Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

We are live. Good afternoon. Um I'm Maggie Olman and welcome you to our June 17, 2025 planning, economic development, and environment committee meeting. This is a remote meeting and all council folks and all staff are participating remotely. Um, to help our audience follow along, I'm going to state each section of the agenda aloud. We are streaming live on our virtual engagement hub, which is accessible through the virtual engagement hub link on the front page of the city's website. We also have an option for the public to listen live by phone. For today's meeting, we have the option for people to call in and comment live during the meeting if you'd like that. Uh, use the number 855-9252801 with meeting code 8187. Your phone will be muted. You'll hear the meeting live. And at this point, speakers will need to push star three to enter the speaker queue. I'll go through roll call where I'll ask everybody to come off mute and just say hello. Uh, first, Councilwoman Sage Turner. Good afternoon. Welcome, Councilwoman Kim Rooney. Good afternoon. Our assistant city manager, Ben Woody. Good afternoon. Our uh deputy city attorney, Janice Ashley. Good afternoon. Our assistant city attorney, Carly Gillingham. Good afternoon, Carly. Welcome. I feel like this might be a debut on a committee call. We're really excited that you're part of the team. Thank you. Me, too. our um assistant director of planning and urban design Chris Collins is with us. Hello everyone. And our development services director, Mark Natheni, is also on the call today. Good afternoon. Welcome. Welcome. Glad everybody's here.

Um I'm going to go ahead and shift over to our agenda and kind of get us started in it. Uh, the first item is approval of the May 20, it says 2024, but I think it means our 2025 meeting minutes from last month. Do I have a motion? This is Kim. So moved. Second. All right. I have a motion and a second. As is our process. I will do a roll call vote since we are virtual. Councilwoman Turner I. Councilwoman Rooney I. Myself I. The motion passes and we will now um welcome Chris Collins to talk us through super exciting stuff, long-term recovery planning. Take it away. All right. Thank you. Um good afternoon everyone. I'm Chris Collins, the assistant director of planning and urban design department for the city of Asheville. Um, and council members, committee members, I want to take you through uh the unified long-term recovery plan, tell you what it is, provide a real high level overview of this project, um, and hopefully help you get an understanding of what to expect when we look towards releasing the draft in September. So, go ahead, next slide, please. So the key takeaways is that we're working as a part of this county-led plan. It's going to unify recovering efforts, unify recovery efforts across Bluman County and all its municipalities. Uh, of course, like with many plans, it'll impact it'll it'll review the impact and recovery efforts that we've had so far from tropical storming. And then it will incorporate recovery projects from all jurisdictions. It'll be listed with time frames, complexity, complexities, and other issues. Um, and since we're working with the county and all other municipalities, we're of course going to be looking to seek efficiencies between jurisdictions and kind of simplify public comment collection and produce a plan that will

be a roadmap for community recovery. Next slide, please. So, really, what is the long-term recovery plan? So, we're looking at a communitydriven plan and this is a following a formula that we've seen come out of many disaster impacted communities over the years. We were working closely with FEMA to produce this communitydriven plan and I'll talk a little bit more about how that communitydriven piece is coming in later on um to produce a roadmap for recovery. We're going to outline the needs and the projects needed to achieve achieve those needs. And something that'll be interesting about this, a lot of projects we've talked about so far are HMGP projects or C projects or CDPGR projects. This is not a funding source. This is a plan to put them all together. So, we're going to link those projects to existing and even possible funding sources in some cases. Next slide. So, who is involved? So, FEMA is helping us drive this, helping us draft the plan, but as you can see here, it's literally every municipality in the county. So um the county is kind of taking the lead. We are working with them as a major partner um in meeting bi-weekly with all our municipalities, Black Mountain, Weaverville, Wooden, Bmore Forest, and Montre uh to talk through things and come up with ideas and places where we can work together and places where our projects might touch each other. Um and everything that goes there will go into one unified document for long-term recovery plan. I would expect it to be a pretty uh pretty lengthy document by the time it's done as it is incorporating a lot of work. Uh and talking more about what that plan is. Next slide please. The objective here is to identify priority projects of recovery. Not every single step we take but some big ones. Um coordinate responses between municipalities, counties and FEMA. Serve as a guide for the community and the governments involved. Um and act as a snapshot in a time of recovery needs. So this is really going to be a dynamic thing as we

move forward as we update where these projects are and feasibility of the projects moving forward. That leads us to this progressing as a living document um and necessitates reporting dynamically on the progress of the long-term recovery. I think trying to provide real-time results to the community on where projects are and how they're going uh as related to this plan. Next slide please. So, community engagement and information. So where we are with that, you see in front of you, you're familiar with the city of Asheville's recovery priorities survey which was a pretty well participated initiative uh where we gather a lot of information and we did a lot of CDBGDR community development block disaster recovery driven engagement as well uh which was a mix of social media pushes, in-person events, community meetings sessions, engagement sessions, educational communication sessions And coupled with that, the county just recently rounded out their own envision plan survey uh which was aimed much like our recovery priorities survey at where do we need to be focusing on projects uh to recover as we come out of the impacts of tropical storm marine. So between those three things and a few other things, the goal there was to develop projects that will help that we can work on as a city uh that will help us get to a point of moving and moving towards recovery from tropical storm plane. Next slide, please. So talking more in detail about the projects themselves, we're going to we we do follow kind of a formulaic uh template that FEMA works with for these projects. Um, and we'll go into some examples of those here in a slide or two. Uh, but when you see projects come across here, they're going to be standardized on how we report out on these. Each one is going to tell you if these are short-term projects, medium-term projects, or long-term projects. So, that's ranging from one

year to completion to things that take more than five years of completion because this is really going to encompass a lot of different things. Um, describing complexity, that's really a staff driven estimate of project complexity. And we're going to consider things such as permitting needs, design difficulty, community needs, further engagement needs that may come along with each project that's listed in here. Um, and cost is pretty self-explanatory. We're going to categorize these by projects that are less than a million, projects that are 1 to 10 million cost, and projects that might even go higher than that over. As you know, we have a lot of work to do. So, run the run the game on costs. So, next slide, please. So, talking more about what these projects might look like, and we've got a couple of slides to go through that, but this is an example project from the Wahana long-term recovery plan out of Maui. Um, they have a really nice way of presenting these projects online and taking through each one. Um, including a map that shows you where the projects are, what they are. Um, but you'll see here they've come in and classified each project in six areas for this plan, which include the three we just went under. what we just went over which are complexity, cost, and timing of course are there. We're also looking at what level of participation is happening with this project. It's really important to start the community on the right foot with that. Uh what phase it's currently in, who's participating, and they do have a page, I guess, for each project in their plan. I think they have 30 to 40 projects in their plan gauging on recovery. So, um that's a real good example. It's kind of a concrete one to see what this might look like. Next slide, please. And I think the hardest part for me to wrap my head around when I first started working through what this is going to look like to participate with the county is what really is it? Because we have a lot of activities going on. Um, we have activities that are

producing recovery focused organizational work plan projects which have been previewed somewhat for council at this point. uh we have projects that are be going to be directly coming out of the CDBGDR uh funding and those projects will be identified as we roll through this. The city has also submitted uh letters of interest for hazard mitigation grant program funded projects and outside of that of course those are the big buckets but there are other projects there are further off projects there are projects that have not yet have funding identified that could be important impactful for our recovery. So what the long-term recovery plan really acts like is sort of a I was going to try and find icons for this but they all were too silly looking but sort of like an umbrella for all the recovery projects right to think about it as organizing all these projects categorizing in a way that we can go back and figure out what to work on when to work on it and if we have additional funding or additional capacity what projects aren't funded or designated yet in that lane. Um, so this will kind of pull all those together. Right now, we've been kind of working through separate processes to develop these projects. And this is going to pull everything into one document. It's going to bring in that projects, these projects which were developed using the public input we've received from recovery priorities and other engagements. It's going to put them to a document and guide us through getting these things done. Next slide, please. So the project schedule where we are right now um for this relative timeline today is over here on the left. The aim is to have a draft plan released by originally I thought was by the anniversary of the storm but um exact dates haven't been nailed down so I'm going to September 2025 right now that a draft plan would come out to this committee and to the public for a comment. Uh the plan right now, we've been talking to the county, is to try

and provide one spot to release that draft and one spot for the public to comment to try and make this a little easier rather than one for each municipality, one for Asheville, one for Buckham County. Um and then work through those comments, make any edits, any changes we need uh heading towards a final I mean the county is planning on doing a adoption vote in November of 2025. So um we would bring that to city council in November as well. Now of course what this is is a container for all our projects a plan that shows us where to go. So beyond that we are working through these projects for quite some time. So you see the only one green line um anywhere from one plus years to 10 plus years after this plan has been produced. We'll be working through projects and reporting back on where we are. Next slide please. So next steps immediately what we're doing in that time frame between now and September is we're working closely with FEMA and also with the county and other jurisdictions to draft the plan content. Uh we have been going through different processes to develop individual projects based on community feedback. We're still working on identifying the projects that are all going to go into this plan and working with our FEMA reps to get those in the format they need to be in draft. again moving towards a draft plan released in September uh with a unified public comment after that draft plan. That's where we stand now. Next slide, please. And that'll just be your key takeaways again. So, as I said, I know there's a lot. It's a high level on this right now. Um any questions you have, I'm happy to answer. Council Light. Thanks, Chris. Um, I am curious about

