will be complete by I think it's March 2031, if I remember right, from our CDBDR planning. Um, I did wonder because Antonet, you brought up the other project that we had just approved, if you if you would be open to a friendly amendment to add the Emma project, the Apex.

Yeah. And how, but none for the none for not call by developer. None for the Terrace Hills. You know, I don't know. Y'all are the ones on the HCD that we listen to in committee and talking about the I'm wondering how per I mean Jeffrey's got a lot of experience in this field if he is if he's saying if the concern is really for Apex. So I did the motion for two. Yeah. And then she just Yeah. How much for how much was that one? I thought it was four and a half.

Four and a half. But we could do less. So what if we did four and a half and the remainder for this one? Okay. Five five 1.4 and

then so we're not talking to our microphones right now and people are trying to pay attention to us and the words that we say are not only important but they're part of the public record. So, um, if I'm trying to follow the thread here, we're now talking about we're going to fund the request of the two that the motion was made by the vice mayor and then I asked if we might pull back in the Emma Hazel Mill Road Apex project which had asked for about 4 million and that would give us some remaining funds to go what I'm hearing is to Mountain Housing. Um, knowing that it's possible that we're going to have to be making some amendments later anyway because once the state approves the LITC development funding and its funding projects, we'll be back making amendments anyway.

Okay. So, how many units would that be and what's the total cost? It's 9:30 at night. We're making sausage with important disaster recovery money. I need someone to write this down so we can look at it. I'm just going to say that right now. So, maybe Nikki, get up there. I'm not going to just say yes. Nikki, do you remember how many units are in Apex? Yeah.

Also, the reason we're doing this is kind of chaotic and sloppy is because we're trying to move fast. We need to fix people's homes in our community. So, we're trying to move funding out of multifamily into home repair rebuild. In order to do that, we have to decide what we're going to do with multif family first. So, we're just trying to include everyone in the conversation as much as possible. Apex 89 units asked for 4.5 of city CDBGDR asked for state CDBGDR in the amount of 3.5 but they did apply to this process. We just didn't elevate them to this part of the correct because they scored in the middle of the pack. Okay. So 89 units 4.5 excuse me 89 units 4.5 4.5 and they asked 3.5 to the state.

Correct. So that's why I would say like again if they wanted to apply for the 15 million from the state I would see no reason to prevent them to do that and if they don't get the 3.5 how how fundable like I mean to Jeffrey's point everyone's asking for shovel ready both the state and us so if they don't get the state which is extremely competitive but if your professional if you're if in your professional assessment how likely would it succeed if it only had our 4.5 would their capital stack completely fall apart. And that's what that's what I would understand is that I don't believe they would in your professional opinion. They have stated that they need that full amount to be able to produce the project. Yeah.

And that's what we're relying on. That's all we have to rely on. I think it'll look What were you about to say when she was making her comment? You said if the city was a part of it, were you about to say that they're again? Well, again, my my opinion is that because the state is offering the opportunity for funding, their cap is 15 million for 4%. So for that project, they can go to the state for the full 15. Like again, their capital stack, the gap is 7 million. So again, it's competitive, but I'm just again trying to develop the strategy here that we believe can be successful. Is there any v I mean we don't know the state's new pot and how they're going to make their decisions but has there been any inclination that projects that come with city support will more likely be awarded you know in the past we've kind of

not made any kind of signal to that they haven't signaled in the past that's kind of how they've treated it like don't a full application for the NCA they've never dealt with CDBGDR funds it's always been LITC and of course LITC wants to see a lot of leverage I guess the point I'm trying to make is in the past the pro the awardees are most often those that come with city support, come with financial backing, etc. So, to the end that we support projects, their applications are stronger. See what I'm saying? Right? And I would say that's probably still true here. It just makes me wonder. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to add in an apex at the end. I just accepted the amendment. Oh, you did? Well, okay. So

I guess I could Well, let's have a little bit of discussion and see if we can if we Okay, so you're giving me eyes like so Laurel Street recommendation. Okay, Laurel Street is 7 million and District East is 1.385 million. Th those two are up there. Um if if we were to instead of taking all 9.5 million to Terrace Hill, if we did 4.5 to Hazel Millex um and then did 5 million to Terrace Hill would that's the whole 17.89.

Yeah, that's all the money, but it's spread. We just split up the nine and a half million to two projects. And I know you're going to say, what are you trying to accomplish? What's the goal? more units more our per unit subsidy is less I'm hearing our professional staff say that their rigorous analysis has gone for likelihood to be done. So I personally would rather buildings that we go to a ribbon cutting for than hypothetical units that we say good things about tonight. So, that's where I am. And I if you all find a direction that moves in, fine. But I'm I'm in support of staff's recommendation. Well, I just might not be on the same boat as you.

Yeah. No, no, no. I mean, I I I appreciate that. I I feel like um Sage, can I understand your utmost desire? Would your desire be to just fund the two street and then do 9.5 later over to sorry whatever

single family or whatever. Okay. Um I'm conflicted by Mr. Barton's expertise and his advice that we may not even get an allocation in the city because these are both Laurel Street. All three of these are in the city. Maybe none are going to be awarded. Maybe this is all moot tax credit. Sorry, did I tax credit and state CDBG award separate? Yeah, that that's what you mean. The CDBGR money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um

because I mean to answer Antonet to your question, I am very um motivated to fund single family homely home more than we are. I'm hearing from staff and as I sat down and looked at all of our puzzle pieces of funding for other DR asks, I think there's a really good chance that we're going to get funded from HMGP to refill our requests in the infrastructure bucket and that we're going to have infrastructure what was previously infrastructure money to move here. I think I think there's some real likelihood. I'm going to be in DC next week meeting with our state delegation and others. And so I don't feel the pressure tonight to have scarcity on multifamily because I don't know where money from single family is coming from. I'm making a real educated guess that we're going to be successful with HMGP. And so I know it's I mean it's hard all these

infrastructure though, right? It would be for infrastructure which would then not for single family. It would be for infrastructure which would relieve some of our ability to do which means it would free up money for us to then move into single family and I want to fix homes now instead of hypothetical maybe. Well, I don't know. So, I'm just I don't mean that to but I really do feel like so I guess the question back to me was where am I at? And I feel like if we made a dedicated effort to allocate 10 million towards this and we have 10 million in the bonds behind it that these applicants are also going to apply to, then I would rather us cap our 10 million and fund the single family repair. But our staff, our professional staff are saying today isn't the day to do that because we have real things.

So what they're saying is we don't need to allocate the money towards single family tonight. I'm saying I don't want to pre

Okay, hold on. Hold on. Just to be clear, this this is a two-part presentation. And again, I knew this was going to be totally confusing. The first part, we are moving money into single family home repairing. You are beginning your 30-day notice period. At the end of it, we will vote on moving. So, there is a total of 22.2 towards that pot. We don't know what that total ask is going to be because the state's not done evaluating all the applications. We think it will be somewhere in the $30 million range. Not sure. So, we will need to do this again and likely looking at infrastructure to move some additional money over in the meantime because we didn't realize at the time that single family home repair was going to be so expensive. We did issue a $10 million no and we got 13 applications for millions and millions and millions of dollars to be able to build a jillion housing units. But we obviously can't fund all these great projects. So,

so let's cap it at the 10 million that we know FOD and reserve the rest for other pots. Yeah. And it may make sense long term to do all multif family with with the money we're talking about tonight. I just was I it just seemed like a lot of um it just seemed unusual for us to be doing it this way, but and it maybe this is the normal way to do it. Anyway, if what if what if we did one motion for the Laurel Street and District East since there seems to be some consensus around that and then let's do the second half. So, do I need to say I withdraw my exception?

I can withdraw the the amendment and then call a question so we can vote on this. The first is that okay? So, yeah. So, the first one is So, Megan, did you you had um the vice mayor making the motion. Did you have the second? Who made the second? Yeah, you got it. Okay. And then one last piece in the legal realm. Well, hold on. We're gonna vote on this. Let's vote on this motion. Kim called the question. We're going to put on the question. So, um, all those in favor of the motion to fund District East at 1.385 million and Laurel Street at 7 million. Please say I. I. Any opposed?

Okay. So, we did that. Now, there's nine and a half million dollars here that staff is recommending that we use to fund the the uh Terrace Hill project. Do we want to do that tonight? Make the legal comment now. So, if I understood right correctly, the way these um awards work is we're pledging this money should they be awarded. So, if they are not if they do not receive a LITC award in August, this money is back in our coffers potentially for a $9.5 million or whatever or single family. Is that correct? That's essentially correct. These are set up to where if the other prerequisites to a final project don't occur, the money comes back into the program. Yep.

Okay. Okay. I'll make a motion to fund that project. Say to fund the uh Terrace Hill Terrace Hills Terrace at River Hills for $9.5 million. Do you want the full funding the staff recommendation? Yeah, cuz I don't Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second to that motion?

The motion fails for lack of a second. Okay, I'm I'm like hitting decision fatigue, but um we've got more ahead. Council, does anybody else want to make a motion with regard to the multif family housing funding tonight or do we want to ask staff to come back? I think we need more time to get into the nitty-gritty. We still have other items on our agenda. Okay. I I happen to agree with that. I concur. Okay. So, we we did what we can do on this one for tonight. Thank you all. 15 minutes.

Okay. Um All right. We have Okay. Sorry. We have uh our next item of new business is um new business item B a declaration of policy for public safety tools Asheville Police Department grant award budget amendment and acts on contract. These are items B1 I, B1 2 I, B13 I. Although council and Brad um confirm for me. I believe it's one motion for B1 I and B12 I and then a second motion would be needed for B13

or do you want separate? So anyway, you you can council divide th those up. The only um must do tonight is that B2 is a separate motion from all of the B1's. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. B the B1's can be one motion and then the B2 has to be I'm sorry. You do have a single presentation for all of this this evening. So they lump together.

