Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hello and welcome to the August 6th meeting of the Asheville Planning and Zoning Commission. I'm your chair, Jeffrey Barton. And uh we will begin with a roll call. Chair Barton, present. Commissioner Faircloth, present. Commissioner Zufa, present. Commissioner Bell, present. Present. Commissioner Wheatley, present. We have a quorum. Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Um to begin our meeting um with the most difficult thing, we'd like to acknowledge the the loss of one of our colleagues on the commission just a little over a month ago. our vice chair um Byron Grryer um was lost and we uh we grieve his loss with his family, closest friends and um from from speaking from me uh we just sincerely appreciated all that Byron gave to the city through his service on on this commission as well as many other initiatives within the city downtown commission um Asheville Independent restaurants and it's a tremendous loss. Um, so it's fitting to to kind of pause, reflect, and acknowledge um the loss of a cherished colleague in in this work of evaluating and making recommendations on land use. Um, with that, I'd just like to open it up for other reflections that my fellow commissioners might like to make and no obligation to to say anything. I I appreciate you, Chair Barton, taking a taking a moment to reflect. Um, Commissioner Grryer and I uh didn't always see like eye to eye on everything. Um, generationally, I think there were some differences in

perspective kind of built in just to the way we operate. Um, but he was uh steadfast and reliable. um every time I I reached out to him, he always answered the phone and communicated his ideas clearly. Um I learned a lot from him about the history of Asheville and the development of Asheville. He was integral um for really for decades um as far as anything from Belshare and as that transitioned out to downtown After 5 and um was actively engaged in another board that I'm on the Asheville Downtown Association and um really was a reservoir of knowledge and integrity and um it was a real pleasure to serve with him and I think He he really reflected um the type of ability to keep an open mind and compromise and learn and be engaged in your community um for really you know extended period of time. So, I think it's a a major loss, not just for this commission, but um for the city and for the last, you know, better than a month now. Um he's been on my heart and in my thoughts every day. And um I just hope everyone who's in his family has the chance to know that we're all thinking about him and we've all shared private conversation about the impacts he's had in our life. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll just um echo what Commissioner Wheatly said. Um I'm glad we're taking a moment for um Byron. Um while I didn't maybe know him personally outside these rooms, I didn't know about him within these rooms, not just in this board, but other boards and man who's donated, who's given many hours over the

years. He's run paid positions to all these volunteer boards and working in the community. I'll take a page out of his book for his commitment to his I don't know that I can eloquently say a whole lot without and keep it together but I just want to say how important it is to acknowledge us as humans um in this work that we do. We're here talking about legal things and planning things and zoning things, but at the end of the day, all we have is each other. And I just want us to remember that in each and every one of these meetings. Thank you for offering that. Well, thank you um for allowing us the space and and time to continue our grieving process as a community for for the loss of Byron. Um we'll move on to the next item on our agenda which uh as we uh have made routine here is our our land acknowledgement. As we are gathering today as the planning and zoning commission, the body tasked with reviewing and advising on appropriate land use in the city of Asheville, it is fitting to acknowledge the storied history of this land. We occupy the land of the Cherokee people who have stewarded and been in relationship with these mountains and waterways from time immemorial. This land is occupied through violence, oppression, coercion, broken treaties, and forced relocation. Please join me in expressing respect and gratitude for the present-day Eastern Band of Cherokee, the Cherokee Nation, the United Gadua Band of Cherokee, and

all of our indigenous neighbors, as well as the past and present marginalized community members as we seek to join in the healing of the indelible trauma that is embedded in this land. Thank you. Um, next up is the approval of minutes from the June 4th, 2025 meeting. Um, any comments, corrections? If not, I'll take a motion to approve. I move to approve the June 4th, 2025 meeting minutes. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Um, next up we have a standing update from committee leaison and workg groups. Um, are there any for this month anything from our storm water flood passport working group? Storm water and flood plane policy working group. Um, our update is that we are pivoting slightly. So, we had tasked ourselves with a pretty heavy lift of reviewing um the 25 plus different plans related to flood plane policy and planning. Uh we were um Commissioner Cycle and I deep diving into not only the our UDO on flood plane regulations but other communities and we have compiled a lot of information. and it's not complete because we have lots lots of other things going on but we pivoted because there's a lot of really exciting work in this space happening starting to happen and so when we formed this group we weren't really sure what other e efforts in this in the UDO

