Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

We are live. Hello and welcome to the May 6th meeting of the Asheville Planning and Zoning Commission. I'll take this opportunity to ask you to silence your cell phones, please. Um I am your chair, Jeffrey Barton. Since we have some um many more visitors at this meeting than usual, I'll just start with a little bit of housekeeping. Um we receive all written public comment in advance and many of us read all of us read those comments and come prepared for the meetings. We will have public hearings for at uh this meeting for the two items that are on the agenda. And at that time we'll receive writt uh oral public comment comment. Uh you'll be given three minutes to come up and speak and share your thoughts um if speaking on behalf of yourself or um up to 10 minutes if speaking on behalf of a group. So please be mindful of uh repetitive comments and we will reserve the right to limit public comment to an hour if we're continuing to hear repetitive comments. So with that preamble, I will kick it over to Mr. Palmquist for roll call.

Chair Barton, present. Commissioner Br, Commissioner Faircloth, present. Commissioner Zovskia, present. Commissioner Enzelo, present. We have a quorum.

Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Um, and as a reminder for my fellow commissioners, if we could all please speak clearly into the mic, and if you come up for public comment, please do the same. We'll ask you to introduce yourself. Also, um, for those of us speaking, we'll be trying our best to introduce ourselves each time for accessibility reasons and for people listening, but not necessarily following along visually. Um, we will start our proceedings with our land acknowledgement. As we are gathering today as the planning and zoning commission, the body tasked with reviewing and advising on appropriate land use in the city of Asheville, it is fitting to acknowledge the storied history of this land. We occupy the land of the Cherokee people who have stewarded and been in relationship with these mountains and waterways from time immemorial. This land is occupied through violence, oppression, coercion, broken treaties, and forced relocation. Please join me in expressing respect and gratitude for the present-day Eastern Band of Cherokee, the Cherokee Nation, the United GDUA Band of Cherokee, and all of our indigenous neighbors, as well as the past and present marginalized community members as we seek to join in the healing of the indelible trauma that is embedded in this land. Thank you. Uh, next up we have the approval of the minutes from April 1st, 2026. Did everyone have a chance to review? Any questions or comments on the minutes?

Motion to approve the April 1st meeting minutes. We have a motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I. I. I.

Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Um, next up in our administrative section, we have updates and reports. Um, first up, we have update from committee liaison and workg groups. Um, I'm not sure if we have any updates here, although I know our vice chair, Commissioner Cycle, may have a a report for us, but we'll let him get settled. Um, welcome.

Any other um reports from liaison and work groups? We'll come back to um some meetings you attended, vice chair, in a minute, but we'll go to report out on recent legislative and administrative actions. Is that you, Mr. Palmquist?

Yes, chair. This is just an update on some recent items you all had reserved at the or reviewed at the April 1st uh planning zoning commission meeting. Um so the conditional zoning amendment for uh 30 becan place um formerly McCormack Field to allow for the additional signage uh was approved at the April 14th city council meeting and then the conditional zoning for the affordable uh Cox Avenue project in the central business district was approved at the April 28th city council meeting.

Thank you Mr. Palmquist. Um, vice chair, you want to give us a quick recap?

Absolutely. So, the um the city council has uh kind of directed some staff to uh work on an anti-displacement and affordable housing project. Um, this is led by assistant city manager Ben Woody and Dawa Hitch uh with community outreach. Um I attended uh uh a couple meetings so far. There's it's a uh displacement risk assessment uh working group. Um several members of the community, members of uh Legacy Neighborhood Coalition um and then other uh interested parties. Um and uh I just wanted to give like a brief kind of update to this uh board about what that project is. Um and then kind of the first two meetings. Um the idea about this uh project is to first uh pair any new housing um and development kind of focused on our desires for middle housing development with uh anti-displacement uh policies, actions um and uh tools actually uh is what this this um project is looking at. um it's about a one-year um time frame. Uh it's a pretty robust uh time schedule that they're looking at. And um the second thing that this project is is kind of tasked with doing is is drawing from uh several different sources to uh to make these recommendations. and first being middle housing study, next displacement risk assessment recommendations, the affordable housing plan and the legacy neighborhood coalition.

Um I could go um I guess you know if you want a little bit more information kind of on on the timeline uh that was shared to us is um uh we began engagement I guess two weeks ago now and there's a next check-in engagement um uh with uh sorry um launch the project council touch points ly uh in May and then there's another council touch point in November. Um and then uh the main part of this is to look at policies and again like I said a tool. So there's this um like anti-displacement um tool and we're not quite sure what that looks like yet. Um, but that's part of what this process is and what it's going to do and what, you know, how it's going to provide recommendations. Um, and I'll have more more update on that later. But the first meeting we had was kind of meeting with Louisville, Kentucky. Um, they have a tool and so we kind of just did some um, reconnaissance on lessons learned from that. Um, which was really fascinating. And then um we kind of met with that working group internally with um leaders within the community to kind of just have a um meeting of the minds info info sharing brainstorming kind of session about what this stuff might look like.

Great. Thank you. that I know that anti-displacement is um a topic that this commission has been looking into thanks to Commissioner Zvk's leadership and trying to get deeper engagement with how that interacts with land use regulations. So look forward to hearing more as this unfolds. Any questions or comments about that? Uh next up we have an update on comprehensive plan and development regulations update project. Is that you, Mr. Pongquist as well?

Yeah. Um I think order operations we can give an update on some admin updates too. Um and then hop into the comp plan UDO project. So um just want to touch base on u the next kind of steps of the u missing middle housing tax amendments. It's a good kind of segue with what uh vice chair cycle was discussing regarding the anti-displacement affordable housing work which is kind of handinand with these uh proposed text amendments related to the missing middle housing study. So they're kind of they're kind of working together in lock step um without so this will not go really forward without it will go forward in the same kind of manner as the anti-displacement work. So, we are anticipating um having some uh having these amendments before you all the next meeting on June 3. There are three main topics uh proposed. Uh this was mentioned at the last meeting, but we're a little a little more detailed to fill you all in on. Um some of these items you've already reviewed and given recommendations on. So, you may be happy to see that um per your recommendation to eliminate minimum parking requirements citywide. That is something that we will be proposing and will be before you all for review as well as increasing the maximum allowed size of accessory dwelling units uh to 1,200 square ft or 90% of the uh primary structure on site whichever is less. And then finally uh permitting duplexes in all residential zoning districts along with one additional ADU allowed per duplex lot. So, that's kind of the the broad broad brush of what you'll be reviewing at the next meeting. Um, that will then go on the council at some point for final approval this summer.

Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Yeah, we're eagerly awaiting that. I know there's been a lot of work to try and get um zoning reforms in the interim while we wait on the longer project to to overhaul the UDO. So, appreciate the update and we'll be looking forward to seeing more in June.

Great. Any questions for staff? Thank you. Sorry, this mouse is slow. Not getting anything up here. All right. So the next update we want to give was on the comprehensive plan and development regulations update project. This is nothing too new from what you all saw at the last meeting. Um we are still in the uh request for proposal evaluation uh process of the project. So as a reminder, we put out that RFP on March 20th. Deadline was April 16th for responses. Uh we're currently um we have some interviews planned with uh selected firms uh next week and um from there should be able to make a final decision and hopefully can have that um team under contract and and start the project July 1st for the new uh fiscal year. So we're really excited. Uh got a lot of great submissions and and um yeah, we're very enthused by it. How many submissions did you get?

Don't know if I can say technically. Um I don't know. Purchasing is kind of it's very uh particular about what we can share. Yeah, it was a decent number. Can you What was the question? How many submissions did we receive in total? Yeah, we we're we're kind of bound in confidentiality things. Yeah. While it's active. So, um sorry. Yep. was not an overwhelming number, which is what we were really afraid of to be honest, but it was plenty to have a very good um crop of selections. So, it was uh

it was it was sufficient for sure to to feel comfortable moving forward. That's questions on admin updates for now.

No, thank you, Mr. Palmquist. So, um, moving into the legislative hearing, public hearing portion of our agenda, um, I'll do a little bit more housekeeping on the general flow of public hearings, um, for members of the public who are joining us for the first time. So, we will hear a staff report on the items proposed on the agenda. That will be followed by um the applicant having an opportunity to share any additional information, some questions from um members of the commission, and after that we'll open the public hearing and allow anyone who wishes to speak to um to come up to the mic and and share your thoughts. There is a signup sheet, I believe. So um please if you wish to speak signing up will help us maintain order as we move into the the public comment phase of the the hearings. Um al also as a general reminder with conditional zonings which are the items on the agenda this evening um the this is not the final hearing and we are the recommending body to city council and so regardless of the outcome of the recommendation from this body. The applicant can uh choose to move forward with a city council hearing who are the ultimate decision makers on this. So there will be an additional opportunity for input uh no matter what our recommendation is this evening. Um and with that I will maybe go first to item number three on our legislative agenda because we've had a request to continue um item number three. Are there any questions about the continuence request?

This is different than the one we continued last time. Correct. Sure. That's correct. This is um a new item that was showing on or no, it was continued once before. No, this one um there was one maybe a couple years ago that had a similar address. That's right. This is a new application. Okay. So, this is a request to reszone property located at 35 Pond Street from residential single family high density to highway business. Um, the applicant has requested a continuence. Do I have a motion to continue? This is a continuence to a date uncertain.

Date uncertain. I think the idea is the applicant's going to um look at the avenues to bring this back and it will be renoticed and come back at an uncertain future date. I move to continue. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously. So, moving back on our agenda to item one in the legislative public hearings. Um, we have a request to additionally reszone the properties located at 99999 Caribou Road from residential single family medium density RS4 to residential expansion conditional zone resppc. The property's pins are identified on the agenda. Um, and the property owner is Harry and Linda Gites Tanner. The applicant's contact is Mr. Warren Sugg and the planner coordinating review is Will Palmquist. Mr. Palmquist.

Thank you, Chair. Good evening, commissioners. Will Palmquist with Planning and Urban Design. I'll be presenting this conditional zoning request for the project known as Caribou Commons located at 999999 Caribou Road. Uh as uh chair mentioned uh this is a conditional zoning from the existing RS4 single family medium density district to residential expansion which is required due to the size of the project which is a 100 unit multifamily development on 9 and a half acres and staff is recommending approval of the request. So here you can see the overall location of the properties uh located in the Shiloh neighborhood. Uh the zoom in on the right shows the configuration of the site with which consists of uh four properties in total and I mentioned uh totals 9 and a half acres. Some peculiarities of the site. Just wanted to point out um there is a a stream that runs through kind of the bottom portion of the site. You'll see the site plan of the proposed project reflects that. Um there is also a lot of topography uh in this site. So a lot of slope from Caribou Road down into the site. Um I think it's about 30 feet of elevation drop from Caribou Road to the lower portions of the site. Um there is also an existing rightway existing between a couple of the properties on the northern side of the site. That's a paper right ofway. So there's no road or or alley or anything there that would need to be closed at some point if the project was to move forward. As mentioned, the existing zoning is the RS4 um medium density single family district and the proposed zoning is that residential expansion conditional zone. So here is the project site. I will uh break it down for you. Uh you can see

the configuration of buildings across the site. There are a total of 100 units total. In the northern section of the site closest to the uh project's entrance off Caribou Road is a cluster of four four unit buildings. So 16 unit total total uh one story each with a clubhouse building in the middle. There's also a playground and proposed uh dumpster. As the site moves south, uh the driveway uh kind of traverses over that stream into the lower portion of the site and that is uh where two uh three and fourstory multifamily buildings are proposed each with 42 units for uh 84 to 84 units total. There's also additional parking uh in that area. You can see that there are streets that uh come to the edge of the project site, Forest Street and then Ardmore Street on the south. The project is not proposing any connections either vehicular or pedestrian uh to those streets as currently proposed. Uh and then regarding parking, there is 172 spaces total between the two different parking areas on the north and southern sides of the site. There's also the Norfick Southern Railroad uh to the east of the site and then um other land uses and then Sweden Creek Road is not too much further to the east as well. And then the landscape plan is shown here. Um what's uh important to note on this plan is that there is a 20 foot wide required uh planting buffer along the property's edge. You can see in the green uh noting the trees and shrubs that make up that buffer that's required where the property abuts any uh single family or multif family zoning

districts. The plans submitted did show a buffer on the southern side of the site. Uh, I did kind of wipe that out digitally because that is not required um and and and would not necessarily be part of the final proposal since that zoning to the south is a residential expansion for the uh Laurelwood uh expansion project that was approved by conditional zoning a few years ago. So, here are the elevation drawings of those um one-story uh town home style buildings on the northern side of the site. Um, so they're four units each. And then these are the renderings of the two um, essentially similar or identical buildings for the uh, three and fourstory multifamily buildings proposed on the southern portion of the site. You can see that the uh three-story side of the building uh faces um the north side of the site where the elevation is a little higher and then drops down uh with the elevation to be four stories on the southern side. So, uh, this project does propose affordable housing and the, uh, project is committing in the project conditions to have all units designated as affordable to those, uh, at or less than 80% area median income for a minimum of 20 years. All the affordable units will accept housing choice vouchers, but will not necessarily be restricted to vouchers. There are a few technical modifications to zoning standards that the project is requesting as part of the conditional zoning process. Uh the first one is regarding the reduction of the required sidewalk which is 10 ft wide in the residential expansion district. Uh instead the project proposes a 6 foot wide sidewalk along uh Caribou Road.

It's a very small uh portion of the property that ab butts Caribou Road. It's looks like a flag lot even though it's not technically. Um and and that will have um some limited portions of sidewalk where the property exists on Caribou Road and they'll be six feet wide. Uh the project also proposes 5t wide sidewalks internal to the site. Uh going back to that landscape buffer, uh the project is requesting a modification to encroach within that buffer. Typically um structures and transportation elements are not allowed in those buffers. Uh the configuration of the site um has the driveways and the sidewalks that connect south encroaching into that buffer for about 1,200 linear feet. Uh and the applicant's requesting a uh modification of that. uh they do propose to plant the required trees and shrubs um that are still required uh but would have portions of the transportation network in that buffer. Finally, uh street trees are proposed to be planted along Caribou Road. I think it's one street tree on each side of the driveway connection and they're being uh requested to exceed the 20 foot maximum of the edge of the pavement and uh no more than 50 feet maximum distance. A lot of that's due to the right ofway width and other site constraints that make it uh and utilities I believe that make it infeasible to plant the trees closer to the road. Uh so in regards to the uh compliance and compatibility and consistency of the project uh with codes and standards uh staff finds that the proposed residential expansion district is compatible with the surrounding zoning districts. You can see the residential zoning districts that surround the site to the north. Um the multifamily districts on the other side of Caribou

Road where the existing multifamily um units are located. And then directly to the south is Laurel Wood uh where a expansion of that was approved a few years ago through a conditional zoning process to reszone that to residential expansion. Regarding the future land use designation of the site, staff finds that that is compatible with the project which is traditional neighborhood. It's proposed as a mix of housing types including ADUs, duplexes, town homes, and multif family apartments located seamlessly together. Regarding the infrastructure, so existing transportation networks exist uh in the area to serve the project. There are minimal sidewalks on Caribou Road. Uh mainly new ones constructed as part of that Laurel Woods project exist to the south of the project site. No traffic impact analysis was required for this project due to the number of units proposed not triggering that threshold. Regarding water allocation, a letter of commitment from the water department was issued um showing that they have the capacity to serve the proposed number of new units at this project. Similarly, regarding uh sewer um capacity, a wastewater allocation approval was issued for the project indicating that the uh sewer network can handle uh the future proposed projects as well. The uh detailed storm water review is pending. Um any kind of conditional zoning approval would happen at the final technical reviews for the project. Uh a preliminary storm water engrading plan was was provided by the project and um any future final storm water plans would need to uh capture and uh retain any runoff that's generated by the change of the land use proposed for the site.

Staff finds that the project supports goals in the city's comprehensive plan, including to encourage responsible growth by providing infield development and targeted growth areas and to increase increase and diversify the housing supply by increasing the supply of housing, including affordable housing in proximity to schools, transit, and parks. Staff also analyzed the project against the Shiloh community plan 2025. Um so staff found areas where the project was in alignment with the plan and also some areas where the project was not in alignment. So this breaks down some of those um strategies and goals that are within that plan. Uh goal number land use goal number two of the plan states to provide assistance for affordable housing and home improvements and to explore opportunities for the construction of affordable housing in the Shiloh community. Uh so staff finds the project uh meets that goal and strategy. Um also regarding um the uh targeted areas for redevelopment and infill that complement existing development or uh can be supported by existing infrastructure. So staff found that um or the statement then keeping residential density consistent with the current densities allowed in the Shiloh neighborhood but also promotes some greater densities and development patterns and transition areas of the neighborhood. So this project site is outside the core area of the Shiloh neighborhood. There's not a specific area for the uh transitional areas, but um this could be seen as as one of those opportunities um outside of that core area to have more density of housing. And then a couple areas uh where the PLA project is not in alignment with the shallow community plan. The first of which is to u maintain and develop opportunities for green space um which is the creation of additional green space and tree canopy in the neighborhood. Uh the project is

proposing to meet the tree canopy preservation requirements uh but would um you know would lead to a decrease overall tree canopy on the site. Uh the second one is regarding some identification of target areas within the neighborhood for redevelopment and infill. So the plan identifies through a Shiloh community task force with the Asheville planning department or development department at the time some possible infill sites around the neighborhood. One of which was this property um before you this evening for the conditional zoning that's identified as the property off of Ardmore and Forest Streets uh which is proposed to at the time um provide single family infill opportunities consistent with the surrounding residential development. did want to provide um another data point for you all to consider. Uh we've presented some of this information before. Uh this is a excerpt from a map from the missing middle housing study uh called the anti-displacement map. Essentially analyzes uh census data and other factors that um affect the housing market and other uh considerations. areas within red are considered high vulnerability and high with high rates of change um already happening underway. And just note that this project site is outside of those identified areas in the missing middle housing study. And then I just wanted to note um that the uh project has received significant public comment um mostly concerning five main topics. So the first one is regarding infrastructure and traffic safety. Uh so the um the residents have expressed concern about the existing infrastructure uh roadways um water sewer etc. and uh safety uh

considerations regarding uh the um the perceived um insufficient infrastructure and some unsafe motorist behavior. There's also public safety and pedestrian risks identified by the community. Uh this includes the lack of sidewalks throughout the neighborhood, particularly particularly along Caribou Road uh where pedestrians and other nonh non-motorist uh users are in the roadway and therefore more uh susceptible to conflicts with vehicles. The community has expressed environmental concerns with the impacts uh proposed by the project that would lead to a reduction of the uh tree forested area of the existing site. There are concerns about neighborhood character of the proposed project in that the um multifamily proposed development would not fit the existing character of the neighborhood. And then finally, overall cumulative development impacts of this project and other approved projects including the Laurelwood expansion project that's currently under construction. Based on the compliance and consistency with the elements identified, staff recommends approval of the conditional zoning request. This is the overall timeline of the conditional zoning review. It was approved with conditions at the April 6 technical review committee. It is before you this evening for recommendation to city council with a tenative date of May 12th, which is a bit of an accelerated schedule. uh the project requested due to some um affordable housing funding application deadlines that they're trying to meet. So um if they were to receive a recommendation this evening, uh they would be before city council on May 12th for a final decision. I'm going to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Questions of staff. Um this is Commissioner Faircloth. Um, thanks Mr. Palmquist. I guess one question I had for staff was so the Ardmore Street area there is that flag pole lot or not lot flat pole lot but there there is the continuation of that rideway I guess is the word to use for it. Like is there a reason the street was stopped where it was or like what like does the city have any plans to extend that street further? I guess do you understand what I'm kind of yeah trying to ask?