We I think um interim chief Jackie Steppp is Oh, you're here. Sorry. You were fine. Thank you. Welcome. Good evening. Good evening. I know it's a late evening. Uh thanks for hanging in there. uh interim chief Jackie Steppp. Um thank you for allowing me to be before you again today uh to talk about the community project funding award and our Axon contract. Before we get into the details of the presentation, I want to take just a few minutes to talk about the operating uh the environment we're operating in today. We're working in a setting of increasing demand and limiting limited capacity. At the same time, we're operating without fully integrated real time capability, which means critical information is often fragmented, delayed, or spread across multiple systems and partners. We also face staffing constraints that impact response time, investigative capacity, and proactive policing efforts. Officers are investigate and investigators are working harder than ever. Often without the benefit of immediate shared situational awareness, this is the reality of our current operations and why the discussion matters. This is not about buying technology. This is about improving emergency response, investigating efficiency, investigative efficiency, transparency, and officer accountability. Before discussing what the system can do, as most of you have already heard, I want to take a second to make sure that

everybody understands uh what it will not do. There's no facial recognition, no general monitoring, no unrestricted unrestricted access to private cameras. There's defined retention schedules and full audit logs. The system is governed under Kalia aligned standards and that's through the commission on accreditation for law enforcement agencies framework. In practical terms, it means it operates in accordance with nationally recognized best practices for law enforcement accountability, oversight, and professionalism. Sorry,

but I want to be clear with you, each and every one of you council members, that we are aligned. I have felt that it doesn't feel that we are, but I assure you we're aligned. We're aligned with the concerns around privacy, oversight, and preventing overreach. They are the foundation to how the system is structured, how it's governed, and how it will be used. Public safety should not come at the expense of community values. Those two can exist together. I hope we've demonstrated that through uh the proposed draft resolution that uh our city attorney uh drafted for you all uh to approve tonight that goes in line uh with the other items that you'll approve. Councilman Hess, I took your advice uh on the name change. I did try to change the name for those of you that don't know to real time uh information center. Unfortunately, because it's been signed into law already, I'm not able to do that. My understanding is that there is an opportunity once uh adopted that we can work toward that. Uh so I will continue to try to do that uh if I'm allowed. I say that to say I hear you and and just reassure you that we are aligned. We've spent a lot of time talking about systems, platforms, dashboards, and software, features, integrations, and specifications. But somewhere along the way, we've lost sight of what this is actually about. This funding supports accountable technology upgrades for emergency response and transparency. And more importantly, it supports outcomes. So, with that in mind, let's focus on

what this is really about. It's about our community and officer safety. It's about faster emergency response. It's about accountability and transparency. You won't hear me say that enough. It's about stronger investigations. It's about finding missing persons. It's about handling evidence efficiently and responsibly. It's about governance and safeguards that ensure this is done the right way. This is not about software. This is about victims. It's about the mother waiting for answers after her child is taken. It's about an officer try to stop a violent offender before they strike again. It's about the difference between acting in seconds and showing up minutes too late. A real-time intelligence center is not a technology project. It's a public safety function. It exists for one reason. To close the gap between what's happening and what we know about it. So we can act faster, smarter, and more efficiently. Because crime doesn't wait for reports to be written, call notes to be entered. It unfolds in real time. And when our response is delayed, incomplete, or disconnected, people get hurt. Let me take you back to 2018. A 12-year-old child was shot and killed in a housing complex.

You just I know a lot of you all weren't here at the beginning of the meeting, and I I just want to remind everyone regarding the decorum requirements of the chamber. Please don't call out or say comments while the speaker is speaking. And each person who comes to speak tonight will will likewise be listened to. So, if you could just refrain from comments while the chief is um presenting or any of you all are presenting. Thank you, mayor. A 12-year-old child was shot and c killed in a local housing complex. I believe most of you know which incident I'm referring to. It was not an isolated scene. Dozens of people were outside when shots rang out. Dozens. And yet, no one came forward. No witnesses, no usable leads, no resolution. We know there are systemic inequities and the valid fear that has kept people from speaking out in this case, but sadly to this day, that case remains unsolved. Now think about that for a moment. Not in terms of technology, but in terms of reality. A child lost his life in a crowded area. And we were left without the information that we needed to act because the video evidence was very limited, very limited at that time. There was no real way to see what happened, no way to identify who was responsible, no way to give that family the answers they deserve, and no way to give them some measure of justice for their loss. That is not a gap, that is not effort, not commitment, it's information. This isn't about adding another piece of equipment. It's about making sure that

when something like this happens, and unfortunately it will. We are not standing in the dark hoping someone speaks up. The reality is if that neighborhood where that child lost his life had access to the type of camera systems in place today that exist now in that same neighborhood. investigators would have had critical evidence that could have significantly advanced the case. They would not have been starting starting from nothing. They would have started with evidence. It's about ensuring that silence is not the end of the investigation because so in so many of our cases involving acts of violence, video evidence provides critical evidence, helps identify offenders, and changes the trae trajectory of investigations. And we talk about modernization, that is what we mean. Not technology for technologies sake, but the ability to see, know, and act when it matters most. So, as we move forward, our focus is on examining outcomes and asking a much more important question. Could this have been prevented or mitigated if the right information had been available at the right time? Because when we strip everything else away, the technology, the terminology, the process, that is what it comes down to. Time. Time to identify a suspect, time to locate a victim, time to intervene before violence escalates. And in policing, time is often the difference between life and death. So as we walk through the presentation and real life cases, which I will present, I ask that you keep that perspective.

Not what the system looks like, not how it operates on a screen, but what it enables in the field in real time. faster decisions, better coordination, lives protected. That's what this is all about and that's why we're here tonight. So, as we talk about the community uh the CPF, the community uh project, I wanted to recap uh what the funding timeline was um and what it's for. So, we applied for the application in May 2024. Uh unfortunately it did not pass. So we resubmitted in 2026. Uh and then we were notified in February uh 2026 uh that we did secure the appropriations bill uh in the amount of just over a million dollars.

We applied for this grant. I want to remind everybody not for new technology, not for a new tool, but to build on what we already have. We already have this system. We've been paying for this system since 2022. Um, additionally, a JAG grant was approved in March 2025 by you to start a real-time intelligence center in the amount of approximately $60,000. So, the estimated cost, this is just a breakdown, approximately $500,000 would be spent on a video wall. Uh and then the software is $467,000. Uh 60 and 602 $62. Um and that is the the software system that integrates and aggregates all of the cameras that already exist. The remainder that would be spent on ongoing and miscellaneous uh operational expensive brick and mortar computers, physical workspaces for people to work out of. What we currently have, we currently have uh what we call respond, which is access to our uh Axon cameras, what you saw when you came and visited our body camera locations, our fleet car camera locations. Uh and that's built into what we already have. The future full access fuchious uh the funding would cover 7 and a half years, 89 months. uh additional uh real-time intelligence center cost uh would be addressed through any standard procurement process. Uh we don't see any at this time uh but down the road if if they come up they would be addressed accordingly. I think we've hit on this enough but I want to just recap again the difference between a real time intelligence center and fuchious. Remember a real time

intelligence center is literally just the brick and mortar. It's a physical space uh where people come together in one room. Fuchious is a software platform a platform uh which is uh mainly why we're here tonight and it connects private and public cameras to our police network. It's a digital hub interface for immediate situational awareness. It aggregates the data, the mapping uh you all saw floor plans so much into one system. our computer aided dispatch system so we can see everything in one screen and be able to act quicker and more efficiently. Fuchious isn't about watching people. It's about helping first responders get to emergencies faster, better informed, solve crimes more efficiently, and keep the community safer with less intrusion, not more. By less intrus intrusion, we mean the use of targeted incident driven information rather than broad monitoring so that access to data is limited, purposeful, and tied to a very specific investigation. When we talk about registry and integration, we've talked about registry and that is where you as a uh community member just tell the police department that you have a camera and that you want to register it with us. You give us your name, your phone number, and your email and it goes into the system that you have a camera and if a crime occurs in that area, we can contact you to see if you have any video footage. Does not provide the police with live access. If a crime occurs, we have to request it. Integrated cameras. That is where we talk about the full integration to where you as a community member, if you choose to integrate, still have full access control over what that looks like, time

of day, days of week, uh, etc. And that that allows us if an emergency occurs to look at your camera live if approved on the front end. And with this uh registry and integration, we've already started working on uh and I brought it here tonight, but um you guys have mentioned the FAQ page. So, we've already started working through a lot of questions that will be on a website so people uh just like you see in other areas can go to and get all of their questions answered about can police override my camera? The answer is no. We we go through a whole list of questions that we believe are important for people to know when deciding to register in integrate or even participate at all. Axon neither has access to the fuses or to the system or retains data. Asheville police department owns the information. It will not it will pull in video stream if connected through refucious core but it will not pull in AI technologies layered onto that device. Uh does not use uh it does use artificial intelligence to rapidly search video provided to the system by users to mitigate criminal activity such as it can recognize weapons, vehicle descriptors, colors of vehicles, things like that but it does not use facial recognition. When we talk about benefits, faster response, we've I've said that a number of times. It allows us to act more efficiently, address violent crime in high impact neighborhoods, and address quality of life issues. Stronger investigations. We talked about how it allows us to to really capture that evidence early, almost immediately. Uh improving case outcomes and accountability serves as a force

multiplier. doing more with the existing staff uh and technology reduces uncertainty in high-risisk situations for both the public and private. And that can look as simple as somebody calling in an armed robbery. And if we had access to the camera inside, we could log on and see that it's not an armed robbery. Maybe it's another object in somebody's hand and allows us to develop that appropriate response to that crime. And then oversight and accountability. There's really robust audit trails built into all of this. But before I move forward, I want to talk just about a couple of cases where this technology in some way, although delayed because it's not immediate, has assisted with our investigations. There was a rape investigation that occurred and through license plate readers and context cameras. said, "When I say context, it just means a stationary camera attached to a building or somewhere." The suspect was identified and we were able to cooperate the victim's account of what uh occurred and he was charged with seconddegree forcible rape. Another incident, offender filed a report stating she was assaulted. The review of the video surveillance though so that showed that she was actually the aggressor. uh and then her and her boyfriend were both charged in that incident. Another incident similar to that uh was a large family altercation involving firearms and baseball bats. Uh and when we showed up, witnesses tried to divert our investigation and luckily with the context cameras, we were able to identify the appropriate offender. But just like the other case, we may have been led down a path where the wrong person was charged without that camera footage. Uh the camera footage caught the moments leading up to a fatal shooting and

clearly showed the deceased receiving a uh and firing a handgun first. The footage provided critical context, leading prosecutors to decline charges against the individual who returned fire. Multiple camera angres cap camble camera angles captured a violent assault that ultimately led to a homicide investigation. The footage documented the severity of the attack, cooporated statements, and supported in filing the juvenile first-degree murder petition. Officers responded to a shooting and unfortunately were able to speak to the victim before he died in the officer's arms. However, the camera footage provided sufficient evidence that the offender was on the scene at the time. Through contact cameras and LPR, we were able to apprehend and gain a confession. Surveillance footage captured a brutal assault involving a metal cup uh coffee cup that caused life-threatening injuries. The footage provided direct evidence of the attack and supported felony charges. There was another uh sex case where the offender forced a caseworker to perform uh sex against her will. Context cameras, license plate readers caught the incident and the vehicle that led to the identification of the offender. Suspects drove around downtown shooting an Orbee gun, wreaking havoc, causing fear uh amongst people visiting downtown. through license plate readers, we were able to stop the vehicle and make appropriate charges. And then we already discussed the robbery that occurred downtown, $350,000 worth of jewelry, two suspects from out of the area, but through contact cameras and license plate readers, we've been able to fully investigate that case. So, I say all that just to provide a little