revisions would be happening so one reason to kind of pivot to u being more of a liaison and a reporting out to this group every month on what's going on in the space um is because of the uh the city's application to FEMA's hazard hazard mitigation grant program, HMGP, for funds to review the UDO. Um, and you know, potentially make some pretty big changes on the UDO, anything related to flood plane resilience, storm water, environmental resilience. And so that grant grant application has been submitted as far as I know. Um, and we don't, it'll probably be several months before that is determined if we get that funding and then it'll be contracted to a consultant. You that's a long process, but a lot of work will be done there and we don't want to um do a lot of work that's just going to be kind of trashed and redone by a consultant. So, we're going to be keeping this group updated on that. Um, there's also other groups like the Urban Land Institute that's working with the city on these type of recommendations. So, we're just going to keep our ear to the ground and be involved with these other conversations and report out each month on that. Does that capture our plan? Yeah, absolutely. They're they're I think our hope is in in the best role that we can play um since they're uh like Commissioner Bell said multiple different avenues in this now um that we can then pull that we can have our ears to the ground and between the two of us we can pull all that information and just kind of report to this body on updates land use policy. those other organizations. Great. Thanks. It's good to see that

there may be finally some momentum to have the deep dive into land use policy. So, thank you for keeping us updated. Um any update from anti-displacement work group? Uh yeah. So within the anti-displacement working group um we've identified basically the most important component um kind of missing right now within the UDO is really targeting a definition of what displacement is. Um right now uh we hear the word anti-displacement used quite frequently. um anti-displacement measures can only be pursued if displacement is understood and defined. Um so we've worked to come up with a definition that we'd like to bring before the group and I'll say it now. Um, you know, our request would be that they're the definitions included in the minutes and that um it could be reflected uh upon um by the by the full commission not to be moved towards approval or anything like that, but just reflection and future dialogue. Um, so that definition is and I'll also email this to Will um for accuracy in the many in the minutes. Um, but displacement as we see it is the economic, social, cultural or physical relocation of a people within a defined census track or within an adopted a city adopted neighborhood. So, I think that's really great work um as far as trying to set a foundation of understanding around displacement as it relates to the land use policy within the city. Great. Thank you for that. Um and yeah, I think that that does provide kind of some context and foundation for further

work to understand implications and applications. So if you could share that with the whole commission and memorialize the the definition. Excellent. Um just on a on another quick note, not quite anti-displacement note, but just on previous work that's been done by this commission. Um it appears that the land acknowledgement is no longer on the planning and zoning commission landing page um for the city. And so, um, I'm sure there was some kind of update, um, to a website or something, but I just wanted to kind of note that right now it appears there's no way to find it unless you go to an agenda and then click an a link document. Thank you for noting that. Um, any other liaison workg groupoup updates? Um, as just sort of a general public acknowledgement, the city's advisory boards remain suspended at this time. So, um, the workings of planning and zoning commission in relationship to multimodal affordable housing advisory committee is still stymied. So, we'll look forward to a reconstitute advisory board makeup and opportunity for collective input to kind of help shape our the land use discussions in the future. Yeah. Um, I do think as as far as the commission goes, I don't know if it's appropriate or not, but I know that the city council has moved towards um it appears basically four working groups associated with um Helen recovery and um I might have overlooked it um but it doesn't look as though it looks as though the the chair and the vice chair from you know most of the boards are included in certain components of those

four um recovery boards. Um but I I didn't see the boards necessarily that our chair and vice chair would be included on. Yeah, that's a good question and I don't know that they've seated composition or even kind of formalized those committees. But um that that's worth a good it's worth a question of like how are these going to be constituted and where's the opportunity for collaboration and kind I I don't know yeah just I think any policy that's associated with chapter 7 of the UDO is going to come before this board and so you know discussion leading up to that would probably be beneficial as far as um consensus building for the recommendation. from this board. I had that same question. So, okay, we'll pass that along to our council liaison and perhaps through planning staff channels to figure out what the makeup's going to be and when we can sort of volunteer ourselves of the full commission to participate. Um that concludes our administrative section and u first up we have a presentation on the affordable housing plan from Sasha Verinsky. Good afternoon uh commissioners. My name is Sasha Verinsky. I am the affordable housing officer for the city of Asheville and I work in the community and economic development department. I used to be so I know some of you So, I was asked to come give a summary of the affordable housing plan. I did not include everything. I'm very aware of your agenda and all these people, lovely people sitting here. Um, so there are some things I left out, so I will