I guess I'll start with can you give an example of what working together with the county and improving efficiencies looks like? I know you're it sounded like you were still wrapping your mind around it too, but I'm excited about working together. So, we have found like I'll try and provide an example from our discussions and just I'll disclaim it with we haven't like settled on anything like that but um concepts around like early flood warning and detection things like that we have found that to be something that's come up amongst the city in the county's conversations and the municipalities conversations. So naturally that leads us to well here's an opportunity to look at this as maybe a consolidated project. Um that's that's the best example I can think of off the top of my head. We've had a few topics we've been scratching that way and we're we're working towards developing some concepts for projects that could go across jurisdictional lines. Um but that's a pretty good example. Better early flood warning, river stage, things like that. Everybody needs it. So that's a great example. Um makes total sense because um the river and flooding cross jurisdictional lines. Um when we did the noise ordinance survey years ago, um there was this is before my time on council, but we um as an organization identified gaps where we knew there were people that were impacted, but they weren't necessarily engaging in the way we were engaging them. Um and did some targeted outreach. Is there already an existing plan or funding in place already to do something similar with this process? Um, I'm thinking of like if resilience hubs are going to be part of this, are we going to utilize our leadership academy members or neighborhoods that participated in the climate justice initiative? I think the way to think of it and using

resilience hubs as an example, um, let's say resilience hubs are a project that are contained within this plan. Then as we saw with like the example from the high plan, like we're going to indicate what level of engagement is needed for that individual project, right? Um so you might even see some projects in here that are explore this concept. The project is to find out what to do here and what the feasibility is. Um and each project is going to launch further efforts. It's kind of it that's what it makes this plan a little harder to to wrap your head around is because it really is a plan containing sometimes other plans um and other projects and other engagement efforts. So it's important not to look at it as any engagement done for this plan is it for any project in there. It is really just a way a bridge to get to that project and what level of engagement or communication depending on the project is needed to move forward. That makes sense especially because we might be going after similar funding streams. So how can we collaborate too? Um, I see Walter's on this call and I had um an idea while you were mentioning that about multi-solving the Pinto. Are there when we're talking about like capital improvement projects and also um damages in our community? Are there any um obvious overlaps where the you know crusty old Pinto car um is was due for an upgrade anyway, but we're going to see um partnerships for our community to multisolve or is that part of this research? We're we're still researching. Uh I think that we I did mention at some point during the work session, the PFI work session that um the hazard mitigation grant program funding is it's got to mitigate

uh a natural disaster in some way or make the community more resilient to those natural disasters. Um yes, where we can. Uh and then to to fit the other side of that. But we will um we have submitted a letter of interest for uh for example generators for critical facilities. There were a number of facilities that that didn't have generators that could have used them. Um as well there is some overlap with our ability to provide solar plus battery backup. Um and uh I think that's a very good example in how our community can can hit both sides of both the um resilience for our organization as well as hit a sustainability goal that we have. I say that and caveat with again it's got to fit with the requirements of the um the grant and so u that's that's probably the lowest of the hanging fruits that that might in your questions. That's a great example. I'm really glad to hear y'all are thinking about it that way. That ends my list of questions. Thanks, Councilwoman. Any other questions or comments? The only thing, and I've mentioned this to staff, is um it's a pretty quick timeline to accomplish this. And I think what I hear you saying, Chris, is that this is like a plan of plans that there's going to be community engagement in certain areas that we need to kind of get the alignment of where we're going first. And so I kind of hold this tension of well, I don't want to spend three years doing all the engagement to know what directions we're going in, but I also just don't want to get too far ahead of the community. And as I've talked with other communities who've experienced disasters, that's just a

hard tension that we have to navigate. We have to go quickly, but we can't rush too quickly. And so I think this is threading that needle. Um, and I think it just puts more impetus on us as electeds to be engaging and sharing this information out like there's probably three people watching right now. And so figuring out a way to make sure that folks are aware of what's going on and kind of having that conversation move forward. So, um, appreciate the work. Excited to see this. Really looking forward to our community coming together to really rebuild and be even better than we ever were. Okay, we can now move on to agenda item three, which I believe is you again, Chris, and we're going to look at the unified development ordinance updates moving forward. One of my favorite nerd topics. Take it away. All right, sounds good. Um, again, I'm Chris Collins. from the assistant director of planning urban design. Uh Steph is listed there. Steph is on vacation this week taking some needed time off. So I will fill you in on this topic. Um so speaking of hazard mitigation grant programs and you'll see why in a second as I work through these slides. I want to talk to you about how we are modifying our current approach to amending development regulations or DBO right now. Um and go ahead to the next slide. So, the key takeaways I'm going to go over today, we're going to talk about how last year's work plan included a process to regularly amend the city's housing ordinances and regulations to support additional housing opportunities in Nashville. You all know that. We're going to go over that a little bit. Um, go over what council has reviewed and approved recently. to that end and look at fiscal year 26. How staff is going to propose to focus on securing a funding opportunity for resiliency centered comprehensive updates to the city's comprehensive plan and codes and ordinances.

Um the council would continue proposed amendments that align local ordinances state legislation, improve the workability of current housing ordinances and amendments to support economic recovery within and without out of the video. code ordinances as well. Um, and that this committee would receive another update on the approach to updating the bill and regulations after we know more about the current funding opportunity. All right, so that teased a lot and some details. Just briefly, I'm recapping the next recap that says recap of next steps, but that's from a slide from a long time ago. A lot of these are no longer the next steps. A lot of these have been done. Um but to recap in yellow there we are talking about the regulatory and zoning strategies that were part of implementing the affordable housing plan. Um and that was the plan there was of course to look at some zoning amendments to promote housing February 11th ended up happening in March. We talk about that. Uh and then to look at a neighborhood housing overlay. Of course we started this plan preheline. We picked it back up postine and we're learning new things every day in recovery. Um so next slide please and we'll uh talk about what we've done so far. So since 12825 picking things back up after um council has voted and approved updated flood development standards that align with state codes and removed inconsistencies. revised both cottage and flag lot standards to allow for a little more housing with the exception of some residential districts. Um, and with the last three bullets there, that was increasing the threshold for level for level two site plan review before you get to level three site plan review. Um, and transit supportive corridors

when providing affordable housing. Also in those same areas, eliminating the minimum number of required parking spaces for residential projects and some commercial and changing a few other definitions and um dimensional requirements to hopefully make it easier to build housing in those transit square corridors. So that was how we addressed that first step of the regulatory changes needed to start implementing the affordable housing plan. Next slide, please. And what we've come across now is a hazard mitigation grant funded possibly funded uh code enhancement funding opportunity. So HMGP stands for hazard mitigation grant program. It's in a lot of our vocabularies now. Um but it supports activities to reduce uh long-term risk to people and property, right? And really we're talking about flooding, wildfires, all that. Definitely flooding in our case is something to look at. Um it's administered at the state level and we do apply it is measured against everyone in the state. Um so at this point the city we have submitted a letter of interest to the state. That's kind of a prerequisite for an application to uh what we've named the resilient enhancements to codes and standards project. Um and this is aligned with the requirements for a u access file I believe it's a 7% um planning allocation that can be spent on improving codes and standards um and specifically this project would include a t tactical and technical updates to our comprehensive plan posting um an evaluation of our current ordinance and standards and we would anticipate significant proposed changes to the UDO um possibly uh standards and details manual and other regulatory documents as well. Um all these things are really interconnected when you change one you change others but also we

really have to focus things on resiliency uh for disasters but it is a broad focus on resiliency or or reaching all aspects of resiliency. For instance, uh pedestrian connectivity and and multimodal transportation are resilient things uh for a community as are mitigating the risks associated with housing displacement for natural disasters. Um so if that gives you an idea of where we would be looking to take this um and again UDO is a big puzzle, so you change one piece out, everything fits differently. So we would anticipate a pretty substantial uh amendment to the code. Next slide, please. This timeline really has a lot of information on it. I'm going to summarize it real briefly. Don't feel like you have to take it all in right now. Um, but generally, uh, a notice of funding availability came out after the storm for this grant program. We have a deadline for those letters of interest, which are really a few slides on the template that the state asked for. Um, in October, uh, there was kind of a preferential deadline in May. We hit that preferential deadline in May. Whatever the city was putting in, including with resigning code updates. Um, what's important to look at here is the final application period will close in July of 2026. That feels like a long way away. It is we're trying to get specific dates and information. It was our understanding we will know enough to start on an RFP or RFQ before that date. Um, it's just you can't release any funding to have that final award, right? So, I can't give you a hard date on when we would be saying we're going to release RFQ or RFQ for this yet, but it would be prior to July is my understanding. Next slide, please. Oh, actually, don't