bit of reality of what we're using now and how much better and quicker we could be if this moves forward. And then I want to talk a little bit about uh the objective evidence that we have here. Jur juries increasingly expect object objective evidence like video which is seen as more reliable and unbiased than an officer on stand for uh vulnerable areas critical high crime areas where victims and witnesses may fear coming forward. I give you a real life example of that. That is our reality. But this allows us to rely less on vulnerable residents and more on objective reliable evidence. The center can serve preserve evidence early to ident identify suspects accurately and rule out innocent individuals and again I gave you real life examples of where that could have happened. Providing a safeguard against wrongful convictions and disproportionately impacted communities. Now, I want to take just a second uh and read two two letters. I've got one from our current district attorney. Honorable mayor and members of council, I'm writing to express my support for the re uh receipt of federal funding to create a real-time intelligence center. As our community addresses public safety challenges, we must adopt tools that preserve objective evidence, efficiently utilize emerging technologies, and enhance both public safety and ensure civil rights. In our legal system, prosecutors bear the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Today's juries increasingly expect that law enforcement and prosecutors will make

every effort to preserve and present all objective evidence of an incident. Just as DNA evidence has become an expectation, video evidence is now viewed by jurors as trusted, impartial, record-f free from human bias. The RTIC would aid in capturing this evidence and securing it at the earliest possible moment. meeting the evidentiary standards our court and juries demand. The RTIC would be valuable at each point between incident investigation and prosecution by providing immediate highquality evidence. The RTSC would ensure law enforcement and prosecutors have what they need to seek justice for victims with a high degree of confidence. This is particularly vital for our marginalized communities and residents in public housing. Ashel's crime heat maps have long shown that these areas are often the most heavily victimized by violent crime due to deep rooted systemic and institutional suspicions compounded all too often by legitimate fear of criminal retaliation. Investigators and prosecutors have often found it difficult to gain witness cooperation in cases originating in those areas. The RTIC would preserve the objective evidence needed in the in these historically overvictimized areas, ensuring that the burden of providing evidence does not fall vulnerable does not fall to vulnerable residents who frequently fear their safety when subpoenaed to court. The RTIC would promote systemic equity in many other ways, too. Early access to video would permit law enforcement to develop good leads and immediately rule out innocent suspects. Anyone who has ever been wrongfully accused would appreciate that video

evidence is preserved, accessible. Uh for for example, a person could definitely show they were not at the scene if later accused of a crime and error. This provides safeguards against wrongful convictions that have historically impacted marginalized communities. Also, real-time video evidence would enhance and supplement the gaps and errors often present in witnesses narratives of traum traumatic events with video record of specific incidents. The RTSC might also provide a layer of oversight to ensure the lawful use when force is used and police accountability in cases of excessive use of force. All this being said, my support is for the real-time intelligence centers capacity to supply investigators respond to crimes with objective facts. I would not support the use of the system for surveillance and I have been assured that this system cannot be used for that purpose. Such use would carry a high risk of eroding public trust and civil rights. To maintain public trust, the RTIC should remain focused on evidence collection, criminal investigation, and response to criminal activity only. I urge council to move forward with the receipt of the funding by focusing on objective evidence and the preservation of facts. It is my hope we can reduce cycles of violence and ensure that public safety means safety for all. I know that was lengthy, but I think it's important that everybody hear it. Also have um a letter from Russ Ferguson, our United States Western District uh of North Carolina. Dear Chief Stepp, I'm writing to discuss my belief that the city of Asheville and

the Asheville Police Department would benefit from the establishment of a real-time intelligence center. Before my job as US attorney, I was not aware of the significant benefits of a real-time intelligence center. And I want to share some of what I've learned. Real time intelligence centers allow law enforcement to have eyes and ears on the ground without putting an officer in harm's way. From a room with monitors, law enforcement can see crime happening before their eyes and more importantly see what may appear to a bystander to be a crime but is not. As a hypothetical, a gas station may call 911 fearing a robbery. After seeing a group of people what the clerk thought was a gun, the real-time intelligence center is able to see the gas station's camera, see the group inside more clearly. from that video tell that the gun seen inside the gas station clerk is actually a novelty lo lighter made to look like a gun. Therefore, from the real time intelligence center, a police call to service has been avoided, leaving officers on the road responding to real crimes. The real time intelligence center can also save lives by being able to see police body cameras in real time. The real-time intell intelligence center can see when the officers are in trouble and send back up. In situations where police need to enter a building, intelligence from that body camera to inform officer other parts of the officers in other parts of the building, keeping officers safe. RTIC's hold people accountable, too. RTIC's create a digital audit trail of incidents and can see police interactions with the public immediately long before a supervisor can make it to the scene. Officers can then be instructed accordingly. Public trust and transparency are furthered through data

sharing and public discussion of crime trends which further facilitate community trust through data-driven decisionmaking. A justice department best practice. More importantly, there's also a direct and tangible benefit to victims of crime. The RTIC will spit speed up emergency responses, accelerate case resolutions, enhance safety through faster identification of perpetrators, preventing further harm to victims. To the department, the Department of Justice has long seen the value of real-time intelligence centers and in some instances provided federal grants to help fund them. It is my firm conviction that we must leverage available resources to uphold our shared obligation to public safety while simultaneously ensuring that such technology and advance advancements remain steadfast committing to protecting the community. I'm a firm believer that the crime prevention is a community obligation. As you know, I organized and led a meeting in Pisgue in response to violent crime in public housing and the unprecedented level of violence during the month of March. This meeting was intended to bring together representatives from federal, state, and local law enforcement partners with Keenan Lake, founder of My Daddy, Daddy Taught Me That, Ellis Santos, the executive director of housing authority of the city of Asheville to discuss violent crime in public housing and develop real actionable responses. Earlier that morning, I participated in a symposium organized by the North Carolina Gang Investigators Association, VIA Health, APD, Asheville City Schools, the Department of Juvenile Justice, nonprofits, organizations, community health workers, and others focusing on the impact of gang activity and youth violence in Asheville.

Through events like these, I have seen that an RTIC, Realtime Intelligence Center, is a benefit to the community. It protects the people and those that interact with police. I believe that every community deserves safety and safety is a shared responsibility that involves that includes law enforcement, clergy, community leaders, public health, nonprofit organizations, and others. Utilizing RTSC to its fullest capacity is value added to the actual police strengthens accountability and transparency to the community and improves our response to victims of crimes. During my time as a US attorney, I've witnessed real uh the real time intelligence center model work effectively, resulting in enhanced community safety and increased law enforcement accountability and transparency. If I'm able to answer any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out or call me directly at any time. I just feel like it's important when we talk about objective evidence, the people prosecuting the crimes, that's the one sending the letters in support of a real-time intelligence center. Real time intelligence centers are not a standalone solution and we know that. But agencies that have implemented them show that they consistently improve outcomes. You see 5% violent crime solving rate, uh 12% improved solving property crime, and 11% improved overall clearance rate. I'll go back locally here to an article uh from October 4th, 2023 when Sheriff Miller implemented the real time intelligence center here in this community. Balkam County sees 15% crime rate decrease in 2022, continuing a

three-year trend. Another reason for the drop in crime, he said, is a real-time intelligence center. The sheriff said technology has helped the agency a great deal in helping keep the community safe. There are a lot of examples and I won't read because I know I'm reading a lot and I know it's a late night but I could go through countless examples. Dallas assistant chief uh Arizona Chief uh James definitely this is a gamecher. It's a problem solver. We had a problem responding to crimes in progress and we didn't know how to solve them. Bakersville, California. Chief Terry, we're about six weeks up and running uh in our real time intelligence center and it's uh completely changed over the past six weeks. It's been an amazing tool. We've arrested suspects for homicide, domestic violence, and fatal hit and runs. Montgomery leveraging technology to address address staffing issues that we're having. We're also seeing, as we always have, a lot of our criminals don't come from our county, they come from outside. There are really countless examples of uh the success of real time intelligence centers across the country. Now, I want to move on to the contract um and talk a little bit about that. that part of the presentation I really tried to focus on the grant and the funding and what that would cover. Um, so do we want to pause there? You want me to roll into to questions to the contract? So that was kind of the the the grant funding I guess a and then now I'm on to the the contract.

I think go ahead and just

Okay, that's great. Um so our current state um is that we are fragmented um across our POS uh our purchase orders. We've got varying timelines uh causing administrative complexity and financial uncertainty. The key risk is that costs are starting to rise. 1.24 24 million by FY27. There's a significant coverage gap in FY29 and that's when most uh a lot of our high higher expense ticket items expire. Those those purchase orders expire and there's a potential 20 to 30% cost increase due to inflation over that time. So consolidating three purchase orders into a single 7 and a half year agreement is important for long-term sustainability. Projected savings of over 4 million over the term immediate advancement of operational uh capabilities locked in pricing against inflation and stable a stable long-term technology roadmap. So maintaining a structure that we have now it creates a predictable problem and we we talk about that the rise in 1.24 million over time. We we have to the do nothing approach. It's not neutral. Renewing these systems individually at future market rates which is where we're headed is expected to increase by as you see the 20 to 30% over the over the 5-year period. And that's due to ongoing sector inflation without adding any new uh capability, without improving response and without

addressing current operational gaps. In other words, we pay more to maintain the same status quo. What the approval allows us to do is to move forward with a more comprehensive solution. So the the where we are now is we have multiple purchase orders for all of our Axon equipment, taser, interview room, all of the equipment we already have, body cameras. And what we are doing because we have the opportunity to bundle is to consolidate all of those individual agreements that like I said are fragmented, expire at different times. They don't provide the same upgrades. Um they have different schedules into one consolidated contract which would include fuchious. So that's the contract. Anybody have any questions? All right. So, what's next? This is super important. Um, hopefully today, we'll see what happens here, but if if approved, uh, the backup center, uh, which is, uh, still in place at APD headquarters, that is our, uh, dispatch center. They move out and then we continue. It says education campaign. We we've been doing that. I was at a meeting last night. We'll continue to do that. Um, and then 90 days out, the the education campaign continues. uh and then we we start construction very minimal the room already exists uh for that. But moving forward our focus is on how we implement this deliberately transparency and with clear accountability as as we talk about the edging cam education campaign. I want to explain a little bit about what that looks like. You know I I intend to do community meetings uh through kind of a town hall type setting where I attend for a Q&A. Uh I have no problem attending meetings and answering any

questions. Uh so I intend to do that. Uh listening sessions, listening sessions will occur prior to any policies being finalized around the real time intelligence center. Continue transparency through regular neighborhood meetings, which I already do almost daily, and ongoing real time intelligence center tours. Even though there's nothing to tour yet, we are open. I I I want people to see it start to finish. policy development grounded in privacy oversight and best practices. Ongoing demonstration of effectness of effectiveness through measurable outcomes and case-based results. We also have our citizens police academy that's offered twice a year. We have our junior police academy where all of this is talked about. There's there's classes on this. uh the people that attend those uh the students and the adults get to see it, touch it, feel it, you know, very similar to what you did. And at the end, trust will not be assumed. It will be demonstrated. That's it. I had a presentation um from the ACLU of North Carolina, but I don't want to take more time when people have been waiting six hours to speak. So, I'll wait till after we hear from our neighbors.