still try to be brief. Uh, our plan was released September 9th, kind of a completed plan about a year working on this. We had community input. We had focus groups, things. We did a communitywide survey, an event at the mall, which which was really fun to do. Got a lot of input. Um there are 42 strategies in this plan. ely divided those into top priority meaning we're going to start working on those right away shortterm which is I believe medium-term 3 to five and then long-term 5 to 10 years it will guide our work for the next five to 10 years here are the five big goals of the plan or read everything to you all but uh promoting you know helping existing residents stay in Asheville went into this plan. Actually, anti-displacement is a, you know, something we've been talking about at the city for close to 10 years that we've been really concerned about. Preserving existing affordable housing and improving housing quality, increasing the supply of housing that meets the diverse needs of current and future residents, finding placebased policies and programs with city initiatives, and then broadening and strengthening the affordable housing ecosystem. So, Not just what we're doing with our money but how do we you know interact with all the other stakeholders, service providers, institutions two really important crosscutting priorities that we were considering or supporting efforts that meet the greatest needs. So how do we make the biggest impact for those folks who are the most vulnerable in our community?

Then the second one is uh protecting against displacement that um can a lot of this physical, economic, cultural or social. I would add environmental to your list. Uh flooding, natural disaster. We saw really that that can be for both renters and homeowners, right? So it's not just any one particular group of people. I'm not going to read all this. I just some things in here for your consideration that you can read. Obviously, we've got in terms of when we're implementing this plan, we think of our internal stakeholders, but obviously we also work with a lot of folks on the external side, service providers, developers, stakeholders, Bunkham County, North Carolina as well. Here's um just a smattering of some sample strategies. um increasing the acceptance of rental assistance. Might think of vouchers or veterans. There's vouchers just for veterans or you know dis a lot of times those people face uh barriers when they go to rent a unit that rental assistance. they have preconceived notions about who those people are and how in their unit building a rental registry and or a centralized affordable housing weight list. We're working on this right now with several external partners. Get emails every week from people looking for a place to rent. Where do I go? and we don't have a place in our community where you can go directly and find all the resources that could help. Working on that. Um, nonprofits, um,

expanding home repair resources for homeowners, we've already started working on that. I'll talk about that later. Supporting down payment and mortgage subsidy programs. Creating an acquisition fund for affordable housing. That's probably a little bit more long-term. um times housing comes up on the market and investors generally buy it and maybe rehab it and raise the rents. So there's an idea and a lot of cities are working on this like how do we intervene in the market before everything kind of or land banking to acquire and redevelop properties strategically convene and facilitate a funders collaborative. We're already we're working on that right now. Requiring developments that receive city funding to accept rental assistance. That's just a smattering of ideas. And then based on a conversation with your chair and staff, I pulled out specifically strategies that are related to land use. Some of these sound repetitive, so I apologize, but you know, regulatory incentives citywide for affordable housing, barriers citywide, continuing to develop city-owned land for affordable housing, supporting other plans and policy initiatives to diversify housing choices, or the implementation of a vacancy tax. increasing place-based regulatory incentives, aligning housing development priority with infrastructure investments. So if we know we're going to be doing a lot of infrastructure in one area, maybe we should be looking at that incentivizing transit oriented and accessible development, modifying review thresholds, which I know you all have been involved with, and then educating local builders and developers on housing needs, uh, funding and design guidelines.

We often hear about people complain to us about how bad or it can be bad to deal with the city. So some of it is education. So just a really quick snapshot what we've been working on in the past year since the storm. So you know we presented we came to council the Tuesday night before the storm to talk about affordable housing and then the storm hit and everything you know changed. We quickly pivoted um in the wake of the storm and we turned money and immediately got out, you know, wor started working on getting a million dollars of returned money to rental assistance charities and Grace Covenant Presbyterian and Operation Gateway. They distributed that million pretty quickly. Took several months, but that's how these things go. home repair. We took returned almost 1.5 million in returned funds and turned that towards home repair, storm related home repair. We have a contract with Archer which is the Asheville Regional Coalition for Home Repair that is Mountain Housing Habitat for Humanity Podma Community Action Opportunities and the ABC contract with them and um it's really cool project really cool collaborative. They've got infrastructure. They're deciding all together who does what jobs. Um so people have one website they go to to apply for home We're doing monitoring of our older units which people have been asking us about for the last few years and we did a an I keep getting better. We evaluated 26 developments with a a total ofund2 affordable units. Some of our units have fallen out out of

