City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning. My name is Esther Mannheimer. I'm mayor of the city of Asheville, and I'd like to welcome you to the July 23rd, 2026 agenda briefing work session. All council members and staff are participating virtually. This meeting is intended for discussion purposes only. No formal actions or votes will be taken. In addition, no public comment is taken during this meeting. The live meeting will be streamed on the city's YouTube channel, accessible through the YouTube icon on the city's website or via the live stream. You also have the option to listen to the meeting live via phone, by calling 855-925-2801 and entering meeting code 10332. Council Member Shanika Smith is unable to join us today. Council and staff, when I call your name, please say a quick hello. Vice Mayor Antoinette Mosley. Good morning. Council Member Maggie Ullman.

Good morning, everyone.

Council Member Kim Roney. Good morning. Council Member Bo Hess.

Good morning.

Council Member Sage Turner. Good morning. City Manager DK Wesley. Good morning. Assistant City Manager Ben Woody.

Good morning.

Assistant City Manager Dundas.

Good morning.

He's here. Pretend Jade said hello. Okay, Deputy City Attorney. Brad, they help you as Deputy City Attorney. City Attorney, Brad Brown.

Hello, everybody. Good morning.

And City Clerk, Maggie Burleson, whose birthday was yesterday, I believe.

Thank you, and good morning.

Okay, now I'll turn it over to our City Manager, D.K. Wesley. Okay.

Good morning again. Today we're going to be reviewing agendas for next week, including our regular meeting, which will start at 5 p.m. on Tuesday in council chambers. Prior to that meeting, we will have our policy, finance, and infrastructure work session at 3 p.m. Today, Assistant City Manager Ben Woody will be walking us through these agendas, as well as a couple of committee agendas. Ben.

Thank you, Manager Wesley. Mayor, Council, good morning. As Manager Wesley stated, your Tuesday will start at 3 with your PFI meeting. That's going to get covered later in the agenda, so I'm going to go ahead and jump into the regular meeting at 5 p.m. No proclamations for this meeting, and I'm going to cover a number of items from consent, and if you have any questions, just stop me or If I don't cover something and you want to discuss, please just let me know. So I'm going to start today with item B, and this is an amendment to the city's contract with Renew NC. Counsel, you've already directed this and considered this, but this basically obligates the funding in the amount of $22.2 million to support the reconstruction of houses or the rehabilitation of houses that were damaged during Helene. So this just moves that money over. contractually to the Renew NC program. But jump ahead to item D. Item D is another Helene related item. This authorizes a contract to begin demolition of Helene damage structures along the French Broad Riverfront. This of course is happening in coordination with our French Broad recovery project, so this is great news. This is moving through and being funded through the FEMA recovery process. One thing I do want to note for the community is this is the actual demolition of these structures is largely dependent upon an ongoing permitting process. So there's a number of permits that need to be secured, federal level permits and not just city of Asheville permitting. So realistically, you probably wouldn't see any kind of actual demolition until the fall of this year. So this is allocating the money, but we've got a number of steps to go before we can start removing structures. Jumping down to items F and G, these are both 2024 bond-funded projects that are moving forward and currently in the design. They're a little bit different stages, but they're both in the design phase now. Our Walton Street Park project is about just over a $2 million project, and it re-envisions the use of the historic Walton Street pool area and the pool house, and then the Shiloh and Tempe Avery Community Center projects will likely total over $8 million collectively, and they both result in substantial renovations to those facilities. So again, this is really the community's bond dollars in action. Jumping down to items H and I, these are federal grants that support law enforcement operations. Item H authorizes the city to apply for and accept funds for the replacement of bulletproof vests. And then item I authorizes the acceptance of the high intensity drug trafficking areas grant, which APD on this grant, APD basically acts as the fiduciary agent for that program. Item J is actually an item we're going to discuss later in the agenda under other issues section. We have our sanitation staff here today. So I'm going to not cover that and just say that that'll be picked up later in this meeting today. And then finally, item M is going to be discussed when we review the PFI agenda later in this meeting. So with that, any questions on the consent agenda? Anything you need me to cover? Okay. I'm going to keep rolling then. Presentations and reports. We do have a manager's report scheduled and we're going to discuss the draft network of the Asheville Rods Transit Comprehensive Operations Analysis Council. You've had several touch points on this project along the way. This one will have our transportation staff there next week and they're going to review the draft network that was developed through this process. We did have this at PEDE at their last meeting, and during the PEDE meeting, that committee recommended that this item come to full council for deliberation. So they wanted to have this discussed with the full body, and they also recommended that city council consider directing staff to pursue a long-term funding strategy for the transit system. Any questions on that or comments? Councilman Turner.

Just a quick thought to share. If you have time to maybe listen to the PDE meeting, it was helpful. Maggie, Kim and I had a kind of an in-depth conversation about it. And I think Maggie won't be there Tuesday, so it may be helpful.

Great, thank you for that feedback. Okay, I'm gonna move down to public. Oh, I'm sorry, Council Moroni, I did not see your hand.