Okay. Um council, I know we had this presentation in one of our work sessions, but if you have any additional questions, um you can provide those. Now, I I do I do want to ask a couple of questions first. I I did get a but first I I did get a letter today from the North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson. Uh and I'm going to read this um this letter. Dear Mayor Mannheimr and members of city council, thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Asheville Police Department's proposed real-time intelligence center. There is a long tradition of skepticism about government surveillance and that skepticism has produced important guard rails over the years. The question is which guard rails are in place for this proposal by APD. This technology can be deployed in narrower or broader ways and several of the most consequential choices are matters of policy rather than capability. Based on what APD has described, the proposal here makes the narrower choice on the following concerns. Use of federal immigration enforcement which is excluded. Facial recognition software, which is excluded. Footage retention, which is limited to the period set by city policy. Ownership of footage, which remains with the department rather than a private vendor. Winston Salem, High Point, and Bunkham County uh Bunkham County Sheriff's Office have operated facilities with this kind for several years. Their experience has been that when these centers are run with clear policy limits and public oversight, they help reduce response times and assist in solving crimes without becoming the broader surveillance tool that critics reasonably worry about. Public safety and civil liberties are not opposing

values, and the framework APD has put forward is a serious attempt to hold both at once. Sincerely, Jeff Jackson. So, I shared that letter that he um emailed to us today. Um if you know, and I we're about to hear from uh the public uh and we have many many people signed up to speak, and thank you all so much for your patience. Uh but I have a a question. If we um you know, we we have all now toured the facility. We have learned a lot more about it. We've learned about data storage and purging. We've learned that um no one is sitting there surveying the community with our camera system. Uh we are using our camera system to help assist response to 911 calls and we saw examples of that. Um but what if somebody were to access this system inappropriately and you know look at camera footage that they're not legally supposed to be looking at or entitled to look at. Could we could we um hold that person accountable? Could we break our contract with Fus? Could we break our contract with Axon? What what is our what what do we get to do if we're not satisfied with how how this system is being used? I guess Brad, I'm looking at you because you're the lawyer, but if somebody else,

I'll be I'll be happy to answer that. Uh Mayor Mannheim, so to to your question, the assumption is that it's a third party outside of the city. perhaps that's maybe violating those. In any contract uh that the city executes at this point, we include certain clauses that allow council, specifically council, to pull the funding from those contracts. We call them non-appropriation clauses. You hold the ability to appropriate money and without the money, the contract essentially is voided. Um, we also build in additional terms for um, which empower the city to terminate the contract unilaterally if there's any sort of a breach that can be defined by the terminology that we include in those contracts and what you've described would certainly qualify as the kind of limitation we would put in any contract. Um, we've already been reviewing some of the terms. uh my myself and uh the city's primary public safety attorney in the office have already been talking directly to the service provider, the software provider, uh asking them if this were to be approved, would they even be willing to do some additional amendments to account for some of the things you're talking about? They've already expressed their willingness to do so. So, we can incorporate contracts which would allow council or staff to take action to address any of those concerns. I think terminating the contract.

Okay, I appreciate that. In terms of the data storage policy, so holding the footage uh by APD, I know when we long ago implemented body cameras for officers, we had to adopt a policy around storage of um of the footage. Can you just reiterate what what what is our policy around that? Because it you know, the attorney general's letter just makes mention of the policy but doesn't get into the details of it. Yeah. and and chief interim chief staff may be even better than I at uh telling you exactly what that policy states, but I'm happy to supplement anything you are you talking about the retention schedules?

The retention schedules are governed by law. So, uh 90 after 90 days, all information has to be purged, but that's with the exception of anything that's attached to uh a case. So misdemeanors have I believe it's five years, felonies have 20, homicides, stuff like that is forever. Uh so anything that's not uh attached to a criminal investigation, an active case has to be purged after 90 days. But once that conviction happens, those misdemeanor and felonies stay in place at scheduled by law uh retention schedules.

And are those the same for physical evidence? So they're just kind of treating it as ev evidence. So we do we treat do we keep physical evidence at those same retention schedules? No, it's different. Okay. There's a lot of nuances it as you saw with our property room with physical evidence. A lot it's a lot different. Okay. So we would just to be super clear, we would maybe actually keep physical evidence longer in some cases. We do. Yes. Especially Okay.

Yes. And and I may add also that uh the nature of these programs is softwarebased which means that any person even within the organization accessing it does so in a manner that's logged to the individual. So we actually have a record of anybody who has accessed any cameras. Um and that's independent of their willingness to put that in. If they've accessed it, it is recorded. So we have a log of every time someone and who it is that's accessed the camera. So if there's any sort of a policy issue in terms of following that, we're able to quickly determine who was that addressing.

Any any other questions, comments? Okay. Thank you. Okay. We are going to begin public comment. There are mayor, you we need a motion on this. Well, right. We need a motion, but for this part, so do so. Um, back to Brad's instructions. I need a Sorry, my By the way, my bedtime's like 9:30. Okay, so um I need a motion for item B. Well, it's the B1's B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B one I 2 I3 I

Do I have a motion? Motion to adopt a resolution of the Asheville City Council to declare and reaffirm the protection of civil liberties of all residents and visitors in the collection and use of data obtained through the utilization of public facing cameras, license plate readers, and the operation of a real-time intelligence center. resolution authorizing the city manager to apply for, accept, and sign all of the appropriate application and acceptance documents for the community project funding award allocated to the city of Asheville as secured through Congressman Chuck Edwards office and managed through the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Burn Justice Grants. and three budget amendment in the city's special revenue fund in the amount of 1,141,256. Second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second. So, now I'm going to begin calling folks who have signed up for public comment. Um, everybody, we're going to do two two minutes each to try to get to as many people as possible, except if you did a group, you then you'll get your 10 minutes. Um, so I will begin. Um, Aaron Doultorm and then next will be Sarah Kent. You guys have this.

Can I say something as we start this because I there's something I would like to add that would maybe if y'all as you say your public comments would help me. Um, and I don't want to mess up your speeches. If you're simply just opposed to all cameras, all surveillance in general, I would be curious if it's that versus some of the things we're voting on tonight. I am definitely opposed to the normalization of expansion of surveillance systems in general. Yes. Okay. Am I going Did you have a presentation? Yep. It's just I'm gonna blast through it.

Okay. But give them to Hold on. Ready? Start. So there's a lot that I would like to respond to there, but let's just follow one thing, one thread. We're going to talk about the money. So we were just told that the Department of Justice grant will cover Axon and Fus costs for the RTIC for seven and a half years. But Axon has a history of ratcheting up the price on its customers throughout the life of a contract. They're quite proud of that actually and they brag about it in this uh February investor presentation which highlights Axon's financial incentives to bring military industrial complex and everpresent surveillance to a town near you. It provides insights into the company's strategy of extracting more resources from every customer every year. They have a name for that strategy. They call it the flywheel of growth. build an integrated bundle, lock customers in and upsell them on higher cost bundles every year. Repeat. Uh you can see here that their flagship offering is increased by nearly sixfold every year. But what I really want to draw your attention to is this 125% net revenue retention. What does that mean? 100% revenue retention rate means you're paying the same price every year. At 125, you're paying 25% more than last year. And yes, that is an annual figure. Axon specifies that at the end of the presentation. That means the average customer pays 25% more every single year regardless of their contract. As the chief said, APD already has much of this technology. So, how is our ride on the flywheel going? Um, well, this is not the most recent updated deck. That's unfortunate. But I can tell you that in 2020, the city renewed a 5-year contract for Axon body cams. And the cost for years 2 to 5 of that contract jumped 86% with the city finance manager noting that Axos Axon prices change every year in January. Happy New Year. I added that

part. Um Axon said licensing fees, storage, and other services have been omitted in error. This was in 2022 uh from the 2020 contract that was a bundle and that was another 345,000. And this slide here just shows the the affection they have for their buddies at ICE. By the way, thank you. Good job. Good job. Good job. Sarah Kent and then Marcel. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Never mind. Yeah. No. Yes. S Sarah Kent. I was about to mess up the next speaker. So, mayor, I believe she's 10 minutes and then Well, so do we have Marcel?

I'm sorry. Okay, I'm seeing it now. Okay, I apologize. Uh, we have three people seating their time to Sarah Kent and just raise your hand when I call your name. Marcel Krago. Yep. And John Hines. Yep. And Paul Howell. Paul. See that? Okay, I see you. Thank you. Okay, you Thank you to those who seated their time. Yes, you you have 10 minutes.

Good evening, CI city council members. I live in West Asheville. I'm also an application security consultant at a major cyber security firm, which means I threat model and hack applications for a living, including AI powered systems just like Axon's Fuses. I'm here to present you with a threat model analysis of Axon's Fus application. Threat modeling starts by asking four questions. What's being collected? What where does it go? Who controls it? and who else can get to it. Once we answer those four questions, the risks become apparent. We, the public, have yet to see Axon's contract with the city of Asheville. But reviewing online versions of Axon's master services and purchasing agreements or MSPAS show that these agreements are boilerplate and not negotiated per customer. I also referred to the cloud services privacy notice which is referenced in these agreements. The latest version of the agreement I reviewed dates back to last August posted by Durham County, North Carolina. I'm going to walk you through the key parts of the agreement which are identical across all versions. This matters because council may be told that staff can negotiate state safeguards into the contract. Axon does not negotiate these agreements. They publish a version, they update it, and customers sign what is on the page. The same will be true for Asheville. Question one, what does Axon collect? Axon aggregates live and recorded video from across the city, police body cameras, incar cameras, automated license plate readers, drones, and any private business camera that gets registered into the network. It already includes gunshot detection. In December