Um so in the southern at the southern portion of the street um Ardmore Street exists from Caribou Road and then um the roadway itself stops at this last single family house and then there is continued kind of paper right ofway where it exists on paper but there's no actual improvement or ownership or maintenance of any any kind of roadway that doesn't exist there today. uh the project team might be able to better speak to their kind of design intent and if they explored any opportunity to connect through there. Um transportation staff did not raise any issue or propose any um information about any potential roadway extension there. Um if this project were constructed, it would kind of essentially uh kind of foreclose on on any kind of real connection through there. I mean, I suppose that roadway still could be continued since it is a right-of-way and there's no proposal to close that by the project. So, um I guess I guess there still would be a possibility to extend it, but it probably is not something that would uh would happen based on an actual transportation need.

Sure. All right. Thank you.

Can you remind me what the threshold is for uh traffic impact analysis again? Sure. So, um it's the answer the answer is it depends. Um but basically it's based on the number of units and other land uses proposed uh the type of construction whether it's like a low-rise project or a higherrise development and and where it's situated and assuming how many people would drive or not. For a similar similarly designed and cited project um in the city of Asheville, that number is typically around 200 or so units. So at 100 units, a traffic impact analysis was not required based on the number of uh trips that ve vehicular trips that were proposed to be generated during the peak travel hour.

Thank you. Is there any um recent traffic data on Caribou Road about sufficiency of service or has there been a recent traffic count done?

Not to my knowledge. Um, I don't know if we have we could look into that. Um, it's not something typically in the uh TRC reports, I don't have that data readily available. Um, so I'm honestly not sure if we could look into that a little bit more. Yeah, I think you know notwithstanding motorist behavior issues, we did we received a lot of public comment regarding um the width of Caribou Road relative to the type of um traffic it receives. A lot of pedestrian traffic because there's no sidewalk adjacent to it. um and motorists going through four-way stop signs. Understanding that there's no TIA to kind of anchor transportation improvements. Just curious if there's any um city consideration about what might be desirable to see as more development and more residents um use that already wellused road.

Right. Yeah. Uh we did we did check to see if there was any um capital improvement projects or or the like proposed for Car Road as far as any sidewalk construction goes. It is not currently in the pipeline. Um that is those are always being re-evaluated and new projects are being you know considered around the city for new sidewalks. Um so it's potential that um through the planning process that happens for capital improvement projects this could get added to the list. Um, that's typically how new sidewalk construction happens along an entire corridor. Uh, but as of today, it is not in that project queue. Uh, to the point about the width of Caribou Road, um, it consistently measures when the vegetation is cut back about 18 feet wide. Um, in some places it it does measure a little shorter than 18 feet. And I was wondering if if city transportation has any concerns about fire apparatus fire access noting noting all the other comments about no no other sidewalk or adjacency for people to get off. It just seems kind of like a crowded situation.

Um we did not receive any comments uh from fire transportation regarding the existing width of the roadway. Um but it is it is true that it is um you more narrow than what our what today's standards would be which is not uncommon for lots of many parts of the city that were built um before our our current standards of construction. Um but we did not receive anything specific from fire um regarding any concerns about using the roadway to access the site for any uh firefighting purposes. uh this you know the project itself um complies uh based on the conceptual plan with fire access based on their internal roadway network and this and the like. Um but no comments were made about the existing um uh transportation network offsite as far as that goes.

And uh what about road striping? So it's a an unstriped road. At what point do roads become striped? Is that a product of volume of traffic, road width, or other factors? Honestly, I'm not sure. Um, could be a combination of all of all three to be honest. But, uh, we could check in with transportation and get more clarity on kind of the rationale for that for sure. Yeah. Any other questions for staff before we invite the applicant to

Yeah, just one quick point of clarification. This is Commissioner Brol. Um, you mentioned that I think there's 1,200 feet where the the sidewalk or road are eating into the landscape buffer. Can you just clarify for me where that's happening? And are they still like meeting um like it it's just less than 20 feet wide there? Is that right?

Yeah, that's exactly right. So it it happens mostly um here on the project site. So where this kind of bend in the property line is essentially and I'm not a designer but they had to kind of squeeze this road and sidewalk between the stream buffer where they can't put a put a road or anything and then the required landscape buffer. So that's kind of a pinch point overall. Um, so the for about 1,200 linear feet, the mainly the sidewalk, the roadway less. So, mainly the sidewalk kind of cuts through that buffer for that amount of distance. Um, I don't have the exact depth of how how deep it is. Um, but it's proposed that the plant material will just be you reallocated to that area and still have the required amount of planting. It would just be a thinner uh buffer in that specific section of the site. Okay.

So, it' be less than 20 feet wide in that section. Okay. That seems a lot less than 1,200 linear feet right there, though. No. Yeah. We We can ask the applicant to confirm if there's any other areas that have been identified, but that was the main um the main area there. Other questions or clarifications for staff before we hear from the applicant.

I mean, there's so you asked you you mentioned to Sher's question about the striping that you know you can get back to us. I guess I'm I'm assuming that's not an option during the course of this meeting, right? That see what I can do. Yeah, it's uh I won't I won't say never. So, okay. Now, I think uh I'm gonna I'm gonna see if uh some of my colleagues know and some folks might be tuning in to watch might might be able to answer on the phone a friend hotline. Um so yeah, I'm happy to reach out and and do some researching and if I find anything, I'll let you know. Um,

one last technical question for you and I'll pick this back up with the applicant in a bit, but um, the interior roadway shows a stream crossing with a covert um, that is currently continuously day lit stream. So, how does the city analyze that covert and whether it's sufficient to handle flow volume especially, you know, in the aftermath of Helen?

Yep. So outside my expertise, but my understanding essentially it's based on the calculated volume of that stream. Um maybe with some plus or minus built in for heavier rain events and then if the covert can um handle that volume of water at a certain percentile. Um that's my that's the extent of my knowledge on on that. Uh I'm sure the applicant can speak a little more about that. Um but it is it is a very uh scientific and mathematical um calculation based on based on the width and the volume of the existing stream for the most part.

Have there been any discussions or changes in city standards as a result of you know lessons learned from Helen? Um or is this something that's pretty standard? There have not been any changes to it to my knowledge. Um, so, um, I think it's the standard, uh, requirements would would apply here. Thank you. That would probably be part of the UDO and SSDM update. Yeah. Any other questions or clarifications for staff?

Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Uh, we'll now invite the applicant to introduce yourself into the mic and share anything that you'd wish to about this project. Thank you, chair. Good evening. My name is Derek Allen. I'm a land use attorney at Allen Stalin Kilborn. Uh we've been working on this project with staff and uh with the neighborhood and with the development team. Um this project is uh right in front of the the project that's coming after, the one that's on Sweeten Creek. um they are uh geographically similarly located and that's important to uh this process with both of these projects. Uh these projects uh are going through the North Carolina housing finance um uh and going through as tax credit projects. With those they have programming requirements, they have supportive services, educational components and this is allow allows them to maximize the efficiencies uh for providing those um services that are required under that to two different sites uh with 226 units across those two sites without overloading one site uh with too many units. Uh this particular site is 100 units spread out over 9.5 acres which is 10.5 uh dwelling units per acre uh which is about 40 units uh an acre uh less than what's allowed under residential expansion with an affordability component. Um staff's gone over the affordability piece. Uh it is 100% affordable housing. We all know that we no longer have a Luigi program. uh and our uh city has made it clear that uh for city county funding for uh the community foundation dogwood funding um it needs to be a tax credit project in order to get th those matching funds and so that's why we're seeing these kinds of projects come through. Um we think they're important um and we think they're important for the community and every study that has come out in the last 5 years has told us that we need those things. We need we need housing.

We need affordable housing. We need missing middle housing. And it's got a little bit of all those things. We need anti-displacement uh here. There are no dwelling units that will be eliminated uh and only dwelling units that are going to be added to this project as well as the one that you'll see on Sweeten Creek in a moment. Another thing that I wanted to point out about this particular site is it's been thoughtfully uh laid out to provide a transition uh from the south to the north where you have Laurelwood uh at the bottom of your screen there on the right. Uh Laurelwood is a four-story project that sits up on a hill. Uh we have it so that the tallest part of our project uh faces uh the Laurelwood project. Uh our project sits down in a hill. And I'll let Chris Day from uh Civil Design Concepts go over the relative heights uh to to show how that works. uh from south to north as we transition towards the existing single family structures. We go from our three four split uh to a one-story product which consists of those town home units uh as well as a one-story clubhouse which which is where that supportive services programming uh will be provided along with the playground. Similarly, uh the transition theme uh applies as you come from uh east to west. Uh you've got the Norfolk Southern Railroad that bounds uh this property on that eastern boundary. On the other side of that, you have property that is currently zone CI um and industrial to the north of that uh with an existing mobile home park. And the other side of that you've got uh Sweeten Creek. Um, we do have other members of the development team here that I want to let uh talk about uh uh uh both what Penrose, which is the development company, does uh that's Will Xin uh as well as Chris Day is here from Civil Design Concepts to walk us through uh the site plan and answering some of the technical questions that's that have already come up. Uh, and I'll go ahead and say that in terms of the existing

roadway improvements in the neighborhood, uh, we're all for those. And to the extent that we can be helpful in pushing our city council to push forward those kinds of improvements in places like this, uh, we will do, uh, anything that we can. But, um, we can't look ahead 2, three years down the line for projects that uh, need to be approved before they could be funded, before they could be built uh, and say we don't have the infrastructure for those projects yet. Um, but we need to do it while we are uh having those projects come through the system. Um, Will, if you would come up, I'd like for you to talk a little bit about uh Penrose and and why you're here.

Yeah. Good evening. How are y'all? Uh, I'm Will Exin. I'm the regional vice president for Penrose. Um, and I'll tell you a little bit about Penrose. Penrose is the national affordable housing developer. Um, it's been around for about 50 years. um over the course of that 50 years has developed about 27,000 units of housing. And so um you know, this is what we do. Affordable housing is our priority. It's our focus. Um you know, it's um it's where we go in and we serve the communities. Um and we're excited to be here in Asheville. Um and and excited to field you you guys questions and and explain more about um you know, Pinrose and then the specific uh requests that we have here today. Um, I've met with some of you guys and answered a lot of questions and uh, happy to be here tonight to continue to answer those questions. Um, one of the things I think that really sets us apart as a developer um, is that we're not just kind of coming in and developing um, for the short term. Um, we're we're long-term uh, owners, operators. Uh, we manage our own properties. We're building the right way and we're really committed to the communities where we serve. Um, part of that commitment comes through, uh, the services that we provide and the staffing that we have. Um, you know, on a lot of our sites, we have community impact coordinators who work well within the community to identify um, social services programs and other nonprofits that may be able to kind of provide residents um, you know, the resources that they need to be able to kind of thrive in our communities, not just survive. Um and so our approach to development is really about, you know, holistically um addressing the the residents and um serving them in a way that meets them where they are. Um so we're real excited. I mean, the the opportunity to be able to have multiple units across two different um communities is is is important to us and and we feel like we can come in and and um really make an impact. Um this will be, you know, we're doing a lot of

development across the region in the southeast and Atlanta and Tennessee. Um we we serve our communities through partnerships oftent times. will work with, you know, larger health care systems and do partnerships and provide resident services and access to health care and transportation um and and different pieces of the puzzle that, you know, it's not really just about the sticks and bricks because I think anybody can put together and build that um but it's really about the the comprehensive approach to the way that we um you know, develop and serve the residents and the communities where we um where we build. So excited to be here. I know that y'all probably have lots more questions, but I know we have technical um address some of the more technical questions and then I I'll be here all night. So, thank you all for the opportunity.

Good evening. Excuse me. Good evening. My name is Chris Day. I'm with Civil Design Concepts. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. And as they said, the technical will actually said the scientific and technical um part that uh that I'm here to help with. I'll do my best. Um let's see here. I'll just pull up a I think the site plan does a good job. Um a lot of this stuff was covered. I'm here mostly for questions, but I want to point out a few things. As discussed, um all of the units on the north side of the building, those are singlestory residential um low density in terms of just fourunit town home um product buildings. We pushed the um multi-story buildings to the south adjacent to the Volunteers of America Laurel Woods project. um always trying to push everything towards the the railroad and as far away from the existing um single family homes that uh that come off of Caribou. Furthermore, we took the parking and um and look to kind of put it in the the back of the site so that it could um screen that area. All of the units that are proposed here, um, their elevation, proposed elevation sits down below any of the existing homes that are out there today. Um, I think that's kind of a a key thing to note. Um, during the neighborhood meeting, we heard a lot of folks um who like Ardmore. There was a question about why we were not connecting on Ardmore. Um, topographically, we could connect there. It's it it works. We don't we don't have any any reason. Um and the rightway is there. We just didn't need to do it technically and we heard a lot of

concerns about impacts on Ardmore. So that's why we kept our focus to just um out there to to Caribou. Um the existing project that is under construction on Ar uh that's on the Laurel Woods property to the south that is uh it sits about 40 feet above Ardmore. So when you're on Ardmore, you look up at it, you see a giant 16 plus foot wall. You then see the building on top of it. um from those ho the house that's at the end of Ardmore our multi even though we have a multif family building our floor sits 20 feet below that so the house at the end of Ardmore you go through the buffer that we have for landscape buffer there and over about 200 feet and then we're at about the same elevation as the third floor or the top floor of the multi-story building. Um I'm looking at some of the other questions that had come out of it. Um all of our uh storm water the we we recognize that uh to construct this housing that we're building some we're building built upon area impervious surfaces. We um are managing all of that increase in runoff with underground um storm water systems under the parking areas where we can both treat the water for the quality, clean the water up as well as slow the water down before it's discharged back into the creek. Um fortunately, we have a creek on site and then it um discharges to the west or to the east um towards the railroad and goes under. Um, Commissioner Barton, you asked about the covert and so we will use scientific and technical methods to size that, but it is um, sorry. Well, I'm going to keep using that term. I like it.

Scientific to me. Um, so at the end of the day, um, whether it be from Helen or whether it be from all of the the the ordinances that we currently have on the books for storm water, we use, um, historical data that Noah provides us to and and the state of North Carolina kind of gives recommendations to understand what rainfall amounts are associated with different frequency storms and then those coverts um, that covert will be sized appropriately. Um the uh the benefit here is we do have some we do have some elevation there in terms of being able to create um an oversized pipe or you know what seems feasible. At the end of the day it's not a long stretch of pipe. So being able to go in there and analyze and understand all right from the city's perspective this is what the minimum is. This is what we could also do just with you know kind of making wise decisions about what we know and and what we've got there. um whatever we design and propose there, that will be part of the storm water review that the city of Asheville's technical staff will review and approve as part of the uh future construction drawing permitting. The um we are asking for a couple of technical modifications. Um those are really um primarily associated with um reducing some of that surface area, those sidewalks internal um where we don't where we're not out on the main road. And so we're we're asking to reduce those sidewalks and width from 10 feet in the code down to 5T. Um and then the buffer encroachment. I think that you ask a very good question about the 1,200. as um as I've gotten my head into it, um I think that's something we'll come back. I don't feel we did submit that in my my technical staff team in

terms of airing on a side of um being conservative. Um we are not proposing to reduce any landscape material. Um and I really think and this drawing kind of shows it well. You can kind of see where the sidewalks are encroaching. This green line is the buffer. Um, we were in we were including in that linear footage even the driveway entrance which is an allowable encroachment. We were including a lot of this sidewalk that's right on the edge which as I read the code I think is an allowable encroachment into that buffer. Um, so I think the technical modification is probably significantly less um than what it's listed out in these conditions. That's something that we'll go back and double check as we as the project moves forward so that we we have that um clean and clear. We we kind of aired on the side of um maybe asking for more than I think if the the way the code reads. All that to say, like I already stated, we're not looking to reduce the amount of material. We're still looking to provide the same. Um I

had some trouble hearing you on that last point. Can you I'm sorry. I had some trouble hearing you on that last point. Can you repeat that?

We are not looking to reduce any of the plant material. Um, and so our our goal would be to maintain the the to provide the same buffering that is listed in there. And I what I was trying to clarify is the code does allow some encroachments into the um landscape property buffer such as retaining walls and pedestrian paths. And I think we were probably airing on the side of being conservative and counting more and so we have less of an impact. This it's less of a technical modification than than we're requesting there. The other thing with that technical modification is you can see where this driveway comes through here. Some of that was um trying to also balance that with existing riparian buffers on that stream and not try to we didn't want to push the road further over there. So, um trying to find kind of the the best spot to create good vehicular and pedestrian connectivity throughout the project while balancing the ability to provide a buffer as well as per reserve the riparian areas. So, on this drawing. It looks like the main driveway is also within the landscape buffer

up here. Yeah, you you are correct. And that's a geometry issue with the fact of how wide it is, but I would defer to staff. Um it I think the unallow the entryway is an allowable encroachment into the the buffer as well. So either way, you can see at the at the end of the day, um this would be a technical modification simply because geometry-wise it's not wide enough. Our goal would be to still provide the spirit of the landscape buffer around the site.

Has there been a jurisdictional determination? We have. We've identified um we have some small areas of wetlands and then uh and jurisdictional stream at the bottom down here and uh we have some very minor impacts into that um at this stage and into the wetlands or the stream buffer. We're not proposing um we're we're not proposing to ask for a stream buffer variance with the project. to the minor encroachments are to the

to the to the jurisdictional wetlands with the Army Corps of Engineer. Um, our assessments at this point, they stay well below a national permit level. So, it's they're they're minor in in size and scale. So, yeah, I was just curious if there were wetlands based on the um the watershed and the empoundment from the railroad. So, it sounds like there are some, but there there was not significant. not significant. And we we found them much of them overlapped into the the already protected area of the city's um riparian stream buffer, but we found them, as you would imagine, kind of down in the low area here.

Uhhuh. And then I would just imagine some on the north side. Maybe your encroachments are with the duplex. I'll double check. Well, I mean, it's not a big deal. I'm just based on the the light hour available. Um Okay. Thank you. with I'm available. Any questions? We had some public comment around flooding or potential flooding. Um, can you speak to what you looked into as far as flooding on the site and from the creek that is also adjacent to the site?