I learned after our PED meeting that a passport program partner in the Grove Park was on the call waiting to speak in our meeting and was cut off by the technical situation that we were dealing with our PED meeting. We also are still awaiting an update from staff on the housing authority meeting that transit staff had. So when you watch our PED meeting about transit, just know that we're missing some key community partners in the conversation. And so between that and our council decision, we can expect to hear some more feedback. I know that we also have an open letter from, I believe it's ABCCM about the concerns about losing

transit cuts as well so the PED will tell the whole picture thank you for those comments okay seeing no other hands raised I'm going to move to the public hearings we have three zoning public hearings scheduled for this meeting I'm going to cover those very briefly I do have Will Palmquist on the line and Brad is as well so if you have any Questions where you want to dig deeper on anything, just let me know. So item A, our first public hearing is an amendment to a previously approved conditional zoning. And this is at the site of the Princess Anne Hotel, if you're familiar with that. And what this amendment basically does is it changes the conditions of approval to essentially broaden the range of allowable uses. So it'll give a little more flexibility for those kind of ancillary or accessory uses as part of that hotel. Planning staff does recommend approval, and P&Z voted 5-0 to recommend approval. Item B is our next public hearing. This is a 130-unit multifamily project. It's located on 12 acres at 3862 Sweeten Creek Road. So we've had some rezoning on Sweeten Creek that were in the Shiloh community. This is actually further south on Sweeten Creek, so this is down toward kind of Longshaws Airport Road area of Sweeten Creek. 100% of these units are proposed to be affordable at 80% AMI. The reason this comes to you is because in the RM16 zoning district, if a development has more than 50 units, it requires council approval through conditional zoning. Planning staff recommended approval or recommends approval of this request and P&Z voted six to one to recommend approval with the recommendation that the developer and design staff consider upsizing their stormwater controls to a larger storm event standard. Again, that was a B and Z recommendation. Councilman Mosley.

I always love to hear why the one was a one.

I don't know why the one was a one, but I wonder if Will knows why the one was a one.

sure uh good morning everybody will palmquist here um so yeah um i was at that planning commission meeting uh commissioner faircloth expressed a lot of concern with uh traffic on sweet and creek road uh that we're perhaps seeing increasing or at least uh projected to see with um the continued proposed multifamily developments along that roadway So if I recall correctly, his main concern was just the cumulative impact to traffic that these projects that we've been seeing over the years could have on that roadway.

Okay, thank you.

If I'm not mistaken too, I think he lives in one of those places that's adjacent there as well.

So there's a lot of concerns just in the neighborhood.

Great. Thank you for the questions, Will. Thank you for the response. Okay. So our last public hearing is item C, which is the proposed rezoning of the Asheville Mall, or at least a parcel of the Asheville Mall. And that is proposing to change it from urban place form district to regional business This is a straight rezoning request. So what that means is there's no conditions. In this case, if council were to approve the rezoning, the site would just be subject to the typical uses and requirements of the RV zoning district. Planning staff recommends denial of this request as it's not consistent with the comprehensive plan. And planning and zoning voted four to three to recommend denial. And in the spirit of Vice Mayor Mosley's last question, Will, can you give us a little bit of an, or elaborate a little bit on why there was a 4-3 vote at planning and zoning on this item? Thank you.

You're welcome. Sure. So the Planning and Zoning Commission had a pretty robust discussion about the Asheville Mall property, about the urban place zoning, the history around it, the intent about it, some of the outcomes in the meantime. So it might be worth watching some of that discussion to get a little more nuanced understanding of those concerns. Ultimately, I think it came down to Generally, the commissioners have voted to support the motion to recommend denial of the rezoning, mainly concerning the consistency of the proposed zoning with the comprehensive plan. So the comprehensive plan talks about revitalizing these areas of the city, turning them into 24 hour mixed use neighborhoods with housing and commercial and human scaled design elements. Whereas the regional business proposed zoning is mostly a suburban commercial big box style zoning district. uh three commissioners that voted against the recommendation of denial um were mostly uh i think um you know hearing the concerns of the property owners applicants representative to maybe loosen the restrictions loosen the zoning to allow for some new development on that site So I think they were sympathetic to the applicant representative to have more or less zoning so that they could perhaps pursue whatever they're proposing, which as a straight rezoning, we're not aware of at this time what potentially their plans are. Councilwoman Turner?

I'm not sure if this is for Will or for Brad or both of you. Well, first, I'll respond to that. When I talked with the development team, it sounded like what would be allowed, and I guess they're not submitting it as what they plan to do, but what I heard was drive-through. So like a small box of the drive-through would be allowed in this requested zoning change. And I guess that gives me pause. for this particular area of town that we were hoping to be dense, just like you just said, and what P and Z were saying. I guess my question is, Brad, legally, when we allowed Ingalls to not, I don't know what we call it, adhere to this zoning, be removed from the zoning, whatever it is. Did we create, I asked this then too, and the answer was no, but did we create a situation where there's precedent such that now we have to kind of do this where they could sue and have some grounds or is there any risk here?

Yeah, thank you for the question, Council Member Turner. Let me just take one step back and get some context to what you're saying. When the city originally adopted the urban place zoning district, we applied that to several different nodes within the city. There was a subsequent lawsuit filed against the city from some of the property owners of those sites. that challenged the legality of of urban place zoning on a variety of fronts the city was able to reach a voluntary settlement in that case which did amongst a few other things it preserved the urban place zoning we are now beyond any sort of statute of limitations to challenge that particular action by the city council there is nothing in the settlement that would create as a direct result of that lawsuit or the settlement, an obligation on council to continue to offer any accommodations. So in short, you are certainly free to treat this site how you would treat any other rezoning application, irrespective of that prior legal consequence. Yeah, Council Member Roney.

Well, let's make sure Sage had her questions answered because I don't... Oh, sorry.

I didn't realize I was still on mute. Thank you. Just one quick thought before we go to Kim, please. Thank you, Brad, for that. That's helpful. And I guess my second question is if we... Well, I guess it doesn't matter. I don't know, I guess I'm concerned that Tunnel Road needs some kind of activation. I'm weighing that against what I believe is a problem occurring along Tunnel Road and needing some innovation, some change. I think in general change is good, but I am overall concerned that we would be accepting something long-term that is so far. I'm guessing that's why staff took their position too, but I'm still thinking through it. I appreciate the input.

