Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

And we're live. All right. Welcome, everybody, to the July 1st meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission. I'm going to turn it over to Will for roll call.

Thank you. Vice Chair Seichel. Present. Commissioner Bell. Present. Commissioner Faircloth. Present. Commissioner Zewska.

Present.

And Commissioner Anzalito. Present. We have a quorum.

Great, thank you. I just want to give a reminder to everybody to speak directly into the mic, and for all those following along online, it's very beneficial if we can state our names before we speak.

On that same topic, I think the last meeting folks were, like, muting their mics and unmuting them, which you don't have to do because they're noise-canceling, so you can just leave them on and they don't activate unless you're close to them anyway, so don't have to worry about that. Great, thank you.

All right, so we're gonna get started with the land acknowledgement. As we are gathered today as the Planning and Zoning Commission, the body tasked with reviewing and advising on appropriate land use in the city of Asheville, it is fitting to acknowledge the storied history of this land. We occupy the land of the Cherokee people who have stewarded and been in relationship with these mountains and waterways from time immemorial. This land is occupied through violence, oppression, coercion, broken treaties, and forced relocation. Please join me in expressing respect and gratitude for the present-day Eastern Band of Cherokee, the Cherokee Nation, and the United Kadua Band of Cherokee, and all the indigenous neighbors, as well as the past and present marginalized community members, as we seek to join in the healing of this indelible trauma that is embedded in this land. right next on our agenda we have the approval of minutes as you may recall we did not improve may's minutes uh last meeting uh so we are going to be approving may 6th meetings and june 3rd meeting minutes does anybody have any comments on the minutes hearing none does anybody have a motion to approve i motion to approve both the may 6th and june 3rd 2026 meeting minutes

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okay, the motion is approved unanimously. Next up, updates. Commissioner Anzalito, is there any update on multimodal?

Yes, there is. Okay, so we had a vote on the new transit routes in the network plan, and then the... I'm trying to get the exact text of what was passed, but the transit network was passed with two different amendments. um two different considerations that uh the commission basically wanted council to consider largely pertaining to um the need for research beyond the fixed route network and then also um I believe, if memory serves, it was about like permanent funding sources. Something was like a little bit beyond the scope of the report. If it's okay, I can write something up and get a little bit more of a formal document of what was passed as an update. Maybe we could, if I can send that to, yeah. Just that, yeah, I apologize. I was a little underprepared today.

No, that's perfectly fine. Are there any other updates?

I can give an update on the trolley tour. As some of you may know, the learn portion of the lunch and learn was canceled or postponed. We had a lovely lunch, but before that, there was a tour with a couple of different stops. I did not attend all of the different stops, but one of the stops was at 32 Creel Street, which is a home that My nonprofit organization, the Asheville Buncombe Community Land Trust, now owns and is protecting for permanent affordability. It's a home that we worked with the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County on, and we are now working with potential buyers to sell that home for $250,000. The value of that home is much, much higher. So we hosted the attendees there and gave a tour of the home and talked about the work that both ABCLT and PSABC are doing in that block in the East End neighborhood, really focusing on the connection between preservation, historic preservation, and affordable housing. And that's really why the two organizations have come together to make sure that we are not only saving places and saving structures that have historic significance, architectural significance, cultural significance, but also providing affordable home ownership opportunities. We are also working on a project that is next door to that home, which is the Cappadocia Church, which this commission had approved before I came on. And so that's well underway. That will be three apartments in that building. They are... They put up scaffolding in the past couple of weeks out there, so it's really exciting. Things are happening. But again, another collaboration where the Preservation Society will do the renovation aspect of that work, and then the Community Land Trust will purchase and manage the affordability.

Awesome. Thank you. Will, I believe staff has some updates for us.