leave that. Okay. Um, I I forgot to cover the rest here. Uh so once you do get awarded the funds, it is a four-year period to get whatever you're doing completed. Um construction, this is not a construction project. If it was a construction project, there's a review period that can take a while. So you're looking at 48 months to do the work and there are kind of built-in extension opportunities for 12 months at a time twice, but four years is probably enough time to cover this type of activity. So I covered that. Counciloman Maria, I think you have a hand up. No, go ahead. No, I don't want to interrupt the flow. Next slide, please, Kate. So, that said, the basis of this is we are anticipating funding for a large COVID, right? So, our aim as staff is to reduce the scope of amendments between now and then, right? Um, so that's that's kind of a message here is we we it's it's like we don't want to replace half the engine when we're about to replace the whole engine kind of thing. Um, we would be looking to move forward primarily uh, you know, housekeeping and community workability amendments. It doesn't mean there wouldn't be anything that changed anything here as you'll see. Um, but let me go ahead and just go over what we anticipate this summer. Right. So, on 624, you're going to see housekeeping amendment to reinsert the field of sidewalk language, which was inter intermittently removed from the air and all that fun stuff with the housing on March 11th. There was a lot going on there. Um, but we've taken it through steps to get it back in. So, you'll see that in June. Um in July we're anticipated bringing you some changes related to the board of adjustment um

how it operates and variances that have been granted. Um and truly housekeeping and is the first is the second row on this chart. That's changes to the legal notification requirements um and board composition requirements that are simply going to bring us in line with state statute. So that one's truly housekeeping. what you see there listening to our accessory dwelling unit. Just taking something we've seen uh honestly for stretches we've seen most of our board of adjustment agendas packed with which is the conversion of an existing accessory structure that does not conform into an accessory dwelling unit. Um we've had full full adjustment and it's just granted variances to allow those conversions to happen. Um, so that tells us that that code section needs to be fixed so people can just create these accessory delay units out of existing existing accessory structures without bumping or adjustment. So that one will come in front of you. What's listed as August 2025 is outside the ADO. Um, but it would be aimed at updating the push card requirements to make push cards a little more functional um and attainable for folks who want to uh promote their lawyers and sell food and merchandise that way. Um, but that will be something aimed at economic recovery that be coming in August. Next slide, please. So getting a little like somewhat granular into the next steps and timeline. Uh so we anticipate in July or August we would ask for council council consideration to authorize staff to submit a full HMG grant application for this code this comprehensive plan and update encoder right. Um that would include upcoming further information sharing council committee meetings leading up to that as we know more. Um and in summer 2025 and ongoing council consideration of regulatory amendments

that are limited in scope in anticipation of this larger project. Fall and winter of 2025 is when we think we'd be looking at consideration of an HMG award by a statement. So I mentioned that we anticipate that going before July kind of a broad date in here when we think we might have the green light to move forward. um will of course give you more specificity as we learn it for sure. Um and then moving after that, we will work on resilient codes and standards that could begin after receive official letter of award. So we're looking at asking for folks to help with this with via RFQ. And after that official letter of award, which I do think pulls into a lot, um then we'd be looking at actually doing funding those coding amendments and outreach and everything else that needs to go along with it. Um it's a big project, so this feels like a really condensed uh I don't feel like I'm doing it justice with this short presentation. Um but next slide, please Katie. We'll just have your key takeaways in front of you again. And I'm sure you have questions to answer council attorney. Well, this is exciting. I know um I received a list of the LOIs just as a request of what have we already submitted and I saw this was $1.5 million. Is that right? That is correct. Yeah. But that's great. Um the reaction I'm having to kind of stepping back on what we had been doing to undertake a bigger process gets me excited but also makes me a little concerned for the next steps we had planned for housing policy. So you know when you say this is for four years what would help me really better understand what I'm agreeing to is are we going to stop some things that are going to ultimately be delayed for two years? like is nothing going to come to us for a couple years because it's going to be such intense work. Are there

other housing things that need to stay in the mix in the meantime? And then if you go can you go back to the timeline that I think it was two slides back one more this okay nope uh that table. Yeah. So there's also a couple other things that I was hoping to see coming to peed in this time this window. Um and I don't know if it's you know, this committee just needs to request things on an agenda. I don't want to mess you all up, but I guess I'm just reacting to the compressing of current objectives to take on this bigger process. One of the things was um obviously the housing and next steps and missing middle, but also um one of the things I'd like to see come to peed is the sound and noise ordinance debate we're having in the community around events. And I thought this was the right committee to bring it to and it needs to be addressed soon. So, we'd have to actually agenda it soon and tackle it maybe at a July meeting. I was kind of hoping we could push it through today and have it on the June 24th meeting, but um and then also, and this is going to feel crazy to someone in legal team, but when we talk about push carts and those adjustments, I'm also wondering if that is the time to finally resolve the busking permit issue. We're going to be messing with things downtown. That one's been on the books for a long time and I know um the attorney that worked on it has left and the community is still hoping and while we try and revitalize and you know bring some energy to downtown, it'd sure be nice to bring that one up too. Just a little two cents there. But congrats and I do support this moving forward. I think it's going to be very helpful. Um I would just love to know more about the scope. Sure, that makes sense. And I'll I'll I'll start and address what you said about missing middle housing next steps. There are some things that we could maybe look at that are already kind of queued up that never made it to council

um that are minor enhancements to miss housing. I don't want to commit right here on this call without looking at what we would need as far as bringing community law and things like that. Um but but we're open to seeing what's had substantial work done already and see see what that looks like. um because there's a good bit of work that happened that didn't result in anything yet. Um if that makes sense. I am hearing we've heard we've had several applications since the March adoption of corridor changes. We we do have some things pending that are that are exciting and we'll be taking advant advantage of a few of those changes that were made. Yes. I don't Councilman Turn and uh Chair Alman I don't know if you want to chime I have a couple things I'll add Councilman Turner's questions but does anybody else want to go first I guess from the council side. Um, yeah, I can just layer in a couple, but I think it would be nice to hear more about what Sage is bringing up of there's so many pressing needs from our UDO and what does comprehensive timeline look like versus staging? Because when we were looking at it previously, we had the concept of batches so that we could keep moving forward. Do we not even know until we hire a team to help us figure this out? So that timing would be helpful because the idea of sitting here for four years to get everything perfect and wait is not that appealing. And I'm very excited about the idea of looking at it in a big picture and not in a vacuum. Um, I think that the UDO is ultimately the blueprint that guides how we grow and after the storm. It's a wakeup call that we need a blueprint that reflects the climate reality we're living in. And that if

we're going to recover, we also need to adapt. And in order to do that, we need to update these rules to make sure homes, businesses, like all of it is greener and built to withstand what's coming for us. And so I'm very excited at really looking at the UDO from a resilience lens and a housing resilience lens because we had so much damage to houses and we know that our housing stock really isn't meeting our need. Our housing stock isn't affordable for our folks. So I I feel really excited about taking a bigger bite at really making this blueprint reflect the community we want to build but share that curiosity around timeline. Um, and then I had a more specific question of like, can you talk to me more about the push cart requirements and like what the issue is that we're seeing at hand, just kind of like a little more granular of an example to give me some context. Um, so that's just a couple things to layer into staff responding. It seems like Kim wants to chime into. Yeah, while we're stacking our list, um I watched a documentary a couple weeks ago at the Thomas Wolf House and it was storytelling from the 2004 flood, so 20 years ago, with survivors of the 1916 great flood and hearing their stories, there were so many that were like, "We see houses going up on these steep slopes and they're not going to last." And so, um, it was a good reminder that we do have, um, bouts of intense rain events here and because they're worsening, um, what are we doing about meaningful storm water mitigation? How does that fit in with our UDO? Um, are we going to touch back on our steep slope ordinance? Um, pvious surfaces. like I don't see that explicitly here, but I'm imagining it either could be or

may already be and it feels like an obligation to touch on that at this level. Um I'd be interested in knowing if push carts also addresses the asks for um food trucks. Um, as more of our downtown restaurants are shortening their evening hours, there's been a big push um, especially from um, community members that maybe have less capital um, to be able to participate in our economy and the multi-layered benefits of safety and energizing our downtown. Um, I'm curious about that. So, I wanted push trucks includes the last one is I I thought we were going to be addressing um personal mobility devices in this meeting, but it looks like it's on a future agenda. So, just want to know where we are with that. Welcome back to PBD. We just want to load you guys down. I'm so sorry, but um obviously this committee had a lot planned that was pretty important to us. Um because Kim is spot on personal mobility. Um, I mean, the more we talk about push carts versus buskers versus food trucks, I'm actually wondering if it's like a, you know, how are we jumpstarting downtown? And I would put that 50 noise events in there, too. Like what what are we doing to bolster whether for a temporary basis or not, you know, a return to downtown post flood. And those could all be one agenda item. I mean, I don't know if we can just push things out on a trial, but I would love to make moves in all of those areas, and I think it would go a long way in recovery. One thing that would also help me too as we're honoring staff capacity is which ones of the things already kind of and that's why I'd ask for a um meeting with um executive team members is