Um, you have to provide a you said adjacent the not the one going through the middle. Well, it meets. Yes.

So, at this point, what we've analyzed is understanding that we're outside of any currently FEMA regulated areas. Um, and our goal was to maintain the existing pathways and and not impede those to um not impact or create additional issues. our site. While I referenced we are lower than the adjacent sites, we kind of have the benefit of a much lower area on site for the water to continue on its path and not impede that. So the we haven't done in-depth hydraulic analysis. We're staying above the areas of concern um and don't feel like that'll be an issue as we get into detailed permitting

when you Right. So it wouldn't it's not going to be required by permitting. Um but is it part of your process to look into the existing the p the size of the existing pipe going under Norfolk Southern Rideway? Right. Because I think a concern here and especially with the existence of the of the wetlands kind of showcases this um is like a backwatering effect. So, like the pipe going under Norfolk Southern, uh, I would imagine is in this day and age probably undersized, right? So, you're not impeding anything further upstream and you're allowing that to pass through your site, but I'm just wondering if if it's part of CDC's process to assess the existing pipe infrastructure on the downstream end.

So, yes, what we would do in that situation, two things. One is part of the city process is we will hold back um all post-development storm water runoff from our site to the pre-development condition. Um that is for um per the ordinance that is for the the two and 10ear storm. We will also analyze what happens in the 25 50 and 100year storm. Um if we see that the infrastructure there is um is lacking and is going to create issue then we may turn around that one solution to that would be to overdetain on our site to go above what the city requires so that we're creating more storage volume in this situation. Um, I can't tell you I can't I can't tell you today that we're gonna go change the pipe size underneath the railroad. It would be something that we would evaluate to figure out what our best way that we can um if it's an issue, how we can best address it with our project.

Yeah, I was just wondering if it was going to be a part of your process because then you're not require you're not required, right, to look at the downstream infrastructure. You're just outputting, right? You're required to measure your output. And so I'm just curious if as part of your hydraulic analysis, you were going to be measuring the impact of that pipe.

It it would be while it's not a study that we have to submit, it's still good engineering practice. So we we want to understand what's going on there. Other municipalities in North Carolina do have things like that. Um but here we don't. We just we hold back. But at the same time, we as good engineering practice, we're going to look to see what's going on there. I've got a very similar situation in the river arts right now where the downstream infrastructure needed to be upgraded. So, we're working with the city to say, "Hey, city, this is something we noticed and we're working together to improve an existing situation that's technically offsite of the project from an analysis very similar to that."

Okay. I had some questions about the uh the entrance on the driveway. Can you give me some can you shed some light on exactly what the measurements are? It looks like like it's going into the buffer zone a bit and then I wanted to know what these numbers are exactly. I'm having a little difficulty understanding. I'm sorry. I heard you ask about width dimensions, but I wasn't sure what

wide is the drive for the main entrance and then you're asking for like a technical modification so that it's only a five foot sidewalk. And so car my concern is, you know, Caribou Road is a a lot of people walk on this street and so we don't want to create like a driveway that's going to be encouraging drivers to be speeding in and out of. So, I'll have to get I can't zoom in on the display that's up here, but I will um I'll sit down and look at that dimension. What we tried to do there was provide um I I don't know the dimension off the top of my head, but what we tried to provide there was a scenario where we created a um we don't have a lot of width there, but we created we're asking for the sidewalk to be off of the road and create I think it's a six foot w five a sixoot area back. So, it creates more of a safe area for those pedestrians and it also doesn't put them right at the uh the intersection. But I can measure that when I sit back down. I just don't have it in front of me.

Yeah. Yeah, let me know. Sure.

I'll let the meeting continue. I'm sure there'll be other questions. I'll measure I'll find out the dimensions on the driveway and be able to report back as you guys have anything else. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Day. Um, I've got a question for the representative from Penrose. Uh, regarding parking. So, the minimum expectation of the city at present is 116 spaces. You're proposing 172. Can you speak to the the parking ratio that you're proposing? And

yeah, so there is some of the funding requirements have certain expectations through NCHFA um where we'll be applying for tax credits. Um and that for a family development is like 1.75 um for a parking ratio. Um we've had communications directly with the um the agency about applying for a potential waiver and um there's ongoing communication about the possibility of that which we're open to um to be able to reduce that parking um there is kind of like the um going through and getting the zoning and entitlement in place today um and understanding what that requirement is so that you can be able to ask for that waiver with that support. Um, so it's a little bit of a a timing thing from that standpoint, but we have had communications with um the agency about that.

Are you able to share what ratio you're advocating for?

Um, I can Well, I don't have that off the top of my head, but we um I mean, originally we had just gone down to the what we could fit the 1.73 um but we're open to commun, you know, to feedback on that at this point. So um understand that there is a lot of parking. The agency kind of um the way that they operate they prioritize parking in an environment where um it's really it's a you know in these urban infill settings it's less um less of a priority and really less of a need. So um but but open to that kind of reduction and kind of that's why we reached out and had those conversations a while back with the agency.

Thank you for that insight. I think you know where I'm headed with this is this is a it's a challenging site. Um you know it's a nine and a half acre site with eight.4 of disturbance or something like that and you know a stream running through it. So any way that we can create less impervious surface more green space the better. Um, so yeah, there there's other issues I'm sure we'll kind of dive into, but that that is a solutionoriented approach is trying to get a little bit more pvious area on this site. Parking reduction would be the first thing that I would um hope Yeah. to consider. Yeah, for sure. Thank you for the question.

Yeah, I'd also like to point out the other project that you have before us tonight has a a lower ratio of parking Y that you're proposing for a waiver for that on that one. Okay. Thank you. Can Can you also speak? Um I've actually have two questions for you if you could stay. If I could interrupt real quick and I'm not following my own rules on this. If we could try to introduce ourselves. This is Chair Barton just for uh the benefit of people listening. Thank you.

Commissioner Zesca. Um if can you speak to the LITC timeline? I know this is a bit of an accelerated timeline. We're just curious about um their deadlines and approval processes. Um pre-applications were due in January to the agency NCHFA and then full applications are due May 15th. So um next week and so um to be able to pursue and submit a full application to NCHFA you have to have um zoning and entitlement in place. So that's that's the accelerated time Ron to be able to kind of move forward on it.

Got it. Thank you. And um when you introduced the company, you spoke a little bit about the management. So, I'm curious if you all have any projects here, and if not, what does that look like? If this project goes through, are you hiring a team of people locally? Are you having, uh, roots here in the community that will be managing the complex? How does that look like?

Yes. So, um, we do have in-house property management, which we think, um, you know, is is really the best way to to operate. Um, and so I I think the way that we've talked about it and we've had communications internally, um, as we've identified these projects and kind of gone through an internal process of presentation and and talk about growth and expansion of PMC, which is Penrose Property Management. Um, and so the goal would always be to to hire local um and and to come into the uh come into the community and um be able to identify folks that that know the community and and um there but there's a level of oversight and there's a develop you know there's a platform there that they could um that we can lean in on until we get that um local presence in place. And so it's kind of the best of both worlds. Um, I know that Derek talked about a little bit about it, but just from an operational efficiency standpoint, being able to have two properties um, close by is is really helpful as well. Um, and it kind of a you know, property management over the last 5 years has been a really challenging business and industry. Um, faced a lot of turnover and um, and so I feel I feel proud. I know other development shops that had in-house property management that um have shed those and kind of moved to a third party property manager. Um Penrose has stayed committed to that um that goal. Um and it's really all about, you know, comprehensive approach to, you know, not just doing the sticks and bricks, but serving the residents and being able to do it in the right way. Um and so I think we bring those, you know, we've got properties, um you know, in the Northeast, down in Texas, we're across the country. And so being able to bring that experience and expertise into the community um but you know hire up locally and then train um according to the standards of Pinroes would be the goal.

Thank you. That brings up two more questions for me. Um I'm curious if you're looking at any other parcels in Asheville. And I'm also curious if only one of these that we have in front of us tonight were to go forward, would you still approach it the same way as far as having local pro proper uh management?

Yeah, we did. I mean, we reviewed um you know, once we kind of identify a market where we want to be um you know, I've got local ties to western North Carolina. I'm from North Carolina, born in Silva, grew up in Eastern North Carolina, and really kind of have um you know, my my goal at Penrose is to kind of like introduce the Penrose platform. Um so these are the first properties that we would have developed in Asheville. Um but at least from that standpoint, we we looked at a bunch of different sites and I would say, you know, we decided to enter the market. You know, there's been kind of widespread support. Um well I guess first of all there's identification of a need for you know affordable and workforce housing. You guys have done a lot of work in that space and um and and and are supportive of it and putting policies in place and funding in place that are encouraging that. So um being able to identify a market where there is a need and then there's also local support is important to us um and uh and and kind of gives us a little bit of the green light to move forward. we say, "Hey, this is a place where affordable housing um is not only needed, but is welcomed and and that you've got the the leadership in place to kind of um support that." Um so, you know, that is one of the things that when we've talked about just from a market perspective, being able to come in and kind of commit.

Hi, Commissioner Anelo. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Uh you mentioned that there were a lot of uh kind of community benefits that your company will give. You said like connections to healthcare.

So typically you know across our portfolio we employ um community impact coordinators on on site um on staff and so that's outside of the property management. It's outside of maintenance staff. It's really um I consider them a liaison between our residents and the community and the services that are needed to support our residents. And so oftent times um you know those folks will will be on staff and um identifying needs of the of of the residents that we're serving. Um you know oftentimes we say you know they'll they organize various events and um you know within the community based off of um what the needs are. But you know we oftentimes don't go try to recreate programs because oftent times there are programs within the community that are doing well but we try to create that connection for the residents to say that we can leverage those. So you it can you say what programs you're considering specifically for this site?

Um I mean in general for Penrose I mean it's everything from you know I would say from this specific site we would probably look to the residents to kind of help define those programs over the course of the development. But historically across our portfolio um you know in Atlanta we've built housing adjacent to healthcare clinics. we've built um where all residents have complete access to the adjacent healthcare clinic through um Mercy Care. Um you know the the um you know we'll have daycarees on site depending on um at one of our projects in Delaware. So it's really kind of defining the services based off of the resident populations and needs and meeting them where they are. So I wouldn't want to say commit to this today until we kind of get into a little bit more and past this in you know initial process. Okay,

this a commissioner cycle. So to that point, I was going to ask a very similar question about community, not only creating community within the apartment complex or the renter complex itself, but how does the how does your firm plan to in uh weave within the fabric of the larger community, right? Um it's very tight-knit community there and I'm wondering you talked about kind of leaning on them. I was wondering how that process has gone so far with your communication with that with that neighborhood and that community. Well, I mean what I could say is that there has been outreach to the community and we've offered to come and have meetings and sit down and we haven't um that hasn't been reciprocated thus far and I've done work and development work in other communities. Um and you know I think it's a continual outreach right I mean it's a continual process. Um, oftentimes folks that aren't necessarily based in the community and don't live in the neighborhood or there's going to be a lack of trust. You're coming in, you're proposing something different. There hasn't been housing on the site um in a in a long time. So, I mean, what I can say is I mean, we're getting ready to hear from a lot of the community, right? And so, I welcome the opportunity. I've got my contact information available um and there has been outreach um but we just haven't had, you know, that hasn't been reciprocated yet. So our goal is to kind of um you know if you know when this moves forward you know have community engagement opportunities, sit down, talk um um and um we but we welcome the opportunity and to engage and and kind of sit down and and hear people. So you you got to listen and so I'm here to listen.

Thank you. Yeah. Kind of following on that um this is Chair Barton. Um yeah,

the you know, we'll we'll hear from members of the community. We've already received significant written comment. It it appears to be the one uh nod to community concern was disconnecting from Ardmore. Um and I might put out there as uh Commissioner Faircloth has earlier that connectivity is is actually really important. Um as Mr. Palmquist mentioned in the future land use um map designation of traditional neighborhood seamless connectivity between single family duplex ADU and multifamily is is the aspiration of traditional neighborhoods. So, um, just curious to hear your thoughts a little bit more on on that connectivity and creation of community because the the one nod to immediately adjacent neighbors is to disconnect and isolate a little bit and and from a practice that doesn't work, right? I mean, historically, we know isolation doesn't work. Um I I mean I'll go back to the original I think and I'm trying to remember when we had that first um community meeting online and there was you know there were there were you know voices on that call that talked about that connectivity and not wanting to see it. I can't remember if we had originally had that um connected. Um but I'm all for connectivity, right? I mean I I I think we're open to that. I think um based off of the initial feedback that we had gotten in that public hearing um that I think that that was the reason that we decided to kind of like um you know take that feedback seriously and cut it off. But I think you know sometimes the loudest voices in the room aren't representative of an entire community. Um and I know that I think we all know that. And so um from that standpoint I think uh I think you know further engagement on it and understanding what is you know what is the desire um which was I think was our

initial concept I think I agree with it. So we're open to it. I I appreciate that and you know this may not be a universally popular opinion but we have a as shown which is the project that is before us to make a recommendation on we have 84 apartments that are across a stream from the primary access. So, you know, we learned from Helen that resilient systems are redundant systems and providing a secondary access point if even just for pedestrian access or emergency access is is really critical. You know, the bus infrastructure is at uh Forest Street and Caribou Road. So understanding there's you know private property between this site and Forest Street that may present a difficult access point but Ardmore certainly provides a closer access point to bus facilities for future residents. So one opinion on this commission is that connectivity would be um you know a really strong component to to improve what we're looking at. I do think it's incumbent on us to sort of consider, we're going to be making a recommendation whether this is reasonable in the public interest and consistent with the city's approved plans. And so whether 100 units on this site fits that description is is I think the task at hand. But but if if it's determined that it is, I I feel like connectivity is really important.

And and to that point, I know that we have even talked about as a team, you know, pedestrian connectivity at Forest Street, right? and and and looking at that as an option depending on that private owner. That may be a little bit more complicated, but you know, to your point, vehicular connectivity um up at the top and then down through our board and then we've also discussed whether um pedestrian connectivity at Forest Street might be an option. Any immediate a reminder, if you could speak into the microphone a little bit more, it doesn't it doesn't activate at all. So even if you're speaking loudly, it doesn't turn on unless you're close to it. Yeah. Thank you. Understood. While you're at the mic, Mr. Palmquist, any immediate feedback from the city on increased connectivity over which over that which is shown in the current plan?

Sure. I mean from a comprehensive plan perspective, uh increased connectivity would be I think generally well supported even as you mentioned if it's just a pedestrian connection through that roadway. um might still need to go through a more technical review to make sure it's feasible still at a staff level. But if it was something that the applicant agreed to, um it could be a condition of approval pending technical, you know, approval of the of the connection there. But I think staff would generally support uh more connectivity um especially given the existing roadway roadway network there that's adjacent. I appreciate the feedback. So, thank you.

Any other questions or comments for the applicant before we open for public comment?

I wanted to clarify a couple of items. One um while you made reference the there is an um a property issue with a pedestrian connection at Forest, but Ardmore works really well. So we have no technical um from our side in terms of topography and access to be able to provide pedestrian connectivity to Ardmore um is something that from a civil engineering side is is feasible for the project. Um the the vehicular um elimination was really based upon a lot of conversations with the uh hearing the concern that uh that will spoke of at the neighborhood meeting

as it relates and then you said you would not be able to provide pedestrian access to Ardmore. I'm saying technically it works. Okay. Technically it works. Pedestrian. Pedestrian Ardmore. Correct. Ardmore. Yeah.

To Ardmore. I'm saying from a civil engineering perspective, it is feasible for us to create a pedestrian connection there. The um the other question you asked, our driveway uh width is 24 ft for the standard road. Um, we have a uh we're meeting the city standard requirement where it ties in the it's a 24T driveway that hits a about 53 foot of property at the frontage of Caribou. Um, there is a 6-ft sidewalk that is proposed. So, um, the typical standard would be like a a 5-ft vegetative strip with a 5-ft or bigger sidewalk depending on the the road classification. In this situation, we're requesting a 6ft sidewalk that's up against the road just due to the um minimal amount of rideway that's there um and the and the infrastructure.

Can you talk about Well, I've got you here. Um can you talk about the um so there's the you had said that like usually the standards to have like kind of a gap uh between the right of way and then the sidewalk so there's pedestrian safety but can you is there any safety considerations for pedestrians who are walking near the driveway not necessarily the right of way like what considerations since the because the standard was for like 10 ft and then the technical modifications for six. So, is there just what safety considerations are being thought through for people walking on the sidewalk?

No, I mean really it's it's a matter of um trying to match what future sidewalk could fit there as opposed to taking the sidewalk and bringing it recessing it back into our property with a large vegetative strip um along that small section of caribou. Um there's no rightaway for any future connectivity on the end. So we've pulled it up to the frontage of Caribou, but made it wider than a standard 5-ft sidewalk to create a little bit more of a pedestrian safe a wider sidewalk, but we are not proposing it to 10. um internal to the site. We have kept that gap so that vehicles that there's a vegetative strip between vehicles and where the pedestrians would be walking. We have kept that gap. Ju

just to make sure I'm clear, this is Chair Barton. So the 6 foot width portion is within kind of the radius of the road. It really is. There's barely any sidewalk at all. So correct. Okay. Yeah. Can you speak to this is Commissioner Bolt. Can you speak to any um like independent traffic analysis that you've done of like vehicular trips generated or anything like that?

No. Um at at this stage um we have not engaged a um professional engineer. We've used uh just the the city staff and and previous projects. We do have the um access to the IT trip generation manual which is what those studies are based off of which is also what the um the city threshold is based off of and just looked at it to verify that this project stays well below the threshold of 100 peak hours. So I don't recall what they were somewhere in the 30 to 40. I don't remember if that was in the AM or PM, but the city's trigger for doing a in-depth study is 100 peak hour trips. So, we did have conversations um and confirmation from technical staff at the city that it was that this project fell below those thresholds.

You think it's roughly in the 30 to 40 trips in a peak peak? I think the um I think it was somewhere in the 30 to 40 in terms of peak hour which um I would expect it to be somewhere in the neighborhood of half because I heard um anecdotally the kind of rule of thumb being around 200 with us being around 100. There's also a little bit of a difference in terms of the the IT manual gets into like lowrise which is like the single family the the the single story to the north and mid-rise is how they would classify the the units on the south side of the building. They each have different rates based upon national data that the inspert institute of transportation engineers pull together. One other quick question. Is there any lighting proposed on the in the plan?

Um while we haven't gotten into details on the lighting here, the site will have site lighting and that will be part of the detailed submitt that comes forward. We're not asking for any modifications on that. All um light fixtures on site would be full cut off um and meet the city's ordinance for no light spilling over the property line and um and full cut off shades. Okay. Thank you.