Yeah, just a brief legislative update to let you know that the rezoning request for 99999 Deep Review Road that you all had reviewed at your June meeting, which was a request to do a straight rezoning from RM8 to RM16, was adopted unanimously at the June 23rd City Council meeting. The 3 South Tunnel Road rezoning request was continued to the July 28th. Council meeting per the request of the applicants that will be heard at that meeting That's an update on items that you have reviewed recently And I'm glad they would brief update on the comprehensive plan development regulations update project So not a whole lot of news since our last meeting I don't I can't remember where we were at the time but If we haven't told you yet, we have selected our top consultant team for the project. So essentially, we've letting everyone kind of know that we received eight submissions in total in response to the RFP that we posted on March 20. Reviewed them, we had a group of nine interdepartmental city staff members who were all gonna be involved with the project in some form or another on the evaluation team. Did a first round screening of those submissions, whittled it down to a group of five, and did a first round interview with those five teams. From there, we rescored and did another follow-up interview with a subset of three teams. and from there we're able to make our decision for the based on the scoring for the top scorer team so it's not public yet and we're not letting anyone know until probably um the pre-council meeting before the july 28th city council meeting which is the thursday prior we hope to have the A contract before the Council for final approval at the July twentieth meeting. We are currently working through the final project scoping of that, and and budget, and not to exceed amounts and all that kind of stuff. So we had our initial meeting last week with the team answer some questions they had kind of help direct them. a little bit better about what how we perceive the scope to be and they will provide us with a draft document we'll kind of just work back and forth until we kind of get it all squared away and we all feel confident and happy with it but we're doing that in very short order because we want to get that contract approved and and basically start the project in the month of august So that's where we're on the process. I let you all know during the pre-meeting, but I'll say it again now, that I will be the project manager for that update project. I will be relinquishing liaisoning, liaising duty with the Planning and Zoning Commission, effective the August 6th meeting, and my colleague Sam Starbaum will be taking over in my role to be your commission liaison. i'll still be in the picture um i'm not changing positions or anything like that but this will free up time that will be otherwise occupied with uh with this project um so uh you're in very capable hands and uh you know you got to know sam throughout the last few years with conditional zonings and reasoning requests and um yeah we're very very excited so any questions on that you're welcome

Appreciate your service to this commission.

Oh, thank you.

Likewise, and we're very excited to have Sam same on the team, and you will definitely, you know, if you were going to be doing the Udo rewrite project i'm glad you're stepping down because that's you're gonna have your hands full with that one i'm sure only so many hours in the day. OK. Next on our agenda, we're going to have an informal presentation on the Draft Transit Network.

Before we get to that service, Chair, can we do the continuances of the public hearing items? OK. Yes, absolutely. Thank you.

So there is a request to continue the zoning text amendment that we were going to be hearing to the August 5th PCC meeting.

Is there a is there a let's say, and that's the request comes from staff because um, the City Council is moving their day looking at it.

That's correct. Yes, the Council requested that they hear it at their August twenty fifth meeting. So it kind of made an informed collective decision that since we have some folks out at today's meeting, it made sense to reschedule to the office.

that review too. Okay. Yeah.

Anybody want to make a motion to continue?

I can make the motion. What do I need? Is the text written somewhere?

No, it's just a motion to continue that item to the August 5th meeting.

Okay, I make a motion to continue Which item are we looking at?

Item number two under public hearings, the zoning text amendment. Okay.

I have a question to item number two. I request to consider a zoning text amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance, Chapter 7 of the Asheville Code of Ordinances.

To the August 5th meeting.

To the August 5th meeting.

All those in favor? Aye. Motion to continue approved unanimously. There are two more requests for continuances to future PZC meetings, so a date uncertain. Item number three, a request to rezone property located at 819 Patton Avenue. And item number five, a request to amend the conditional zoning for the property located at Warren Wayman Boulevard. Is there a motion to continue those two to a date uncertain?

I motion to continue both items three and five until date uncertain is set by staff and the applicants.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Motion approved unanimously. We will come back to item number four in the public hearing after we hear presentation from transportation, I believe Jessica Morris. Okay, all right, Chris will be presenting an informal presentation on the Draft Transit Network.

Thank you.

Will I be controlling this? Yeah, you can just use the arrow keys to advance the slides.

Good evening. Christopher Whitlock, Transit Division Manager for the City. I'm going to provide you all with an update on National Rights Transit Comprehensive Operational Analysis. This project began last year after City Council approval in March of 2025 with our consultant, Jarrett Walker and Associates. The purpose of the project is to look at ways in which the trans system could be improved or made more efficient, but still serve the needs of the community. So there are four phases as part of this project, and we are in phase three. During the first phase, our consultants took a deep dive looking at the transit system performance, how well it's serving the needs of the community, looking at sort of establishing an operational baseline. We also conducted a survey asking riders and non-riders about their transit usage and any improvements they'd like to see. Or for non-riders specifically, what are those barriers that keep them from using transit? In phase two, we used those insights from the survey and developed two conceptual networks that prioritize two distinct goals. The first is ridership, which prioritizes higher frequency. And the other was coverage, which provides service in more areas throughout the city. So here's both of those maps or concepts here. With the ridership on the left, there's less routes. The service is focused on the main corridors. And there's higher frequency. The orange lines are 15-minute service. The blue lines are 30-minute service. On the right is the coverage concept, so providing service throughout the city to more areas but with less frequency with a lot of routes operating every 60 minutes as opposed to every 30. So we're currently in phase three. We've developed this draft network. Back in November, let me back up, back in September, we conducted another survey to present these two concepts to the public to get their opinion on what they prefer, higher frequency model, the ridership, which encourages more ridership because it makes the transit system easier to use, and then the coverage model. We took that the results of the survey and presented that to city council in November, and they basically directed us to create a draft network that nudges towards ridership, but still maintains coverage to a lot of low income areas throughout the city. So, after getting that direction from city council, we developed this draft network and we push that out to the public. beginning on May 21st, and we're conducting another survey. We did some tabling at the transit center, at some community engagement markets, and other various neighborhood meetings. So that lasted until June 28th, so it closed on Sunday evening. and we're still processing all that data we're going to provide a summary to city council in july at the end of july um but yeah we we received 1350 surveys 1351 uh we've had two other surveys as part of this project uh the last one back in uh september there was like 900 respondents and then the first one that we did last spring there was over 1,300 so it was a it was a good turnout for this one.