what where have we already spent some time and energy and done the community engagement where we could get some fast wins for our community and for our staff. Like this is what it feels like to get stuff done. Personal mobility. We did a whole bunch and we were supposed to go over the transit study results this fall like I don't want us to lose sight of some stuff. I guess we're do we have a work the transit staff is moving forward and the um staff has uh created a steering committee a task force of community advocates and transit enthusiasts and transit technical folks and I believe they're meeting first for like a training this month and having a work session. So that is moving forward which feels great. I don't remember where that update came from but maybe staff could send that update along again. Um, but I'm I'm hearing kind of an appetite for so there's so what staff what I'm seeing from staff is like what they're hoping is housekeeping and I appreciate that and we all spent a work session last week looking at what they are recommending as the building blocks of major projects. I'm also hearing an appetite of a broader what is the economic revitalization conversation look like? And I'll remind us that ULI is going to be coming into the community next month to really help us with our vision through the long-term plan that um Chris presented on earlier. So, I have a real appetite for looking at economic recovery for the community as well, but I I want to make sure that we're not I think staff's as like there is some of this cleanup stuff that is low lift in the context of the rest of the work plan. Um, so just want to honor kind of navigating that. And Sage, I see your hand up, but I wonder Ben, is there

anything that responding to help the dialogue or do you wanna let Sage go or We'll let Sage go ahead and go then. And I'm going to be brief and I respond, but this is a great conversation. I was really only going to point out that the remainder of the Lois we've already received. Kim was talking about like flooding and what are we doing in the planning realm and there's like $30 million in Lois out on that kind of stuff. watershed and flood protection, mitigation, all this stuff. So, we're not ignoring that. I feel like that is probably a whole council thing. I don't know where that's going to land if it's all coming through this committee, but it is out there. If you're listening in, we are doing all of those things, too. But, um, go ahead, Ben. You can try and get our ducks in a row. I just hope we do some things. I think I think it's good. Um, yeah. So, work planning. Um, we talked about that a little bit at the last meeting. I think that we need at our next peed meeting to set aside a little time to talk about work planning because um I think staff have things we want to bring to you that we think align with your priorities. You know, we've got those 12 organizational work plan items that we shared with council um and our in our small group work. Like for example, both the items that Chris presented today, they're both on the organizational work plan. So these these are things you'll get regular updates on. Um, but I also think the PED work plan should have space for you to identify things that you want to work on as a committee. So, I would like to see us maybe working together to kind of flesh that out a little bit so we can bring to you the things that we feel like we need to do to advance your council priorities, but then as a committee, maybe there's things that you want us to explore. But I I just want to have that conversation in this format because I'll give you a good example is um housing. So I know that we'll continue to do programmatic things through the HCD committee. So you know we're going to do and Janice could probably help me with this. We're going

to do rental assistance. We're going to do home repair programs. A lot of programmatic things related to housing are going to happen. They'll happen more at a different committee. But I think what we're talking about today is what are the regulatory changes that we want to make related to housing. I don't think Chris is saying that we'll never do regulatory changes for four years. I think the question is can we be real clear on the regulatory changes you think make sense? And then I think the the other question is does the planning staff have the bandwidth and capacity to do that? If they don't, I would then ask council, what do you not want us to work on if we're going to prioritize housing regulatory changes? So, I think some of it's just a back and forth at this level about what are your expectations and are we all because I mean, you know, we always have been kind of lean and busy and there's just so much that needs to be done related to recovery. I just think we have to be mindful of, you know, the impact on on staff and and sometimes that means rep prioritizing things, right? And then like transportation, um the micromobility is coming to you next month. That was, you know, the transportation staff elected to make that the the date to bring it to you. I have to assume they felt like they need to do a little more work to get it council ready. I don't know all the details, but they're certainly going to bring it back to this body to hear and make decisions on. So maybe next week, next month, we can dig into this a little more and figure out like what does the FY 26 look like for this committee? What do we want to work on? That sounds like it would help everyone. Yeah. Yeah. Great. That way we don't overwhelm you, too. And so looping back I to Chris what you were kind of presenting on. I don't know that you're act that you're seeking like a vote. you're really kind of informing us of some of the

house cleaning UDO changes that you're proposing. Is that correct? It is correct. We're we're looking at, like Ben said, we're looking at staff capacity to keep these things going while ramping up for this bigger thing and having everybody's hands in other recovery efforts as well at the moment. Um, and also the concept of how much more are we going to sink into this UDO kind of thing. Yeah. Because what it makes me think of is like building on this conversation, updating the UDO doesn't actually mean anything. What do we want to accomplish with it? The UDO is a vehicle. And so what is that discussion of our work plan, but also what do we want to achieve through the UDO updates? Maybe it is us saying what are the economic levers that we can prioritize or what are the missing middle housing priorities or tree canopy preservation, green infrastructure. Like there's a lot that can be done through the UDO. Um, and so I think that would be a really fruitful conversation for this group as well in the appropriate timeline is like what are some of the the goals or priorities that are most important because I don't want to spend four years updating the sign ordinance. That's not important to me. Bless its heart, but that's that's not what we need in this time. But what are things whether it's relating to buskers or to um food trucks, what are things that are inhibiting our economic rebound? I'm interested in that conversation. What are things that are limiting our ability to build back homes for people that are affordable and attainable? I'm I'm very curious about those type of things. So, um, I'd be more inclined to kind of step back and say, what where do we want to go with the UDO as opposed to piling on these housekeeping changes, but I think just looking at these housekeeping changes, I've heard my colleagues bring up several really important things that

I'm curious about, but like what's the goal and then which UDO things would fall into it. I think that process could be really helpful, too. Yeah, I think that would be helpful for staff because when you guys operate at a policy level and we better understand things you want to um accomplish, we may we may find that while the UDO will do some of that in the long term, there may be things that Rachel Taylor can bring from the CED perspective that may address some of your concerns in the short term. So, yeah, the more we kind of see that bigger picture, I think we can align staff to come and, you know, help achieve those goals. Chris, do you want to add something? Excuse me. Yeah, just adding that like even on the list you saw there, push cards is not in the video. It's in our municipal code. So, it's something we can dig into without really stepping on the toes or or getting in the way of what we're trying to do. And the other thing I wanted to add to your your point of councilman is that one thing that gets a little lost in this presentation is this LOI includes the aspect of a targeted comprehensive plan update to to do just that to help us inform what we want the CDO to do. um because the plan is the plan. It is the guide that tells us where we want to go and the UDO is a tool to get there fast. So um it's important to keep keep that in mind as we look at this. We wouldn't be rewriting the entire account plan, but we would be taking a look at it and saying what has changed since this happened. A lot's changed. Um but yeah, that's just important to keep sight of with this whole thing. That's a good point. And as we get into it, I encourage us to, you know, earlier we heard the timeline for the long range recovery plan and I was like, is that too quick? But we do need to move forward. I would say lean towards the speediness of that plan for this comp plan update in the UDO update. Um, anyhow, overall, I feel like this is

pretty exciting. Were there any loose threads? I know that we kind of stacked on a bunch of inquiries. Maybe some of it wasn't necessarily we didn't need an answer, but us kind of sharing our thoughts and perspectives. I know, Sage, that you brought up the noise ordinance conversation and I was thinking I mean I guess we could chat about that now or we could leave it leave it till the public comment section at the end of the agenda. What does that take for us? Because I mean it seems like I don't know if it's a small enough issue that it needs to go all the way to council. Like I'm interested in a pilot of it or something. I just feel like I mean we can kill things and kill ourselves by taking so long, you know, and if this has to spend six months going to committee, I don't know if it's worth it or if it's the seasonal, right? Um it what does it take to move forward? Can this committee review the item and get it to council or does it go to council? Does it have to go to council? So it it see let me just see where we are on the agenda and can I do see because I want to make sure that we get through all of our agenda topics because I'm not even sure what the thing is. So I think we I want to hear from you Sage like what the the proposal is and discussion and kind of vet that out. So, if if you're okay with it, I'd like to proceed with our agenda of what staff has prepared and then let's loop back during public comment to bring up this inquiry of is there a noise ordinance change that we should chat about. Is that okay for process? That's great. Hopefully, Janice will still be with us. And Kim, um, did did you want to chime? Cool. Okay, great. All right, then. Um, thank you for the robust discussion. Appreciate it, staff. And that concludes our item three of the agenda. So we will move on to our fourth agenda item which is tropical storm Helen related unsafe buildings program and Mark Mthaney will share about that. Terrific. Thank you madam chair and