their affordability periods. So they're no long those are the units that are currently required to be affordable because usually either a conditional zoning housing trust fund loan or a land use incentive grant. We are working on 319 built more which you all reviewed. I want to say it's almost been two years since it came to this body council for kind of a renew. are preparing it's separated into two phases now one phase will be a 4% tax credit project city piece of city owned property we've owned for a long time we're in an RFP process right now and it's moving well moving forward very well zoning changes you all know about these um threshold changes um within transit supportive corridors, elimination of minimum parking requirements, and expansion of building size allowances for res. Then bond planning. We're currently in the midst of planning for our $20 million bond that voters approved last November. Um, so in the coming year, this is a list of what we are focusing on. And so everything I just talked about was in the affordable housing plan. and that's why I'm talking about it. And then so really we're kind of getting back to the plan and working on these things, some of these things I just talked about. Um, but we're just going forward on all these strategies much as we can. We've been invited to join the WNC affordable housing loan fund which self-help runs. Um, Dogwood Health Trust seated that fund with $40 million. And basically those funds take either like philanthropic or city

funding, they attract other private um capital like so for banks and creates this larger loan pool with low interest rates. Um so right now it's focused on multif family rental development. Really quickly, I don't know if you've heard there's a new housing needs assessment out. Every five years this gets done as a part of the consolidated plan which is a plan the city leads for a 4count region. It's a plan that um is really made for federal how we're going to spend federal funds CDBG and home dollars. Um but this this will be in the your folder but um I just put a link in there for you to find it if you want tons of great data. Patrick Bowen uh who did this report and we used to call it the Bowen report trying to housing needs assessment. He will be in town at the end of the month. He'll be speaking at the city council meeting the fourth Tuesday at 5:00 pm. And then there's also a public presentation earlier that day at Blige Community College. Then I think next day he's actually speaking at the home consortium and that will be streamed on YouTube as well. That'll probably be a pretty in-depth presentation. And this is just my last slide. It's just an example of some of the data that gather. So here there's a brown um look at 80% and this is area median income. And I know it's really smashed up numbers here, but around 4,900 units that we need for those at 80% rental units around 11,200 units for home ownership for those example just to what to tease. There's tons of demographic data all

kinds of happy to take any questions you have. Not a text. I apologize. Thank you, Miss Vertinsky. Um, yeah, I think for our purposes, getting a sort of baseline understanding of what the affordable housing plan seeks to accomplish will be helpful as we kind of look at land use regulations. So, um, to start with that, and I don't know if this is a question for you or planning staff, um, is the affordable housing plan an adopted city plan, and if so, is that will that be used under consistency statements that come before us? Question. So it was not adopted and but it has been presented. I think I don't know about consistency statements. We're definitely it's definitely a part of our organizational work plan for the city. It's um we've got work plan goals for the whole city and it is one of the we'll have a dashboard up and you'll be able to track the p progress of what we're doing with the plan. Is there a timeline for adopting it formally or I'll try to add some helpful context. We are coming up on technical update to our comprehensive plan um in which we will at least be referencing the accepted affordable housing plan and it is currently referenced in our uh motions suggested motions and reports to both this body and city. A consistency statement I think is

something that's often kind of coming from general statutes. So, it's probably going to just reference the comp plan directly, but you will see staff make reference to this plan as well. Sorry, I can't even get these mics right tonight. Thank you. Any other questions on scope or applicability of this? I have one question. Um, thank you so much. That was really helpful. any additional detail or thoughts or strategies around helping our infrastructure keep up with housing and specific places, roads being to certain standards, storm water systems in the public right away. No, I I'm not the expert really on that anymore. I mean, I don't know if I ever was, but um I mean, we definitely work internally, you know, between with city staff to work on that. Um you know, affordable housing bond dollars can be spent on infrastructure. Um but there's so much demand. You know, we've got 20 million. We could really use a hundred million, but definitely something we think about and when we think about where do we fund projects and are they on major corridors or at least are they somewhere that makes sense? Are we going to be isolating people in place where they're without transportation or I think there have been some investments in the past that maybe weren't thought out in terms of transit. I guess I'll say um I don't have a question so much as just a comment. Um, I received some unsolicited feedback on the, and I'm going to get it wrong, but the fund that's being administered through