Is there a sorry to interrupt Commissioner Paracloth there is there like a threshold y'all consider you need to hit for respondents for it to be like a statistically significant or is there a target minimum you're shooting for I'm just curious.

I mean, originally, I think we were shooting for at least 500. Cool. But we want to see involvement from all types of demographics. So that's also something that we're looking for. So we're going to present a summary of the engagement results to city council in this month. If there's any direction to move forward, nothing would go into effect until FY28, so July 20, 27 or later. And this will give us enough time to do the necessary reach out to communities that are impacted by the changes or the businesses where the service is changing. So, yeah, those are those two concepts. So the current network is basically divided between 50% coverage and 50% ridership. The draft network, as part of that nudge, moves more towards ridership, so 60% ridership and 40% coverage. And of course, as directed by City Council, we also try to maintain coverage in areas with many low-income persons. So this is the existing network. All the lines represent routes. They're color coded based on the frequency. Most of our routes are, excuse me, are 60 minutes, so they come once an hour. We do have a few corridors where we have higher frequency, like 20 minutes along Tunnel Avenue and I think parts of Patton. And we have a couple that are more on the outskirts, like to Biltmore Village and the airport. Those are every 90 to 120 minutes. And service to Black Mountain as well. So, yeah, this is the current network. This is the draft network. So less routes overall. We are prioritizing some of the corridors where there is a high demand service along, built more and McDowell service tuned from the river arts district and from Hillcrest as well. Additionally, some of the outer routes, the ones that are blue, those are now in this model, they would be 30 minutes. So Hendersonville Road, that's shared between two routes and the frequency's every 45 minutes. In this model, it would be every 30 minutes. And increased frequency along Tunnel and Patton Avenue as well. And that's the current network again. And we'll go over some of the bigger changes as part of this model. So the key features, we wanted to improve on-time performance in our new contract, which goes into effect today for the service provider, for the art service. Our goal is 80% on-time performance. So routes being on time 80% of the time. It's currently, in the previous contract, it was 73. So we are aiming higher, but part of the draft, part of our hope with the draft network is to kind of get better on time performance overall. So here are some of the areas where the draft network is proposing to remove coverage. There's a few here, Beaver Dam, Grove Park Inn, Social Security Office, Kenilworth, Maheck, the outlet mall, the western portion of Haywood between Brevard and Patton Avenue. Excuse me. And then this highlights the higher frequency corridors where there's increasing in frequency compared to the existing network. So it's Hillcrest, River Arts, Patton, Biltmore, McDowell, and Hendersonville Road. So two of the areas where we've heard a lot of feedback on are MHEC and the Social Security Office, so we are looking at, we're looking to see if we can kind of keep those within the draft network. So this is kind of just some of the things that we're looking into, but if we were to add MHEC back, it would add approximately seven minutes to the route in both directions, so 14 minutes total. We have two routes serving Hendersonville Road currently and in this model as well. If we only have enough sort of leeway in the schedule possibly to add it to one of those routes. So the purpose of this service on Hendersonville is to provide that 30 minute frequency. So every 15 after and every 45 after a bus is hitting a stop along Hendersonville. If we were to add MHEC, that would throw off that frequency, increase it, or rather decrease it. And yeah, it would likely go to a 45-minute frequency, which is what it currently is, instead of the 30-minute that's being proposed in the draft network as it is now. Social Security Office, it takes approximately eight minutes in both directions, so 60 minutes total. This route is currently designed as to come every 60 minutes at each of the stops. Adding that extra time would throw that off, so it would increase, or that span would increase to 70 minutes. And what we'll kind of go into in just a minute is part of this model is kind of improving transfer times and offsetting this route, taking it off that 60 minute frequency would also have some other impacts in terms of transfers. We'll take a look at that in a second. And yeah, the last part of the key features is time transfers at the Art Station. So on the left here, we have all the arrivals and departures currently in the current system. You can see each bar represents the arrival of a route or vehicle. On the left, you can see it's pretty sporadic happening throughout the hour. So someone could get here at four after and need to wait, you know, 50 minutes to transfer to the route that they need to transfer to. So, in order to improve writer writer experience, we want to reduce those transfer times and that's why we're proposing to shift the routes to a pulse system. So, the vehicles, most of the vehicles arrive at twenty five after depart at thirty or fifty five after and depart at the top of the hour. So anyone transferring between the routes that are arriving at the same time they would have a five minute layover to do so. And a few routes will arrive at 10 after depart at 15 or 40 after and depart at 45 after and the whole idea, I think, is to kind of establish a clock facing schedule that's easy to remember and yeah reduce the transfer times overall. So our consultant looked at the impact of the draft network on the proximity to transit. So what we're looking at here is the existing network. It's color coded based on the frequency. We have a few of those outer routes that come every 90 to 20 minutes. This is all within a half mile threshold. So 39% of all people in Asheville are not within a half mile of the transit system, whereas 28% are within half mile of 30 minute service. And then here's the draft network with that prioritizing the service on those corridors. you know, we'll basically be able to get 8% of people in Asheville close to 15 minute service Since we're removing all those routes, I'm sorry, since we're changing the frequency of all those routes that run every 90 to 120 minutes, that would go away. However, even though we're increasing the proximity to 8% of the population, there is a slight increase of community members that are not within a half mile. So it jumps up from 39 to 42%. And we also looked at, uh, the impact to low income persons and people of color. Of course, with all of them, there is an increase of proximity to that 15 minute service, but, um, an increase also of those not within a half mile. Um.