committee members. Um appreciate the opportunity and the time to speak on uh what is becoming a very popular subject. uh as I'm sure you guys uh are all aware. So um we're going to speak just once again informational uh about the um the unsafe building program as a result of TSL. Um I'm Mark Matheni. I'm the director of development services. uh the compliance division uh building compliance division and zoning requirements uh division uh compliance is under the development services department and so that's why you get me today and um this you know we we obviously have an unsafe program uh that works for both residential and commercial properties uh already but it's much more to the forefront because of the really the magnitude of what Helen has has done for us and I'll show you kind of where we've landed with that. Katie, next slide, please. So, our key takeaways here is obviously Alen was significantly impacted our community. Uh it made a significant effect on buildings and sites throughout the city. Um we did a regulated um uh building assessment and you've heard a variety of different assessment processes. Uh this was just one of probably four, but this was the building damage assessment uh and evaluation. This is the one that came up with the red uh yellow and green tags. And so as you see the second bullet point, uh basically the storm created 218 uh unsafe buildings that were red tag, right? That were to the point that they

without some other uh amount of work or an engineers report um were recommended. They were not uh accessed until uh some level of means of determining they were safe was provided. Uh and since that time, of course, every building owner uh and property owner has their own level of of means uh whether they're well resourced or maybe not well resourced. And we've seen some of that play out over the many months that we've been uh through uh response and recovery. And so uh as as you know thankfully we're starting to see a lot of um now opening uh signs coming up and and and and media and and all that identifying that. So that so that is a positive piece but not everybody has that ability and capacity right away. Uh and so lastly, I just want to identify that our compliance team uh because this is not something new. It's just a higher magnitude uh works dig diligently with the individual owners throughout the regulatory process uh to identify strategies to comply with the unsafe building ordinance. And so this is this is something that we do practice uh you know no matter what throughout the years. Um thankfully we don't see nearly as many as we currently do now over the past uh many many years. So uh next slide please Katie. And I I I have to admit my uh my my lack of graphic um progress. I tried to get the circles to be yellow and then green, right? I'm trying to go from like a red to a green, but I couldn't make the circles change color. Um so um obviously in September we had Helen

uh there was an immediate response. We move uh naturally as everybody does from basically response to covery uh which is I say down there and the print may be too small. I hope hopefully not. It's multiaceted community action. So this is where everybody jumps in with all of their ability and resources including uh building and business owners including uh local state federal government and all that. So and we're still of course very much into that. Uh and from there we move into what is also our current state and and uh sufficient stabilization. It's just a very general term. uh really a large percentage of buildings and sites uh have been able to stabilize basically themselves with their own resources or through other resources that um that may be available to them. You know, there's as as we all know throughout this experience, there's not a lot of really best practices on how do I do X, right? And so at what point do you start to say, "Okay, an unsafe building has been sitting long enough." And when do we start to, you know, start to move that compliance part and and and push people into kind of following into a public safety environment when right away everything was basically unsafe um in in in the roads and and and the conditions. So, you know, there's a lot of factors that go into that and and two of the really the primary factors that that that that we've looked at through through our team is, you know, first of all, we were in a state of emergency. It's a declared state of emergency. Um, North Carolina is still under a declared state of emergency to the end of this month. There was a a Senate or a legislation that moved that from May March through the end of June. That's

one of the factors. And then really the condition of the area, right? Is are more places able to bring in more people? Is the public or employees now more engaged in an area in specific areas? And that was and that that honestly is really the more part of really getting us to where we are at this point. And so we saw that coming on in late April and May. We started talking about what this really looks like. And our original plan was to really uh in June we're moving on to the next disc here is really a soft route where first of all we had to funnel down and I'll talk about that in the next slide. we had to funnel down um the the buildings that we need to approach, right? Which ones uh are are out there. And so, uh a software outreach once we've narrowed down who to communicate with, we're going to do an outreach and just identify to those people that, you know, we're moving into kind of a regulatory uh point in time and we're going to start the the actual process. Once you get into that process, there there is there's like there's specific items, there's specific dates and timelines uh from one step to the next. Now, it does allow for flexibility in some uh allowances to to to let these owners work through some of the difficulties, but there there is also some very specific uh timelines. And so, we're looking at that through June and probably now through mid July. We're probably going to keep doing that. Then we're going to start the regulatory process in July and um and and that's you know the specific posting of the buildings and that sort of thing where where the timelines start to really matter and and honestly the last slide is the reality of the fact that um you know very commonly it's not going to take well it'll never take a week it won't even take 30 days to solve a

problem a building that's been identified as an unsafe building. I mean, unless the unless the owner takes immediate action on it, that's which which would be best case. And and really the idea here and on this last slide is is really we're looking for building and site compliance to take it from an unsafe condition to a safe condition. And and an unsafe condition could be a it's somehow hazard to the community, right? Where where where anybody could walk uh and potentially walk into a building that may not be protected. Uh there might be walls and doors on the buildings. there may be no windows. If it's been deemed unsafe, then then you know then there's a matter of of addressing that so that it's just not uh available for people to kind of move in and out. And the and the important part of that is is that and that's why I keep putting building ends site on here. There's a couple of methods that historically over many many years we've done in Asheville and that's uh and that's basically providing a you know whatever a level of protection is and that could be a matter of fencing a site so access can't be I mean you can you know you can get a pvolt and go over a fence but you know for generally without some extra work you can't just randomly walk into a site so so a lot of times what that looks like is a boarded up building uh also there's times when that looks like a fence around a property. And we see that a lot more in residential than we do in commercial, but it can happen in commercial. And we may actually see a little bit more of that. So, so, so you know, our drive here and what we what we need to get our our owners into is is an unsafe level of compliance. Um, which which means a lot and we can talk about that in in a little bit. Let me go to the next slide here, Katie, please. So, so here's kind of a breakdown of how we got to the the buildings that we are going to start addressing the owners.

And as I mentioned during our assessment, we had the ones that were unsafe, which were basically red tagged. There were 218 of them, 59 of them happened right away or within the next couple of days, uh, where they were destroyed by the storm itself. And um you know literally we would put a red tag on a footing and take a picture of it and then take it off so we weren't littering. And um so there were a great deal that were that were completely destroyed. Um since that time 40 other additional ones have come in for a permit to completely demolish their building and the Wendy's in Builmore Village perfect example of that. So, there's been quite a few that have gone through that process where the owners or the owner representatives have come in and secured a demolition, a complete demolition building uh for the building. Uh there have been 65 of the total 218 where they've come in to get permits to improve the building, right? They're going to fix it. Um and so that's that's a great number there to see that uh that that is actually happening and people have that ability. So, they're moving into, you know, kind of the next life of of that building through renovations and alterations. Um, of the unsafe ones, 10 of them are on the PPDR program. Now, we have more than 10 on the PPDR, right? There's I don't know, roughly 35. They come off and on uh surprisingly regularly. Um but of the unsafe ones that were that were red tagged, 10 of them are on the PPDR program and will be basically demolished by um you know by the the federal process through FEMA and core and tetrate and all of that. So what does that get us down to is basically that leaves 44 buildings or

sites uh that haven't taken any action up until this point to resolve the storm damage. And so those are the ones that we need to focus on and then we're going to move forward on the unsafe U process. Uh now there's also as as we have the ne the next bullet point down is the HMGP pro uh applications. So those go through uh October 10th. So we don't really have a firm number on what those look like yet. And and honestly even if we did have a firm number, we haven't uh uh gone through the process of where we're taking those. I don't want to say take we're going to accept those properties uh or not. So that's a flexible number that could go up and down. Some of them may be included in that and some of them may not. Uh and then I just wanted to throw in here that you know part of the other assessment process of the four types of assessments uh you heard was substantially uh damaged um right substantial improvement substantial damage through the flood evaluation process. And those are within those numbers. We haven't teased out specifically how many within that are, but they are all roped into this number in case in that in case that crosses your mind. And let's just uh move on to the next slide. It's just kind of a summary of our key takeaways. And really the two I want to reiterate here um are the third and the fourth ones where you know once again it's just been a big variety as to who can immediately uh you know make the effects to their building and who can't and then once again that our compliance team uh is ready. This is going to be a long hall. This is a long process and um we're you know we're we're fully prepared to to be part of that but it just will be you know will be a significant change

certainly from what we've uh worked on in the past just because of the volume of that. And Katie next slide if there's any questions I'm glad to answer any or talk through any things you might have. Thanks Mark. Um, I had a question. Um, so it seemed, so we're doing this because we've had just a substantial amount of damage from the storm. And the process that you outlined seems similar to the process that we follow when we have, say, a home in a neighborhood that is also unsafe and we're getting concerns about. And I've experienced that like some of those houses have taken two and three years to get to a point of conclusion. So can you talk to me about how one if those that backlog can get folded into this process which sounds quicker and two like what are we doing to ensure that this doesn't become a pretty long drawn out process or if you can highlight a little bit more some of the barriers we experience when we've seen this with homes in neighborhoods. Uh yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the question. Uh it's certainly a good one and one we we deal with a lot and and I I'll answer it by starting at the end. Um instead of you know what it takes to get there. The the end is really where the difficulty comes in. Um, Asheville has never had an aggressive uh or or basically funded process for finalizing this where, you know, if you look at Wilmington, uh they literally drive around looking for this, they have a they have basically um a revenue way