self-help, um, a private developer reached out and basically just said, you know, that he'd received advice from you to go to them to see about the funding through the initial seed fund of of Dogwood. And I think um, he found the process um, like really satisfying. could immediately set up a meeting, had really smooth transaction as far as um access to, you know, underwriting there and having an initial conversation. Um so I don't know um what adding to that broader pool of money might look like, but the initial feedback I received was that um the administration that self-help provides is very professional and timely. Um so that was just something I'd heard. That's great. Yeah, I mean that's definitely part of the pluses to it, right? They're been underwriting projects for decades and have a depth of experience that we don't necessarily have here at the city. Got a 90-day turnaround on loan applications, whereas we we tend to do this once a year cycle. So, it's more flexible for developers that way. One downside right now that's being pointed out is that it's only for multifamily rental construction. consideration moving forward that maybe it could address home ownership. Home ownership's expert for sure. I appreciate the update and especially the piece around monitoring of the affordable units. I'm wondering if there is a public facing dashboard for that part. isn't we're um we're actually doing a presentation in two weeks um at HCD the housing and community development committee at council about monitoring and what was found where the units are

that is something we should work on. I mean, I think one of our other focuses this year is data and making tracking our data. Yeah. From my perspective as an affordable housing developer, when I look at projects here, that's something that I definitely consider. So, that would be helpful and also helpful to know how many units have aged out or however you call it, you know, to see like and and and what the pipeline is, how many units are going to be going offline in the coming years. Any other questions? Well, thank you for the presentation. Um, and this was, you know, the request for this, I think, was to establish some kind of baseline information as we as a body go into our retreat so we can go further on exploring anti-displacement programs that the city is uh looking to operationalize. So, I'm sure we'll have more questions after we have a chance to really go in to retreat on those issues. Um, adjacent question for Mr. Collins since he offered it up. Uh, what's the timeline on the technical amendment to the comp plan? I want to give you a really accurate answer, but I can't right now. We are working on the timelines. Um, a lot of things are tied to funding sources that are uh that are uh grant related and we are still working through the applications and the process on um but I hope to have an update for this group uh in the near future with some more definite timelines because it we're getting there. Um but we will see some some movement within this fiscal year and an ongoing project. I can tell you that much. But as long as we have funding. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I just um uh wanted to keep I know there had been previous discussion about a potential amendment

to include the land acknowledgement um because currently we have um you know Mr. Dwayne Barton had provided us kind of a cultural um reflection on what our city is and uh just we're going to complement that with the land acknowledgement as well. So, if that could be, you know, kind of thought of or included potentially by staff, that would be really appreciated. Thank you for that reminder. I think did we make a formalized recommendation on that? Yeah, we did. I believe so. So, if it can be attached and kind of rolled in that that would be wonderful. Great. Um well, we'll move into our first public hearing on the agenda. Um the first up we have a ministerial public hearing which is a request for a level two site plan review of a new ninestory condominium building with 47 units located at 161 Church Street. Uh the project's pin is identified on the agenda and the property owner is TMCR Real Estate or Real Property Investments LLC. The applicant's contact is Miss Kristen Kun. Uh planner coordinating review is Will Ponquist. Mr. Palmquist. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, commissioners. Will Palmquist with Planning and Urban Design. I'll be presenting this level two site plan review for the Church Hill Condominiums project located at 161 Church Street. Uh just as a refresher, this is a level two site plan review. So, this is not a conditional zoning or legislative hearing. Um this is a confirmation of the project's adherence to uh codes and standards in our UDO uh specifically. So the content of the presentation will be uh mostly tailored to that. Uh so some quick facts here. Uh the site is a CBD zoning district. It's about 04 acres

currently a surface parking lot and what's being proposed is a ninestory building with 47 residential units. Here you can see a little closer in view of the site located on Church Street, which is a one-way street uh going south through downtown in the South Slope area. Uh as you can kind of see on the property lines, we'll talk a little bit about this in a second. The property has two um believe they're unopened rightway type alleys to the north and the south. As mentioned, the existing zoning is a central business district. No change in that is being proposed through this review. It is um outside the traditional downtown core within the tallest height zone and is not along any key pedestrian street. So, here's the uh ground floor lowest level site plan uh for the for the project. Again, it's a nine-story building with 43 units. The first two levels of the structure are uh structured uh parking totaling 51 spaces. They are accessed off of these um alleys. They are separate and not connected. The lower the southern alley will access the lower surface parking, sorry, structured parking and the northern alley will is a little bit higher in grade and that'll access the upper level surface parking structured parking. total. Yes. Okay. I got real close. Um so, um uh total gross floor area for the project is approximately 95,000 square feet. So, it is a level two review as opposed to a level three which kicks in at a 100,000 square feet for