Did you look at the number of individual, the rate of car ownership as it pertains to census tracts of homes that don't own a car and how that interacts with these figures you're showing here?

We did look at that. Maybe not with this specifically. We did look at that in terms of when we were planning the routes and designing the routes. So areas that are more transit-dependent that don't own a car, based on the census data, we would try to prioritize those over others. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Thank you. So we also looked at access to jobs and our threshold was 45 minutes, so where can someone get to or any areas of opportunity or. Within 45 minutes we had the data for jobs so that's what we use primarily. And so what this map shows here is the change in job access based on the area for the draft network, so the green. The darker the green the more access compared to the existing network and then the darker the brown the less access. So we'll go over some of these locations, as we looked at before and why we're looking at why we see some of those changes so for beaver dam so security office and kenilworth. This draft network proposes to remove service so that's why we see a decrease in access to jobs in those areas. We see a decrease in West Asheville, Tunnel Road, and Lakeshore because of the route changes. There's still transit service near these areas or in these areas, but because of the change, that's why we see a decrease in those locations. And the areas where we see an increase because of the higher frequencies, those are Hillcrest, River Arts, Biltmore, Patton, and Hendersonville Road. And then we also see an increase in locations based on the timed transfers between routes. And that is on Patton, Merriman, South French Broad, and South Tunnel. So when taking it all, we estimate that 10% more people have access to jobs in the draft network. And then we also looked at subgroups, and that 10% for all residents is on the left side. Low income. I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, low income residents and residents of color, there is an increase to access and jobs with the draft network and those are here 15 and 16% respectively. And that's the end of discussion. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. That was a very thorough and detailed and very easy to understand presentation.

Thank you. Questions? I wanted to relay real quickly. I'm getting some feedback from our IT folks running the show tonight. There's some issues with the audio. They're recommending we speak into the mics, but not super close. So close enough to activate them and have them broadcast, but not this close. That's a hard thing to follow, but that's the direction we're getting.

Are we peaking the mics?

Yeah, it's like over-modulating is the term, I guess. Close, but not too close, please.

Thank you. Thank you. That was really good data and presented well, and I do appreciate y'all coming in and staff bringing in other groups. I know it's not necessarily PNC's purview, but knowing what other groups are doing certainly helps us especially traffic because that's the primary complaint issue we get dealing with projects from people um i had a few quick questions um do we know do you know what the current ridership counts are like on a daily or weekly basis i'm just i'm just curious like where we are versus like where we're trying to get to or well

Ridership has fluctuated over the past couple years because of covid because of lean. So we are. Getting back to. Pre healing and not yet to pre covid.

Sure, a baseline's been hard to find with all that's happened in the last five years, sure.

But, you know, it's been around 400,000 to 500,000 recently. And that's on an annual basis? Yeah, and pre-COVID, it was just under right at 2 million. Wow. Yeah.

Did you say 2 million? Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

Oh, yes, that's Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, for the Yeah.