Yeah, thank you for the question, Council Member Turner. Council Member Maroney.

Yeah, I'm trying to understand it because it sounds like downzoning again. We made such a tremendous effort to vision being able to have people living in a neighborhood. And it doesn't feel like a neighborhood yet, but it is the backside of a neighborhood. And I'm watching as all these cities are saying like, should we build housing as a way to activate spaces like malls so they become more alive? Can malls be places where there's doctor's offices and dentists and markets? And it becomes its own ecosystem of a neighborhood as a way to activate space. And it just seems strange that after all of our work that we would down zone. So that's kind of what I'm sitting with.

Unless the down zoning is stymieing overall development. I think that's probably the argument.

That's kind of what I was getting at. When I did talk to the development team, it sounded like they reminded me that several projects have attempted to develop over here and have been unable to. Do we have any idea as to what, if there's a consistent trend with these applicants in the past that runs up against the zoning, that such the zoning might need tweaked, but maybe not individual parcels get spot rezoned? Is there anything you think?

Yeah, that's my question is it sounds like we wanted this urban place zoning to be an activation. So I guess how many projects have gotten through in this urban place zoning approved and been completed is would be my question.

We can do it more. We'd be glad to do a more comprehensive analysis between now and the city council meeting. To my knowledge, We have received very little formal applications for projects or even informal reviews for proposed projects in these zone areas. We did have one project that submitted a formal application that was on Thompson Street, right near Swananoe River. They were very close to being approved just prior to Helene. They have not revisited that application, but that was a multifamily development that would have been unapproved. under the threshold for conditional zoning, and they were able to meet the requirements for urban place and were close to being able to be approved prior to Helene. That's really the only application that staff has substantively worked through and taken through the technical review committee process. Otherwise, I'm not aware of any really concrete proposals that we've had a chance to really delve into in that zoning district.

So that's interesting and a little concerning considering this urban place zoning has been in place, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, about six years now. And if that was the intent, it sounds like as Councilmember Turner said, maybe we need to go back and just kind of look at what is keeping our intentions from becoming reality.

Councilman Haas, I agree. I think it's been five years, and I want to balance this with what we're hearing across other parcels, which is financing is really hard, cost of materials, cost of construction. It may not just be this site, but what I remember is in this zone, that big project that was going to be like an outdoor movie theater, it was going to have an outdoor corridor, there were going to be big apartments, and that was kind of what I envisioned for the activation of that area and the rehabilitation of a mall. Maybe my visions are not on par with reality these days, but that was the idealistic approach behind why we rezoned. So this does, in fact, feel like a downzoning. And I wish that we could request what the upcoming project would look like. And I know I don't believe we can legally request. Because it would help me understand if this is an overall improvement that may induce further activation of tunnel road development, or if we are going to look at something that we may feel is a very small use of a high use parcel for 20 or 30 years. You know, it's a challenging one.

So good discussion. Council Member Hess, do you have another question or is your hand just still up?

Oh, sorry about that.

It's okay. Good discussion. What we can do is the planning staff, I think we understand the spirit of your questions and discussion, and we'll add some information to the follow-up document to try to address some of your questions, and we'll have that to you before the meeting on Tuesday. Any other discussion on public hearing item C? Okay, I'm going to keep moving. No unfinished business. We do have two new business items. I'll start with item A, which, Council, you should be familiar with this. This is a request to approve the home repair policy and to allocate $3 million of the 2024 GO bond funds for the home repair program. So, again, another example of putting those bond funds to work. Home repair was actually identified in our affordable housing plan as a strategy to help combat displacement in neighborhoods. That plan was completed in 2024. And also it's worth noting that beyond just combating displacement, home repair also is a great way to maintain what's called naturally occurring affordable housing in neighborhoods. And then finally, this also lines up with one of the strategies identified in our ongoing anti-displacement and affordable housing project. So this particular action syncs up with a lot of things the city has talked about and is actively working on. AHAC, our advisory board, Affordable Housing Advisory Commission, they've put a lot of energy into this policy. My understanding is they held three meetings to review home repair programs and just to kind of create a framework for how the policy could be delivered. They did meet on May 14th to discuss the draft policy. They recommended approval with several changes. I think Sasha talked a little bit about that at the PFI meeting recently. What we're bringing forward is a revised policy that incorporates all of AHAC's recommendations except one. And at the June 23rd PFI meeting, Council, you got an update on all this and you gave us feedback to make the home repair policy more flexible and able to address a wider population or number of recipients in the city. So all that's baked in. Sasha will be before you next week to talk about this and ask for your action on the policy and the funding allocation. Any questions on new business item A?

I'll just chime in since I won't be here on Tuesday. I'm so enthusiastic about this. I think the work up to now has been really phenomenal and I hope this passes because I think this is a really good step forward.

Yeah, I know Sasha and her team, which I think she's basically a team of one, they put a lot of effort into this to get this to where it is. Okay. New business item B is also connected to our portable housing and anti-displacement project. Item B is last item on your agenda. This is a resolution that supports a comprehensive approach to minimizing displacement in the city's most vulnerable neighborhoods. And so what the resolution does is it directs the city manager to develop a framework for identifying those neighborhoods that are most sensitive to displacement. and then designing operational strategies and other ways to kind of balance the need for creating new housing, but also protecting our communities that are most vulnerable and at risk to displacement. The concept, so where this really came from, and I've said this in previous presentations, but the concept of an anti-displacement resolution was really initiated through meetings between city officials and LNC representatives. Back in 2025 and it's again, it's a common strategy that a number of other jurisdictions have used. And as I said earlier, this is also one of our strategies we identified in the ongoing anti displacement affordable housing project. Any questions on item B?