Um, Commissioner Faircloth, uh, I think the commission, the other commissioners already asked most of things on my list, but um, one thing I haven't um, heard come up that I want to ask generally, I don't know if it's which one of you on the team is, um, you know, kind of why this mix of units, you know, there's the town homes to the north, the multif family to the south, you know, why was that considered as as as the solution here? Is that a versus, you know, town homes throughout or apartments throughout? You know, why this mix? Was that a mission driven thing? Was that a economic driven thing? I mean, a sight driven thing. I'm just curious what the

I'll say from a site perspective, it worked really well. um in terms of how it was laid out and um from my my goals of laying out the site was to put the singlestory residential scale units on the north side closer to the existing homes and pulled the multif family down beside the adjacent multif family to the south in regards to overall programming. I'll let Will speak to that. Sure. Yeah,

I um I I think when we were looking at the site and kind of talking about it and kind of considering what the options may be, I think think it seemed, you know, appropriate and and thoughtful for the way that it was laid out, you know, from, you know, the single family down to the multif family, um more traditional multif family. Um and I think just from a a density standpoint, it seemed appropriate, um you know, based off of, uh the acreage that was there. And then um and then you know overall that's layered in with you know considerations for you know financing requests and you know feasibility um and being able to you know deliver the units and as well as operational efficiencies. So, um it seemed to kind of have the balance of both to be able to deliver on um an appropriate unit count based off of the acreage. Um and then, you know, also in trying to tie the two together um as far as the ones that um the the proposed development on Sweden Creek and and density across two properties and and not having too much on one versus the other and um appropriate density. So, it was combination of both. But, you know, at the end of the day, um, to be able to provide 100% affordable housing, you've got to be able to go out and get the the funding sources, and that it makes um it makes this unit um mix is is is most appropriate at this point for that.

Okay. Is is there a threshold number of units that you need to make it, you know, to to be eligible for the credits?

It No, I mean, not specifically for bonds. think there is a cap on bonds that if you pursue more than 200 units um for a tax exempt bond deal with 4% credits, you would have to get a a pre-approved waiver from the agency. So, anything less than that um you've got variability. Um it's a little more prescribed than the 9% funding round. Um but you go back to kind of just appropriate density, you know, the more units you add, the more, you know, from a a cost perspective and it it's more efficient from that. But you don't want to, you know, you don't want to go in and over densify an area that is not appropriate for it.

And one additional question related to that is there um are are the two projects like financially contingent upon each other. Um I mean I wouldn't say not not from a funding application perspective like they're separate. Um but at at this point we we kind of view them through an an efficiency standpoint and being able to approach it um from a development perspective. So um but you know technically no. Thank you. There are a lot of other people that are going to want to talk about me but I'm happy to answer any more questions.

Any further questions or comments for the applicant at this time? So I can answer afterwards as well. I'm not going anywhere. I have a question for staff if that's okay. Sure. Okay. Um since we uh on Caribou road since we don't currently have a there isn't a current plan for um like a sidewalk development. If you know future plan was created for that given that this is a traditional neighborhood, what would what would like a sidewalk route like that look like? would in terms of like specifications for like things. Sorry. Can you repeat the question please? So like Yeah. What would a future sidewalk look like on Caribou potentially?

Yeah. The type of specifications just so that like if this uh I think on a roadway like that it would it would be our standard um SSDM requirements which is different than the residential expansion zoning requirements of 10 feet. So it would typically be 5t wide with an 8 foot wide sidewalk or planting strip. Um, but it would it would come down to like the design of the project and if the capital improvement department was designing it, there might be other considerations, but I think a five foot wide minimum within a planting strip of about maybe 8 ft. Okay. Yep.

I hate to speculate and I wouldn't want you to speculate either. Sorry, this is Commissioner Cycle. Um, is it a possible reason why uh this area has is not in the CIP, the capital improvement plan for for sidewalks is the is uh the reduced rideway width. I mean, it doesn't look like there's much room as far as rightway. And I would imagine that the city of Asheville would have to acquire rightaway in order to put sidewalk in on this road.

That would be a major consideration. I think if any project is acquiring the land to build the sidewalk on, um I don't know if it's been investigated or studied as being feasible. Um that is certainly a challenge is the existing lack of right of way to put a sidewalk in today. Um, but I'm I'm not sure of like if if it's been evaluated, if there's numbers out there and and feasibility and priority. Um, since we need sidewalk all over the city, um, it's uh it's it's it's a process to work through that. So, it is hard to say, but I I do agree that the lack of right of way in that area makes the project challenging and potentially costly to do. Does staff know how far out the capital improvement plan looks? Because I know it's not on on there now, but is there is there a a window?

I don't I don't know. Is it five or 10 years? Um I'm not sure. We can we can find out for sure. See if I can find it real quick. But uh and I'm just wondering if it would be safe to say that since it's not on there currently that it would be at minimum that amount of time before sidewalks get get put in here most likely. Okay. And there's always, you know, transportation bonds periodically can supplement the

day-to-day capital improvement plan, but given the constraints that you've identified, it it I think the base assumption should be a sidewalk along Caribou Road is project never, you know, I mean, there is not a feasible plan at this point to put in a sidewalk even though it has been identified as a community need for for many many years.

Yeah. What I would say is it's not on the current capital project plan and um we don't currently have access to to know if there's any sort of queue or waiting list. So um that's that's a safe assumption. It's not within the current plan window. And to that same end, um when we with our current climate in terms of no Luigi program, no other local uh program that is going to support any kind of affordable housing projects, it seems like uh a really good use of our city funds uh and those kinds of uh grant funds uh in terms of affordable housing to support uh private developments coming in and trying to offer those types of projects. So, I think that's that's what the narrative that I would like to see as we're looking into this and trying to get it onto some kind of future programming. And I was going to also say I had some other things uh to bring up in our outline, but I think we've uh blown through most of those uh with your affirmative questions and and I'll save any other further comments from the project side for rebuttal uh and let these folks uh get their comments in just in the uh for expediency. Thank you. Thank Thank you, Mr. Allen. Um shall we open for public comment? Um so to anything else?

No. Yes. Okay. Great.

Um so as I mentioned earlier, I'll uh go through the sign up list at the end of uh people who have signed up and indicated an uh a desire to speak during public comment. I'll I'll leave it open for anybody who wasn't on the list to uh to come up. Please uh be mindful of repetitive comments. You know, it is uh it will get very lengthy if we hear the same comments over and over. We're really eager to hear your insight as neighbors and community members, but let's try to keep the comments um you know, specific to your experience and your concern or um lack of concern as the case may be. I'll also mention I do have the public comment signup sheet. I noticed um two people signed up for the 35 pond road item and we did continue that item. So I want to make sure if somebody is still here for 35 Pond Road that item has been continued to a future meeting. So if you'd like to you may leave and my apologies if you stayed through the meeting this long. Um with that we will open for public comment at 6:46. The first person signed up on the list is Michael Boss or Bossi.

And then just a reminder that uh public comment for individuals will be limited to three minutes. So I'll be keeping time. And then if you're here to represent a group of um three or more people, we just need to know who you're representing and you can have 10 minutes total. And and to that end, uh yeah, for people that are being represented, they surrender their time to the speaker on their behalf. and please identify yourself if you are seating your time to the spokesperson of your group. Thank you. And please introduce yourself into the mic before you begin.

Michael Bosees. I live on Imperial Court which is in the area impacted uh by the proposed development and just thank you for taking comments today. Uh I think it's worth looking at every square inch of the city for affordable housing. First of all, it's very important and I really appreciate the developers efforts uh to look at this piece of land and they didn't have a lot to work with. Um when you look at this, even if you were putting this on Hendersonville with a stoplight uh or on any fourlane, you would say, "Do I want to be one of 175 people there who are trying to get out of that little tiny space in the morning?" What's the level of frustration going to be of how long it takes me to get out? What does it take me to get in? What am I going to be feeling like when I finally do get through that? And then you take that and you put it on caribou, which is the most important way that these people will get to either Hendersonville or to Sweden Creek, which they have to do to get to work. They're going to hit that already annoyed because of the way this is designed. And the first thing you would say is, "Well, why there's not another exit, even if it was on Hendersonville." You'd ask yourself that. And my question at the first meeting was, why don't we just go on to Sweeten Creek, which would make perfect sense. And the answer, uh, which I understand and I don't argue with because I don't know, was it's a non-starter because there's a railroad there. So, I accept that. But it's also a non-starter because we're tired of hearing that people are getting killed as pedestrians. My wife came home from a class last year early. What happened? Well, the instructor's wife was hit and killed in her neighborhood as a pedestrian.

And if this building didn't house 200 people and it was a non-starter to make the building bigger, the city wouldn't say, "Well, let's put balconies up and just put more people in there and when they try to exit, maybe somebody will get killed." So when I look at this, I say, what is the only thing that can really stand against our need for affordable housing? and that's responsible, safe development of the infrastructure. Um, I will say I'm almost out of time, but I'll say that there's this is a mile of Caribou Booker West Chapel. It's not just one area. It's a mile and we've measured it, my wife and I, with a tape measure. It's 14 to 18 ft. that doesn't include the encroachments that come from the things that are along the side or cars parked. So, it's it's just untenable in my opinion and I thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Norma Baines. Thank you. I'm sorry it took me so long. Good evening. My name is Norma Baines and I'm the liaison for the Shallow Community Association. As I sit here and and saw everything that was represented about the property, we are a neighborhood that welcome developers to come to us first and we will let you know what we would like to see in our neighborhoods. We have a 2025 plan that was passed by the city in 2010. We hope you read that plan and you know what's in that plan. And one of the things as I sit there and listen, you know, to everything about the sidewalks, uh, you know, if there are regulations for sidewalks, that's what the regulations should be, right? I mean, when you start making compensations for for different things, make the project that you want in the neighborhood to to to be in compliance. And when we start not if it's not in compliance, we have a problem with that. Caribou is a very busy street. I live on Caribou. I know. I was raised right by the property that he wants to put the development in that yellow house right there. I was raised there. I played at that stream back there. So, I know about that too also. So, I know about the

train track and all that that's back there. But we spent nine years doing a doing a plan for Shallow. We presented it to the city and they adopted in 2010. So that's what we want to see happen in our neighborhood. Single family homes. That's what we want to see. And we can do that affordable. We can do that afford if you work with us. But if you don't and then we come up with this big gyatic uh project that you want to do that really encroaches on all the residents of Shallow. It's not safe. It's not safe. Darnwood is on one side with 51 units. We are building another 54 units right next door. Across the street is another uh development that's I think it's about 30 or 38. That's all on Caribou Road. Then you're going to come right down the street. Right down the street and you're going to put a hund right there. That is not safe for any of us. And we don't know the outcome of that 54 that's being built. You don't know what the traffic is going to be like. I'm sure it's going to increase. I would think but we have to live with all those things that are being happening in our neighborhood and we want and the retaining walls that I understand that's going to be needed for this development. We don't want to think that we're in a prison somewhere. How many is it? I don't remember. But it's more than five. It's more than five retaining walls.

So, we don't want to feel like we're in a present in our own neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Next up, we have Sharon Summerl.

Hi everybody. Sharon Summer, Coalition Asheville Neighborhoods can and I've been working with the Shiloh community on trying to explain conditional zoning. So, Norma said a lot of what I was going to say, and thank you for the questions. I had a lot. I'm going to make this short. Um, the sidewalks really concern me. Uh, inside the buffer area, I mean, that's really unusual for this area. And if you've all been in this area, you see how narrow the roads are and to cram these buffers, these sidewalks in between the buffer areas with the uh the driveway. It just was uh untenable for me. Um, and if you're going to do a development, they should have worked with the uh uh neighborhood of Shiloh. Ask them what they wanted, what their 2025 plan look like, and they need to rework this development to make it fit into this area. And then um I'm concerned. I worked on the uh open uh space uh reduction through storm water with affordable housing when that went through and I'm agreeable with that. But what's going on is that what if they don't get the funding? Now, I know they have great ideas and the company that they are does a lot of funding, but what if they don't get it? We know how funding is going with lowcost housing. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. Are they going to pull up and and discontinue this? Are they going to make some of it affordable, some of it not affordable? And um and then that will affect the storm water and then that may make that whole development become untenable to build due to the cost. And then I want to say there's five retaining walls. They're about 536 linear feet, average 14t high. What which is 20% of 9.5 acres and it is going to look like a prison. That's 20% of retaining walls in 9.5 acres. So um this is not the right fit for this

community. And thank you. Thank you. Ne next next up we have Sheniqua Samuel uh who has signed up to represent a group. So if you could identify yourselves I'm just representing myself. Okay. Thank you. I'm representing the community but not in this comment. Gotcha.

Uh good evening chair and commissioners. My name is Shenika Samuel and I'm speaking tonight as neighborhood navigator of the historic Shiloh community. Shiloh is not just another piece of land on a map. Shiloh is a historic community built by generations of families who have worked hard to preserve its identity, its relationship, and its sense of home. For many years, our neighborhood has worked sidebyside with the city of Asheville to plan for our future. As mentioned, we have the Shiloh Community Association 2025 plan, and it 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 and integrity of the community. This is why so many residents are concerned about the proposed 100 unit development. The Caribou Cab the Caribou Commons project feels out of scale with the single family neighborhood that Shiloh has been for generations. It raises serious concerns, as Ari mentioned, about traffic, infrastructure, open space, tree loss, and affordability. Even the city's own technical review committee has said the developer still has major revisions to make before the full impact of the project. And they have um highlighted those today as well. So tonight, our concern is simple. How can this commission determine that the project fits Shiloh when so many important questions are still unanswered? We're asking that our neighborhood plan be given real weight as our liaison just mentioned. We are asking that the history of the community be respected. And we're asking that growth in Shiloh be shaped with us, not simply placed on top of us. Development should strengthen a community, not overwhelm it. Um, we are not asking the city to ignore growth or affordable housing. We are asking that the city honor the vision that Shiloh residents and Asheville leaders already created together. A vision that says this neighborhood legacy matters and that change should happen in partnership with the people who call this place home.

Thank you. Thank you. We have Scott Duncan. Is there a way for this to be projected before my time starts? Yeah, if you put it under that Elmo, is that the right direction? We won't start the clock until the tech gets sorted out. It looks like it might be off. Well, the red

press the red light. There's a little glare, but I don't know how to avoid that.

My name is Scott Duncan. I I've lived on Forest Street for 24 years. I'm not a public speaker. Um, I've been holding my hand up to my ear, but I do do audio video work and my hearing is pretty good, but because the room has air conditioning, it's a little boommy. It's hard to understand the trouble sounds. Um, I want to acknowledge several things. First one of the rights of the property owner to use and dispose of and whatever he wants with the property, it's his. I want to acknowledge the efforts of the design engineers with CDC and Penrose. Um, anything I say, I have no disrespect towards anyone at them in planning and zoning as well. I acknowledge the need for affordable housing. I believe in that. Part of the reason I'm living in the end of Forest Street is because it's affordable housing. It was a small house. I could afford it. I believe in that. I um I don't believe in encouraging sprawl. I've been to Atlanta. Uh I don't want to see Asheville going that route. I want to acknowledge that I don't know anything about the finances. I did hear at one point that there is a 20-year guarantee um with Penrose, but I don't know anything about that. And I repeat that I'm I don't intend anything to be disrespectful to anyone. I had several disappointments with this process. one, for example, a notice of the pre-application meeting was put at the end of Forest Street and the end of Ardmore. There's only one or two people that go to the end of Forest Street and the end of Ardmore. I was disappointed with the distance that was created where there's a 400 foot distance for notices to go out to people and anyone on the entire length of Forest Street, the entire length of Caribou and some adjoining streets will be impacted by the traffic. So, it's not really providing enough information to enough people to attend the pre-application meetings. Um, additionally, there are a lot of people that are elderly in the neighborhood and might not be able to um adjust to a computer or a Zoom meeting. Um,

I talked to um Miss Burlson with the clerk's office and she said that the there was a twoe public notice. When I called her, she said, "Well, there's going to be two weeks between the planning and zoning committee meeting and the city council vote, but it's only going to be six days." And also, the uh TRC meeting that was on Zoom was entirely without information about the Metropolitan Sisters uh sewage dis information, sewage information and water info. Um I consider most things to be a pie with slices of the pie and complexities to that. One is the UDO, the unified development ordinance. And there were a couple sections of that. One was section five 7-5-9 which said development should benefit the neighborhood. Then another was that there was a 7-8-42 and that says when a proposed project is located adjacent to residentially zoned areas and our neighborhood is RS4 pime almost predominantly 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 existing neighborhood fabric. As um someone described, it's transitioning from fourstory down to one story within the project, but that's not the existing neighborhood. That's within the project itself. M

Mr. Duncan, sorry, your three minutes are up. Are you speaking on behalf of a group? I apologize. I apologize. I'm here on behalf of Mr. um retired firefighter Charlie Biddicks. Also, Mr. King, Kevin King, and his wife on Forest Street, and Sarah Cook. Okay. Who's who are my adjacent neighbors? Thank you. I started with that. Seven more minutes. You seven more minutes. Thank you. And could you could you make sure just to speak into the microphone? Thank you. I'm not doing what I had in my head.