of through attrition, you know, through one building into the next. uh you know in reality there's a there's a there's a time when you could you know by the time we get to the end they if if the owners have chosen not to do anything at that point we would come to council we have the authority to go on and tear that building down we can lean the property government leans are usually the last one to get collected so there's not a lot of money left on the table but the reality of it is we need the money to tear it down right and and and right now uh demolition of structures is incredibly uh expensive and but that's that's kind of besides the point because realistically we don't have it to start even one building, right? So, we couldn't go somewhere. And that's why we really that's why it is kind of a long process because we continue to work with the owners to maintain a community safe building and site. And as long as they can do that, then then what we can do is is is that much of it. Uh there there's always going to be kind of that lagging property and and certainly that aesthetics part of it that that is not really within within our control, the aesthetics. But even the point of removing that building uh is is becomes uh I won't say impossible but it becomes very very complicated along the end. And so that's why you see buildings and properties that are out there uh that that maintain that for years and years and you know and realistically at some point that owner is going to get full value for what they have you know at some point invest in or their heirs uh previous to them might have invested in. So there is a return on that for that individual property owner but um but before um before they can basically sell or move that on to somebody else uh it

does sit in a state of of constant um you know situation there and in this that that's really helpful to understand kind of the complexity of why we've seen some duration and you know there's a property I was emailing with staff about and it seems like it needs some asbestous something before it could even be demoed and we don't have budget for that and so that I understand and so for this where we're looking at having a enhanced engagement process with nearly 50 buildings it for the buildings that go through the pro like how will this be funded is this are there FEMA expenses to resolve this. Yeah. And that uh I at this point I'll say there's not, but we don't know. You know, every week there's some new source that comes up. And so potentially there is some sorts and if it does, we want to be able to get that to these owners that are struggling uh as much as possible. Uh the the actual process for funding the process, that's our compliance team, right? That's that's basically what they do. It's going to be once again it's a significant volume for them but um but they will go through that and and take each step all the way down. There's there's about really a there's a technical fourpart step that gets you kind of to the end. Um and and they and they're all fully uh e, you know, experienced at doing that process and they'll and they'll do that. We'll continue to kind of figure out ways that these owners can can hopefully find resources or ability to um to to to to solve their problems. And Councilman, that's a good question about the funding. And Mark, you you hit that spot on, but it's Yeah, I think one of the things that's challenging is

quite frankly, a lot of these owners could use could have used the PPDR funds to have a way to have their demolition paid for. For whatever reason, a lot did not. I don't I don't know why. I mean, I think we've tried really hard to make owners aware of all the different resources. Mark, I think unless, you know, unless there's some new funding that comes down the road, eventually if we get to the point where the city's going to have to demolish or clean the property through March processes, that's going to be our cost to to bear. And just an as example, I'm probably make Mark nervous here if I'm not already. Um, I think to basically demolish a single family home, you're looking at the cost of the city of probably $30,000. That's just a house. uh more than that, 30 to $50,000. So, when you go to demolish commercial properties, that is a significant amount of money that the city would possibly have to pay for. The other thing that I think is important, and Mark, you said this, I just want to say it again, to comply with the unsafe buildings ordinance doesn't require demolition. Oftent times, you can fence a property and make it safe to the public. So, again, a lot of times this isn't a question of a aesthetics. This is a question of safety. That's hard for people sometimes, too, because quite frankly, if you're in a commercial district and there's three buildings in disrepair, the aesthetic nature of that could be bad for business, right? But the unsafe building ordinance doesn't necessarily require demolition or compliance. And we're just lost potentially everything. And so it's just such a intense time. I mean, I know I've talked to two different commercial owners who haven't really done anything and they're kind of friends of the family and they're just um

in so much grief that they're kind of paralyzed right now. And so I can't judge that. I can't I can't know what that's like. And so it's such a a fragile thing we have to navigate. And there's some real safety concerns. And if we start getting into blighted neighborhood concerns, that's it. There's just this is a to me this is a really good heads up of there's a handful of properties, a pretty large handful that we really need to be thinking about and preparing for for safety purposes. And I'm I'm hoping that as your compliance team is going in there, they're there, they're they're connecting them with the FAST team and all the other outreach and resources and all the government resources. So they're really getting a platter of here choices and options you have to help them. Um so I'm glad you'll be doing that as well. Apologies, Councilwoman Ro. Yeah. Can you just go over again the deadlines for funding that's available because there might be a way to hold the both and with navigating with compassion the grief that people are dealing with while also um holding our obligations to using our funds to best benefit our community. Yeah, absolutely. And and and once again, you know, we I'm pretty sure we don't know. I'm pretty sure that we'll basically see more opportunities come up that we're not aware of yet, but but right now kind of the only thing that's out there is the HMGP which goes till October 10th. Um but but once again that's that's got to get you know we want that to be within the city's purpose as well, right? So we don't necessarily want sawtooth properties um throughout the city. So so that and that that's a tricky one. Um but that is certainly an opportunity uh that'll be there and and of course anything that

that comes out uh that is available. We want we want to direct people there. We previously directed a few of them to the PPDR before the deadline and and you know they they make their own decisions of course and um so as they do come up you know we've worked with our with our internal cape team uh for kind of a mild engagement process and and things just to keep considering as we're going through this and how we're doing the outreach and giving them kind of schedules um of of what that looks like. So, that's been super helpful, of course, and and we really and and Councilwoman Nolman to your point is is is the awareness of it, right? Just the acknowledgement of it. We really want you guys to be to understand it. People are going to reach out. they're already reaching out for other reasons. But now you have a little bit of a of a piece, you know, a as the next weeks come and and as these community commercial community organizations come together monthly or whatever, uh, you know, I'm going to be out kind of giving them a version of this as well and and letting them know that that this is kind of coming. And so it's just going to become more apparent and more obvious. Uh so people are going to you know have questions and concerns and reach out so you guys are somewhat aware of of of kind of what that looks like. But the other advantage of that is is there may be other uh organizations uh within the network of these commercial groups uh that that can uh that can recommend uh uh uh some level of assistance, right? There may be uh there may be interested parties on certain sites or something like that. So I think now that we can start rolling that networking piece together that can help on things that we don't see right now. Thanks for doing the fragile work that is required for this. Um and I think

this is a good heads up to be prepared. My hope is everyone can pull together the support they need and the resources available to them to continue moving forward. Um, all right. Any further? Okay, that concludes item four on our agenda. And um, item five is public comment where I know that we want to talk a little bit more about noise ordinance. Before that though, there's pro in case there's any patient folks who've been waiting to provide comment from the public. Katie, do we have anyone on the line? Yes, we do. Madam chair, just one moment. Caller ending in 520, your line is now open and you will have three minutes. Hi there. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead. Great. Thank you. Um, this is Rachel Cohen and I'm speaking on behalf of Sunrise Movement WMC. Thanks so much as always for taking public comment. We really appreciate the opportunity. Just wanted to make a couple of quick notes. Um, one in regards to the unified long-term recovery plan. It's really awesome to hear that kind of all the jurisdictions within Budam County are working together to kind of coordinate all these activities because that has been something of concern that you know everyone's trying to get recovery done work as quick as they can and sometimes we miss opportunities for collaboration when we do that. So that's really exciting to hear. Um, for that plan, we would really love to see climate change mitigation and environmental sustainability kind of

built into every aspect of the plan rather than kind of a side thing that gets, you know, noted in a few pages at the end. Because really every decision we make, whether we're building a building, whether we're doing zoning changes, whether we're updating plans, whatever it may be, we would really love for climate change mitigation and sustainability to be considered for all of those. Um, so that's really our main um concern and ask from you all as you have, you know, your chance to to help get that plan together. Um, and we also just wanted to um voice a reminder that we think public transit is going to be really important to an equitable economic recovery. And so a lot of times we talk about public transit transit from different lenses, but really it is so vital that folks who don't have private vehicles are able to get around, get to their jobs, contribute to the economy, and recover just as everyone else. Um, so I just wanted to plug that with all of y'all. Um, and I guess the final thing would be we're just curious to learn more about as the plan comes together, how is it going to be dealt with if the city has these dedicated CDBGDR funds which are obviously, you know, a huge boom to the city, the county doesn't get their own dedicated allocation. And so I'm just curious and I'm I'm pretty sure you can't like answer that question right now, but just something that we'd like to learn more about is how the different funding sources are going to be dealt with when we're trying to really all collaborate and work together. Um so thank you so much for the time and