This is Kim here. I guess I haven't seen it yet, but I was curious if our partners in the Legacy Neighborhoods Coalition are providing any sort of feedback or position in advance of the meeting. Are we anticipating something formal in writing?

I don't know. And I'll say we have spoke through our ADA process, the Affordable Housing Anti-Displacement. We've talked about the resolution, but we have not given Any outside groups have not directly sent a draft copy of the resolution to them. It is posted. It was posted yesterday, so it's available to counsel and anyone else. So I would assume it is out in the community for review and comment.

But we weren't proactive in sending it to our partners that helped to develop it.

We were not, no.

Oh, well, that seems a missed opportunity since we have contact information for our partners. Thank you for helping us understand.

Ben, where is it posted? Because I know you sent it around to council a little while ago. I wanted to see the latest version.

Yeah, we shared it with council in a manager's digest, and then I sent a follow-up email soliciting feedback from council on the resolution. That was one of the things we were trying to get in place first. It's on the agenda. I'm looking at the agenda right now, and it's linked.

On the website or in the one that you sent around?

I think it's on the website. I'll let Maggie answer that question. I'm not seeing it on the website.

It's on the website. It's under the agenda briefing materials, the agenda. If you look on the website under agenda briefing materials. And the city council agenda is attached to that with all the staff reports.

But in that report, there isn't the resolution. Maybe I'm missing the link in reading too quickly.

I also went under the meeting materials tab and it says that nothing is added to this meeting, which makes sense because it hasn't happened yet. I'm seeing it now.

It's the last couple of pages. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt, Kim.

Yeah, but it doesn't actually link to it.

If you scroll through, I would go to the staff report and then keep scrolling.

You mean it's just the languages right there? Yeah. It looks smaller than what we received though, doesn't it? Yeah, that's it. Yeah. It's just, yeah, hard to find some of these things.

We can also, after this call, send the draft to the group of folks that we've been working with on the resolution. That won't be a problem at all.

Any other questions on item B? no but it's been a long time coming so i'm really glad that we have gotten to this step i do look forward to hearing from the neighborhoods um yeah it'll be a good discussion tuesday yeah i think when you think about it in the context of the project the resolution is kind of a way to frame city council's intent frames your intent as a body the The tool that we're working on, that's kind of the back monitor basis for how you determine vulnerable areas. Then, of course, the third piece or the programmatic and regulatory changes you're making that hopefully will move the needle on affordable housing crisis we're in, as well as providing some protections and your programmatic support to vulnerable neighborhoods. But it all really connects. And when we do the presentation on this Tuesday, we're going to have a couple of slides that tries to tie all that together through a single thread.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And it's great. It's even, I would say, innovative in some ways, this approach. And I know that we have kind of been back and forth about it for, I mean, really a couple of years, an overlay of this or that, a resolution. So I'm just glad we're making some progress. So thank you to everybody involved. And Ben, I know you were heavily involved. So thank you.

Great. So that concludes our review of the agenda. So I am going to keep us moving. Next on your agenda briefing agenda is council committees. You have two council committees to review. We've got PFI scheduled for Tuesday at 3, and we've got public safety scheduled for July 29th. And I'll turn it over to Jay Dundas to review those.

Thank you, Ben, and good morning, council. No, Jack, today I was planning on going out to a COC cleanup along Tunnel Road immediately following this, but that has been postponed as I just got a message. So hopefully we'll be able to schedule that soon and get out there and help with the cleanup along Tunnel Road corridor. So covering the two meetings, so we'll start with PFI, which happens, Public Policy, Finance, and Infrastructure, which happens at 3 o'clock on July 28th, next Tuesday, before your city council, regular city council meeting. This has three items on it. The items we will be covering in this meeting are Helene Recovery Boards, and council committee updates. This is essentially the midterm evaluation and update on how the activities around the council committees that you're all participating in, including the PFI, and the lean recovery boards have been working thus far, and then an outlook for moving them into the future. ITEM NUMBER TWO IS CONCERNS RELATED TO UNHOUSED RESIDENTS AND THE COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITY RESPONSE. AS I MENTIONED, STARTED OUT WITH, THERE WAS A SCHEDULED EVENT FOR CLEANUP ALONG TUNNEL ROAD TODAY. THIS IS THROUGH THE CONTINUUM CARE, THE ASHFIELD-BUNCUM CONTINUUM CARE. THAT HAS BEEN POSTPONED AGAIN. BUT ESSENTIALLY THIS PRESENTATION WILL GO OVER THE COMMUNITY concerns related to activities that they are experiencing in relation to the unhoused residents in various areas and throughout the city. And essentially trying to convey to the public and council that there's a lot of work going into trying to understand where we can be most impactful. and how we can be most impactful. So work internally. There are co-responder programs, for example, which we'll also touch in the public safety meeting that has just initiated this Monday. And we'll get into the details of what all is going into the efforts to support the community, but also to support those, the unsheltered population as well. Vice Mayor Mosley.

Thank you. So I've been in several meetings with folks who are part of the corridor coalition. One of the questions that I keep hearing is whether there could be consideration for like a 30-day safety initiative much like the one downtown. Has that been considered? or is that something we need to talk about specifically in public safety?

Yeah, I think it would be best if we talked about that specifically, but I also do think that there are some efforts that are going on through the co-responder program, but also the shifts in the way APB is doing some of their community resource officers that might already be working towards providing some meaningful impact there. But it's definitely something that we'll want to focus on.