projects without affordable housing included. There are the five uh street trees you can see proposed in grates along Church Street as is required as well as six bicycle parking spaces uh and at the front of the structure. There's also a new 10-ft wide minimum sidewalk proposed along uh Church Street as well. Here's the main front elevation of the structure. Um east elevation fronting on Church Street. You can see the brown color is the two levels of surf of structured parking and then the residential above. The main pedestrian entrance is uh far as furthest north on the structure. The project complies with the uh design uh requirements of the CBD zoning district. Those include elements such as a 10- foot deep stepback um at a specific height along the building facade for 2/3 of the length of that facade. You can see that's shown here where this patio is suggested in the elevation as well as the smaller floor area for any floors above 75 ft in height which happens in this section of the structure here. This is the rear uh facade. Uh there's a lot of woods behind this um behind the structure currently in the whole site. Then here are the side facads. So the southern elevation you can see the access to the lower parking deck and then the north elevation shows the access to the upper parking area. So staff does find that all technical standards have been or are able to be satisfied and recommends approval of this level two site plan. And I'd be

glad to answer any questions you might have. Oh, I'm sorry. I got ahead of myself. Uh required reviews. So this project was reviewed at the technical review committee on May 5th. They recommended approval with conditions. It was approved as well with conditions at the June 18th design review committee meeting. It is before you this evening for the level two review and the project will go back to TRC for a final technical review at some point following uh this review. Thank you. I'd be glad to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Um, one question I had, you know, DRC reviewed this extensively a couple of times. They made a comment in their um, approval with conditions about providing required street trees. The TRC report said four were required, five are being provided. So, it's kind of confusing to see a DRC condition about street trees when they're providing more than what's required. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, I think there was some confusion at the DRC meeting about the requirement and I can't remember if that requirement is four or five now off the top of my head, but what is shown on the site plans this evening is um definitely uh satisfies the requirement for street trees. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. Um thank you, Mr. Palmquist. One question I have because I always just get I always kind of just raise my eyebrows when I see a project that comes in like right under the threshold, you know, like if this was a level three, like what would have that have triggered or like what kind of additional things would have happened? So, um, so level three gets triggered when a project is above 100,000 square feet as far as the CBD goes for nonaffordable projects. So in that case it would have been a conditional zoning and it would

have been before you as a legislative matter. Uh the project is not requesting any technical modifications as currently proposed. Uh but um yeah that is exactly true. Um it's also also height can trigger that. So the project is about 99 feet in height and if they're one foot taller they'd be a level three project as well. So they are definitely um you can you can assume assume that they are trying to stay as a level two for expediency and and certainty as as we understand. Um but yes, a level three would be a full uh conditional zoning process that would have to be approved by city council ultimately before the zoning would be approved. Yeah, and thank you for that answer. And I'm not trying to suggest there's anything fishy going on here. I just always when I see something like right under that threshold, I'm kind of like, oh wait a minute, like is there a reason? But absolutely not. I had a similar question just like on the staff report it says confirm that it's under 100,000 square feet, right? So like at what point does that happen and what if it does end up going over a 100,000? Yeah. Um so that was an initial comment u during the TRC review. Either uh number was approximate or they they didn't have it in all their plan drawings. So that was definitely something that I I wanted to make sure that we were 100% clear on with them so they knew the implications because yes, if they come to final TRC or or at any point in the process um for their for their final approvals and they show over 100,000 square feet, then their zoning is no longer valid and they have to come through a conditional zoning. So yeah, they are definitely well aware that um that that is a magic number for them and they're they are definitely adhering to that um bas based on the project uh design and there is no affordable housing proposed here. Uh not as far as I know.

Other questions for staff? If not, do we have the applicant here to Lisa? the applicants here and would like to speak on this, please uh state your name and speak directly into the mic so they can hear. I'm Will Scott. I'm here uh on behalf of Withers Raven. We are the design civil consultant for the project. I'm also joined by Kristen Counz um who's the project engineer and Andrea Gindelman who is our designer as well as Peter Als and Eric Howell who are the architects for the project. Anything you'd like to add to the staff report or I think Will did a great job um presenting it. It's I think it's pretty straightforward, but I wanted to show up to make sure we could technical questions that you may have. Any questions of the applicant? Um, I live in this neighborhood and just want to say I appreciate anyone who uh works to develop housing in downtown. Um, I think it's a really great land use u for our city and provides a lot of positive externalities. Um, so I appreciate your team working so hard and diligently to to bring a project forward and bring housing to downtown Asheville. Any other questions, comments for the applicant? Is there a green roof involved? I think I saw some comments about a green roof. is Peter. I'm hear I'm seeing some nods, but could somebody from the design team come up and owl and project manager for progressive