Okay, that's a little less scary than Yeah, 75%. I was like, wow, COVID really changed things, which it did. And another question I had when you're talking through this is, I loved the graphic of all the different time slots at the art station being condensed to the pulse scenario. But idiot question here, like, can the art station handle like,

multiple different routes and buses showing up at the same time or does this like yeah we have uh nine ten slots okay one slot we don't use currently uh we also have uh parking on ashland which is not ideal um and even a bus stop on cox avenue that one of the buses use but yeah part of the issue now is because We have sometimes, you know, just because traffic is lighter, we have vehicles arriving before others that are kind of should be behind them and depart a few minutes later. So the whole bringing or we can handle it, bringing order to the arrivals and departures can only help.

Yeah, no, it seems like from a user perspective, like way easier to just remember and actually use it. then my last kind of comment and you know i don't know if you if you want feedback but um you know personally i i work off tunnel road and seeing that that maybe some of those are highlighted to change you know tunnel roads not gotten better over the last few years and you know for lots of different reasons um you know it's become a serious just visual and you know place in the city that needs some help uh the idea of removing roots from there scares me just because i think i don't know what the magic solution to fixing that whole area is but um you know encouraging employers to be there is one way to do that and i think the transportation or our buses access for those employers is possibly part of it, so I just wanted to voice my concern of that maybe being one of the areas changed, but I greatly appreciate what you're doing. I think this is some cool stuff. Thank you.

This is Commissioner Bell. When you mentioned the previous contract with the art provider, the contract was for 73% on time. Is that how much it actually was, or just the contract?

Well, I think for a while, it was stabilizing in the lower 60s. But more recently, the average has been, for this past year, the average has been 66%. The past couple of months have been really good. June was at 73%. So yeah, I think things are getting better and we're moving towards that.

One other question, did this study evaluate other improvements to the transit system such as safer bus stops or benches at the bus stops or any elements like that?

We have a separate project going on that is specific to the bus stops.

Okay, thank you.

This is Commissioner Ziafska. I'm curious if you've gotten feedback around removing the routes to the outlets and maybe Grove Park Inn because those are job hubs as well.

And we have gotten feedback we, since the survey just closed, we're going to be going over all that with our consultant and. We've got a lot of feedback from all the locations that that service is being proposed to be removed, but we'll definitely be able to provide more information at city council at the end of July.

I have a question. This is Commissioner Anzalito. I have a question about the timed changeover that's happening at the downtown hub bus station. I can't remember what we're calling that new sequencing that's happening where there's greater overlap in the buses that are going What was it pulse pulse the pulse of it, I think, is, for me, I think, with one of the greatest to the system, overall, I think, given the nature of hub and spoke of the network. Whether or not Council adopts this network, is it possible for that particular piece to be implemented. Or is it completely dependent on the new network.

possible we could make some routes more aligned with the pulse system but I don't think we could do all of them we have routes that start and end at all these different times so yeah we would need to make significant changes to make that work thank you

We really appreciate what y'all are doing. Thank you.