really appreciate all of your work. Thanks Rachel Katie. Anybody else? One moment. Let me reload and double check. No, Madam Chair, that was our only caller. All right. Thank you very much. Um, and thanks colleagues for being patient to um, bring up the noise ordinance conversation now. So, Sage, if you would I've heard like some smatterings of this idea. Um, I haven't seen anything in writing, but kind of lay out what the idea is that you're curious for conversation around, please. Sure. And I don't know that I'll know every moving detail. My understanding is when we adopted the noise ordinance, we gave it some parameters around um decibb, number of events per year, and you know, kind of punitive things if you weren't a good caretaker of following the rules. Um, and if I understand correctly, this um, location in downtown is following all those rules and they can go as high as 50 events a year if they maintain a good um, like 100% no issues kind of um, situation throughout the year. But context, what location are you talking about? Um, I can't remember the name. Is it now called the yard? Oh, okay. Great. Rabbit. rabbit. Um, I think that's who's bringing it up. I've been hearing getting it in emails and hearing it from people and I know I talked to Councilwoman Hess a good bit about it and it sounds like there's an opportunity to I don't know if we should try it first before we fully adopt it. It sounds like there is already room for them to do this, but in the entertainment industry, these events are scheduled so far out like, you know,

we're they're probably scheduling for next year right now and trying to get as much activity as they can. So, it's really hard for them to say, "Yes, we should be able to have you so long as we're good all year." And so, there's an ask for it to just be allowed to be 50 is what I understood. And if I'm wrong, perhaps someone can update me. But the other thing is, you know, I haven't heard much community push back about it. So, I'm see sensing it might just be a non-issue that could move forward or maybe I'm not hearing it yet. But, you know, I'd be open to a trial of it to see if it's okay. And the request would be to change, this is me like am I getting this right? To change the noise ordinance, which we have updated a couple years ago and took many years of public engagement to update. And there are music venues that are allowed to have shows of a certain decel to a certain time for 30 nights a year. And it would be to increase that to 50 nights a year. Yeah, I'm I'm thinking that is correct. I'd have to pull up an email. I was really just bringing it up, not ready to, you know, shout out an ordinance change. I just want us to deal with it because I'm worried about recovery. I'm worried about giving downtown some tools, you know, and this could be one of them. And if it's an easy thing and we can try it, let's just do it. Appreciate and heard that it's not, you know, some fully scripted. I just want to like get the information into the publication and I don't mean to like tie it to one venue. I think this is like sweeping things. I don't know if anybody else is doing all these events that many. I mean, we lost Salvage Station, you know, how but I don't think it's specific to like one user. Yeah, Kim. Yeah, we've been talking a lot about staff capacity lately. Um, having gone through the noise ordinance, um, it was not exactly like an easy breezy process.

A lot went into it. And so I'm hesitant to um respond to just one request when we know that there are venues that would also benefit um but are getting a lot of community um questions and and noise tests. And I just kind of wonder about opening up this can of worms when it seems like we're hearing from one. Um we know there are multiple outdoor venues across the city. um new ones downtown um because the Grey Eagles organizing or booking at the Hatch location off of South French Broad. Um so I'm I'm curious about opening up that can of worms about the ecosystem knowing that as a professional performing artist um the draw for arts and culture um in Asheville benefits not just our community but the region. So, I'd be curious about what kind of um anticipated staff time that would take to open up that can of worms and do we need to open the whole can? I mean, I guess that's your point is should we peacemeal it? But, you know, I guess that's like a central business district thing is what I'm thinking, but I don't know. There will be there will be neighbors in adjacent to the central business district that have concerns about live music. Yeah. To be less. It seems like Mark, do you have context? Some questions that I'm hearing here are like, "Tell me about what community engagement looked like last time. Curious if this number 30 was like a hard fought number." Um, or any other context that would be helpful. Yeah. I don't I don't want to get in the middle of your conversation because it's a great conversation, but but I do want to give you just a little bit of context is uh and and everybody has agreed the the the amount of work that it took the first time around uh was was significant. And you know, ultimately there there's no the whole ordinance itself, the whole noise ordinance isn't

like a perfect solution for everybody because that's impossible. It's really there's a lot of compromises and right now we live in a in a balance, right? And that's really where everything is happening is a balance of of you know how we can get the venues to to to do what they need to do and how we can also keep the community uh in in a in a good environment. And so the so so I say all that just and I'll give you some facts that you can keep working the number your conversation around is so there's there's limits depending on of course where you where you are as to how much noise you can make. what what what you're what you're running on is is the hard number is the is a sound exceedence, right? So so if you stay under a certain amount of decibb, no problem for certain hours, right? Within a period of hours. But but if you want to be more than that, then you can apply for a permit. And it's the sound exceedence permit that allows you to do 30 throughout the year uh throughout the season that that exceed that that number. and you and and we'll keep monitoring that and all of that, but that's really where that comes from. It's really the sound exceedence and and and the and 30 uh seemed like once again a good compromise. There's not a hard fast set of data that said 30 is exactly what everybody needs or 30 is what the community can handle. It was once again it was just kind of a balance that we found throughout that process and and here we are five years later also in a in an economic recovery process. So so I just wanted to give you guys that context to continue your conversation and I'll say for the number and then over to you Kim. Um you know I sit on the civic center commission and in that conversation we've talked a lot about bookable nights. venues don't really want to have a concert on a Monday. So when you're thinking about numbers, that's basically saying one night a

weekend, 30 weeks a year. So take out Christmas, take out cold weather. So it so if it were increased to 50, it really could be looking at Friday, Saturday nights, 30 to 40 weeks, it would start to look in that um range. So that's just a way I think about these type of events. Um Kim, yeah, I'm trying to think about um the ecosystem and because we have lost some of the outdoor events like Salvage Station, it would help me to know the data on who's applying for the exceedence permits um in our central business district. It are we just talking about a couple locations or is it more widespread? I thought I heard from Grey Eagle, too. I'd have to look back through the emails. I didn't know we were going to kind of like go rabbit hole on this. I just want to know how we could move this forward. But um I mean, frankly, y'all, I'm just concerned about how I mean, Kim, we just mentioned Salvage Station's gone. There is less activity in our community because we lost venues. Can we do something even if it's temporary, to help bolster that and bring the activity we at least had scheduled back? You know, it's like a I don't know if we need to open up the whole ordinance thing. I mean, I had to learn more about decibb. I had to stand outside city hall with a machine. I met with like 400 neighbors. That's not what I'm thinking about here. I'm thinking about recovery downtown economics and just like assisting this even if it were just like for a year. But if not everyone's there. Okay. And Janice, did you want to chime in? Well, because I knew you might have questions. I personally had not heard much about the noise ordinance. So, this is something you're hearing, but I thought, whoa, I better bone up on this because I haven't looked at it in a while. We have an excellent on our

website. Look it up. It it says it's a noise ordinance frequently asked questions that in five minutes I saw what Mark just said about the sound exceeded permit. I also saw that it said it took us two years of public engagement before it was adopted in September of 2021, which is I think what councilwoman Rooney is saying that went through it. I guess you all went through it. Um and what I note also is then I said well this must some we have heard a couple years ago and then we'll know this you probably all heard about this but there was a request for events noise ordinance in a residential neighborhood in Lford and you know what it came down to was no you know one this isn't in the UDO but the noise ordinance is in our code so it's in section 10 of our code. So it's not defined by the UDO except it relates to zoning districts. So you can do things in the CBD central and industrial district there's a and that is the decibel process which is subjective in residential again read this in a few minutes was residential you it's it's more of a what it always used to be complaintbased and more of a subjective process now so then I said well but maybe there's something I haven't heard lately Sage to your point how quickly could we move I thought, well, more quickly than a UDO change because you don't have to go through planning and zoning and then up to council. But if we had a noise ordinance that took us two years of public engagement before and and and I didn't see anything when I Googled, I didn't see anybody saying I can't run my business because I can only get 30 noise exceedence. So I guess that's where

maybe there would be helpful for you all to have some more information about is there a barrier? What is happening? What is somebody saying that they're not able to do that? And then the temporary question I think there are things you can do temporary. We've done it. We did pivot when we when we've had uh when we had COVID remember thinking about expanding our um where people could be outside but the impacts of a noise ordinance might be a difficult thing to do a temporary measure. Yeah. some examples of um being able to move quickly. Years ago, after Bonnaroo um Beasty Boys ended up rerouting or touring through here last minute and played one of their last shows. And when Bonnaroo um the last two days were cancelled, um we could have potentially had some of those acts come through Asheville and PE and it draw, you know, that revenue um generating activity to our downtown. Um, so it isn't lost on me that we may be having some barriers that we haven't identified. Um, it is also curious to me um, where the ask is and I don't want us to get stuck in just one location because I know we are getting complaints about other outdoor noise and staff are spending time um, doing a lot of decibel reads. So, I'm happy to hear it at a future agenda um of this group and what would temporarily look like because it does take a while to book national touring acts. Um folks do, you know, European tours and weather-based routing um especially if we're hopefully going to be seeing some um arts and culture and music events at our own, you know, McCormack field. So, I'd like to know what how that benefits our community and the ecosystem, not just responding, even though I want to be