2025, Axon launched its first live pilot of facial recognition on body cameras, ending a six-year self-imposed pause. Their CEO has been clear. This is research ahead of a broader roll out. So, the collection surface is video, audio, location, and increasingly biometrics. But the more important collection layer is the one nobody talks about the metadata. Every officer login, every search query, every camera pulled up, every feed watched, every alert, every time stamp. Axon's privacy Axon's privacy notice calls this non-content data and defines it it broadly to include application logs, device logs, service event logs, and when transaction logs. Axon's AI technology appendix, the one bundled into the agreement, spells out the behavioral telemetry. They track active users, in other words, the police officers who use Fuses, session links, retention rates, queries submitted, follow-up query volume. So, in addition to creating a behavioral profile on residents of Asheville, Fus creates a behavioral profile on every police officer who uses it. Question two, where does the data go? It goes to Axon's cloud where their AI ingests it. Axon Markets Fuses AI as quote continuously evolving along with its database of profiles for searches and analysis. Their newer product, Axon Assistant, lets users query that data using natural language. Every action our officers take in the system becomes AI training input and analytic material that Axon reserves the right to share with internal and external stakeholders. The MSPA also autoenrolls Asheville into something called the Axon customer

experience improvement pro program otherwise known as ACEIP. Quote by default customer will be a participant in ACCIP. This lets Axon extract segments of customer contact for product development. The city has to opt out and cancel and council should know that opt out is even a is even a question to ask because most cities don't. Question number three, who controls the data? This is where the contract matters most. Axon's privacy notice draws a clear line for the video, audio, and images. Axon calls this customer content, and the city is the data controller. We own it. For everything else, the metadata, Axon names it itself as the as the data controller. The MSPA reinforces this in the cloud services appendix which states that quote to the extent any usage data and operations data is considered personal data, Axon is an independent data controller. We don't get to decide, they do. The retention clause is also one-sided. For our video, there is a 90-day post-termination retrieval window. For the metadata, the privacy notice says, "Axon keeps it quote, as long as needed to provide services, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. There is no defined retention window we can enforce for this data. If we cancel the contract, the video has a 90-day retrieval window, but the metadata does not. They keep it. They keep what their AI learned from it. We cannot claw back that data. One more thing on control. The MSPA says Axon can assign this contract meaning they can transfer it including the data without our consent in the event of a merger, acquisition,

financing or sale of subst of subst of substantially all its assets. We don't get to choose who ultimately ends up holding our data. Council should also know about three clauses in the contract that I would flag in a vendor review. The first is the warranty section. Axon says their cloud services are provided asis. In plain l plain English, they will not promise the system actually works as advertised. They will not promise it's secure. They will not promise it's safe to rely on. If fuses fails, that's our problem, not theirs. The second is the liability cap. If Axon's cloud is breached and everyone's behavioral data is leaked, Axon's total exposure is kept at what the city paid them in the previous 12 months. The city absorbs everything else. The lawsuits, the notification costs, the re remediation, all of it. The third is the unilateral amendment clause. Axon's privacy notice, which is incorporated into the contract by reference, says Axon can update its terms at any time, post the changes on their website, and our continued use of the service counts as our agreement to whatever they changed. We don't get to renegotiate. If we want to keep using Fus, we accept whatever Axon decides. The vendor gets to change the rules. When a vendor refuses to stand behind their own product, caps their liability at a year of fees, and reserves the right to change the rules later, that's a vendor telling us the risk is ours to carry. Question four, who else can get to the data? Axon's privacy notice commits to notifying the customer about disclosure requests for the video if permitted. The notification commitment is only for the video. For the metadata, there is no notification commitment at all. even where notification would be legally permitted. I want to be direct about something I've heard from this body. The

fourth amendment does not protect us here. The fourth amendment binds local government, not Axon. The records we hand over to a private company, our phone records, our bank records, the metadata on a cloud service receive substantially less constitutional protection than records we keep ourselves. When federal agencies want these records, they don't need a warrant in a way that most people imagine. They use other tools. As one example, the FBI could use a national security letter that lets them demand records without going to a judge. The letter becomes the letter comes with a legal order forbidding Axon from telling anyone they received it. Other federal surveillance tools do go through a court, but it's a closed court with no defense attorney and no public record. There is no Fourth Amendment challenge to raise because there is no adversarial proceeding to raise it in and there is no public docket to even know it happened. The point is that the legal machinery exists and if it's used, we would never know. The risk is real because Axon's federal business is substantial and growing. They maintain a dedicated federal division serving the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense. The man Axon hired to head their DHS strategy, Ronald Vitiello, left Axon in January 2025 to join rejoin the Customs Border Protection. He's now acting deputy commissioner of CBP. The federal pipeline is well established. It's growing and the person who built it v F vit yellow is now inside the CPB CBP. Consider what that means for our community. Federal officers are increasingly embedded with local police departments through joint task forces. Once embedded, those officers typically

receive access to local systems. If an ICE agent or an FBI agent gets a Fuses account through the Asheville PD, they get access to our raw data. They get to query the systems and run searches. And under Axon's terms, those queries run by federal officers against Asheville's residents flow into the same meta metadata pool that Axon controls and that Axon AI adjusts.

Thank Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker is Dennis Campbell and then after that is Curry first. Good evening. I'm here today to speak in support of the Asheville Police Department, its efforts to prevent and stop crime and to protect law-abiding citizens using a real-time intelligence center. My my presentation is going to sound pretty naive compared to the last one that you just heard. I did not do all that research and and um but um I've been living and working in Asheville for 42 years in two weeks. Um, and um, I was like to tell people that I was I was here before the beer. So that's how long I've been in Asheville. Um, I was raised with a profound respect for law enforcement and all first responders. I'm currently participating in the Asheville Police Department Citizens Police Academy and have learned so much about this department, what it does, and the challenges it faces. I've learned that the police face challenges that people who want to participate in criminal behavior do not, such as the need to work within the law and the constitution. People who want to participate in criminal behavior do not require permission to enter your property, your home, or to surveil you, your family, or your home. They the only probable cause they require is to do you harm. People want to feel safe enough to walk downtown any time, to walk in the neighborhoods and parks, to go to the grocery store without fear. Benjamin Franklin once said that those who would sacrifice um that would sacrifice essential liberty for safety deserve neither. I do not fear that we need to give up freedom for safety. My understanding is that

there are strict rules and laws uh in place to uh to um access surveillance. I have learned how much electronic surveillance multiplies the presence of law enforcement and the effectiveness. It allows eyes to to be on a scene long before officers can arrive. It can give officers a heads up for any danger to them or to their potential victims. most importantly through their consistent That was three. That was two minutes. It's two. Yeah. I'm sorry. Two minutes. Well, I'm going to go home because it's past my bedtime, but I hope that everybody will uh do the right thing and vote to approve this. Thank you. Curry first and then Katherine Bakewell.

Miss, do you see him? I don't see him. Do you see him? No, I don't see him. Okay, Katherine Bakewell and uh is next then.

Do I have Katherine? Yes. Okay. And then it'll be Lynden Blaz. Good evening. My name is Katherine Bakewell. I am asking you to reject expansion of these license plate reader programs. Um these systems are not secure. Um, the data can be accessed by bad actors who have been shown in the past to use them for dangerous purposes. And this level of surveillance is an invasion of privacy for citizens of Asheville. I ask you to reject the expansion of cameras and to reject a centralized controlled hub for data gathering on our citizens. Thank you.

Thank you, Lyndon. Um, Blazus and then Jay Craig. Hi, my name is Lyndon Blazes.

And I would like to ask city council to reject items B1 and B2 for enhanced security and surveillance in Asheville. Uh as we've heard uh this company Axon uh is not a good steward of our data and I worry that data will find its way into the hands of people like ICE who who will use it to harass us and our neighbors. Um, I am worried that this information can be accessed by people who are not supposed to have it, that might be employees of companies like Axon. And I am worried that people will use it if they have the ability to to track their partners and spouses and significant others and do bad things with it. Um, I am upset that there is no contract with Axon at this moment and I think that the city council should not be voting on this item if there is not a contract present. Esther Manhver, Annetta Mosley, Kim Rooney, Chenica Smith, Sage Turner, Maggie Olman, Bo Hess, I know your names. I vote in every election. Thank you. Um Jay Craig.

No. Okay. Claire Henryan.

It says J. Craig. But wait, is there is an Craig later? Help me. Ann's later. Ann's later. It's a different Craig. Sorry.

Hi. I know governing is exhausting and I know policing is exhausting and dangerous. Um it's been exhausting night, hasn't it? So I'm here to speak against um these two proposals. I wonder, are you familiar with the term panopticon? A prison so constructed that the inspector can see each of the prisoners at all times without being seen. Well, is that what our city will become? We are all rightfully concerned with public safety, but there are very real civil liberty concerns with the real time police intelligence center. And this grant profered by the so-called Department of Justice may just be the proverbial Trojan horse. This spy technology is developing far more rapidly than legal protections against its abuse. The collection of data by police without an individual's consent or a judicial warrant using technology that can track everyone, monitor all our public movements, and do so both in real time and retroactively is a significant threat to our constitutional and civil rights. Before any vote on a contract can go forward, there must be a fair and fully informed public process, one that preserves council and community oversight. We are a nation embroiled in perpetual wars with menacious criminals at the helm, enraged engaged in daily violations of international law and common decency. Will such surveillance chill our public

expression of dissent? Will dissident experience increased scrutiny? Tyranny is a foot in the land. Let's not provide it with more tools to threaten us. Thank you. Okay. An Craig, you are an Craig, not Jay Craig. We think we must Yeah. No, no, that's good. Yeah. Okay. And then after Miss Craig will be Laura Mays.

I want to say first that I feel that this is like a setup the but we came concerned last month. I think it was many of us we were sent away and now we wait five six hours to make public comment on a really controversial and complex issue and I'm really angry about that. I sent all of you a that program podcast. I hope you watched it. Okay. I'm asking you to vote no on B1 and B2. I ask you to consider that we are already living under a federal government that is increasingly authoritarian and fascist, violating all civil liberties and rights with impunity. A government that seeks data on residents that should remain private. This unaccountable behavior will trickle down to local communities if communities don't resist. Council members need to have the backbones to say no, particularly to the particularly to a congressperson who stands in opposition to human and civil rights and yes to democracy itself. Don't simply give the public a token amount of time to speak about this complex issue, then disregard their concerns with your usual lack of public discussion or response, and vote in the way that is the safest politically for you. Engage the public in a real-time exploration and discussion of what authentic public safety can be and what we really need to promote it. The Sunshine Labs Group has really done their homework on the ramifications of giving law enforcement even more surveillance equipment. Bring the community to the table before you agree in advance to an as yet unwritten written contract with a private for profofit company eager to take

communities to dangerous new territories. Since there is no law, no deadline to accept this grant. As councelor Smith um questioned the sense of urgency to approve the development and the Shiloh community, I ask you what is the urgency here? I just want to make a note when people are doing public comment, we want it to be on the public record and it's all videotaped. So if there's noise and snapping, the people listening and the record might get muted. So, I really want all of what you have to say to be counted, but that's why we have the dumb rules about not clapping and snapping and all this stuff. It really matters if you're listening at home.

So, So, yeah. And I apologize. A lot of you weren't able to get into the room at the beginning of it. And we do have uh chamber decorum rules which don't allow clapping or noise making um for that for that reason. So, if you could just if you if you could we're watching you. We're so that would be that would be very helpful. It's 11. Um okay, Laura Mazize, right? Yes. Laura Maze. And the next person will be um Sunnil Patel. You went home. Okay, then Nina Tovish. You're still here, right?

Is she? Yes. Okay. You'll be next, Nina. Thank you. Okay. I can say ditto

for sure. I'm gonna really Let's I have to pair this down. I don't believe or trust our local government won't be compromised at some point to participate with ICE or infringe on our future rights as citizens who choose to protest. It's been spoken more than once by the Trump administration that protesters should be tried as terrorists. Who are you aligning with as you collect data on your citizens in the name of public safety? What kind of public transparency are you allowing over the six to sevenyear contract? And why are you in a hurry? Chuck Edwards involvements is a big question. The man who repeatedly berates our town. Please consider and open this to more public involvement, public debate. We the citizens and endproducts of this surveillance deserve it. So close. Okay. Nina Tovish and then it'll be Paul Warfl.

My eyes are getting worse.