Okay. So if the committee is amenable to that, I would love to talk about that more in public safety.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Third item on the PFI agenda is a property, a transfer of some additional property from 55 Hunt Hill place to a three Hunt Hill place. It's essentially redrawing property lines to support an expansion of the efforts of the, my daddy taught me that, property. They're needing a place to put a modular schoolhouse we'll get into a lot more explanation in the in the presentation and uh but uh this is the only this is the way we could accommodate that there accommodate this additional schoolhouse or a modular school unit keenan lake will be there to help support that presentation as well any questions on the pfi agenda All right. Hearing none, the next day on July 29th at 11 o'clock, we will have the Public Safety Committee meeting. There are four items on this agenda. The first is kind of information sharing on the co-responder program at this point. We'll have a week and a half of information related to how it's actually the effectiveness and how we're seeing the program being implemented. This will be a co-presentation between APD and AFD because they both have co-responders assigned to their units. We also, item number two is APD operational updates. This will address, like, essentially the CROs, the community resource officers, and how that work's being done. housing unit, and then other impactful changes. But also following the tragic events of last weekend, there will always be some time spent on gun violence in the community and the efforts that are being done through public safety to address those issues and work through the community to to try to minimize and prevent gun violence in the future. Item number three is Asheville Fire Department updates. They will be presenting on the Asheville Fire Department's wellness program. This will be a fairly comprehensive review of their overall wellness and then some specifics about the screening programs they're considering implementation and then an update on force shift. It's been a little bit since we've talked about force shift updates and implementation and this will address that. The final item on the public safety agenda is the adoption of an updated plan the Buncombe County Madison Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan. This provides the city with coordination, risk reduction related to natural disasters and the vulnerability throughout our region. It helps with the eligibility for FEMA hazard mitigation assistance and really reflects those lessons learned through Holene. It's a regional coordination. So that is all of all of those. That's the coverage of all the items on those two agendas. There's no questions, Ben. I'll hand it back over to you.

Thank you, Jade. So moving on, I'm going to cover the eight week agenda. There are four items I want to kind of draw your attention to in that eight week, and we can talk about anything else if you want to. One is we're going to bring a ordinance that includes an update to our grievance procedure. I'll just note that Emily Provence is on the call today and she's going to give an update on that as part of your other item section of this agenda, but that is scheduled to come to the August 25th meeting. Also on August 25th, we're going to have a resolution or I'm sorry, go ahead. Council member

Yes. When we're revisiting the grievance ordinance, I think that we should also revisit the little provision that Brad added in there that says that they can have a representative, but they cannot speak. I think that was one contention with some of our public safety folks that really the advisement of that representative is what's important, not just that they're in the room. So I would really like to look at that sentence. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And I'll hold that and assume that Emily and Brad can probably talk about that a little bit when we get to that item coming up. Thank you for that comment, Council Member Hess. Okay. Other thing is August 25th, we are intending to bring the contract to you for approval for the update of the comp plan in UDO. That'll be a big contract, but that'll be a big effort. I just want to flag that and I want to say that Steph Dahl, our planning director, is leaving the city. She's retiring and her retirement date is August 21st. So I feel like this is a big thing she's worked on and she's going to miss the contract award by four days. So I just want to take a moment to thank Steph for all she's done for the city throughout her career, but also thank her and her staff are working so hard to make this happen for this community so just wanted to take it take a second to say that i told her to come for public comment we'd have her there if she wanted to um i don't know if she will though but anyways and she said she's gonna have some folks to concede their time as well she'll get her 10 minutes to talk to us um but anyways just one just wanted to flag that and just say thank you to staff um Another big item that I think we'll have a lot of interest in is we are hoping to bring you the contract for the art place project. So we did an RFP and we're looking to initiate a kind of a planning feasibility study for that track of land. So that would include some changes or expansion of the transit center, as well as incorporating affordable housing. So that's a big initiative and we're excited to bring you the planning study. contract for that. Then the last item I want to note is you're going to get an update on the comprehensive operations analysis for transit at your manager's report at your next meeting and our intention is to bring that to you for approval of the final network at your August 25th meeting. So you got a couple of big items coming to the 25th. Any other questions on the eight-week agenda?

I thought that we were also going to see some zoning ordinance changes on August 25th. Has that been moved?

We are, I don't, Maggie, I don't see it.

I don't normally put those on there until after P&Z review, which is the beginning of August. Got it.

Yeah, that's a good flag, Councilwoman. That is the plan, and I guess that's, you know, we'll get that on the eight-week agenda the first week of August. Okay. Councilman Moseley.

Actually, I guess this question is for Maggie or anyone on PEDE. I remember during a full council meeting, there was discussion about changing the ordinance so that RS4 is the

lowest density are y'all going to be talking about that in your meeting uh that i haven't seen anything further from staff on that is there a majority of your body that would like to see something i know but i would like to see that as soon as we can i think it would help too because i if i recall when we discussed it briefly from the dais Getting clarity on what the ask is would be helpful.

So I did have a conversation with Brad and I gave him clarity on what my ask was. I'm wondering in the interim if we could get from staff the locations that are currently RS2 in the city.

It's probably available on our city maps.

It probably is.

Tell me more about what you're interested in because I have a lot of curiosity about upzoning where we can and one of the questions I had to you is are you talking about everywhere in the city or would that include maps with carve-outs?

You asked that before and I didn't understand your question then and I don't understand it now.

The legacy neighborhoods, are they in it or not?

I will know that when I see what are our S2s. Where it is. I kind of have an idea of where some are in legacy neighborhood, but the notion of maps to me is a totally different thing. discussion because those maps don't exist so if we did this before coming up with maps the question in my opinion is moved uh councilman mosley i mean we could also talk about an hcd if you want I would love to. Are there two of us that want to talk about it? Yeah, that's why I said that.

Okay. So we can start there. And usually when we do housing and then it has zoning impacts, it does go to PED. So we'll just, and that's why I stayed on both to make that link. So we'll HCD then PED if it works. Okay.