able to have solutions for our economy right now. Okay. So, I feel like I'm hearing Sage and Kim both say an interest in hearing more from staff at a future peed. If that's the next step. Okay. Is that Kim? Is that what I was hearing from you too? Yeah. Just I mean we we say staff time, but it's like what are we willing to take off of our work plan that we don't yet have to put this on there? And that would if we had a work plan, I would be like, "All right, well then this has to take a back burner because we're doing this instead." And I think we're also opening up this committee um to getting more input than we imagined about it. Just naming that. You know, I guess I the severity of this subject, but I originally suggested it go to us in like a 3x3. Like, do we even have momentum to move this forward instead of having it go to committee and all the input? Because maybe we don't even have people that support it, you know? I just I don't know how to circumvent our process to expedite economic activity. Kim, I wish we could have moved on things like your idea after boner roof floods. Oh my gosh. I mean, well, let's not kid ourselves that I voted against the noise ordinance as drafted because we made jazz illegal without a permit because you can't blow a horn at our current decel levels without it exceeding the noise permit. But um just so you know, I I'm I'm conflicted on this myself and I just I'm I'm trying really hard to like wrestle with the same things that y'all are wrestling with. And just just to add staff's perspective real quick and I think what and I think Janice and Mark did a good job of context and everything and ultimately to change the ordinance, you know, it does

take a vote of full counsel at one of your regular meetings. So I think from staff's perspective, we just need to know what the expectation is and what you want us to do and then based on that we'll have to have the conversation of you know is there is there capacity to do that and if not what needs to come off but I don't think Mark could even answer that question until he understands what we're asking him to do at this point. So, I would expect um for myself to be able to make an informed decision where our biggest hot spots of noise complaints are with our current process. Um what the ask is from the impacted um businesses. Are they asking for 50? Are they asking for 40? Um and not just hearing from one venue, but the ecosystem, which means doing some outreach. And so I guess I'm getting a little lost in as it's just hard to think through like is is that a conversation you want at sound stage like you really you clearly would like to have a conversation around this Kim. Is this one that you are there two of you? Is this something that you would like staff to put some time into? Sage. Oh, I mean it seems like a lot of people are asking for it and the draft change isn't that significant. If it doesn't need to come to committee, what if a little work on our part is done? I mean, what if I just read, you know, reduct or redact language and make implement and we just come to council with it to staff's I don't know. I mean, do we have to do the whole thing? I guess because I just feel like we need to be doing stuff to bolster the economy like we need to be helping. I don't want to be labor a two-year process. I don't want to disrupt neighbors. It seems central to large venues downtown

opportunities being missed. If we have to go through committee and have to engage staff, I feel like it's less likely to move anywhere. But if that's the only way we can get it across the line, okay, I'm also volunteering my time to help like draft something if it helps and just bring it council. I don't know that the drafting is the timeliness to me. My my sense is I've only heard about this from one person who represents one music venue. Um and so that makes me cautious because there's 94,000 citizens. Um and so I think the time consuming part would be the community engagement. Fair enough. So that sounds like process, more process. Okay. I'm I'm not hearing kind of a quorum of wanting to have more conversation at peed about this. Um maybe we need to bring this up to our uh colleagues at the agenda briefing or something like that where we can say that we're interested in pulling this in. Um is there council support to get into the weeds and reopen this can of worms. I think that's a good suggestion especially because we don't have a solid work plan yet for this committee. So, I'm not like saying I understand fully what we're taking off our to-do list to do this. And Mark, did you want to add anything? Your hand was still up. Yeah, thank you. Um, just very quickly, uh, if I were a better multitasker, I could probably get you data while we're talking here, but I'm really terrible at it. But, uh, we're glad to to get the data that you, Councilwoman Rooney, you asked for some

data. we we're glad to get that to you and we'll we'll back up that and that'll help your conversations I think a little bit uh as to what direction you want to go and just you know as we as we start talking about staff um this is the same staff that's doing the unsafe housing program so um just just keep that in mind as well so I guess what the other part of this picture that I'm I'm just going to say it out loud because none of us has yet is there's also a ton of pressure from different businesses to do social districts and that's going to have some noise involved. So, we're getting ready to add parts of economic recovery conversations into our ecosystem. Maybe there is or isn't council support for that. All I'm saying is it's not just one piece of the puzzle. And I think what I was hoping we could do more at peed is um look at how we're fitting all the different parts of our uh economic recovery together. I think that's unclear for the public what our val what our priorities and values are. Um and because we don't have a work plan in place yet, we don't necessarily have the road map clearly published. Um so we've just started getting into the nitty-gritty and I get that folks want us to move fast. I just don't want to, you know, storm forward. It It's not something so simple for in my mind as like decriminalizing personal mobility devices. Okay, I feel like we're at a natural pause in the conversation. I think it's a good one. I think the inquiries and more questions are Thanks for offering to get some of that information, Mark. Um, I think the lens of the big question you keep lifting, Sage, of what can we do to support recovery downtown is like the biggest thing I'm walking away from here

and like what what are those things? And I think us having conversation about that. Um, there's lots of ideas, several which we talked about in earlier discussions. Um and so I think you know keeping this idea afloat as we center that question is is nice. I also Kim thought your suggestion of um checking the poll set and agenda briefing and perhaps that's something that could come through in the conversation tomorrow to kind of see just to hear from other teammates to see. I do think the amount of effort that we put into the noise ordinance in the past, like there there are other requests right now that are about um changing the noise ordinance because right now we me we measure decibb but not base. And I'm a little ahead of my skis on the technicals of this, but like that's a concern happening with um a vibrant business on the other side of town. And so, um, why would we pick one citizen's inquiry about this versus another? Like some of that is just having a hard time sorting through. So, I think more discussion could could be nice for us to kind of hear from other colleagues. Um, with that, um, I think that we might have acquired another public comment. So, I'm open to opening public comment, Katie, and and hearing from whoever is still on the line. Sure. Just one moment. Hello. Caller ending in 25 22. Your line is now open and you'll have three minutes. All right. Thanks, uh, Maggie. This is Mike Carpenter. Um, and thank you for hearing my plea. I haven't done this before, so I wasn't able to get on the the waiting list to speak. Um, but I wanted to to Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Sorry. Um, I just wanted to share my perspective. Uh, something that's really

important to me is housing. Um, I've lived in West Asheville for 16 years. I've watched the community kind of turn from a hidden gem into a vibrant corridor. I've watched the neighborhoods turn over, getting a lot more young families and everything. I got lucky. I bought my house in 2013. I was 30 years old and I was able to start a family in my house. And I plan on being here until my kids graduate high school. and and I just hate that this type of path isn't possible in Asheville anymore for anybody making less than 150,000 bucks. It feels like um I manage a team here at work of like 20 people. Most of them are below 30. They make around 50 60 $70,000. They don't have that opportunity to buy a house and sort of start a life, start a family here. They're lucky to rent an apartment. Um, and the teachers at my daughter's schools, they can't afford to to live in town either. It It just hurts me so much being a citizen here and just being lucky that I got a house first. So, I just I want to I want to ask about what the city can do um to try and combat this issue that's really big for a lot of people that live around here. And and something that I'm dealing with here is sort of focusing on the new home construction that's taken place, you know, all over town, especially in West Asheville in the last decade. Um, a lot of these houses, you know, they carve out a tiny little space and they're building a monster home that's $800,000 and it just doesn't it doesn't solve these problems that we have as a city. Um, it's also damaging urban canopy. um hurting sort of the culture of the neighborhood that exists already. Uh the building styles, the houses are far larger and different and just look completely different than everything that already existed there. The traffic becomes a lot worse. And I'm just I just

don't feel like there's a lot of rails to sort of stop developers from doing this. And I don't really blame them. That's how you make money. So, you know, without the city or the county kind of tipping the scale a little bit, I feel like it's just going to continue to happen. And, you know, for the people that have lived here, it's just it's upsetting to see that so many people get left behind because this type of construction kind of invite out of town buyers with big wallets and and pushes out the people that have lived here, the people that are trying to live here and support this community. So, that's all I wanted to say today. Thank you for letting me speak. Um, it's really important to me to kind of be heard on this and I look forward to seeing what changes are possible through the UDO to address some of these things. Thank you. Thank you so much, Katie. Did we acquire any other callers? Let me reload just to triple check again. One moment, please. No, we did not. That was our last caller. All right. Well, with that, um, yeah, we are I often like to look at our future agenda items, but since we're still in work planning, there's not a lot of set stuff, although we did look at some video house cleaning that'll be coming to us. Um, appreciate the thoughtful discussion. I feel like this was a very discussionful conversation, and I love that opportunity to chat with my peers and hear from staff. So, thank you everybody. And with that, have a wonderful Tuesday afternoon. Take care everybody.