Good evening, council. Let's be clear. The need for public safety is real. Families shouldn't have to sleep on the floor of their homes for fear of stray bullets. But big brother is not the answer. Big Brother is never the answer. Lasting safety is systemic. It is best created from the bottom up, not from the top down. It is founded in a healthy, equitable economy, in education, in affordable housing, and in access to healthcare. and yes, in responsible, accountable, trustworthy community-based policing. Top-down solutions are inherently susceptible to authoritarian misuse and abuse. Today's helpful technology under an accountable, responsible government, is tomorrow's tool of oppression under leadership that doesn't care in the slightest about due process or civil rights. We already have seen how easily norms and laws can become disposable. Let's not buy in to a top-down approach riddled with legal, fiscal, and moral concerns. Let's not export a crude community data which is baked into the proposed contract. Instead, let's invest in the basic building blocks of our community where our dollars will truly bring the greatest safety and quality of life in return. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Okay, Paul World and then Mo Knight. Hi, I'm Paul. I've lived in Nashville

for over 20 years. And I'd like to echo the logistical concerns that others have already expressed pertaining to privacy, but I'd also want to point out how this type of surveillance will specifically have a negative impact on the idea or the perception of Asheville. I think we're all familiar with the concept of the Asheville bubble. It's tough to explicitly define, but amongst other traits, the Asheville bubble is a beacon of inclusivity. We all welcome who are welcoming. We're known to run a little different than the surrounding area, and that's a positive thing. Uh the Asheville vibe is a primary reason people come to choose, people choose to live here. It drives tourism and recently it's a reason that folks in Nashville and from the surrounding area have felt safe to come here to voice their concerns via non-violent protests, marches, and public gatherings. Implementing the type of surveillance being proposed would stand to threaten the safety that the Asheville bubble provides and runs counter to our most important asset, the overall vibe that makes Asheville Asheville. Additionally, given that cities have already banned these systems, given that currently a contract has been made publicly available, and given large amounts of local opposition on display today, it's obvious that this type of surveillance system is not welcome in Asheville. However, perhaps there is a middle path. How about let's wait. This is new technology and the current political climate in America is a disaster. With massive policy swings occurring on almost a daily basis, it seems especially foolish to introduce a system that could be easily abused by a corrupt administration. So again, what's the rush? In the meantime, we can implement the most effective method of crime prevention by continuing to focus

on improving the basic material conditions of the Asheville community.

Thank you. Thank you, Mo Knight. And then Cassandra, how will you tell me when my Thank you. Uh, I wasn't going to mention it, but when the police chief was talking, I couldn't help but think of another child who was shot, Tamir Rice, who was holding a toy gun and whose murderer is known and how somehow justice still evaded his family and how the law is applied subjectively so often. Now, I'll read my prepared statement. Uh, I'm here because I fear for the safety of my community. Uh the normalization of mass surveillance for the city of Asheville is not a good idea. There are better ways to spend that money such as raises for first responders which you issued as a city council last year. Relief for rising water, electric or property tax bills to name a few. Beyond the initial firsttime grant engineered by Chuck Edwards, the Trump and ICE aligned congressman, most notable recently for allegations of sexual misconduct towards women and his failure to secure meaningful relief for his constituents in the wake of Hurricane Helen, residents would be expected to take on the financial burden of the ongoing contract. The science tells us again and again that what reduces crime is not policing or surveillance, but affordability and social programming. These measures are unlikely to lead to a reduction in crime, but highly likely to lead to a lengthening of the already backed up trial system. There is a grave difference between preventing violence and fostering incarceration in a country notorious for its corrupt outsized for-profit prison industrial complex, which is the last bastion of legalized slavery in this country. Added to this are the concerns for the safety of our immigrant

communities and women seeking reprod reproductive autonomy in an increasingly criminalized environment. There are currently over 60,000 human beings, many of them children being violently held captive in deplorable conditions in the United States concentration camps so antiseptically and innocuously monikered as detention facilities. Thank you.

Thank sorry. um Cassandra How and then uh Nicole Lopez. Hi, as you know, I'm Cassie How. I'm a mom and I'm a minister. And I'm imploring you to vote no on B1 and B2. My first point is about just my experience with organizational development and this a vote yes would be extremely risky and reckless for this council without a contract and without legally binding contingencies such as public oversight and accountability. The process doesn't feel right. Same for Shiloh. Thank you so much for your vote on that. Same issue here. Let's slow down and do the process right now. For a little theology, I am very sorry about the tragic death of the 12-year-old that our city attorney began with. But does that mean does that tragic death mean that we all have to live in jail? I have a four-year-old. I also have an eight-year-old and a 10-year-old. And I wonder, what do we want to teach our children? What will all these cameras, what do they teach our children? What do they teach us? If we see them every day, what do we start believing about ourselves? Do we think that we're trustworthy people? No. We think that we're to be

feared and then over time we start acting out on that belief. And so what kind of world do we want to live in? Do we want Ralph Waldo Emerson a trans transcendentalist said be careful what you worship for what you worship or erect in public places like cameras you will become. Please vote no. Thank you. Nicole Lopez and then Wendell Wilson.

Hello council. I'm opposed to any expansion of surveillance in our city, be that fus or Axon, especially in our current political climate. I come to you as a technologist with over a decade of experience managing tech for a nonprofit that helps people access abortion care, which has been increasingly criminalized in recent years. In the abortion access space, we are used to thinking of the government as a threat actor that could harm people with the data we collect. Council should also be thinking of the federal government as a threat actor. We are currently experiencing a racist backslide in our country where federal and state officials nationwide are escalating attacks against immigrants, communities, communities of color, trans and queer people, and people seeking abortion care. In infrastructure like Fus and Axon pose a major vector for misuse as is. But in an environment where laws are changing to expand who is being criminalized, even the legitimate legal use case can be a tool for harm and repression. policy alone is not a sufficient safeguard to ensure that local surveillance data does not fall into malicious hands. The enforcement mechanism must have teeth and must be made transparent. If safeguards are in place for access controls and regular audits, explain those in detail to the public. Release those audit results of our current systems that we have in place and make that information available and digestible to the public. Please do not proceed with any new contracts with any surveillance tech vendors until the Axon proposal is public, until network audit results of our current systems are made transparent. Until there's been meaningful engagement with the public. We need to have town halls before we instill this tooling, not after. That's the time for town halls so that we can have meaningful public engagement. The public has a right to know when we're being surveiled, why, and what enforcement mechanisms there are for accountability and transparency so that we can actually weigh the harms or we

can we can weigh the trade-offs of whether the potential harms introduced are worth the convenience in responding to crime. Please vote no.

Thank you. Wendell Wilson and then Patrick Conut. I can't leave my neighborhood without being surveiled because I live near Piscue because Piskaview is a minority community and so we surveil it. It doesn't make me feel safe to be tracked all the time. It makes me scared. I implore you, please vote no on this. This is not in the best of your citizens.

Thank you, U Patrick Con. And then, um, Jessica Myers will you'll have we'll get your people that's who are seating their time to you. My name is Patrick Conan and I'm here today as the director of Sunshine Labs. First, I want to note Jeff Jackson. His letter referenced the importance of citizen oversight in using these tools. Uh but I wonder if he knows that this council dissolved our citizens police advisory committee a year ago. The reason people are so concerned is because we are removing citizen oversight and expanding surveillance. That is a dangerous combination. On May 1st, Sunshine Labs published an open letter, Sunshine Over Surveillance, asking council to fix public participation, transparency, federal entanglement, and accountability problems with these items before voting. We did not initially ask council to vote no, but when we learned from at the council work session that there is no formal contract available, we think that that's the only option that makes sense at this moment. City council should vote this item down until council and the public can see the full terms that we'll be agreeing to. Item B1 is mechanically linked through the fuses line item to item B2. And I just don't see how our city can approve a 7.5year multi-million dollar vendor commitment whose binding operational terms do not yet exist in re reviewable form. Do not accept federal funds to procure this contract. Do not approve the city manager to sign this contract until we can see what's in it. Please vote no on item B1. Please vote no on item B2. Please take a step back and pause further consideration of any surveillance tech contracts until we can

get more information to the public. Have an informed conversation about these tools and start to rebuild our citizen accountability measures that have been uh eroded over the past 5 years. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so Jessica Myers, you have three people that will seed their time to you. Please just raise your hand when I call your name. Cole Sawyer. Cole. Yep, I see you back there. Cole Sawyer. Micah Tomlinson. Yep. Ethan Steel. Okay. Thank you. All right, Miss Myers, you will have 10 minutes and you will

Good evening, city council. Good evening, Mayor. Um, a lot of what I was going to say tonight has been said, so sort of leaves me some room to say a few more things. Um, I'm a resident of Asheville. I'm new here. Uh, but this has been my first interaction with city council and it's it's been interesting. Um, I went to Harvard Law School in 2006, 20 years ago, bright and shiny, thinking I was going to go change the world. And here I am now, and I agree with Charles Dickens that the law is an ass. There have been commitments both from the police and from city council members that our civil liberties are going to be protected, that this information isn't going to be shared. You can't promise that. You can't. Most of my career was spent negotiating complex contracts under complex master contracts. the same sort of uh the same sort of form that that Axon and Fus use. And I'm curious about how the city attorney is going to be expected to wield Asheville's power against a contract from a company this size backed by the federal government who is using it as a Trojan horse to investigate to bring it to bring ICE into our city to track people who are fleeing um or trying to find reproductive point to me in a contract, which by the way, it said it was supposed to be here today. Where is it? You have 30 to 60 days to negotiate a master services agreement. They're not going to let you negotiate the master services agreement.

That's not how it works. You might get a few You might have get a few things like venue or or choice of law. You might get North Carolina law. Congratulations. you're not going to be able to promise that the federal agencies are not going to have uh not going to have access to this. When last night we had a city a town hall virtual town hall discussing this and at least two city council members showed up in the Q&A. One city council member was polite, answered questions briefly, uh showed that they were open to different views and ideas. The other city council member acted as a troll. It was obnoxious. It was inappropriate. That's not how this should work. It shouldn't be that when we come as concerned citizens to ask how to ask where these uh where these contracts are going to lead us, which is nowhere good, that you call members of the community of which you're supposed to represent liars. And I wasn't I wasn't a spokesperson here. Again, this was my first ever interaction with city council. This was obnoxious, inappropriate, and unprofessional. That wasn't what I was planning to say tonight, but it needed to be said. It was council member Hes if you're if you're wondering. So,

so I ask you to the city of I can pull a transcript from that and I never called anyone a liar. Vote on giving. All right. All right. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. I can pull the transcript. Please. Please. Part of our rules. You got to direct your comments to all of council. So, just so all of the city council should know that no one on city council should be trolling constituents. Okay.

All right. I would like to bring up section 5.3 of the flock contract. How is it that that section, which was a much simpler contract in the master services agreement under which you're about to rush through a negotiation, basically says, okay, that flock uh disclosure of footage subject to and during the retention period, Flock may disclose the footage to law enforcement authorities, government officials, andor third parties simply if Flock has a good Okay, the word simply wasn't in If Flock has a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary to detect, prevent or otherwise address security, privacy, fraud, technical issues, emergency situations, you can drive a truck through this. How do you propose, sir, to close a loophole like that?