The conversation I just, you know, distilling the, policy proposal would help me understand what you're asking for um so getting some of that work done on yeah just getting some clarity I think I I like the idea of us coming together to find up zoning opportunities on HCD please Thanks. Are you saying that's kind of you considering the planned ordinance proposals as contingent on you having this conversation first or just another conversation you want to have?

I didn't say it was contingent on anything. I'm saying I want to talk about it in HCD.

I think the maps are a tool that would be really helpful in visualizing what the policy looks like on the ground. And so if it can come to our conversation at PET, I would appreciate that.

Can I just ask a question of staff in terms of, does this change anything about the timeline when we think about when the HCD and PED meet and when you want to bring forward the resolution? I'm trying to do the math here.

Manager Wesley, do you want to answer? Go ahead.

Well, my thought is that this doesn't impact the other thing. But if you all feel like sequentially that it does, it sounds like Vice Mayor Mosley would like an initial discussion around it at HCD. And I'm not hearing any ask to pause the other items that are coming forward.

Nope, I didn't ask to pause it. I just want to talk about it. I want to talk about it in HCD.

That's what I thought too, Manager Wesley. I think the other items, we have a pretty built-out timeline for that. We've been systematically working through. But I think we'll try to make sure we understand the ask, Vice Mayor Mosley, and we're happy to start pulling things together and keep the conversation in committees.

Meanwhile, I'll just kind of source the map for us. It is on our stuff. I'm going to send you a link just so you have it. Thank you.

Okay. I just wanted to bring up one thing to put on everyone's radar as well. A little bit of a different topic, but I spoke with Brad, city manager, Wesley, and mayor. We passed Jacob and Lenny and Alex Rosso's law. And I think we could act as a city and increasing penalties for speeding on roads where we have a lot of bikers. So I've asked for some data around that. helping to bring that public safety and then full counsel with your support. So just want to put that in everyone's ear.

Oh, I love that. Um, that's very helpful. Thank you.

Okay. Um, with that concluding the review of the eight week agenda, we've got two items under other items and updates. And I just want to note one logistical thing. And then, um, before I turn it over to that section on our sanitation ordinance that we're about to update. We've got Jess Foster here. She's going to be on via phone. Actually you're here. So she's nevermind. I don't have a logistical update. So then I will turn it over to DK Wesley to introduce our other items. Thank you.

Yes, we are. We have two items for discussion. One item was discussed at the PAID meeting this week. Pretty robust discussion around it. But prior to bringing it to council on Tuesday, we wanted to give the entire council the opportunity to understand what the request is. And that's the sanitation ordinance. Then after that, HR Director Provence will provide a presentation on the recommended grievance ordinance changes. that you will see in August. So I'm going to turn it over to Jess. Looks like she's here for the sanitation ordinance update.

Good morning, council. So my understanding is that we presented this at the PED committee on Tuesday and hopefully other council members have seen that presentation. So I'm going to kind of just give high level what the slides are but try to dive in on some of the to answer some of the questions that came up in committee. I have Darlene Barnwell here, our operations manager, as well as Carly Gillingham, assistant city attorney with the legal department. And we're gonna talk about just updating the sanitation ordinance definition of litter. Next slide. So the reason that we're doing this is that the city does have some ineffective and inefficient processes for fully addressing sanitation and nuisance issues. And so we feel that a change to the sanitation code will improve staff efficiency, but also streamline our communication with residents. It will also align our ordinance with state statute that already exists and give us some additional tools to address sanitation issues. And of course, we'll continue collaborating with other departments on more complex issues as they arise. Okay, next slide. So DSD and parking services do address some abandoned and nuisance motor vehicles already via Chapter 10 of our ordinance. And sanitation is responsible for code enforcement where there is a public health or sanitation issue. So there's litter, there's junk accumulated, there is overgrowth of weeds. And the definition of litter in our ordinance is already fairly broad. It can include things like dead animals, large pieces of junk. It's not just small pieces of litter. But sometimes we do have situations where we've got nuisance vehicles and sanitation issues all on the same property. So it would be more efficient if we were just able to address the entire sanitation issue when we're there. So if we could go to the next slide. So some of the challenges we're trying to address, we've got, in some cases, multiple departments having to visit the same property. We have different notice of violation processes. We're both trying to communicate with property owners, and then we're both trying to communicate with impacted neighbors and saying, well, some other departments handling that, some other departments handling that, and that's not very good customer service. So we see some opportunities to streamline communication, enhance our staff efficiency, and again, align our city ordinance with North Carolina general statute. Next slide. So the ordinance revisions that we're proposing are to redefine litter and add the term nuisance motor vehicles in our definition of litter and any other litter as defined by North Carolina General Statute Section 14399. Nuisance motor vehicles are in the state statute definition of litter already. For that, we would also add a term and definition for what a motor vehicle or vehicle is, which is anything intended to travel over land or water by self propulsion or while attached to a self propelled vehicle. Next slide. And the nuisance motor vehicle definition that we're adding aligns with what is already in Chapter 10. There are two sections. The first section of a nuisance motor vehicle is just kind of talking about what is often referred to as a junked vehicle, but it doesn't have a license plate. It's partly dismantled or it can't be moved in the way it was intended to move. It's older than five years and less than $100. Or... Next slide. The vehicle meets any of the following sort of sanitation public health issues. So it's a breeding ground for pests. It's been filled with trash. You can go to the next slide. It's pooling water. It's leaking flammable things. It's packed with flammable materials. It's a danger to children. Next slide. So we're hoping to update sanitation's definition of litter, align it with the state statute so that we can fully address sanitation issues when we're at a property. So the request is to repeal that section of chapter 15 and replace it with a revised ordinance to define litter, motor vehicle, and nuisance motor vehicle.