companies? Yes, there is a green roof. Um we've got um proposals for it and have a verbal approval from the owner to do a green roof. That is awesome. It is my belief that every building we do in the city of Asheville should have a green roof. We'll push it until as far as I can go. I'm stoked about that. We love to hear it. Thank you so much. I mean, thank you. Thank you. Um, this being a a public hearing, if there are no other questions for the applicant, we will open for public comment at 556. Um, you may sit down if if any members of the public would like to speak on this item. Uh, please approach the mic and introduce yourself or was there anyone on the list? Mr. Palmquist, wasn't there a signup list or something? Doesn't appear so. I'm looking at the signup list and they're all for Oh, actually members of the applicant team. Nobody has signed up for public comment that I can see. Correct. Yep. Seeing none approach the mic, we will close public comment on this matter at 556. Um, any further deliberation or is anybody prepared to make a motion? I move to recommend approval of the Church Hill Condominium level two project located at 161 Church Street as presented based on site plans, elevations, and materials submitted and discussion heard during this review. Subject to addressing any outstanding technical and design review conditions. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you and best of luck. Thank you. So, next up, we'll be entering a couple items that are legislative public hearings. Before we do, um this is these are items that I believe most of you are here to speak about. So, I'll just provide some framework around how the the hearing process works for the legislative public hearing. Um we'll first, as we did during the ministerial public hearing, hear presentation from staff. Um and then a any supplemental information from the applicant will open public comment. Uh we have received all the written public comment um and reviewed it prior to this meeting for the verbal public comment. We have the signup list. I'll identify the speaker that's signed up as well as the next speaker in the queue in case they are in the overflow room and and wish to join us to make their comment. We will uh limit public comment to three minutes per individual or if you're speaking on behalf of a group uh 10 minutes and the people who are seating their time to you must identify themselves. We will try to hear from as many people um as wish to speak. However, if comments become repetitive and don't add new information to to help our deliberation, then uh we may exercise discretion to limit the public comment period. Um, in addition, it's important to note that we are a recommending body, the planning and zoning commission. Uh, our recommendation will be carried up to city council who has the ultimate, uh, decision-making authority on whether to approve or deny. So, this is not the last step in the road, just one step in the road. And with that, um, I'll introduce the, um, the legislative public hearing item,

a request to amend the conditional zoning for properties located at 1617 Hendersonville Road for the purposes of amending the site plan and project conditions. The main parcel has pins identified uh, and addresses on the agenda, and I will not read all of them. The property owner is Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community Inc. The applicant's contact is Mr. Chris Day. Planner coordinating review is Will Palmquist. Mr. Palmquist. Did you push the button? Okay. All right. Thank you. Good evening. I will be presenting this conditional zoning amendment request for a project at Deerfield Retirement Community Expansion at 1617 Hendersonville Road. So, as you can see here on the aerial image, uh the site consists of one large property and 27 smaller parcels. They total approximately 120 acres in total. The site is the Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community, a faith-based nonprofit retirement community. Uh it was founded in 1955 and it's had multiple expansions over the years, uh most recently in 2008. The existing zoning is already commercial expansion conditional zoning which is a uh level three zoning district for uh these types of projects in scale that was approved in 2021 for the purposes of a major expansion to the facility. And you'll be seeing some slides showing um that approved master

plan versus what's proposed uh now for that um for the site. So here you can see on the far left is the um uh approved master plan for the site. Um so this was the plan in 2021 that was adopted uh by city council. It was approximately 833,000 square feet in size. The new plan is in the center of the screen and is slightly smaller in overall square footage at 822,000 square feet in size. The kind of arrangement of the buildings and some of the additions proposed on the northernmost building that we'll talk to in a second really prompted this major amendment to the conditional zoning. This has to go back through the whole process, get readopted by city council to approve this change. On the right, you can see the overlay of the previous um approved plan in the blue overlaid on the new proposed site plan. Overall, the major fundamentals of the project such as um access points uh roadway networks has not changed significantly. uh mainly the elements and the placement of the buildings within the uh project site. So here you can see um the different enumerated aspects of the project. The uh first um first item a in the very northern part of the site is a proposed expansion to the skilled nursing facility. There is also um some