Please direct your comments to council. I'm sorry, please. That type that type of clause being in a city contract already does not provide a lot of faith that going forward the contracts are going to be protective of civil liberties. that type of of clause which you clear which was clearly not able to be negotiated out of the block contract which is uh again way less technical way less complicated than what you're about to try to rush through. That's not acceptable. That leaves the city open to again what people have been talking about is the massive amount of federal uh lawbreaking civil again we aren't protected by any of the policies you think we have. We aren't protected by civil liberties statements. I love Jeff Jackson, but he is incorrect that civil liberties and safety are in in conflict. Of course they are. It's an age-old conflict. Communities have to figure out where the balance lies. That's what we're doing here tonight. And we're telling you this isn't it. This isn't it. You can't negotiate against Skynet. You can't close these loopholes. If you want to go forward with this, please do not continue to tell us that this information isn't going to be used uh by the federal government. I'm not talking about misuse. I'm talking about legal use. They are going to tell you that they have a good faith law enforcement purpose for things that they definitely do not have a good faith law enforcement purpose for. I don't know if you've been tracking the Department of Justice, but I don't think it deserves that name anymore. Our one federal agency with a moral imperative in the

title is now it's vile. It's a travesty. I don't understand what the rush is here other than maybe it's the grant money. Let the grant money go. Let it go. Just let it go. You can't negotiate a contract that's going to be protected. This is not the time to be looking at this. This is not the state government, the federal government, the environment under which we want to be building out a panopticon. As someone else said, do you know why the folks who tried to fight for Hong Kong's uh freedom weren't able to? They had a panopticon. They had real-time intelligence sitters. It did not matter if they wore masks on their face. It did not matter if they used umbrellas. The cameras were everywhere. The intelligence was everywhere. Their freedom was gone. Their democracy was gone. I don't think we'll get that far here. I hope we won't. But why why are we having this encroachment here of all places? I moved to Asheville because it's Asheville. I moved here and then I became shocked not only that this is being considered at this timeline and that you seriously think that you can negotiate around the federal government at a time like this. You can't. But the behavior does tend to lend to a feeling that you guys are not doing this for us. You're doing it for reasons unknown. Maybe because you really want this money. I understand uh the police here are not your concern. I understand there's trust there. I appreciate that. There's going to be some division on

that in the community. There always is in every community. I'm not commenting on the police here. I don't know enough about them. What I do know enough about is that the contracts are not going to be protective. Please slow this down. If it means letting the grant money go, let the grant money go. We don't want this. I don't think this is a time to be bu building out a surveillance state. And seriously, if you think someone's misusing it, do you seriously think you're going to pull the trigger and cancel the entire contract? You think you're gonna you think you're going to call up the chief of police and say, "Hey, we don't like how this is being used. We're just going to stop funding it and turn it all off tonight. You're not going to be able to do it. You're not going to be able to bring yourself to do it. You're going to be I understand things now are inefficient and peacemeal, but you know what? Sometimes that's where you get safety. That sometimes that's where you get privacy. You know, the first thing that happened when Doge went to the federal government is they put all the federal databases together. There is a reason they were not together. There's a reason the IRS didn't talk to housing, didn't talk uh to to to HUD. That's so inefficient on purpose. Law enforcement doesn't need to run at the speed of light. That's how mistakes are made.

Please vote no. Thank you, T. Thomas. Um, okay. And we're we're getting close to our one hour. So, u So, just FYI. Um, Thomas Belmore and then, uh, Simone Tobias. Simon Tobias. Sorry, I'm I can read. I made you French, but I didn't mean to. When is the hour? Uh 11:37. Um if it goes much later, these protests could be at brunch.

Yes. Um madame mayor, uh city council members, uh thank you. Um please vote no on the RTIC and the seven and a halfyear contract with Axon. Um I'm going to speak generally. um many people um have and hopefully will speak on specific issues. Um but I have a problem in general with the um risks and the dangers of going down the path of advance um of excuse me of investing in mass surveillance technology. Um over the past seven and a half years, seven and a half years, we've seen the expansion of digital surveillance and the failures and misuse of data security as well as disillusions of norms, abuses of power and the eroding of constitutional protection. Seven and a half years is a long time and as much as I trust the intentions of our APD and the um city staff, I cannot trust their ability to control this novel, complex, and far-reaching and pervasive technology. um as state um especially as state and federal laws change and this um new technology develops um I'm concerned about a few things. I'm concerned about um living our lives under the constant surveillance necessary for what our chief describes. I'm concerned about the data from our lives, however anonymized, being used as training data for a military contractor. I'm concerned about um intentional and accidental misuse um on multiple levels. Um, when we look back 7 and a half years from now, I hope that we are glad we have protected ourselves from this surveillance technology and are not looking at how we created the tools for its abuse. Thank you all.

Thank you. Simon Tobias and then Canyon Duca, the slave trade, the Holocaust, and now the Trump administration. These are only three of the many forms of torture, neglect, and any bad thing you can think of. And if surveillance, mass surveillance gets put into the picture, chaos will ensue big time. You heard it yourself. People are scared to walk the streets. Not just in the middle of the night, but in the middle of the day. And me personally, I don't feel safe or even free when it comes to mass surveillance. I really don't. And I am begging you, if you can find any amount of goodness in your heart, please vote no to the Axon contract. It'll save millions of lives and protect many people's privacy. Thank you very much.

Thank you. um Canyon Duca and then Andreas Elder.

Aren't you all lucky to have such great citizens that just bring the facts right to you? It's amazing. Better than AI. Um God bless y'all. Um I think it makes your job easy. might disagree, but anyways, I think that some of the things that I'll do is just echo some of the things that have been said. Um, I quickly looked up how much money Axon is market value worth. It's $32 billion, the 775th richest company in the world, and we think that we can litigate against them. Um, I think y'all are good. I don't think you're that good. And I think that again my echo is to slow down when some of the things that like I heard today some of the way that this information was presented the 6 hours we had to wait how the police of chief was given from 9:47 to 10:26 to talk but we get an hour and also there wasn't an expert that presented on our side. There wasn't someone that came up and got 30 some odd minutes to be like, "Oh, well, this is why this isn't what you think." And honestly, I think everyone's heart is good here. I think that this is a matter of perspective. And while we are all little people here on the ground, there are people in the tower of the panopticon looking down at us laughing as we quarrel over a million dollar contracts. $3 million when they have 32 billion. That's it.

Thank you. Thank you. Um after Andreas Elder is Ben Spencer.

Hello. I want to talk about trust. We open this meeting talking about decorum which I understand no rockus in the house halls of democracy. So, we show up, be well-mannered, and respect the rules with the trust that we will be heard, and in turn will trust you to make the right decisions, the decisions the people of Asheville have shown you they care about. And this item fundamentally breaks that trust between government and citizen. The fact that all but one member of this council supports this item has already weakened this trust. But these people have shown up to show you that this trust is not gone completely. They trust you. They trust that you will hear our voices. you will change your mind and vote no on a contract that doesn't exist yet. One of the only pieces of information we have is that from a year from now, we the citizens will have to pay for us to be monitored. We also have to trust Axon that all the information that they will acquire without our consent will actually be uh anonymized and that that won't change in the future. So while uh we also have to trust you the city government that it will not abuse the power of mass surveillance but that trust ceases to exist if this item is adopted creating a paradox. This item does not help the people and makes safety issues worse. It gives the veneer of citizen trust and respect while planting beneath the veneer dissent disrespect and disdain. You have a decision on if you will be bought. What the company is offering to buy is the community that you have that has put you into the this position in the first place. This company has sold to you that it is the benefit to it is to the benefit of the community does not care about the community. It does not care about safety. It cares about money which will flow out of the Asheville economy. While the people who live here, the people who keep this economy running, the people who want to stay here, the people who care about trust is telling you that this does not help the people. I have a simple question. Who are you listening to? Asheville and its

people this affects daily or the big company selling the panopticon like a regular Tuesday? Thank you. And Ben Spencer,

have y'all seen Star Wars? Don't take federal grant money for the Death Star, please. Um, in seriousness, you know, I did listen to uh two sessions of 45 minutes from the inter police chief here. Um, and as brevity is the soul of wit, I will summarize the best single thing that was said there. Public safety cannot come at the expense of community values. Okay, we have time for one more then. Um, Cecil Utterbach.

Uh, hi. Uh, this is my first ever, uh, city council meeting. Um, it's been a very long one. Um, so I'll try to be short, but um I'm very very concerned about the longevity of this project if it were to pass. Like I haven't seen anything that can guarantee that my data will not be used against me and the people that I love and care about in this community. That deeply, deeply scares me so incredibly much. I really hope that you listen to everyone who has spoken before me. There are people who know way more than me about this topic and I just really hope that you can vote no against E1 and B2. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Okay. Uh All right. We have a motion and a second for the

We've been here for six hours. Everyone's feet. In case you didn't notice, there was just a vote.

Okay, so we all those in favor raise your hand. Maggie, we're voting on that motion. Just a second, Kim. And sorry, I'm trying to help the city clerk. Do you have it? I do. Okay. All those opposed, raise your hand. Okay. To please do my presentation. And I told you that I was going to do it at the end. So, I'd like to still give my presentation. Okay. Yes, please. But to summarize, the vote was 6 to one in favor of item B1. You didn't WANT TO SPEAK. RESPECT PEOPLE. KIM, I'm not gonna be able to Kim, I'm not going to be able to proceed if they're just Maybe they'll listen if I'm talking.

Your constituents don't want this. So, Council, Councilwoman Rooney would like to make a presentation. So, I I'm going to We're going to proceed. We have one more item to vote on. What? You're not allowed to speak? Really? Okay. Can we speak for another hour on B2? Okay. So, we're just going to need to We gave notice ahead of time of how our public comment works. All right. What ordinance? What code? I We gave notice ahead of time of how it was going to argue.

If we aren't going to be friends conversation or fear from your colleague, that's your decision. friends and neighbors, I would still really like to present the um public record on AC. I know there's still 21 people on the record. So, okay, Councilwoman, if you would like to try to present, if we can't get through the presentation, we'll proceed with a second question.