So, portions of the UDO are not being followed. I wouldn't I'm not sure it's a violation, and I'm I'm just encouraging not to bend the rules in in many respects. The traffic's been spoken about, so I'm not going to go into that. Um, the sidewalks have been spoken about. I did have a concern about shortcuts because the center of the project um goes right up to Forest Street. So, I it's I can't imagine people not wanting to take a shortcut. Um, there was one point about equity that one person made at the pre-application meeting, and that is the people will be paying rent and that's it. There's not going to be any home ownership. There's not going to be any equity. There's not going to be any legacy to leave property to their family or kids. It will not be building wealth that way for individuals. It will money will go to Penrose. And I know they're a large successful corporation and they've they've got accomplishments. Um there is tremendous neighborhood opposition. In a short period of time, I was able to walk down Forest Street and get uh 20 signatures and opposing this uh in a very short period of time. And the same with Caribou. People in the neighborhood are opposed to this development. This image um Mr. Day said, "Well, there's a 16ft wall." And I counted 36 courses of retaining blocks within this picture itself. 36 courses. It's a high-rise. The other thing is um they said there was a difference of 30 feet elevation in in one of the speakers, but it's a four-story building and to describe it as being lower than the adjacent hill with only a 30 foot I I find some inongruity there. And the elevated railroad burm is about 30 feet high. It's always been a wetlands. The neighbors have have lived there for a long time have described it as a wetlands. Um

it's it's a shame to de if you've seen the email that I sent to you I pointed out that there are two large tracks of primarily woodland this 9 and a half acres and there's another four or five acre approximate section and that's what remains of unbroken woods within the Shiloh community. Um it's Mr. you know, it's the owner's property, and I understand if that gets changed, but I think a a proposition that has smaller homes, um, as someone else pointed out in their um, email to the planning and zoning committee, there are potentials for having a longer term net benefit to the city in the financial side of it that I wouldn't just be able to describe accurately, but there are alternatives. Um the bowl and the topography are challenging to say the least. It hasn't been developed for a long time. The uh wildlife there is a contribution to our neighborhood quality. Um we chose this, you know, I personally chose to be there because it's the end of a dead end street. It's quiet. It's safe. It's secure. I also heard from someone saying that in a uh talk before the Shiloh community, a police officer was there talking about how there'd be cameras. So, we're going to change the entire quality and nature of the neighborhood, putting in large retaining walls, a this looks like a fortress or a citadel or people have used the word prison. Um, this doesn't fit our neighborhood. It it's really a shocking a shocking development to be looking at this. Um I don't like the idea of cameras. I don't like the idea of the bowl amplifi a amplifying the sound. You know, there's many slices to the pie. Um I do believe there are solutions. I know the city has just passed a a abandoned building ordinance and that city has a

right to um secure, repair or demolish buildings. I think there are uh instances that as we're just on the cusp of getting going with this abandoned building ordinance, there could be exploration of other options. Um placing a high density um high-rise or multi-unit lowincome housing. I don't have as much difficulty with that for the one on Sweeten Creek that has a five lane road right there and access. It's not at all the same. the uh I've I've really enjoyed seeing dog walkers, uh people with strollers. I met Amy and Winston. I met Ian with his baby. They're just walking around. My next door neighbor goes around with her 13-year-old dog. There's a lot of neighborhood coziness and friendliness and quiet and safety to it. And people don't go, you know, we're adding the 62 or the Laurelwood said it was 62 units in their website. And they also said well the uh people living there can enjoy the natural habitat but they've they've taken out a good bit of that natural area because of their addition and if these nine and a half acres are turned to imperous surfaces there's not going to be as much wildlife very very little compared to um previously. So I'm I'm encouraging the planning and zoning committee not to bend the rules for any of the any of the aspects for the buffer zones the sidewalks. don't cut that in half. I I know there has to be some bending of rules and I know compromise is part of government. So, I understand that. But representing the people um that I'm speaking for and the people I've walked up and down the street asking about it, it's really going to be difficult for us to have 160 new cars in morning and evening and, you know, 662 units. We don't know exactly how much traffic there will be, but it'll be significantly greater. Um, and I'm sure I have more to say, but I can't think of

it. So, thank you kindly. Thank you. Next up, we have Babette Maize talking my three minutes. My name is Bob. I'm different. Please speak into the mic.

I'm different from the others. I live on Rockill Road that goes through Oakley and to the other side of Sunset Cemetery and where the development is going to come onto Sweet Creek Road. Now, my problem is a little different. When we had a Zoom meeting with them at first, the first thing we did, they were very disrespectful to us as if we did not know any of the the things that they were trying to do and they were trying to railroad us and tell us they were going to do all of this and we said we didn't like it. So, they scratched it. So, they came back with another plan. And the second plan was supposed to be houses that look like our community. Because if you understand on Rock Hill Road, it's just houses. It's people that have been there for generations. It's not a big complex. Even if you go down Busby, there are some houses that look just like the homes that we have. So, whenever people start to tell us what they're going to do, it's hard for us to trust them when they change the rules. And that's what happened. So I asked you how would you feel if someone told you an untruth and they talked to you like you didn't know anything and it was offensive to us. We did express that to them. So the second time they came around the plan they had the second time we like the plan cuz it was homes and the way they had them designed because of the traffic. If you realize now the traffic on Rockill Road between Oakley going on to Hendersonville Road. I live on a side street. You don't even want to go out your house to go down that side street. There was an incident where there was a man that was coming around a curve too fast and he flipped into somebody's driveway and the man said if his wife had been if it had been an hour earlier, it would have killed his wife and child.

That's how bad the traffic is coming around in that area. So what I ask is that I know that Campbell Road is different, but it doesn't look like our neighborhood. And for people to say that you're going to work with us, that's an untruth. The people you employ will not be like us, will not be from our community. They're not going to engage with our community. They're going to set up what they're going to set up and then they're going to turn around and do exactly what they want to do. Because first of all, we know it's about the money. It was more money doing apartments than it would be to do single homes. Even if they did town houses, that would even look better than what they're trying to put up in our neighborhood. Traffic on Caribou Road, people in the afternoon, they come through Caribou Road fast. They don't see the stop signs. They just, if you ever travel that way, you would know. So, I asked you, if all of this was coming to your neighborhood, right next to your house, how would you feel? Would you feel like, okay, I'm going to stay here, or am I going to sell it? How am I going to do with my kids? I can't ride my bike. Can I have one more second? Cuz I had to walk. I had to think. One more second.

The chair. One more second. Two. Two seconds.

Okay. So what I ask is that for a continuous this should not even go to the city council. This is something that I want you all to really sit back and think about. We know that development is going to happen. But how you change our neighborhoods, how you change what it looks like. We were a neighborhood that we knew our neighbors. We won't know these neighbors renting. We won't know these people coming. They'll come in and out. Everybody has two cars at least. So traffic is going to be terrible on on Carol Road and so please think about that because I know that developers about money. We're about people. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have Kevin King. Kevin King.

Okay. Yep. Thank you. Next we have Emily Shider. Hello. Hello, commissioners and community. My name is Emily Schneider. I have lived with my family on Forest Street for almost 12 years. We've had an ongoing problem with cars driving Forest Street at incredibly high speeds. Forest Street is a narrow street with steep slopes and ditches. The Google Maps directions from the proposed development area would route most of the traffic through Forest Street. I'm terrified of adding cars from 100 more units. Um I love that we're talking about Caribou. I I walk it also. It's very important. There's no um no place out that's really safe. Um in in addition, in the summertime we experience frequent and unpredictable water outages due to leaks in the clay pipes. I am concerned about the effect the added water use from such a huge development would have um given the existing weaknesses. I am also disturbed by the lack of notice to residents. Um I walk through the intersection of Forest and Caribou most, you know, several days a week. Um and I only recently found out about this. Um so I wonder how many people still don't know. Um and that disturbs me about the accelerated timeline. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Next up, we have Bob Gail. Thank you. I'm setting my own timer so I can see what's going on here. Um, okay, it started. Sorry. Um, I want to uh not repeat a lot of the things that other people have said. The wonderful ladies from the Shiloh uh Neighborhood Association have said the things that I was going to say. Um, and I can't I won't take up more time on them, but I do um there's two things I want to do. First is introduce myself. Bob Gail. I'm um was in landscaping for 15 years. I was a wetland scientist for a number of years and I've been a forest ecologist in the mountains for 25 years uh before retiring and I served for nine years on the Asheville Tree Commission and also as its chair. So I totally understand the procedural uh methodology and trying to that you all have to deal with in trying to approve and and rule on um different projects. Uh I do want to say that uh I I hope that you will deny this zoning. Um this part I will repeat. This is a neighborhood of walkers, young families with kids, baby strollers, toddlers and or children of early men elementary age as well as senior citizens who are exercising to stay healthy. I just turned 75 and I walk the entire length from the beginning of Caribou all the way down to uh West Chapel behind the church and around back up Caribou uh as a regular thing. It's two and a half miles and it's helping to keep me

healthy but I have seen near misses um of situations. The local people most of the traffic here is local and his drivers follow the speed limits. They also know how to look out for young children, pets, and elderly or disabled pedestrians. There is some outside traffic though that uses Caribou Road to connect from Sweden Creek to Hendersonville Road which has created some safety concerns since a number of these vehicle drivers there's always some speed through ignoring the speed bumps and driving through the stop signs as you've apparently been told at Forestdale Deanwood and Imperial roads and at the Rock Hill Baptist Church at Booker Street. And there's an afterchool group that has to cross from the church to their parking lot. Uh and and it's dangerous if if uh these kids are threatened by more and more traffic coming through. Um when you take into consideration that the proposed zoning would increase that traffic, forcing it increase traffic, forcing it to use the one road that uh it can enter and exit from. And then you add that to the cumulative impacts to other developments that are happening on Sweden Creek. Um I think that's a a major concern especially since probably the development on Sweden Creek will use the Caribou Road uh connection to Hendersonville more than any more than getting on the interstate to get to Hendersonville Road because it's so convenient. So these things really concern me. I also um okay I also am concerned by the impermeable surfaces construction surfaces and the tree canopy loss 95% of the trees uh down to 10% protected uh that I can tell you from landscaping that won't make up for

the forest loss and the transpiration value of those trees pumping uh water out of the ground which helps control runoff. I I guess my time is up. Thank you. So, I will stop. But thank you. Please think carefully about this. All right. Next up, we have Michael Spiel. Uh Mr. Chair, if we could, we're hitting the overflow room after our next commenter. So, if we could start going ahead and saying who's next up after the current

Okay. So, we next we have Michael Spiel and then the following is Jeff Alexander. So, if you want to make your way down. Thank you. Hello commissioners. My name is Michael Spali. You've seen me before. Um I'm here in standing in opposition to this conditional zoning request and I wanted to draw draw a couple um points of attention. There's been a lot of discussion around sidewalks. Um, as many of us know and some of us don't, Shiloh does have a community plan uh with the city. And in that plan, it clearly states sidewalks along Caribou Road as well as Rockill Road um dating all the way back to 2005. So, that kind of kind of gives us a perspective of what's out there. Um, with that said, it also uh mentions just a couple couple stats I wanted to just throw out there, which everybody has access to because of the internet. Um RS4 RS5 zoning is roughly 600 acres of Shiloh. RM8 and RM16 zoning medium density and highdensity multifamily is a combined 38 39 acres and we're asking to create nine more acres. Um again so juxiposition over 65% is single family homes and with that being said you know we we revert back to legacy neighborhood and this is a community and neighborhood. Um I'm fortunate to have purchased my house in this neighborhood. I know many of the neighbors in this room and what I'm getting at is I don't know

anybody in Apple Dorne that's right by my house and nine Brad Street and these folks are just going to be transient. They're not going to be part of the neighborhood. Um they don't Apple Dorne doesn't come to the neighborhood association. So dropping this in in an RS4 RS8 zoning, I mean it's RS4 here, but we have RS8. It's the juxiposition is way off. It doesn't fit. And I'd like to go into um transitional area. So that was mentioned um city planner kind of was vague. Didn't know what it mean. uh attorney gave a very my opinion opinionated term towards what it meant in this development. Through my professional career um working in the city and through my travels a transitional area would be found along Hendersonville Road or Sweden Creek Road. If you look at the over 40, you know, dissenting opinions that were submitted, not a single one of them is across the road on Sweden Creek. They're all for this one here. So, a transitional area, apartments, town homes go on major roads, not a small road like Caribbean.

Thank you. Thank you. So, next up we have Jeff Alexander. And then next on the list is Deborah Goen. My name is Jeff Alexander. Um, I am a resident of the Bueno Vista community. That's the community that's just north of Shiloh. Um, it's been there for 70 years. Shiloh's been there for 150. Um, I have a disabled teenager and two children under the age of 12. Um, I just want to mention a situation that occurred in February of 2025. Um, I had left my house and was had stopped at the stoplight um, down the road on Imperial Court. And when I pulled out, I was struck by another vehicle that was traveling double the speed limit with no lights on. That person left the scene. And so that fell on me to take care of the situation. It cost over $6,000 of caused over $6,000 of damage to my vehicle. Uh, another neighbor on I think it's Deanwood um parked their vehicle on the main road. Her vehicle was struck from behind and that person fled as well. Um, so those are two situations that have occurred within, you know, a year of each other. Um, I walk the neighborhood all the time. Um, I see people speeding profusely, uh, throwing trash out the window and running the stop signs. Um, I don't know if, uh, um, Mr. Reigns will be here today, but he took a video. I don't know if he's submitted that to you guys, but it's constant all day, every day people running the stop signs, and that's with the existing traffic um load that we already have to deal with. Um let's see, see, I also want to mention that in our neighborhood um there are uh over half dozen to a dozen new families with young children. Um so the the neighborhood that we're in is changing. So there is

more younger people moving there um walking with their children. Um so the increased traffic load from this uh project would be could be catastrophic and um I don't think any of us want to see those kind of things happen. Um let's see. Everybody's already talked about the the other issue there. Um the other thing I want to say is that this seems to be unprecedented. I don't know um the whole history of Asheville, but I've never come across such a large uh project being dropped in the middle of a community like this. Um just like Michael said, um there's no access to Hendersonville Road. There's no access to Sweeten Creek Road. The only access to this project would be coming through our neighborhood, through the streets that we live on. Um let's see. The other thing I want to mention is that um the gentleman behind me um I appreciate their insight and everything, but they've done nothing to address our concerns um in their comments. It's all about, you know, the project itself, the the visual aspects of the the projects, but they're not really doing anything or mentioning anything to address our concerns, which I think traffic is one of the bigger concerns for for a lot of us. Um um that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. So next next we have Deborah Goen and then uh after Deborah is Allison Phillips.

Hi. Uh I live on Caribou Road. I'm going to be really brief. Um I second all of the concerns that have been raised. Um, I just want to give you a concrete example of um, just navigating Caribou Road. When the city bus is coming down the road in certain areas of Caribou Road, I have to stop my car and kind of pull to the side. Otherwise, I might hit the bus or they hit me. So, I just want to illustrate how narrow the road is and how dangerous the situation could be by adding all these cars. So, thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Allison Phillips and then following is Eric Shidier.

Thank you guys for taking the time to host uh the community here today as well. My name is Allison Phillips and I'm a resident of Deanwood Circle. I've been there since 2015 and I am raising my 9-year-old and my seven-year-old there and we love our community in what we call Buenav Vista, kind of that southern portion of Shiloh. Um, I practice dermatology. I'm a Girl Scout troop leader. I am a taxpayer and I'm a member of the city of Asheville. And so I'm here to explain and just kind of express my concern about what this might take away from our community very much like everyone's been sharing with you guys tonight. Um, so I'm also a runner. I may not look like the fastest one, but I'm out there. And I was run off the road by a car at the intersection of Imperial and Caribou on Friday, May 1st. And if I don't get run over, I'm going to get shot because I yelled at him until I got him to stop and I got him run down right there in my neighborhood. And I'm not against growth. And I think there's reasons for affordable housing. I think there's there's a spot, though it may not be a great spot, but there's a spot there to put some housing. But this project is too large. This project would have way too much traffic on the road. the size of Caribou. And if anybody's going to consider moving forward with something of this size, you have got to do a traffic study. Like like we've said, we haven't even seen the impact of those new Laurelwood units. It's already kind of a mess in that I almost got killed by vehicular manslaughter on Friday morning and I really don't want that to happen. So, thank you so much for all's time and I really appreciate that. And I think that's it. Oh, I have one question. For what school district would this be zoned? So, we don't answer questions now, but later hypothetically staff or developer, hypothetically, if this were to be zoned for Robertson,

the community behind me may be aware that Est's Elementary is already dozens of students over capacity from our numbers from 24 to 25. They increase their students in 2526. So I I know that out of a hundred units, not everyone's going to have a child, but at the same time, we're already at max capacity down there in South Asheville. So that might be something to consider. Thank you for your time. Thank you. So next we have Eric Shier. And then uh the last person signed up to speak on this is Sophie Dixon, although I'll open it past that.

Sure. Well, it doesn't really matter what the actual numbers are. All right. Um, thank you so much. My name is Eric Schneider. I live at 4 49 and a half Forest Street. And I am not going to talk about traffic after this. Um, I'm a newcomer to the residential uh zoning, conditional zoning. We've been here a few times with uh commercial development, but this is our first time with residential. Uh yeah, this is my first time with residential. And actually, I'm surprised um that there hasn't been any discussion about the the net economic impact or the workforce equity uh impact in this project. Um, I'm aware for our the attorneys in the room that there are development developer independent uh uh requirements for your committee, but the zoning standards uh through this conditional zoning would create economic conditions in and of themselves that would have a fairly significant impact on the community uh spec specifically in term of workforce equity um and and just the bottom line for the community in the long run. Um, I've put up some numbers that show a couple of by scenarios, a couple of alternative incentivized scenarios, and then u what this uh project looks like and and in my I'm not an economist. These it just looks like the worst case possible scenario for the workers in the community as a whole. Um, but it doesn't matter what my numbers are. Um I I don't think the city staff

is necessarily required to provide this analysis and certainly the developer is not required to um divulge any of these numbers, but I think this isn't a technical review committee. Um this is uh your job to evaluate the community impact of these technical standards. And I don't of these zoning variances, I don't know how you could possibly um vote for a motion establishing the reasonable reasonleness of this uh development um because we don't know who the next developer is. This is locking the community into a an ownership model, a rental ownership model for perhaps 100 years, 75 years. Well, I guess 100 years if they build it well and and that has a massive economic impact. Uh and it doesn't look like this is a net improvement. So So I would just request not even that you take my numbers either. They're just back of the envelope. But but I I don't think that the committee can by right uh make a a legal motion to support this without that analysis. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. So, last up we have Sophie Dixon short here. Good afternoon. Yes, my name is Sophie Dixon. I'm president of the Shiloh Community Association. And I'm I don't know where to start with this because one thing I can tell you off the bat because I want it for the record that whatever happened over at Laura Wood, we had no idea until we saw this huge wall in this whole building go up. And there's a group of seniors who live on that property. It was put there to give the seniors some kind of security. And they are devastated. So, and now this. So, I'm just putting that out there just for information. You don't have to take it. But the other thing I want to say though, we are are talking about people. I'm glad to see we're starting to look at that piece. Not just how many houses and how much money somebody's going to make, but people. One of the things I've noticed in one of the reports is that you're going to have to put sprinklers in the apartments because fire trucks can't get in there. What's supposed to happen? And we're talking people. So if if truck can't get in there to take care of somebody who's had has a fire if the sprinkler goes off the folks just die. I mean something is wrong with Asheville. I've lived here all my life and I I came to Shiloh from from uh housing development. I lived at Hillrest. Most people have no idea. You've never lived in a housing development. I know these people haven't. And so I moved to Hill to Shallow, bought a piece of property and built a house and I've been there for almost 60 years. I raised my children there and lived in Shiloh. That's why I know Shallow and we want everybody to know Shallow. But it's not just Shallow. Other people you gonna put in there, some of them gonna be in danger cuz if a fire break out and you can't get that, take care of what happens. I'm just saying what I'm saying. Have a good evening.

Thank you. Thank you. So, that's the end of our signup list. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak about this project? Please approach the mic and um state your name.