Thank you Next we're gonna move on to the legislative portion of our agenda the public hearings Just as a reminder that we receive public comment. We do receive written public comment in advance that can be submitted to pzccommissioners at asheville.gov. We do receive those in advance and read them all. And in-person public comment can be made. We will open up after presentations. Three minutes for individuals, 10 minutes if you're representing a group, and just, well, When I open that up, just speak your name directly into the mic. Yeah, and that's it. And Will will be hearing a request to amend the conditional zoning for the property located at 301 East Chestnut Street for the purpose of amending project conditions. Will will be presenting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Good evening, Commissioners. Will Palmquist with Planning Urban Design. I'll be presenting this conditional zoning amendment request for the property at 301 East Chestnut Street. It is better known as the site of the Princess Anne Hotel, which is a local landmark. It's about a 0.6 acre site, and staff is recommending approval of the rezoning request. So you can see a couple different views of the site and just North ashville just across from I 240 from downtown in the Charles street neighborhood on the corner of chestnut street and firm and avenue. The existing zoning is institutional conditional zone. So there is some legislative history associated with this property. It was originally conditionally zoned in 2006 for the operation of the hotel, which allowed for 16 guest rooms. It also allowed for some associated uses like a dining room with some very specific language around it, and then three apartments for hotel and dining room staff in the lower level of the building. It was amended in 2018 to loosen up the dining room restrictions to be a full-scale restaurant open to the public without really any other changes being made to the conditions. Tonight we'll be talking about a request by the applicant representing a new ownership of the hotel to change the uses further. So essentially what they're envisioning is reallocating those lower-level apartment suites or units into other uses like retail or eating and drinking establishments or hair salon, nail parlors, that sort of thing, so like neighborhood-serving businesses or restaurant or bar-related uses. Uh, so, because those uses are so enumerated in the existing, uh, conditional zoning, it requires an amendment to that conditional zoning ultimately to be approved by city council in order to get those new uses, uh, allowed as as allowable uses there. So, I just wanted to run down the uses that would be, um. allowed by right if this amendment was passed. And I want to note that this is a slight deviation from the materials that were presented beforehand in the project conditions. But after speaking with the applicant more and speaking with Planning and Zoning Commission leadership, we made some tweaks that I think make it a little bit easier to administer and hopefully would allow for continued use of the site without having to come back for another amendment if some small changes to the uses were made. So the 16 guest room hotel is not changing. That would still be an allowed use. Eating and drinking establishments would be permitted generally at the property without specific restrictions on number of chairs or where they're located or how many bars and restaurants are allowed. dwelling units would be allowed generally so the three apartments wouldn't if they did continue using them as apartments would not have to be allocated to hotel staff furthermore the entire structure can be reallocated to dwelling units instead of a hotel if they so chose retail sales would be allowed generally and then barbershops and beauty salons would be allowed generally as well The special functions or events condition listed here would remain. That's been a holdover on this conditional zoning for 20 years now. I know there was some question during the pre-meeting about whether this language still worked for the use and maybe it's a question for the applicant to consider if any changes might be needed to this since it's pretty strict. So just something to think about that could be tweaked if needed. But those would essentially be the uses so it's still a pretty pretty defined number of uses that should give some operational flexibility to the new owners to reprogram some of the spaces and hopefully future proof it a little bit so there's doesn't have to be another amendment anytime too soon. Here is the zoning in context to the surrounding area. You can see kind of the purple and blue colors being the office and CB2 and then CB1 and the northwest corner districts. This is kind of the edge of that commercial office area off of Merriman Avenue before it meets the residential uses and zoning of the Charlotte Street neighborhood. Staff finds that it's generally compatible with the surrounding zoning districts. The future land use of the property is designated as neighborhood centers. This is described in part in the comprehensive plan as a small development or corner store within a neighborhood along a corridor with non-residential community-focused commercial activity and sometimes limited residential uses as a component of the commercial development. That finds to be compatible and in compliance with this proposed amendment to the conditional zoning There was no infrastructure review completed. There is no project or expansion or that type of proposal associated with this amendment. Staff finds that the proposal meets a number of goals and strategies in the city's comprehensive plan, including to incentivize redevelopment along mixed use development that contains housing with an identified transit supportive centers. Charlotte street is served by by transit just 1 block over. Uh, promote adaptive reuse as a means of conserving materials, history and embodied energy and buildings and to encourage planning strategies that support the development of locally focused neighborhood amenities, including restaurants, pubs and other neighborhood services. For those reasons, staff recommends approval of the conditional zoning amendment request. is before you this evening for a recommendation that would be carried forward to City Council, which could hear the request as early as their July 28th meeting. This is the proposed motion. I'm glad to answer any questions, and the applicant is here tonight as well.

Thank you, Mr. Palmquist, for that presentation. Are there any comments, questions for staff?

This is Commissioner Faircloth. Thanks, Mr. Palmquist. Two quick things. So if the hotel ever did an expansion, that would trigger coming back.

I know there's no expansion explicitly called out in this, but if they ever did expand, that would cause them to come back? Yeah, that's a good question.

Or it depends on what the exact expansion is.

it likely would there is a um there is a site plan that's been kind of proffered with this conditional zoning um that's that's part of the ordinance and would remain part of that ordinance it's more related to landscaping items so we'd have to we have to consider consistency with that site plan that's been part of the conditional zoning but you know if it's if it but by itself didn't necessarily, you know, I can't imagine a level three development being able to fit on that site. So it wouldn't necessarily have to be a conditional zoning. There may be some small expansions that could be allowed by right. Um, if it met the requirements of these uses. And so we have to look into it a little more closely. Um, there's, there's, we definitely have to go through HRC review. It's a local landmark. So there's other considerations too. Um, But yeah, so there is some wiggle room there, but it's not like they can like double the size of it or something without potential. Yeah, potentially. Yeah.

Okay. Um, and then some following along the current allowed use does have a restaurant in there.

so the change here is eating so there's not really a change so what that is response to is there is a like um restaurant associated with the on the main level of the hotel i think it's open to the public it's just it's just a general service restaurant or was there is a space those those three apartments in the lower level of the building there's a proposal or idea that the new owner wants to use some or all that space as another eating and drinking establishment. So essentially removing the clause saying that those areas down there can only be used for apartments for staff and allowing eating and drinking establishments down there. It got kind of redundant to say you can do a dining room and restaurant and you can also do eating and drinking establishments. It seems redundant. So just saying eating and drinking establishments generally, how are they going to allocate it? More flexibility within the box. Sure. Exactly. Okay.

Just to follow up on that, that implies that it's open to the public?