And next slide.

Okay, and so some examples that we have, and I'll just let you know what we're trying to deal with and how we typically deal with things. So if we get a complaint about a yard that is out of compliance, a property that is out of compliance, It might have weeds that are head high, piles of trash and junk all over the property and several cars in the yard in the right of way beside the yard that may or may not have wheels that are leaking that are full of trash. When we go to that property to address it with the property owner, we can only address the weeds and the trash in the yard. And then we're having to engage other departments to come in with different processes to attempt to address vehicles. So ideally, we would just be able to address that all in one go. And our process is extensive. Our goal is compliance. Our goal is always compliance and working with residents to get their properties into compliance. So initially, it's a conversation. There's an opportunity to cure, hey, this is out of compliance. What can we do to get this back in compliance? And people can have 30 to 60 days to do that. If there's no good faith effort to make progress, there's another 30 to 60 days of a notice of violation. And then after that, it would move to a citation or fine. So there is, you know, it's a very months long process, but we do have some issues in the city. I can think of three examples off the top of my head where We've been dealing with these issues since 2009, 2017. City council is getting complaints. That's taking time. City manager's office, city staff, and we're just kind of spinning our wheels literally since 2009 in some cases to address long-term nuisances. So that's our goal. Questions?

Oh, yes. Thanks, Jess. This is really awesome. And thanks for looking at this. I guess what may... So is it 30 or is it 60, I guess, is my question. And if there is a difference or if that's something that we're looking at, what would be the difference in those, you know... Especially if we're dealing with this since 2009. I mean, I get tagged all the time on social media on different things. And it seems like these things have been going on for years. So, you know, why would they get that extra, you know, six months to do something when it's already been 10 years?

So initially in our process, we would give somebody an opportunity to cure, which is up to 30 days. And if they ask for an extension, we can grant the extension. Now, sometimes that's because they've got some family stuff going on or we can see that they're trying to make progress. And if we see that they're making progress, then we don't immediately jump to a violation. But there is sort of a 30-day opportunity to cure, then a 30-day notice of violation, and then a citation. In cases where it's long-term, if you're a repeat offender, right, and like it's the 10th time that we're coming, we're going to be a little less likely to keep extending that.

Okay, excellent. Thank you.

You're welcome. Councilwoman Roney?

Yeah, I just wanted to bring up something that we talked about in the committee meeting is the clarity that it's not just vehicles that are in the right-of-way, but we're talking about removing property from private property. And I'd use the example of like if somebody has a grandpa's vintage truck and it's, you know, It is pooling water and it has a lot of the same issues that are on the list. But there will be these notices of violation throughout the process. And I think if we have some sort of graphic in that for the public meeting, I think that could help, even if it's just in the slide deck. But I think the example that you gave of a recent property removal situation was really helpful. And so if you wanted to include that in this conversation, I think that could add to the understanding.

Sure. Just to address grandpa's truck, if it's pooling water, we're going to come and say, please get the water out of the truck. It's breeding mosquitoes. Once that's done, you know, for sanitation, that's no longer a public health issue. So just make that clear that there is an opportunity to fix it. So it's just please get the trash out of the vehicle. Please weed it around it a little bit. Please get the water out of it. But one example, so let's just say with the Mountaineer, which was a bit high profile, that was sanitation's first private property abatement since I've been with the city. So where we went through the whole notification process, then it went to court, and then we had authorization to go on the property and clean up all of the trash, the litter, and mow the grass. If there had been a junked car sitting on the property, you know, full of trash, no wheels, we wouldn't have been able to deal with that, right? So in those cases, it's just more effective for us to handle the entire thing from beginning to end. I hope that makes sense.

It does. And I think the lingering thing that I had in mind was, is there a list of actions that are meant to be taken quickly? Like, do you have like five scenarios where you're like, and these are the ones that we're going to go take care of because we've been stuck?

I do have some examples. I did share some, you know, I pulled three of the highest profile ones that we've had on the docket for quite some time. And I shared that with the committee leadership or city manager's office. So I'm not sure if that's something that you guys would like to see just so you can get a visual on.

Yeah, if it can go in a follow-up, that would be great.

Yes, Ben.

Yeah, Councilman Roni, we have that and we're going to put that in the follow-up document that'll come out after this meeting.

Any more questions for Jess? All right. Thank you, Jess. Thank you. Up next is Emily.

Good morning. I'm having a little trouble with my camera.

Good morning.

So I can't get my camera to turn on. Would you like me to try to leave and come back?

That's fine. I think you're okay. We can hear you.