My name is Benny McIntosh. I'm on association committee and I concur with everyone that have spoken from Shiloh and I have some questions and I'm going answer my own question. First of all, I lived on Southside and my property was taken from my parents at an early age when I was 13. We were promised that they would do this and do that to put us in a better location which they did not. Now we're having problem with Shallow. First, my question is where are these people coming from to go move in all these pro projects. The second thing is we had the hurricane in Shallow and we've now found out Shallow is a flood zone. And I thought about it. I said, "Well, the people probably going to come from Hillrest because Hillrest is now valuable property. They going to come from Lee Walker Height. That property is now valuable property. Lee Walker Height is right across the street from Ashra Tours. So that probably very valuable. We have a lot of tourists in our area. So if you get rid of Shallow, I mean if you get rid of Leewalker height, you get rid of Hillrest, water don't run up here up the hill, it run down the hill. Hill Chris didn't have any problem with the hurricane at all. That made that property valuable. You can put hotels there, McDonald's there. in shallow all our McDonald's everything got uh destroyed. So why won't you take all the good properties and move the people out of good property and bring them to Shallow? That's what it sound like to me.

Thank you. Do I have any anybody else who wishes to speak, please?

Good evening. My name is Daryl Johnson. I have been a longtime resident of Shiloh. I grew up in the community from the time I was one years old till now. I'm 62. Uh my problem is with this project. Has anybody thought about the crime? We have a lot of senior citizens in our area. Whenever you bring these projects into a neighborhood, what are the people that's going to be coming in? They're going to be coming in and out. They're not going to stay there that long. One year, two year leases. What? It's always going to be new people. And with being new people, there's going to be new crime. Shallow already has a crime. It's going down. But once you bring in uh low income or this kind of project into a community, it takes away the safety of our residents. Our residents have to lock their doors because they don't know what's coming into our neighborhoods. This is what's going to be the problem with these apartments and that's going up on Caribou Road and Sweden Creek Road. It's the safety of the community that nobody is talking about and that's my problem. Thank you.

Does anybody else wish to provide public comment? Seeing none, I will close the public comment at 7:37. Um, before we go into deliberations, just checking in with other commissioners. Do we need a recess? Recess. Okay. Um, all right. So, would the applicant like to address anything that you've heard this evening? You don't have to, but if you would like to,

just just a couple things that that popped up. I'll I'll try to be brief because I I'm betting that we'll handle them and some questions. Uh, one was um a suggestion about uh looking at the Shiloh 2025 plan and and yes, we did look at that along with uh the living Asheville comp plan um and tried to apply those principles as we were going through this. Um page 32 from the Shiloh plan, land use goal number two, uh provide assistance for affordable housing and home improvement. Uh subp part of that land use goal number two is strategy number two, explore community opportunities for construction of affordable housing in the Shiloh community. Uh still in the Shiloh neighborhood plan or 2025 plan, uh community goals, page 23, um it talks about health, educational, recreational programs. Uh and that's part of the LITC requirements for a project like this in terms of community program and on-site community coordinators. Um and then the comp plan uh the traditional label neighborhood piece talks about having different types of housing types seamlessly located together. And here that's really what we're trying to do to provide that transition not in a transitional neighborhood st standpoint but a transition from the high density uh mobile home units on the other side of the railroad tracks uh the highdensity uh Laurelwood throughout our project moving both uh north and west uh to transition seamlessly back down to single family detached dwellings while uh providing affordable housing for new neighbors. And that's the thing that we often miss is that new neighbor piece because those are the people not here. They're not signing up because they're not there yet. Uh but this is the kind of neighborhood that makes some sense for for those folks to go. Um I did want uh Mr. Day to address this height issue because I think that's an important piece to understand uh specifically as it relates to the retaining walls. These aren't retaining walls are above the ground, they're below. And uh Chris, can you come address that please?

So yes, the picture that was shown up here of the fortress wall completely understand um how scary that looks. The for reference that wall lives just it's just off the screen down here. I had we're not working on that that project, but I did pull it off the city's website, look at it, and kind of verified some elevations. While this house at the end of Ardmore is at a elevation of about 2,000, that building is sitting at 2041. So the the bottom floor, the ground floor of the new building that you saw under construction. So there is a large wall there. We do have um a number of walls on our site, but by and large they are all what would be called a cut wall. So if I start at the top of the site here, the property offsite property to the north, our site is 10 ft. This is a 10-ft wall, but it's 10 ft below. So, if you're at our house, you see the 10-ft wall, but if you are off property, you look over the wall and don't don't see the wall here. Um, similarly, we have a wall along the south end of the property. And all of the um Laurel Woods property to the south is higher in elevation. So, that wall that we have listed out and shown on the plans, it drops down. So, we see the wall from our parking area, but if you're offsite um looking into the property, it's it's below with the topography. Um we do have a couple of walls that would be visible. Um where we're working with the topography, these uh singlestory homes here have a foundation wall on the downhill side. So, if you were on the

railroad tracks looking back, you would see a foundation wall holding up this um this unit as well as this unit. And that's really indicative of the topography that lives out here and the the lower point of the creek. So, while recognize that the the photo that was shown is um is scary from this project, it's kind of the the inverse of that. So, we don't anticipate that being seen. That would not be the case for for this project. Thank you. Any um anybody want to kick off deliberations on this? Any remaining questions or concerns, questions of staff or feedback based on the public comment that we received? I guess I'll jump in. Um, yeah, this is a tough one. I mean, this is it's it's no secret that this is a lot of units for um a site that's hemmed in by railroad tracks with a narrow access um from a an undersized street that has a lot of demand for both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. That I think that's undeniable that this is a a challenging place. And I think what where I'm wrestling with this is the the balancing the community's need for affordable housing. I understand that all of the comments that we received seemed very reasonable and from a place of concern for the community and the impact to the adjacent neighbors. Um and this is a tough one for me. It's it's really hard to figure out what the point is to um justify our community's overwhelming

need for affordable housing. the overwhelming positive benefit that affordable housing provides for our broader community. Again, some of these legitimate concerns about the impact to undersized roadways and um things that are beyond this developer control, but existing conditions nonetheless. So, would love to hear some other feedback or thoughts from my fellow commissioners, but this is a this is a tough one for me. Okay, I guess I have to go. Um, as as someone who also works in the affordable housing field, I appreciate those comments and I appreciate the focus on affordability, I appreciate staff's review and the developers review of the the Shiloh plan and the comments around that. Um, I think oftentimes we look at solutions as black or white. And I think this is a fantastic opportunity to really focus on working with the community and implementing the Shiloh plan. And there's so much in the comprehensive plan. There's so much in the Shiloh plan, but one of the things that um stuck out to me is the mention of cottage developments in the Shiloh plan. This to me looks like a site that would be great for a cottage development as one potential solution. Um so I I struggle with this as um as far as the number of units and the density here. Um, and I struggle with us looking at portions of the the plan and um not

portions of the plan that are consistent with this development and not looking at other portions of the plan that are not consistent with this development. Um, so I just want to really ground our conversation in that

kind of continuing with that line of thought. Um, one of the things that I'm also struggling with is that um, again there is a a great need for affordable housing in this neighborhood um, and in the city at large. Um, I am sympathetic to the fact that the way that this city regulates density is based on if you were an RS4, I think the minimum square footage is 8,000 square ft. Um, and if you are RS8 or RM8 or RM16, uh, you need I significantly less square footage. I think it's, uh, somewhere around 4,000 square ft. not for all of this, but we would be taking a plot of land that is designated currently for a lower density and then in a neighborhood that is overwhelmingly uh or disproportionately so in comparison to other neighborhoods in the city that have broadly more lower density zonings. this one in general, there would be areas in RM16 or an RM8 or an RS8 that to me feel like they would have better opportunities for a higher density project like of this nature. And so that's something I'm struggling with. So, the Shiloh Community Plan 2025 specifically calls out this parcel working with the city of Asheville Planning Department states that this property could provide single family resident infill consistent with surrounding development. I think in light of where the city is going right now and its focus

on anti-displacement and development and the project that they're working on right now and working with LNC, I think it's incumbent upon us to respect the plans that we have put in place that have been adopted. by the city of Asheville and respect those plans. And I do think that there are some areas of the plan that have been called out that maybe this is consistent with. But at first glance when I looked at this plan, if you look at it from an aerial and you don't know anything about this area. Yeah. Okay. It's it it looks close to Sweeten Creek and transitional areas close to highways, high thoroughare areas makes a lot of sense. Which is why no one here is in opposition to the other project. But when you really get into the nitty-gritty of this neighborhood, it is tucked into the back of this neighborhood. Like you have to go through it to get to it. And you're going through a bunch of single family residents homes to get to an area where this 24 foot wide new city road or new road is kind of looks like it's punched right between two single family houses that could be another single family lot. And so that's just kind of where I'm leaning. I I get I get the difficulty of this project. We desperately need affordable housing. I think Shiloh needs affordable ownership.

Well, I appreciate that and I'll ask the public here to please refrain from a major applause. You know, we're trying to deliberate here. I app I understand that you're actively engaged in the process and um wanting to show your support for comments or you know but maybe let's see some jazz hands like city council does if uh all right so specifically to that um and this might be a question for city staff the the question of rental versus ownership is not really something that the UDO or land use regulation has any ability to regulate. So while I while I appreciate the sentiment, I don't know that that is something that we can weigh in our recommendation, right?

Fair housing act prohibits the consideration of that when making land use decisions as well. So we don't it's it's an important thing to present on when we know that information, but it's not a consideration for uh these types of legislative items.

Thank you. But to to the rest of the uh the comments that you made, vice chair, I I totally agree and I think you know our task here is to make a recommendation on whether something is reasonable in the public interest and consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and and as we've kind of um mentioned other adopted plans. I think no question affordable housing in the public interest. Um, is it reasonable? That's that's hard to say. It's the consistency with the adopted plans I I I think we're wrestling with and trying to um weigh in and balance and and there is clear guidance in the Shiloh community plan on this property. You're you're right. And I think the only way to in in my mind to see consistency is on the notion of transitional nature or transitional area. And as presented by um the applicant's representative, it's transitional because we're going from lower density town homes on the northern portion of the property to higher density buildings on the southern portion of the property. Um to me that's not exactly what is described as transi trans transitional area in the Shiloh community plan. So I I think it is really um this is put in the heart of Shiloh on a property that has limited access points. I' I'd love to see a way to improve this project, but I also fear that there's still going to be incompatibility and inconsistency. So I I'm just sort of wondering where we're going to land on this one.

I think I echo a lot of the sentiments that have already been um expressed. This is Commissioner Bold, by the way. Um I I think one of the things I really wrestle with is that you know we we affordable housing is a huge need here and you know with the amount of you know vacant lots that are available in the city, those that are particularly accessible by transit. Um, you know, there aren't a lot of places to increase density significantly in a relatively core part of the of the city. Um, you know, I I think that I I think there's just a certain um, you know, amount of yeah, available properties that are, you know, available to consider for that. At the same time, I think there's a lot of densification that has already occurred in this community. Um and there's also, you know, explicit reference in their adopted in the adopted plan that this is an area that um you know would be appropriate for increased density at a sign, you know, at a significantly, you know, less uh intense level um than this project. So, um, and I and I really I I I think a lot of the comments, um, around pedestrian safety really resonate with me. I mean, I think, um, you know, there's there's a lot of streets in Asheville that are like this that are, you know, don't have sidewalks that are pretty narrow. I think we've all, you know, had a lot of, you know, can know

what that's like, um, whether we live in this in this community or not. Um and it you know I think that is a very uh significant concern not to be you know overlooked especially if this has been you know identified from way back in 20 2005 I think it was that it was put into the um city's pedestrian plan to add sidewalks to the street and it still hasn't occurred and there's still no line of sight to to additional funding for that. Um, you know, I think I guess I say all that to say I I'm wrestling with all of these things. Um, you know, and I I I think that there is a very significant need for affordable housing and there's only so many places that we can do it. At the same time, um, this is not it's not it's just not a great site um on a variety of levels. Um, you know, I think specifically the challenges with the, you know, existing plan that's been adopted. I really struggle with, um, you know, the amount of impervious surface added, you know, in an area that could definitely flood with significant topography challenges. Um, you know, the transportation infrastructure um, and the, you know, significant increase in density relative to the neighboring neighboring sites is is really challenging. Um, so yeah, I guess I'll leave it a thought.

I Yeah, I appreciate those thoughts, Commissioner B. And I I feel like for me, if this, you know, often times when we don't have enough density and we don't have enough people um demanding, you know, placing a demand on infrastructure, that's when the infrastructure doesn't get improved. If this development were to catalyze a caribou sidewalk project by the city, I think there might be a different conversation, but it's unlikely that that is going to be there's not going to be a direct through line between 100 new um residents on this site and building the sufficient pedestrian infrastructure in the community. Um and that's unfortunate. So I I and it's not and it is not incumbent on the developer to provide that project. that is a city infrastructure project.

Um, but that's I think the reality is for me if if if if this could provide benefit back to the neighborhood in the way of enhanced pedestrian facilities, a better roadway, this seems like it would have a clearer compatibility. But I'm not seeing it just with the significant benefit that affordable housing provides. there there's some some significant pedestrian infrastructure need that's being unmet. Um

so um Commissioner Faircloth here. I just want to say first of all I think I'm grateful for all the public comment we've received beforehand public comment here. I think it's wonderful when the community is engaged um whether um I'm agreeing with you or disagreeing with you. So, I'm very thankful for all of y'all here. Um, wrestling with this one, too. Um, where I'm landing right now to my fellow commissioners is, you know, there there is a need for affordable housing and I don't live in the Shiloh community. I live south of here, closer to the city county line, and we've taken a lot of that development in our area as well. Um, I feel like that needs to be spread out between all neighborhoods. So, I mean, I I'm wrestling with this, too, but I do feel the strong need for continued um increase of affordable housing and because there's a cost of living problem going on here, too. That's just where I stand. any um any feedback from staff on considerations about um where you know I guess some guidance on where this might head and can you provide a reminder on regardless of the recommendation that comes out of this body is this definitively on the council agenda um just some kind of process guidance.

Yeah, sure. Um so um you all would be making a recommendation to city council either in support or not of the conditional zoning. Uh the applicant does have the opportunity to request a continuance at any time um if they would like to um to refine the project um or to uh try to get to a a positive recommendation from this body or they can um go forward with a recommendation from you all um either for against the the change to zoning. Um it is t tentatively scheduled for the May 12th uh city council meeting. If it got if it got continued today to the next P&Z meeting, that date would would shift, of course. Um, but you may want to interact with the applicant um if they have any uh responses to your concerns or if they um uh are how they want to proceed as far as the potential for a continuence or if they given their uh stated timeline want to move forward and request a recommendation from you all this evening. Thanks. That that's helpful. And I think, you know, based on some of the public comment and also um applicant representative comment, you know, conditional zonings are a process where um there's there's never a by right. The reason it is a conditional zoning is because there are it is a negotiation process with the applicant. there's um always the ability to identify unique aspects of a specific site that need to be addressed in the conditions attached to it. Um the affordability is one of the project conditions that the applicant has agreed to. And so regardless of whether this applicant is successful with the project, that condition prevails into a successor um developer who who may take it over. um the approval or the

um review by council is for a specific plan. So um that's that's the nature of conditional zonings. That's why there's a request for technical modifications. Um it's because of the process of doing conditional zonings and some of the requirements of the residential expansion district which is a um district that is selected for conditional zonings. Um the sidewalk width of 10 feet is always I I shouldn't say always but almost always a technical modification because it's really put in there um not necessarily with the expectation that 10-ft sidewalks get built but to just represent that there is a need for significant pedestrian infrastructure for a larger development that would be a conditional zoning. So that's kind of you know just some background on process of conditional zonings and and I think what we're hearing a lot of concern with is not necessarily the technical modifications but more the consistency statements and when we make a recommendation is based on consistency with approved plans. And so even if it meets the most of the requirements or we can reasonably modify some of the technical requirements of a project, the conditional zoning process still allows for the decision-making body, city council, to say this still doesn't meet the expectations of our adopted city plans. And so that is kind of the the nature of conditional zoning. Is that did I do an adequate job describing that, Miss Ashley? audience application in it has to process

and then

thank you. Any further comments from the commissioners or should we invite the applicant to potentially respond if they so choose to some of the things we're concerned or wrestling with? Anything from you all applicant? Any

just a couple things. one um given the the timeline and the application deadline on the the 15th that that you know about I know that um your company's doing the the same thing and competing for those those same funds and eligibility. Um we can't continue so we have what we have. Um, one of the other things that I I wanted to address was some of the comments that came through. Uh, the ownership versus the the rental piece. Obviously, Fair Housing Act doesn't allow us to even consider that through through zoning. Uh, suggestions about uh looking for other sites. Um, as someone who does this and brings you projects almost every month, uh, the, uh, the amount of sites that folks think out are out there, um, just aren't. Um, there aren't uh green field sites uh next to RM16s. There aren't RM16 designated sites are there. They've already been developed. Uh, those properties that folks that on social media always talk about that are are vacant sites and like, well, the abandoned buildings going to allow the city to go build there. That's not happening. That's not going to happen under the abandoned statute that's coming through. That's that's not how that's going to work. Um, and so the the thing that goes through this is and you should I invite you to talk to to Will uh behind me about how uh this works. I know that that Jeffrey already knows this, but getting projects approved and getting funding uh getting the capital stack lined up and finding sites for affordable housing for a community who said, "Hey, world development world, this is the kind of housing that we want. We want you to bring us lit projects." And so when you come in, you have your capital stack ready. Everything has to match up perfectly for that to go through. I mean, everything. And looking for those sites, it's not like there's a hundred sites. There's like 10. And we all know them because we've always looked at them. I have files on this project already because we've already looked at those sites. We being the development community. It has to be near shopping, has to be near education. It has to be uh have access to highways, has access to jobs. You can't put it out in the

middle of nowhere. It has to be in a neighborhood. It has to be all these things. then it has to be available for sale to willing that that you can afford it that the economics are going to work uh and that you can actually build on it uh and we're in Asheville and you know developers that come here from outside of Asheville uh learn that uh once and they learn it a hard way that uh everything has rock, everything has elevation, there are retaining walls everywhere and the folks that are in Asheville that do development understand how hard it is to do and they don't do a lot of projects. There aren't any pro there aren't many developers here that are doing affordable housing housing projects. And so I'm asking this body to look at that and consider that when we come through with projects like this and to say, okay, this one's coming through. We've got the one across uh Sweeten Creek that's also coming through. What are we trying to do? Are we going to be in the game as a community uh to have these kinds of projects go through? Because this doesn't guarantee that this gets built. This guarantees that this gets to go to the next round. It gets to stay in the game. Uh and the thing that is the fail safe and heard some public comments about this earlier is what we're trying to do with conditional zoning is lock it up so that if there's a development that that comes through, whether it's this project or not, it does have that affordable housing commitment at at least 80%. Now, this particular project goes all the way down to 20% AMI. uh and we can give you the the application that that goes with that, but have it at least be 20 years. And so those are the two things that we know we have. And there are almost zero technical modifications inside of this CZ. That sidewalk width, I mean, that's we see that on every project just about. Um the actual affordability that's in application is 30 years. And so we want to let these projects have a chance to get funded. Uh we as a community, I think we do, we've told the development community, we've told the world that uh and this is how we do it. This is just

one step along the way and so we would ask for your vote and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Appreciate that uh context Mr. Allen and and you are right it is a long and tortured road to get any affordable housing built. It is um one of the toughest processes and um you know in in the aftermath of Helen we have seen um a major influx um to our community's benefit of developers who are eager and willing to come into our community and and help us in the housing recovery space. And in Bunkham County, we had 23 preliminary applications for low-income housing tax credits. That's unheard of. And it's great. We need we need all the affordable housing we can get. I think the question is in that rush to identify suitable properties. We know that not all of them are going to get built. Um is is this what our community want? Does our community want to provide a rubber stamp to all affordable housing developments knowing that we need that many units and knowing that the process is so tortured? Or do we want to evaluate each site plan based on the approved plans and the surrounding neighborhood and the suitability for the planned use. And I think that's what we're wrestling with here. But I I do appreciate and I that that is why this is so difficult is because of the hard path and you know that I know very well the necessity of getting zoning approval to be in the game. Um, so I don't know. I we can kind of continue if there's further questions that are unanswered or if not I'd love to hear maybe a commissioner with a an endgame in mind or um a motion on this.