Yes. Okay, thanks. And the amendment in 2018 did allow it to be open to the public, yeah.

and then my last kind of comment isn't necessarily like toward this project but something i've been thinking about in general and i appreciate and how now when we get these projects we get the demographic of the census tract data and other data um the climate vulnerability index score i always look at that and i'm unsure what to do with that uh like i appreciate it's there but like i don't know does the other commissioners or staff like I've never, like, seen it and been like, oh, my gosh, it scored 19. That means this.

It would be, I think it would be helpful, maybe, I'm feeling, I feel very similar, this is Commissioner Cycle, feel very similarly, like, maybe helpful to have, like, a baseline, like, what is the city average score to understand how this relates. And I do understand that there is the map associated with it, so we could dig in a little deeper. Sure.

I guess I see the census track data, I'm like, okay, that tells me who's living in the area and what they're like, and that informs my decision-making process. I want the climate score to inform it too, but I'm not sure how to make it.

I want to add that for me, it's just kind of like, a green yellow flag kind of situation like if it's I would say if it's above 20 or so that's like a yellow or red flag to me so it just makes me think about what are the potential consequences generally not necessarily as it specifically relates to the numbers and having that number 20 though is helpful like yeah

I'll use that number now. And sorry to the applicant, we're going off on a sidebar here. It's a slower meeting tonight, and I felt like I could ask a question like that.

No, it's a good question. We don't want to just throw data without any meaning behind it. So we could look at trying to provide some kind of citywide index to reference as a median. I know they, I think revamped the scoring recently. So maybe there's a chance to get sustainability staff to the commission to talk through some of that maybe and give some insight about that process and what the data means. So you're better informed about how to use it. Yeah, it's a great point.

And maybe it's just reading I need to do on my own. It's not your burden to educate me all the time.

No, no, it's glad to provide some good insight, so.

Any other questions for staff before we bring the applicant up? Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Would the applicant like to speak? And just say your name into the mic, please.

Hello, Daniel Leslie. I represent the owners on the project. I don't have anything really else to add, but I'm happy to answer any questions y'all might have for us.

Great. Any questions for the applicant?

I would just love to hear from you personally, kind of some of your reasoning and plans for moving forward.

Sure, um, our company, uh, we do a fair amount of historic preservation type work in Nashville. Um, we've done some, a number of projects, both through the national park service and just kind of, we sort of. We're a small company, but we have offices elsewhere and what is the company name? Let's say the company name, uh, resource capital group. Um, it's basically, uh, you know, friends and family type investment company. Um, not too big and. We've done historic preservation in all of our offices throughout the building. We're sort of, this is sort of our bread and butter with sort of some of these older buildings that are sort of falling behind in terms of maintenance and disrepair, which. This 1 certainly is, um, we're looking to sort of put it back on the map. Um, in exploring what really makes sense for the property, I think part of the reason it's gotten to this repair is the 3 apartments. That can only be leased to staff of the hotel or restaurant. Uh, you know, we're actively engaged with, uh, restaurant operators who would run the hotel for us after we. Finish the rehab and also, uh, restaurant owners, um, they don't find much value in that. So it's hard to sort of monetize from an owner's perspective. Um, so we're looking for other ways where we can. Sort of further monetize the property so that we can afford to. maintain and upgrade this historic landmark property and having sort of hotel adjacent commercial services would go a long way with that or even the ability to to lease to anybody in the neighborhood other than staff of those two businesses for pursuing the national register I think it already is.

Is it?

It's a local landmark. Oh. So it is regulated by the Historic Resources Commission.

I'm not sure what elements exactly are under that regulation, but we've spoken about checking with our preservation staff about any kind of changes, and that might have to go to the HRC. It might be part of the National Register District in that area, too. Uh, but yeah, it certainly is significant and has that designation.

Thank you. We're still in the planning phases. We'll certainly be in touch with HRC. We'll need a major certificate of appropriateness before we get started. Okay.

This is Commissioner Bell. Can you speak to the history of the building? When was it built? Has it been a hotel for its whole life?

Can you speak more into the mic, please?

It's not been a hotel its entire life. My understanding is it was... Built in the 1920s, I don't remember the woman's full name, but her name was Anne. It was financed by Dr. Carl von Ruck who had an estate, which our company also owns manages and is in the process of improving just a couple of blocks away in the neighborhood. She built it as a hotel that served as a hotel for several decades. I believe it was a sanitarium at 1 point. It was apartments at one point, and it was ultimately converted back to a hotel. It's most recently currently used.

Okay. Is it currently operational as a hotel?

It's not. So we closed on the property, I believe, in February. And so it was running as a hotel up until the weekend prior to our closing. And we've shut it down while we plan to do renovations.

Thank you.

is the property is in the Chestnut Hill National Register historic districts.