I know that the vote already passed, but the public record is important. The public record is something that you just participated in. It's something that we're responsible for. We do it with our votes. We do it with our correspondents. And we do it with what we say in the meetings in the press. And I've been wondering since these conversations about surveillance and billionaire owned tech have been coming up for the past four years and it's been pretty quiet in city hall. Why now? Why? Why are my neighbors feeling this urgency and to come all the way to city hall for six hours? I've been in community meetings. I've been in business meetings about this. I've been in neighborhood meetings. And I hear a common thread that it's because our authoritarian federal government has deployed armed federal agents to terrorize Americans across the country and violate Fourth Amendment rights. I'm hearing neighbors ask local elected officials to protect them. hearing other electeds on the front lines of domestic occupation warn against collecting data for AI fueled tech profits that collaborate in violating our constitutional rights. And yeah, I put together this presentation without the use of generative AI. So, it's not cute, but I made it. So, here we are. Um, I think residents are more aware of the cost and risks associated with surveillance tech. The concerns I've heard over the past few weeks include costs of facilities, of staffing, of budget amendments, of postgrant funding, of what we could be funding instead of, of the risk to our constitutional rights, to healthc care access, to data protections, and more around data access, tech companies, stalkers, overreaching federal agencies. And so I reached out for help to understand beyond what a tech company's sales pitch means in a city hall. What does it look like to have the experience of people who are professional at protecting our civil liberties? And I reached out to

ACLU Western North Carolina, North Carolina and National. And I got a response from ACLU n or North Carolina which I shared with all of my colleagues. I have not yet seen Jeff Jackson's letter, but all of us on council have seen what the ACLU sent. And I'm going to read it into the record. Oh, I have this. So, I'm supposed to go forward. Is it working? Forward. Oh,

yep. There it goes. Real-time crime centers are designed to combine data from a wide range of technologies, including cameras, license plate readers, body cameras, and other monitoring tools into centralized platforms for police departments. Rather than keeping information in separate systems, RTCC's allow police to analyze data in one place and claim to help officers make decisions more quickly and solve crimes more efficiently. Supporters often rely on emotionally charged examples such as stories about missing children being found through RTC's to justify their expansion, but these systems raise serious concerns about privacy, mass surveillance, and civil liberties. continued, quote, "Companies like Axon Fuchious, which has previously described itself as the most widely used and trusted real-time crime center platform in US public safety, allows private security cameras, including Ring cameras, to share footage with local RTCC networks, further expanding police surveillance capabilities. Data from automated license plate readers, is commonly integrated into RTCC's. These surveillance cameras capture, document, and store the license plates of vehicles that pass by along with the date, time, and location of each scan. The result is a growing database of people's movements, often shared across regional and national networks. In many cases, this information is retained for years or indefinitely with few meaningful safeguards to protect privacy rights. continued, quote, "Flock Safety is one of the most widely used ALPR companies in the United States. As of November 2025, more than 5,000 law enforcement departments nationwide use the company's systems. Flock in particularly has drawn scrutiny over reports showed its data was used by ICE to support the federal government's deportation agenda, including enforcement tactics that subvert due process. Communities across the country, including Hillsboro and Durham, North Carolina, are pushing back against ALPRs and RTCC's. These

technologies do not just track people suspected of serious crimes. They collect information on everyone who uses public spaces, building massive databases that reveal where people live, work, travel, worship, seek health care, and participate in political activity. Quote, "Taken together, ALPRs and RTCC's represent a broader trend towards the automation and expansion of policing, often with little regard for constitutional rights or meaningful public oversight. The growing integration of cameras, data sharing systems, and real-time analytics, dramatically increases the potential for abuse and expands the ability of police to monitor nearly every aspect of daily life." End quote. The ACLU's position states awareness that Asheville has titled its real-time crime center a real-time intelligence center as well as awareness of the sheriff's existing RTIC. I then reached out to the Electronic Futures Foundation. They made a recommendation focused on our contracts or lack thereof since we don't have one in advance of the Axon vote tonight. quote, "When a city is asked to buy surveillance technology, elected officials and community members should review both the city contract and the vendor's terms and conditions. The city contract usually sets out the formal structure of the deal, the parties, the term, the costs, the incorporated exhibits, and the basic rules for amendment, audit, acceptance, renewal, and termination. It is also where to look for where the city preserved meaningful public sector control. Vendor's terms, mass master service agreement, and attached policies often contain the rules that allow sorry that govern how surveillance will actually work in practice. These documents may define what counts as city data, what the vendor may do with the data, how features can change over time, what confidentiality rules apply, how incidents are handled, and what barriers a city will face if it tries to narrow or end that system.

continued quote that is why the key question is not just what are we buying it is also what permissions dependencies and control relationships are we authorizing a contract that incorporates platform terms service agreements and implementation materials may do far more than approve a purchase it may connect the city to a broader data ecosystem normalizing ongoing vendor control over public safety infrastructure and make expansion feel administrative the last We're here tonight because the former city manager and the former police chief made this request for funding in 2024. So, what I had hoped that my neighbors would understand is that we're here because we asked for the funding. And when I say the we, I mean the collective. And I don't think everyone understood what that meant. And things have changed since 2024. Um, we have a tremendous demand for additional Helen recovery from the federal government and we don't have enough. Not even close. We have 225 million. You heard us fight about it tonight. We're trying to cover a $1.1 billion gap of 225 million. But this funding came somewhat easily. So even with community concerns, common sense requests for regulation and oversight, promises by elected officials to reinstate the advisory committee to provide oversight, what became abundantly clear to me through this process is that the collection of the data in the first place is the ultimate risk. Why? For-profit AI fueled surveillance tech companies are difficult to regulate on purpose. The state of North Carolina prevents cities from withholding the data. So we have policies in place on it'll be our data until it's not. And then the third, the federal government has recent practices of

violating Fourth Amendment rights of citizens across these United States. when when the people of Asheville, whether they agree with me or not, elected me into office and we don't all agree on this issue, I did promise to stand up for our constitutional rights. And so, because these issues override any policies or practices designed to protect the constitutional rights, each one of the federal and state rules eat the document that we might try to create. And that's why I had to vote no. Thank you for making the time to be here and to create a public record. friends, there's there's still because I believe in public engagement. I know you do too. There's still a general public comment at the end and we still need to hear our neighbors voices. Um, so the mayor is presiding over the meeting.

Okay. Thank you. Um, we have one more motion uh for on our agenda. Do I have a motion to adopt item B2? You don't just you say yes. Yeah. I know. Did you get that, Maggie? Okay. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? No. Okay. The vote is six to one. Okay. So we um we're going to move to general public comment at the concentration facilities.

So police department already Thank you DHS. The first person to speak up under y'all we're going to move on to our final final portion. Our first speaker under general public comment is Patrick Conan. Just as a reminder, general public comment is for something that was not on the agenda. If there's something else you would like to address, we're voting in November.

So disappointing. Thanks. Oh, we can't get up here.

We're only supposed to have it once.

He's trying to I think we're ready. It's your call. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know what I want to say at this point. But can you hear me now? Testing. testing. Yeah, we can hear you. Yeah, we can hear the doors. There's people out there.

Okay. Um, I mean, I I just I just want to express my appreciation to so many neighbors in Asheville that have helped uh who I've worked with, who I've met recently, who I've known for a long time, um, who have taken the time tonight to show up to who have researched contracts, who have looked at models in different cities, who've uh connected us with organizers from Nashville, Tennessee, from San Marcos, Texas. um from Hillsboro, North Carolina. There there are people and even elected officials in cities across the country that have made a different choice than this council has made tonight. Um and our community is trying to share information with each other, work together, and bring facts, real concerns to this council. I just find it really, really disappointing that we put such strict rules on people who took time off work, took time away from their families, uh, and we can't even let them all speak. I I just don't think that's a democratic process that works for our city. And I really hope um that the people of Asheville can elect a council that actually wants to listen to them because that didn't happen tonight. So, that's all I have to say.

Thank you. Um, Brianclar

is it? Do we have a Brianclar? No. Okay. Saurin Peterson. Sawin. Yeah. Are you going through the list of people? There's a different group of public comment at the end. This is our um general public comment that's at the end of every city council meeting and it's it's to be used for items not on the agenda.

Hello council. I uh don't think I could contribute much to what was already said. So I'm going to focus on what I focused on before and say it again. Last meeting, city council proclaim proclaimed May 3rd to May 9th to be public service appreciation week, recognizing the essential labor and immense contributions public service workers make to keep our city running. During that week, staff were given a smoothie and a free cookie as an expression of that recognition. The 2.8% salary increase presented in the current budget proposal says otherwise. As a community, we should be embarrassed by how little we pay our city workers. And what works out to be a 55 cent raise, which doesn't even cover this year's increase in Asheville median rent, is a furtherance of that failure. It may reflect changes to the federal consumer price index, but calling that a cost of living adjustment is lying to ourselves. When our city employees are already living paycheck to paycheck, an extra 55 cents is not going to cut it. For the interest of time, I have two other points. The first is that as written, that raise only applies to permanent full-time staff. I have worked for this city for eight months, it will not apply to me. Anyone who does not work full-time for this city, the hours that they do contribute, it will not apply to them. And anyone who is a staff member for this city in the future, it may not apply to them as well. I also know that I am privileged to live in this city due to the generosity of others. But for many of my co-workers, that is not the case. I work with several people who commute daily from South Carolina to work in this city and are expected to show up to work at 6:00 a.m. And for them to participate in a council meeting, which yes, had a lot on

the agenda, but is closing in on midnight is just not a feasible way for them to participate in this. So I would ask again as I have asked before and I will ask in the future that you consider a larger increase especially for those who find themselves towards the bottom of the pay scale. And I would further ask that you seek out those employees who find themselves in those positions and ask them about the work that they do and are expected to do and do every single day to work for the functioning of this city on the paychecks they receive. and looking forward to again what works out to be 55 cents as a bonus or excuse me cost of living adjustment. Your actions and your eventual vote on the budget are going to speak louder than a public service appreciation week. And I hope that when that vote comes up, you will vote to continue to support workers in our city. Thank you. Um, Alan Rosenthal. I think it's Sam Fleming. There might be a typo here.

Do you have more people with me?

Hello, council. I have two quick things. Uh, first off, I was outside watching the comments on live stream for the RTIC, and I just want it to be on public record that the snapping is not disruptive. Even loud noises in the room are not disruptive. I was able to hear everything just fine. So, please uh come up with a better excuse for that if you're going to try to ask people to stop. Second off, there is case law for First Amendment rights that people have at public meetings. Um it is known that uh public comment periods must allow criticism of officials and policy. So this is just something I want to bring to light to you that it is kind of a gray area to warn people not to say certain things, but if someone ever is removed for their freedom of speech, there could be u issues with that. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, Paige who's

Thank you. Um, I used to work at a food bank in Eastern Kentucky and the hardest day I ever had there was when I had to give a 90-year-old woman baby formula. The reason why I had to routinely give grandparents baby formula was because the opioid crisis hit so hard that infants were being taken care of by people who should have stopped raising children decades before. That crisis was sparked because doctors were told by pharmaceutical representatives, we've got this drug, Oxycontton. It can relieve your patients pain and their patients were in a lot of pain and they were trying to respond to that. And now thousands of our neighbors are dead because you can't listen to salespeople. They don't know what they're talking about. I used to be a chemist, too. I know that you don't let scientists and engineers talk to a customer. That's one of the first things about being in something technical. You were talking to salespeople and they lied to you about what will happen with this data. People will be surveiled for going to pride parades. People will be surveiled for exercising their freedom of speech. These cameras have been hacked by people who have no authorization to do so. This will enable stalking of intimate partners. It endangers everybody. You all signed the script for the first thousand pills and I hope it works out for us.

Thank you. Okay, that concludes our meeting for tonight. Thank you.