I think um I'm extremely sympathetic to building affordable housing and I think that it is something that we should be private to the microphone. Is that better? Okay. Uh I'm extremely sympathetic to building affordable housing. Um I think the the nature of the planning component of this commission uh is kind of what's sticking with me in this project. Um of no fault of the developer or the community, we don't have a plan for what to do with pedestrians in this area. And uh I think if we dropped in a bunch, you know, increasing the population like this I think will have an effect on a very narrow road that uh I think in all fairness to the community would be beneficial if we had a plan for that. Um that's kind of where I'm landing on this at the moment. building at it building this amount of density even though the stars need to align for an affordable housing project. I think it's I'm leaning toward this is maybe not the best site or time for this type of development. So process-wise, what we have in our staff report is a suggested motion to approve. If there's we can also provide a suggested motion to deny. Um and if someone wishes to do that, it needs to have kind of um it's sort of the inverse of the suggested motion to approve. Is there anyone who would like to make a motion either way? Chair, if I could add something that

might be relevant here um to try to balance um what was just said in terms of staying in the game but not tying something up unnecessarily. Um, if we could add a condition that would uh make the zoning effective only if uh the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency uh awards um the project the funds. I don't know if I mean guess I'd look to staff on that. It's a little confusing because you need zoning approval in order to apply. So I'm kind of confused.

That's that would be really outside what would be within the conditional zoning which is about conditions of the project. So whether you get the financing or not their decision is based on uh if it's consistent with the comprehensive plan or the other adopted plan. So I'm not sure how that would change. We can talk about it offline. We we've done similar things but yeah we we can talk about that between now and and Tuesday.

I mean I guess you know the alternative is so there's you know the suggested project conditions have a five-year period where the zoning is valid. um we've started to kind of go towards that because it takes so long to get developments done, but um you know potentially a tighter timeline and a stronger reversion to prior zoning, which I don't know if that's even we literally just did it where we uh did this exact condition uh on um down off of uh Long Shores where we actually did the time period as as 6 months but automatically recurring because there's a brownfield agreement that has to go through. So, it's kind of that same concern that you don't want to tie it up unnecessarily with a very specific project uh if it needs to go back to its revert back to its original zoning.

I guess honestly, I'd probably, you know, for us and to Miss Ashley's point about, you know, our role is really evaluation of land use, I'd maybe defer any type of condition like that to council for their consideration. Sure. I just want to put that out there, though. Thank you. Yeah. Do I have a motion?

Um, chair, I'll make a motion. Uh, I move to recommend approval of the conditional zoning request for the property located at 99999 Caribou from residential single family medium density RS4 to resident um residential expansion CZ and find the request is reasonable is in the public interest and is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and meets the development needs of the community in that the request prioritizes greater density of development overall throughout the city as appropriate and increases and two increases Housings apply, including affordable housing in proximity to schools, transit, and parks.

We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? Commissioner Faircloth. I I would be prepared to second that if we could make a friendly amendment to add a couple of conditions. One of which would be a condition for a secondary access point to be determined in collaboration with city transport or city transportation staff. Um on Ardmore Street on Ardmore Street. If the applicant agrees to that,

would the applicant be agreeable to that as a condition? not an exploration but a condition.

Yes. The second condition which I I don't know how to word would be around pedestrian infrastructure and it that might be more of a recommendation to very strongly suggest that the city work with the applicant and the community to identify the prospect of enhancing adjacent pedestrian facilities and that I think can't be a condition but is more of a recommendation. So those as friendly amendments to your recommendation to approval, Commissioner Faircloth,

I I would also like to add conditions that would I don't know how best to word it, but that if they're able to get a waiver to reduce parking that that be that they reduce the parking number of parking spaces as like I I don't know, as much as possible um while still getting approval. Maybe that's one to one or something like that.

Yeah, thank you for that. I um I I would agree with that and I I would kind of leave it to staff and the applicant to figure out how to word smith but with an added condition around parking reduction with the idea of increasing the pvious area. And lastly, just that I I I would like to remove the um ability for them to en encroach on for 1,200 feet on the landscape buffer. I just think that number is incorrect. So I don't want that to be part of the record. Um

Sure. Um, so what I'm hearing is uh exploration of the reduction of the parking contingent on um, you know, approvals of the waiver from funding agencies is probably as much as I've heard the applicant be able to commit to this evening. Is that what you're thinking? And then um it could be encroachment into the buffer as shown on the site plan and then we dial in that number so it's not a blanket 1,200 square feet but but more reflective of what's on the site plan drawing. Is that what you're thinking? Yeah, that's right. So long as the site plan is in compliance. Yeah. Yeah.

Sure. Yeah. So it's not like excessive number-wise. I think that's fair. and we can work with the applicant to hone in that number. In the meantime,

on the parking reduction, I I have the unfortunate knowledge of how this process works, which is, you know, um and I it is my understanding that the expectation of the housing finance agency is a requirement by the municipality of a lower parking number than the baseline expectation of NCHFA. So, I don't know how that gets worded, but as this heads if this heads towards council, it would need to be a requirement of the city that this project have whatever is the acceptable lower level. I think that is that would that's my understanding of how NCHFA would look at a parking waiver request is whether the city is requiring less parking. And in my mind, it's because of this specific site. 1.7 as a parking ratio is um it it creates negative impact. And so

be a the condition would need to be more firm stating that it's a requirement that we reduce it. It it would and I don't know tonight if we're able to get there. So it may be from us just a you know deferral to staff and the applicant to reach a mutually agreeable amount. I think for for me it's I agree with you getting closer to a one:1 ratio. Yeah. Um is is the signal that we I think we would like to send. All right. All right. So, we have a motion and a lot of

I just want to clarify that condition. So, are you saying the parking reduction to the extent possible it is a condition you'd like to see? I mean, it's hard for us to do it on the fly, but that is something the applicant would be willing to do. Um, and you're saying you don't think that should be written in condition or it should be improved condition by the time it goes to council? My understanding is it would need to be a condition from the city not contingent on acceptance of the parking waiver by NCHFA, but it's actually the condition by the city would trigger the parking waiver or would be the consideration of the parking waiver request. And again, I just have the unfortunate knowledge of how they treat these and I just want to make sure that it's done in a way that positions the project for maximum potential of acceptance by the agency for reduced parking. Okay.

And you also said you're agreeable to min minimizing the the buffer of the encroachment the sidewalks into that buffer as to the extent greatest

extent. We'll have the engineer get the actual number. It it's going to be less than 1,200 but we'll get the actual number. So, we had a motion and then the suggestion of conditions to amend the motion including um the reduction of the encroachment on the landscape buffer, the reduction of parking, the I'm adding second access. Thank you.

Adding a pedestrian second access point and the exploration of enhanced pedestrian facilities along Caribou Road with the city. That's a recommend. That's a recommendation. Recommendation to explain. Is the Artmore pedestrian access only? Is that to to be honest? I I see like emergency vehicle access as kind of important beyond just pedestrian. But please if if you will, we is the applicant amendable to explore more than just pedestrian.

We can do that. We had it shown as a full access on the original site plan. Uh we can have it as pedestrian only. We can have it as pedestrian and emergency access only or full access. So, and any feedback from Commissioner Faircloth or BU or or others, but um full access or pedestrian? What are I would think pedestrian only. What's that? I would think pedestrian only. Pedestrian only. Yeah. It's I don't I don't know that I have the answer. I think a primary importance pedestrian but in the exploration process you know I I don't know

I think pedestrian is the most important. Okay. Pedestrian pedestrian access

as as stated. Are these conditions acceptable? Accept these conditions upon my motion to approve. All right. So, we have a motion to approve with the additional conditions. Do we need to lay them out any more clearly or wasn't clear on the access one. It's pedestrian pedestrian pedestrian only access to art. That's where we landed on that one. Um, do we have a second? I'll second. Yeah, that's true. Thank you. And you amended.

Seconded with the amendments accepted to the motion. So we have a motion and a second to approve. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Nay. Nay. So the motion fails for it's three to It's even. It's even. So the motion fails. The motion fails. So in that case, do we need to follow or we're just a three to three when that recommendation will be carried to council?

We have no recommendation. If somebody wants to make an alternate motion to deny, you could do that. It'll probably go the it could likely go the same way, but you could do that. Does anybody just for the meeting record want to make a motion to deny or Well, does it still go to city council as is with a either way

with a neutral go with a failed motion to approve? I move to deny the conditional zoning request for the property located at 99999 Caribou Road from residential single family medium density RS4 to residential expansion conditional zone and find that the request is not reasonable, not in the public interest and is not consistent with the adopted Shiloh plan. Quality of life goal number three, land use goal number four, uh, specifically calling out page 38, use for this property.

Second. So, we have a motion to deny and a second. Any further questions before we take a vote? All those in favor of the motion to deny, please say I. I. All those opposed? Nay. Same. So the so this will go forward to council with no recommendation but with the two failed motions, right? The record will show there's these two failed motions, right? That's how it goes. Um thank you all for your input for everyone coming tonight to the applicant. We'll take a 10 minute recess and reconvene at 8:35.

You never know. like five minutes on this one. Yeah. You're crazy. All right.

Unmute.

Welcome back to Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. Are we streaming? Uh, yeah, we should be back online. The mics are unmuted, so we should be good to go.

All right. Thank you. Next up on our agenda, we have uh a request to conditionally reszone the property located at 1,116 Sweden Creek Road from commercial industrial and residential multifamily highdensity RM16 to residential expansion conditional zone resppc. Um the property's pins identified on the agenda, the property owner is Steve and Heidi Kim. Applicant's contact is Mr. Warren Sugg planner coordinating review is Klay Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell,

Mr. Chairman, commissioners, it's been a while. It's good to see you again, some of you for the first time in this context. My name is Klay Mitchell. I'm planning urban design. I'm also an urban planner. Um, this is a conditional zoning very similar to the last one in certain respects. Um, I'll go through it. It's a 126 unit, so a few more units. The site is 5.15 acres, I think. Um, most significant is the fact that it is accessing off of Sweden Creek Road here, which is a five lane road with a dedicated left turn in the center. Um, not to bury the lead, but our final recommendation is going to be approving the site. Here is the general context for this parcel. Um, like I said, it's about 8 or 900 feet to the east of the site you just reviewed, but also along Sweeten Creek Road. To the north is is a is a cemetery and then a significant amount of commercial industrial development. Uh, the front portion of this parcel is actually zone commercial industrial and I'll get into this. And the back is zoned RM16. Um on the map on the screen to the right you can see kind of the the uh haze overlay that's the city of Asheville. So immediately across the street of old Chapel Road is actually county land. So this is an area where um our city boundary comes up fairly close to the parcel. Um, I also I widened that view on the left so you can see it's it's relatively approximate to uh the the park in the upper right hand corner in the city of Asheville. So, like I mentioned, uh this this parcel is bisected by a zone line. I did as much research as I could to find out

how and why this happened, but I I really couldn't find what was the origin of that. Um, it's it is kind of a singular RM16 parcel in that area. The the land to the north and south of the RM16 section is all zoned RS8, which is medium density uh single family residential, and to the east, of course, is county land. All along the corridor in this area on Sweeten Creek Road is commercial industrial. So front portion I say front uh the portion closest to Sweeten Creek Road commercial industrial blue line. The rest is RM16. Um with this uh conditional zoning, it would all be residential expansion due to the number of units being proposed. We are here tonight. Here's an overall site plan uh view without topography. Um I may not have a topography plan just to give you kind of uh a feel. It it it goes up fairly about 50 feet difference between Sweden Creek and Old Chapel Road back there. Am I rock hill? Sorry. Um the there are some retaining walls you see that so you can you can kind of envision the step uh from the lowest point at Sweeten Creek as it comes in some some slope retaining walls. the flat portion of the development, some retaining walls, and then the slope up to the eastern portion of the site. Two main buildings. Uh the large the L-shaped building is the larger one, four stories. Uh the southern building is only three stories. Parking in the middle. Um a community kind of uh center there at the Lshape that has a barbecue pavilion, some outdoor amenities, and a playground. And in the very center of the parcel, you can see the uh the um

solid waste facility. There are sidewalks throughout the site that connect kind of the the infrastructure. Um a small portion of the frontage along Sweden Creek. Well, the entire frontage. It's fairly short though. Uh will have a new sidewalk that will get kicked off the road. The sidewalk immediately to the north and south of the site is one of those sidewalks that's about 5 ft. It's right to the back of the curb. It's kind of uncomfortable walking on Sweeten Creek. The applicants are pulling that back a little bit. There's going to be a grass strip. Uh obviously we'd like to see that sidewalk in more places. Um there are um uh Asheville Regional Rides Transit stops and and I'm sorry the colored map isn't very clear. There are two orange dots uh up to at the the street intersection at the north and then to the south south of the long strip building is another transit stop. So this access point is roughly equidistant between those two transit stops. Um so that's kind of the transportation context for this site. There is no con connection proposed and there will be a technical modification request that no sidewalks get put on that very narrow band in the rear. It would be the only sidewalk on that road. Uh but the applicant is willing to donate or or offer up a a an easement if the city uh so desires to place uh sidewalks along that roadway. So the the landscaping plan you you see very similar to the other project that green area colored the same is the 20 foot required buffer to the RS8 zone. Um there there is areas uh that are going to be preserved. It is going to be intensely planted. You see a representation of the types of planting that will go in the vehicle use area. Those plans will become more detailed when the final TRC reviews, but there

will be a significant amount of of shrubs and and even more trees in those locations. Along the front in the purple, you see the required street trees all out of the sight triangles. Um and then building impact and other um tree canopy protection is shown on this plan. Um this is a fairly complicated plan to review because in addition to being divided along the zone line uh it is also design divided by resource management district. So there are different standards for the rear portion different standards for the front portion in terms of tree canopy protection. Uh but we spent some time going through that and the applicant has met that in two ways. they are planting which are the specific icons that you see on the plan and then preserving which is kind of the green hashed areas. Um, I wanted to include this plan because we did receive some comment from uh folks who I believe are direct abutters to the site about preserving some of the mature trees and the applicant is intending to do that in those areas that abut the houses that are as close to uh this development in that that L shape there. But the the red outline are areas where new trees are going to be planted. Um I forgot one I I'm sorry I didn't put there is there is one interesting amenity in this application that is not shown on these. There is a a um passive connection the open space along here and then a pathway that goes all the way around back here connecting up up to the the community facilities. This is in addition to the sidewalks. This is going to be the the pathway that engages the open space and connects directly actually with this sidewalk here. So will be able to walk uh all the way around the property through some of the open space and we've

accounted for that and reviewed it and it is a valid use of both open space as well as the buffer. The uh the elevation drawings, this is the larger L-shaped building that is to the north of the site. Uh this is the three-story smaller rectangular building on the south portion of the site. Um very similar uh project conditions related to affordable housing uh both in terms of the median uh area median income as as well as uh the availability of housing choice vouchers. um same type of uh sidewalk. Uh the instead of the 10- foot wide minimum sidewalk, there's going to be 5 foot wide minimum sidewalk along Sweeten Creek to allow us to get that 8- foot wide grass strip and to accommodate the internal infrastructure. The applicants are asking for a same modification from a 10-ft wide minimum sidewalk down to five and then no sidewalks along the Rock Hill Road uh where the easement will be granted. Um, so the the you can see here the the kind of the reason why I wanted to explore why that particular parcel was RM16 and I apologize for being able to find it. Um, generally uh this is compatible with the zoning. It it by definition this partial represents a a transition. RM16 you can approximately get 40 units per acre. commercial industrial has a lower acreage unit count, eight units per acre, but um as we get into the future land use, we talk about these kind of trans these urban corridors starting to develop mixed use and and I've interpreted the language of that not to include each parcel has to have mixed use, but that we have mixed use along the corridor. And so we there are residential uses up and down Sweeten

Creek. Um and this represents that type of use both within the corridor as well as consistent with the zoning of RM16 even though it is um surrounded to the north and the south by um RS8 both f and again another division with the future land use um residential neighbor uh neighborhood to the east urban corridor to the west both of which talk about the types of um expanding transitional densities and housing. Um, residential neighborhood talks about more diversity, opportunities for expansion and growth. The urban corridor section is a little bit different. That's where we get into the mixeduse residential, commercial, and offices. And again, that strikes me as something in some not every parcel can be developed with office, commercial, and industrial on it. rather I think it's a mix of uses along the corridor provided that access that it's it's an urban corridor. It's use if you recall from the context map those industrial uses that you see to the north are kind of configured in that industrial park type of scenario and not along a corridor. So this we felt doesn't require the unification of those into one use but that it is valid as the development is proposed and conditioned with the future land use. There are sections in the future land use where it talks about appropriate zoning in those future land use and both of these identify RM16 as appropriate um uses and we use that kind of as a benchmark for okay if we're going to do residential what is going to be that count and that RM16 like it's two units for the first 2500 and then one unit for every 1,000 square feet. So roughly 45 units per acre. And this this development by the way is

24.5 units per acre. Um in terms of infrastructure uh obviously Sweeten Creek Sweden Creek Road uh is a high-capacity road. It has dedicated left turns. Um it will require an NC DOT permit. There are um transit stops to the north and south. Uh, one of the discussions that we've had in the TRC uh, meeting is working with transit to find out if there's an opportunity to approve those. There are stops, but there are not shelters. They're the ones that are just signs, which aren't really comfortable and and convenient for folks. So, exploring the opportunity to expand one or both or unify. I I I'm not sure what the protocol is for m moving sites and I don't don't know if that's an appropriate uh avenue but some avenue to increase the connectivity of this site with the available transit I think is an opportunity worth pursuing. Uh the letter of commitment for water wastewater everything um else is going to be in detail reviewed as a part of that uh final um TRC process. Um this this uh very similar to the um the findings that that staff made on the previous application. This encourages responsible growth. Um it is infield development on a parcel that has um I maybe uh two residential structures. One which appears to be boarded up. I'm not sure about the the status of the other one. Um it does diversify the housing supply. um it's it's within and proximity of of not only that park um but the transit corridors. So it was it it was um easy for us to find consistency with these comprehensive plan goals. Um we therefore recommend approval of the proposed conditional zoning requests. Um I know despite the

proximity to the other site and the similarities um the distinctions I think make this a more um examples below and attach

despite the applicant's attempt to dis derail my presentation. Um, we feel that it's it's it's it's it seems to be that type of use that we're looking for that represents the transition between those high impact uses and the types of of residential areas that we see expanding beyond that. So, it's an area that we think is targeted uh for this kind of growth and therefore is consistent uh with our comprehensive plan goals and the future land use. This would be on the same uh time frame. So, um depending on your vote tonight and judging from the last application, we will likely be on the May 12th city council meeting and then final TRC at some point in the future. Um I'll leave it at that. Any questions? Here's your motion. should you choose to accept it.

Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Um, always appreciate your thoughtful and rigorous analysis and um, welcome welcome back to planning and zoning commission and should have highlighted um, previously thanks to Mr. Palmquist and the rest of staff because we were we we asked a lot of questions in preparation for this meeting and staff was super responsive provide really great analysis that kind of helped us anchor our discussion. So just wanted to I forgot to acknowledge that earlier and uh appreciate staff and appreciate your work on on this one. Um do we have any questions? That was just a statement. Any questions for staff?

Um this is Commissioner Faircloth. Um, Mr. Mitchell, um, good to see you. Uh, I always find your voice just booming and musical. Like you could have been a Baptist preacher or something. You're you're loud. I I love it. Um, does So, the impervious calculations, it says 24%. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, there's two. I'm sorry. There's no way. It's got to be more than that. I I should have I should have headed that off. Um, in in our review, we discovered that there was an error in that and um CDC has responded. I didn't have enough time to get it into uh the SA I may have got in the staff report because I was able to edit that. We haven't gotten the plans uploaded. The calculation is actually 50%.

Okay. Uh it is it's it's a it's a typo. There's also a typo in the staff report on the number of parking spaces. I put 257. It's actually 157. And the minimum is 156. So there's one parking space over the minimum in the parking. Those are the two errors that I one on them, one on me. Okay, that that's all fine. I just I read that and I'm looking at it and it just didn't add up to me. Um I know I had asked you some questions about the um Sweeten Creek Road improvement. Um and you' give me a little information, but um I have to admit I I just I don't live in this world like you do. So can you give me a brief synopsis of like where that is at? Right.

So,

I realize that a lot of this extends beyond this project. I'll admit that going forward, but I am curious about that. So I I believe it's approximately 1/4 to oneird of a mile south of here starts the Sweeten Creek widening project which back in 2018 was proposed or discussed publicly as a unified project that was in the uh 10-year plan. Subsequent to that, the project was bifurcated into a northern section and a southern section. The northern section has been partially funded for design and engineering and the southern section has now moved into to be determined. Um, which means which in state 10-year plan that that has been postponed. Um but they are at least going through the design process of that northern portion. So the portion of Sweeten Creek that state transportation improvement program that's closest to this site is in design but the construction itself is not funded.

Sure. So it it's a little bit of a disappointment. What is what is the southern uh end of the northern portion? Rock Hill Rockill Road. Yeah, thank you. Um I appreciate that. I I got a soap box to get on later, but I want to allow the applicant to focus on this and this project before I rant about something adjacent to this. So, okay, that was all I had. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Thanks. Any other questions of staff? Rock from Rock Hill Road up to

I It was all in the email. I I sent I sent one email out. The southern portion goes from Rock Hill Road basically down to Hendersonville Road. Yeah. The northern portion goes from Rock Hill Road up to Yeah. or the the interstate like yeah the inner if you if you give me a minute I can get you the exact okay but importantly design only correct for the northern portion only yes okay Clay I just wanted to clarify you said there's no change to the future land use maps even though they're split you're not proposing they're they stay as is okay

okay we talked at length actually. So, um, is it Millsgap Road is the boundary? So, the northern section is from Rock Hill to Millsgap and then the southern section is from Millsgap South to cuz the project sites outside of either of those. It's basically Yeah. The northern section is the current three-lane section and the southern section is the two-lane section at Mills Gap. I think

that Yeah. And that that that that plan, by the way, shows five lanes and um and and paths on the side except for the bridges. So, it's it's a pretty nice plan. It's a pretty substantial plan. Yeah. At this point, unfortunately. Yeah. If no other questions of staff, should we invite the applicant to say a few words?

Good evening, Derek Allen again. And I have the same development group and design team uh with me as the last project. It is good to see Clay back uh up here and and doing his thing. So, um I did want to say, uh following up on on the chair's comments, working with staff and working with legal, uh we talk to these folks almost every day. It's it's really um a fun part of our job and also to you. Thank you for what you do. Uh getting in touch with you and getting your feedback is important to us. Uh and everybody is, you know, to a person, you know, doing those things. And so, our community probably doesn't appreciate, but we appreciate the conversation even when they're hard like on the last one. So, thank you for that. Um this project again uh we're in the same litec world uh on this uh these projects uh aren't related. They're not part of the same application but they're part of the same cause and they're the same company and we're trying to do them at the same time in the same proximity uh in order to realize those economies of scale in terms of staffing uh the supportive services part of it. Um, I'm going to skip Will if he's okay with that just in the interest of time. And uh I think this one's going to be mostly uh technical things and I know that uh Commissioner Fairwell is going to want to talk about Sweden Creek, but I'm hoping these focusing a lot further south than uh than where we are. But um Chris, if you would come up and and walk us through the plan, that'd be great.

Chris Day, civil design concepts. Um the great thing, many great things about Clay, but one of the great things is he I don't have really anything left to say. Um he does such a great job of presenting the project from all sides, including the technical side. Um and he referenced many of the things that I was going to. We are um actually implementing the uh the the sidewalk plan where right now the sidewalk on Sweeten Creek Road is right against the edge. It is the back of curb. And so for our project frontage that we have, it's it's not a lot, but there's a little there. We are moving it back 8 feet and creating that that uh pedestrian safe zone and the an area for for vegetation and utilities. Um and then the site climbs. We the the way the site wants to live um it ends up being about 25 ft. The the buildings end up being about 25 feet when you climb up to get up to them.

Sure. Thank you. So, from the entrance way here, you see it the road kind of swoops around to elongate it and create more access to get up here. Um, we do show pedestrian connectivity back down, but you can see here where the the darker lines are. That's indicating um steps. So, um for our you also see this SDA over here. What's that's referring to is an area of safe dispersal. And so that to uh you know for emergency vehicles or emergency services and for people to leave the building it's creating a safe area away from any structures. Um typically you would do that by getting to the rightway but with topography very often in uh in our local community we find ourselves finding other areas. here it played nicely to to use that with the um some of the amendy space to be that area of safe dispersal. So otherwise we have a lot of topography to get up there but then it's kind of flat. These buildings are all proposed. Um we don't have a walk out like on the last one where the building has two elevations. These are are both uh flat around the the parking lot. And then when you get back here to the back, you'll see a retaining wall here. This is a cut wall. So you'll see the wall on this side and then the hill climbs up to the buffer. And as Clay made reference, yeah, we are able to while we're showing the um plantings in the landscape buffer, you can also kind of see the the vegetation line in there, we anticipate we're being able to maintain a lot of that existing vegetation in this area as you climb up. So with that, I'm here for any questions.

Any questions? No, I thought jump on it. You normally say thank you and Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I was just uh Yeah. No, I sat down. I have a question.

We got We got a little loopy after nine. Um can you talk me through like um how you explored um so this is this is affordable housing right and so we're talking about access to public transit and you know that's why we're able to get away with one is it like somewhere around 1.3 spaces per unit you know reduced vehicular traffic anyway can you explain to me the like talk me through like at the design process of trying to get um pedestrian access down to Sweden Creek. I'm looking specifically at building number two. Um I I it's quite a challenge like you said with the with the grade rising. Um but just just walking like if I'm walking this from building two and I I I cross the the main drive and then I kind of hang a right. Right. So I'm at building two which is at the bottom. I cross the main drive and then I have to hang a right into the development further before then swinging around the wall. Right. And then before then before I could make a left again and then and then and then work down towards the stairs.

Correct. And you know these are initial conceptual plans. Um and so there's many things that we could do here um as we move to refine the plans. one what you would see in a lot of situations like this is you might see another set of a few steps to get up so they go straight ahead instead of having to hang the right

um and then there's also the the aspect we've you know we've tried to connect all of these buildings so these buildings are only sitting a few feet in elevation apart from each other and so while we have this connection that you're right it does wrap around the retaining wall the idea of adding a few steps to connect here and come back down would be uh would be very easy and would be something that as we got really into the details that that's when you start Yeah, absolutely. I would just ask but I like that idea. I like that

at this stage I just ask that you explore that like think about walking from each building and how am I getting down to my bus, you know, cuz we're all most of us here probably are very car centric and so a lot of times we have to put our head in that head space. Yeah.

Thank you. Similarly, um yeah, I appreciate your thought on that, um Commissioner Cycle. Similarly, like can you um describe the retaining wall to the south of the entry? Like how tall is that? Are we kind of in a canyon situation between two retaining walls on that entry drive or is it just like a shallow sight wall below the road is a little difficult for me to tell. Is it below the road?

Yeah, it's it's actually it's a good question. Um because we find ourselves in those canyon worlds sometimes, but as you come up

through here, you're climbing quickly. And so here there's this retaining wall is growing um as you climb up. So the ground above here sits at a higher elevation and so you're going from kind of like zero retaining wall but and that is a retaining wall that you would see as you drive up and you're driving beside but this retaining wall is actually holding the road up and the ground is lower beside it. So you would not have that canyon type effect here. You would actually be above looking over on Whoops. But same thing looking over here. But you would have a retaining wall that you drove up along the side of on this side.

I'm looking at my grading plan to verify. Yeah, it is. It's lower on the So you you'd probably have like a vehicular guardrail or something about the height of it. And that that wall um we're estimating that this wall on this side is like six feet. Okay. And it would have a guard rail there. Yes. So it's going to be offset off the road with a guard rail there. And then this wall would be offset off. And up here there would be um a pedestrian rail like a a fence to make sure that as people are walking through this area that um we've got a safety barrier there. Gotcha. Thank you.

Thank you. Um any questions before we open for public comment? We will open for public comment at 9:09.

I think I've signed up. My name is Eric Schneider. I live at 49 and a half Forest Street. Um I do like want to thank you all for having the meeting at night so we can come and herang you with our comments. And honestly, I would hate to do the job of any of you. So, thank you all for trying to bring these projects to our community. Um I just wanted to raise uh basically two points in this uh meeting. I think as a homeowner, I've been to those houses. They're residential homes. the parking lot is too big. But, you know, there's no there's no way to say that within our ordinances. And I think I think this is a good project. I think this should be approved. And I think like in the other project, it looks like the design was optimized to protect the homes and put structures and buffers to protect the homes, but it's still too big. Um, and so I think as our density increases, it's necessary for our development standards to to be able to create appropriate incentives for mixed use. and that's our community's goal and so I think it is too big a parking lot but it by right with the underlying zoning they could probably build a much bigger one so I appreciate them doing their best and the council's consideration of parking impact on housing and the other project tonight so it's just one concern is just how do we in our ordinances provide appropriate relative density uh sighting and and scale of parking u my other one um is in my in my public comment for this the written comment I requested that the the uh committee evaluate the community net economic impact in the long term of this project as well as the other one. Um, and I'm I as I said in the last meeting, I'm I'm surprised that the staff report and the the committee haven't discussed that. And when I brought it up last time, I I think there's a kind of a a knee-jerk reaction that the affordable housing act does not allow one to discuss uh ownership structures or community impact like because it's sort of that's adjacent to the affordable housing act protections for for commercial use um that it's not discussable, but that is actually a part of the city's comprehensive plan on page well it's the headline of resilient

economy is is that prepared the community to deal with changes in economic health sustainable development and reliance on local assets. So evaluation against community standards does include evaluation of economic impact and I haven't seen that in any of these and I'm worried that the reason is because of that adjacency. Um and and also just I mean the the the zoning standards for this proposal are that the property shall be leased to individuals over a certain period of time. That's a specific ownership structure that's placed within the actual zoning ordinance for this property. And so it's an explicit part of the conversation that that needs to be had. And I think there has to be a way for city staff and and legal team and the council ultimately to have that conversation uh without being shy about the fact that it could um mishandled and without appropriate legal uh treatment, could be mishandled, would be discriminatory against a developer that's trying to build positive things in our community. But it but some developments aren't going to be good for our community. Um and so we have to have a way to have that conversation. Maybe not in a contentious public hearing, but that that needs to be worked out as how commission members can raise that question is how does this impact our economy um without uh threatening the you know legal validity of the decisions you make. So thanks.

Thank you. And would anybody else like to speak on this matter? Seeing none, we will close the public comment at 9:12. Um I appreciate the comment about economic impact and I think you know one thing that we consider is the land use regulation and there's different ways to do analysis on economic impact. So it is certainly something that needs to be discussed broadly and needs to be a part of say our um 5x5 plan and other kind of community plans that um assess and evaluate and try to attract uh positive economic impact into the community. Um there's various ways to analyze including induced economic impact. So affordable housing saves people rent that then provides purchasing power out in the community. there's um long-term jobs that are associated with affordable housing. And these are all things that have been studied by people smarter than me that are tasked with evaluating positive economic impact. So, while I appreciate the comment um for this body, our focus is really on land use regulation and um comprehensive plan adherence. And while a comprehensive plan does address our economy, it would be my position that, you know, it provides a dangerous game for us to um not not truly do definitive economic analysis on every single development because we could be cherrypicking how we want to describe economic impact. So that that's just kind of my opinion. It's not really um it's not necessarily, you know, we don't need to respond or go deeper down, but I I I really appreciate the thought because it is something I think about as our community grows and as we think about what our community needs to

continue to prosper along into the future. So, I appreciate you at least initiating the discussion and would look forward offline and outside of this meeting to figure out how we can bring that more into our city's planning. Um, can can I push back a little bit on that? Sure.

I I actually really like the idea of including economic impact information if it's available in the staff report. Um, you know, I I think sort of similar to the way that land use and transportation planning are like two sides of the same coin. I think economic development and and land use planning are also two sides of the same coin. um and you know we need a variety of land uses in order to create jobs in order to have um tax revenue and other considerations. And so um you know I I I don't know to what extent it's asked for or required in the permit applications but if if you know if that information is voluntarily you know provided I want to make I would love to make sure that it's getting passed along to us in the in the staff reports and and presentations. Um, and I I think similarly like I you know the neighborhood meetings were linked um in this most recent staff report. But I think it would be really helpful um you know maybe it's more just like a reminder of like this is what the notice requirements were and this is the meetings that occurred and as they develop the anti-displacement tool like referencing if that was used and how you know what the variety of tools that are going to be available through that um I think could be helpful in the staff report too.

Commissioner Perloth. Yeah, I'm going to kind of agree. I mean, I I I realize that we're not a that we can't evaluate the economics completely of a situation or a certain applicant, and that's unfair, but I think asking questions about like changes in property values and how one project affects the other is I feel like within a realm of a question that could be asked or even if not asked, like,

you know, I would love to see staff encourage applicants to voluntarily provide stuff. I was thrilled when the Costco project when they were at least willing to show a little bit about number of employed and roof wages. I was like, "Wow, this is great that they're saying arguing that it's a benefit for them." Sure. But it shows a willingness that they're willing to have that conversation. So, I don't know if staff can soft pitch that to people or anything, but um I think that'd be cool. Um so, thank you, Mr. Shider, for your comments.

Appreciate the comment. Um any any further questions, comments on the project or are we ready for a motion or Go ahead.

Sorry. Uh Commissioner Zesca, uh question for the project team that I actually wish I thought of during our last uh proposal. Mr. Allen, I think I heard you say 30-year affordability period. Would you all be willing to put 30 in the ordinance for this one rather than the 20? Literally the only reason that we didn't do that on this and some of the other ones that we bought through the last couple months is uh the prospect that uh this particular property ends up not getting funded uh and then it's got a 30-year condition which would uh potentially bring it back in front of this commission and city council to remove that comm uh that condition if someone wanted to do 20 instead of 30. And so that's why we went with what the city baseline is when it has its D restrictions and that is 80% AMI at 20% at at 20 years. And so that that's the only reason to pro provide flexibility in the event that the the funding doesn't go through.

Okay. And if the LITC application does go through would be the 30-year period. Correct. And it would have the the deeply affordable way below the 80%. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. Um, thanks to the project team for this. I'm excited about this one. It has really great access to a larger road um that can handle um that amount of traffic easily. Um, in general, I'm in favor of this. I do want to say I feel like there was perhaps a little bit of a missed opportunity where like on the other project we saw a mix um of the town home style with the multif family style. I thought that was a at least I felt like that was a way to blend it into a neighborhood. I know my fellow commissioners disagree, but I think there was potential of that opportunity here as well with the residentials, the single family residential in the south. But um you know I I I'm moved to approve this. Um my last comment I'll make then I'll shut up about it is um you know uh when I saw a project on Sweeten Creek coming up, you know, my my hairs went up because I am upset about how the development of the road, the three lane and the two-lane section of this road further south is still not on the docket to be improved. Uh, I know I've complained about it before, but you know, I I have a microphone and hopefully our uh city council people and mayor are listening and I I know it's not up to them to make that decision, but it you know, they do have the capability to put pressure um on the bodies and the people in Raleigh that do make those decisions. So I, you know, I'm going to keep talking about it because the difference to me is while yes, there is new development going on like along Caribou Road and that's going to exacerbate that problem on Sweeten Creek, those projects already in the ground and people are already living there. It's it's already said and done years ago. So I feel like it's way later

than even than these new upcoming ones. So that's I'll get off my soap box and stop complaining about it, but had to say it. Did I Did I hear you say you I'm happy to make a motion. I just wanted to see if the other commissioners wanted to say anything as well. Hearing none. Um, let me find it. Did you have something, Commissioner Analo? Or I said, no.

Okay. I move to recommend approval of the conditional zoning request for the property located at 1116 Sweden Creek Road from commercial industrial and residential multif family highdensity RM16 to residential expansion conditional zoning zone and find that the request is reasonable is in the public interest is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and meets the development needs in of the community and that the request one prioritizes greater densities of development overall throughout the city as appropriate. and two increases the supply of housing including affordable housing in proximity to schools, transit and parks. Seconded.

We have a motion and a second. Um any further comments? All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Best of luck. And that concludes our agenda for this evening. Our next meeting is June 3rd at 5:00.