So that would have that would avail it to things like tax credit rehabs. I don't know if I don't know if your projects can be that extensive, but yeah, largely cosmetic with some something maybe further with this change. Right? Yep. Backup. Any other questions?

Thank you. We'll now open for public comment at 6.01. Seeing no one approach, oh, the minute changed. I'll close public comment at 6.02. Anybody have any discussion?

um sorry i should ask this when you're up there or is the applicant planning on being a long-term owner of this property or you're trying to you said you were trying to get the restaurant group to become the managing body but you're still or did i miss any yeah please come back up sorry i couldn't get all those thoughts together before uh public comment yeah from my understanding we plan to own it for okay yeah

Sure, restaurant will manage the restaurant itself. We would hire a hotel manager to manage the day to day of the restaurant after the renovations and it reopens, which is hopefully. A year or so from now, but yes, we have no plans to sell afterwards.

Sure. And I mean, not that I can, or this body can dictate that, but, um. You know. trying to find business owners and operators who have long-term investments in the community is always a goal so um yeah and if you operate you know you set a property nearby so just kind of

Yeah, we have a dozen or so properties around. We recently purchased the former Moat building commercial portfolio over there, which were Resurrection Studios and Day Trip and several others are. We have about 200 apartments in the Asheville area. Very focused primarily, except for one property in South Asheville. Everything's really within a few blocks of this location. So we're primarily targeting this area to improve the area.

all right thank you um i don't really have any questions or problems fellow commissioners all right well uh we'll go ahead and uh entertain a motion then uh keep in mind um if a motion is to be made the suggested motion is to be made that we are looking towards uh the conditions as presented on the slides to be added to that motion. Yeah.

I'm happy to make the motion if you'll go to the other side.

And you can just reference the conditions as stated on the slide if it would be easier than reading them out.

Yes. This is Commissioner Bell. I move to recommend approval of the conditional zoning request for the property located at 301 East Chestnut Street zone, institutional conditional zone, and find that the request is reasonable, it's in the public interest, is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan, and meets the development needs of the community, in that the request, one, incentivizes redevelopment, especially mixed-use development that contains housing within identified transit supportive centers, Two, promotes adaptive reuse as a means of conserving materials history and embodied energy in buildings. And three, encourages planning strategies that support the development of locally focused neighborhood amenities, including restaurants, pubs, and other neighborhood services. And I'll reference the additional conditions on the previous slide.

Seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? Now the request passes unanimously. Thank you applicant for coming out. And thank you to everybody. This concludes our agenda for this meeting. Next meeting will be August 5th at 5 p.m. with a pre-meeting starting at 4.30.

I did have one question about the next meeting. In our last month's meeting, I had made a comment about a brief presentation I wanted to make about the upcoming zoning amendments and facilitating a discussion about lot size. Is it still feasible for that to be incorporated in the meeting? In August's meeting, Will?

I'm asking about the considerations around lot sizes.

Considerations just about like the zoning amendments and like how the new zoning tax amendments will be affecting, and then like other, we had discussed, yeah, lot sizes for the last month.

Commissioner Anzalito has been working on his own on data. He's been collecting data and analyzing data and wanted to be able to present out on some of that information. Yeah, just to kind of have a discussion. Mm-hmm.

No reason not to. Maybe it's a good chance to meet up beforehand and talk through it. Absolutely. I'd love to talk about what that looks like and how it fits in the agenda and stuff. Let's find a time to meet sometime next week or after and look ahead at that. For sure.

Vice Chair, can I make one request? So with the new format of linking the documents within the agenda, which I like, can you also link the whole folder at the top? Because when you add additional documents like the DAO, we're not able to access that. I haven't been able to get the presentation up.

Oh, yes. Yeah, same. So yeah, it's a couple of things to consider. I don't know if I can get lazy here. So yeah, currently you have to go to the agenda. Yes, we can definitely link a main document to the agenda. If you're in a materials folder for a project, there is...

So it seems like it's locked down now, because previously I could just move up, but now it won't.

Interesting, yeah. So we can definitely link to the main document folder. There have... so the clerk's office has been getting some feedback from folks about the new format and how to best display the information my understanding is they will be adding back the folder link on the website directly here so you can access it from there too it is on the website somewhere higher up documents folder here yeah yeah um so you can go there right now and then go to the year and the month too um but yeah I think having a link to the folder in that table will be helpful like we used to do um so yeah we're trying to find the best fit for like meeting WCAG compliance and also just uh business as usual in a way that's not it's not ideal maybe for like a screen reader to have all these tables with all these links and stuff but we're trying to find the best like compromise for information while being compliant so it should be a change happening soon too But in the meantime, we'll add a link to the agenda with the meeting folder in there. Definitely.

All right. Anything else?

Adjourned.