Great. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and council members. I'm here to talk about grievance ordinance updates that HR has been working on with our legal team. Next slide, please. So I'll start by introducing why updating the grievance ordinance at this point is important. The biggest issue why we're looking to do this right now is because the current ordinance language does not comply with NC State Statute Section 8. which allows no more than 30 days from the filing date to organizational resolution. And so what that means is once an employee files a grievance, we are obligated to put that grievance through the entire process in no more than those 30 days. Updating the ordinance will also encourage internal resolution before an external escalation. I will say as a public servant, I think it's really important that staff have a predictable transparent channel to report issues. And it also protects the city's reputation and tax dollars by keeping us publicly accountable. Next slide. So current state, as I mentioned, our current grievance procedure is detailed in section 2-226 of the ordinance, but it doesn't align with that state statute that I mentioned. And right now there's no complimentary administrative grievance policy. There's only a grievance form and that grievance form also doesn't align with the timeline in the ordinance or the statute. And so what we're looking to get to is a future state where our grievance process aligns with the statute, but we also have a clear, easy to understand, accessible administrative grievance policy and process that allows our employees to access clear guidelines on how they can grieve decisions. Next slide. So I'll walk through the updates. And before I get started on these, I will take a moment to answer Councilman Hess's question. We had not made any additional updates to that specific provision, but I did make a note to look into that. As Manager Wesley said, this is going to come in front of Council in August. So we have some time that we can look at your request. Thank you, Director Provan. You're welcome, sorry. Okay, so the updates we did make. We did some really basic terminology updates. We took terms like personnel department and personnel director that we no longer use and updated them to the language we do use. We also eliminated gender specific pronouns and used gender neutral terms. As far as procedural streamlining and steps, The initial steps to file a grievance with immediate supervisors and division heads have been removed. And that really is to compress that timeline so that we can meet the 30-day requirement. And so grievances will now go directly to department directors. And then we also did some language updates to make sure that the updated ordinance will align with the procedural updates. Next slide. Looking at the steps, we've reduced those as I mentioned. And so in this new grievance process, step one would be to appeal to your department director. The only exception to that is if a grievance is a department director, they could appeal to the assistant city manager before going to the city manager. And that's to ensure that all employees, including department directors, have the same level of due process, which is two steps. So first appeal to the department director in most cases. Once the department director has made a decision, if the employee is not happy with that decision, they have the ability to appeal to the city manager. If they don't agree with the decision of the city manager, they still have a step three, which is appealing to the City of Asheville Civil Service Board. And in a case where they also don't agree with the Civil Service Board, they can actually appeal to the Buncombe County Superior Court. Next slide. Again, the steps that we removed were appealing directly to your supervisor and division director, or division manager, I'm sorry, looking at the timeline. So step one, employees have 15 calendar days from the date of an incident to file a written grievance with their department director. The director has five calendar days to hold a meeting with that employee and then five calendar days to issue a written decision. after the meeting. Step two, employee has seven days to decide whether or not they want to appeal the step one determination to the city manager and then the city manager has seven days to hold the grievance hearing and five calendar days to issue a written decision. civil service board, and this only applies to classified service members. They have 10 days from the receipt of the city manager's decision for an employee to appeal to the civil service board, and then a 10 calendar day window for employees to appeal the civil service board decision to the superior court. Next slide, please. Other changes we made to policy representation and scope, we granted the city manager authority to establish additional parameters for hearings to ensure efficiency, fairness, and legality. We added a definitive clause stating that no other issue shall be considered a grievance other than the ones specifically listed in our definitions. We clarified that step three appeals to civil service board apply specifically to members of classified service. And we rewrote the final part of the appeal process to allow either party, the city or the employee to appeal a civil service board decision to superior court. It previously only had employee only language. And so this actually allows the city the same opportunity to appeal to the superior court as employees. Next slide, please. What actions may be grieved? So this is the list that I referenced in the previous slide. Unfair interpretation or application of policies governing personnel practices. Unfair or inappropriate disciplinary actions which result in discharge, suspension, reduction in rank, or an involuntary transfer. unfair or inappropriate denial of a promotion or raise in pay to which a public safety employee would be entitled, acts of reprisal as the result of utilizing the grievance procedure or failure of the city to respond to an employee's complaint of discrimination or harassment after that complaint is brought forward pursuant to city policies. Councilman Hess.

Yes, ma'am. So is there a process in the grievance for if city staff didn't follow the city policy for a certain thing? For example, let's say they are drug tested for something that was not in our city policy for drug testing, would they be able to file a grievance?

that would not be grievable there would they would be able to bring forward a complaint through a normal hr like an administrative complaint process the other you need to come a little bit more about what like why that isn't the case well yeah barely i'm thinking through your question i think It probably is situational because if you look at the first bullet point, if they can prove that there was an unfair, or if they feel like they can prove there's an unfair interpretation or application of policy governing personnel practices, then they may be able to grieve.

Excellent. Okay, great.

They would also have the opportunity to bring forward, any employee can bring a complaint, an administrative complaint to HR. Does that answer your question?

Yes. Thank you, Derek.

Okay. Next slide, please. What are the next steps? As Manager Wesley mentioned, we are going to be bringing a resolution to update the ordinance to council on August 25th. HR and legal are going to coordinate with CAPE to develop a communication plan. It's going to be really important that our employees understand the changes that have been made to the ordinance, why those changes have been made to align with the state statute, and also that we do some work to make sure they know where to find the process and the administrative policy so that they can reference it. As soon as the ordinance is updated, we will adopt and publish that administrative grievance policy to support employees through the process. And then we will make sure that all grievance forms are updated on 1 Asheville. Any additional questions?

In that first bullet point that you have, Director, can we just separate that piece out? Maybe make that just an extra bullet point to make it crystal clear that they do have that process?

I need you to clarify which bullet point. You mean the HR administrative process?

Yeah, the first bullet point about policies being if they feel like they could prove that policies were administered unfairly, like maybe have that be its own bullet point.

Councilmember Hess, are you saying to update this bullet point? Because I think it says what you're saying. I want to make sure we understand exactly what you're asking. Are you asking for the presentation to be updated to specify something?

I see. I see. Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Good.

And this language, yeah, and just to reiterate, this language is exactly the language from the grievance. And so this will be, or from the ordinance, this will be very clearly stated so that employees know. And that will actually be the very first. Yes. Okay. Any additional questions?

Thank you for your time. You'll see this again in August. I think that's all we have for you all today. There's a couple of follow-up that we'll send forward and make sure you get it in advance of the meeting on Tuesday. Otherwise, have a good day.

Please, the council members, don't forget we have a closed session at 1.30 for four of the council members. Thank you. Thank you.

Wait, is that in person or virtual? It's virtual. Okay, thank you.