additions to uh to Hayden Hall uh which is um gosh I lost my spot on that. That's I'll label her on that's E actually and those are the that's the main building on the north as well. Three different additions to that structure. Also a proposed addition to the community center shown here as G. a new independent living building that is uh five stories in height and approximately 191,000 square feet. There is a new outdoor center uh number K located here. Also 12 new what's called hybrid homes along this roadway of the site plan. These uh consist of 16 independent living apartments each uh which are each about 45,000 square feet in height or in gross floor area. And then finally there is a grounds maintenance building proposed a letter J in the southeastern corner of the site. So a little more information about that particular building. Um the applicant has been working with the community to make some changes to the uh sighting and design and operations of that building. So this is um the latest iteration shows a reorientation of the grounds building to be more uh north south in orientation to kind of try to tuck more into the landscape and be less visible. Um, in addition to the required landscape buffer, which is a 30 foot wide landscape buffer around the site, the applicant is proposing enhancing the plantings of that buffer to make it denser as well as adding an 8 foot tall privacy fence. Uh the building has um

overall enhanced improvements from its original design and they've relocated the dumpster and trash compactor further from the neighbors to the south and east as well as enclosing those uses for uh sound sound purposes. There are also some limits on the hours of operations of this facility as expressed in the uh project conditions. Uh so as far as compatibility of this proposed amendment to the surrounding zoning, uh the zoning is not changing. It's remaining residential expansion. You can see some of the city zoning to the east of the site and the county zoning which is residential uh to the south and west of the site. Staff finds that that is compatible with the proposed expansion and projects uh of this amendment. The future land use designation of the site is residential neighborhood uh which is described as being um as as residential neighborhoods that can benefit from having more housing diversity such as accessory apartments uh duplexes other types of infill housing. So as far as compat compatibility with the infrastructure, um this project was initially reviewed by the technical review committee during its uh first iteration in in 2021. Uh due to the configuration uh changes that were proposed that did not really impact the overall um layout of the site, things like transportation and that sort of thing. and coupled with the fact that it was a more conceptual master plan type review, we did not take it back through TRC at this point. Um, but those comments still remain that in regards to infrastructure, uh, the existing roadway network is in place and not proposed to

being changed. There were letters of commitment from the water um, service availability and allocation um, for the wastewater sewer system. Those are likely expired and would would need to be reapplied for, but the initial um approval of those indicates that there is adequate capacity for both those elements. And then finally, detailed storm water review is approval is pending uh approval of this um conditional zoning process. In regards to the compatibility with the city's comprehensive plan, staff finds that the proposed project is consistent with comprehensive plan in that it makes streets more walkable, connected, comfortable, and connected. I'm sorry, I got these a little bit out of order here. It encourages responsible growth by prioritizing greater densities of development overall throughout the city as appropriate. increases and diversifies the housing supply by ensuring diverse mix of housing to accommodate a broad range of age groups, lifestyle choices, and affordability levels and increases access and and opportunities for all uh by realizing goals for an agefriendly community. Uh staff recommends approval of the conditional zoning amendment based on the uh compliance of those four main elements. So, as mentioned, the uh initial um design was reviewed by the TRC uh back in 2021. It is before you this evening for the amendment to the master plan. It has a tentative city council hearing date of August 26 and then would have to return to the TRC for final technical review sometime in the future before any final approval uh was given. That concludes my presentation. I'd be glad to answer any questions you might have. Drop the mic. Mic drop. Um,

thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Uh, one clarification I think you said in your presentation, um, in terms of compatibility of land use. I think you said residential expansion. This is a commercial expansion. That is correct. Yes, commercial expansion is the zoning districts. Yes. Thank you. Thanks. Um to that end, I'd like to understand a little bit more of the history of the approved uses for the site. We've obviously received, you know, a lot of uh public comment from concerned neighbors around compatibility. Can you speak to the uses that are approved were approved over time and and what we're doing today? is does it have any change in the approved uses for the property or is that not really material to the proposed amendment? Uh I think it's certainly material. Um I do not believe the uses are changing from what was initially approved back in 2021. The applicant might be able to speak to that in a little more detail. Um I do have some information about those proposed uses. There is a limited amount of um kind of commercial institutional type uses um proposed as part of this uh project. um not finding that now that but that is kind of the um the reason that it was initially uh reszoned to commercial expansion and not residential is that it's not it's not purely a pure residential multifamily you know type use. Um therefore the commercial expansion district does allow for um you know limited um type uses like offices or limited retail or you know cafeterias that kind of thing uses that are ancillary and accessory uh to

those residential uses but are definitely a little bit more commercial than a typical like multifamily type uh development would be. So specific to a grounds building, maintenance building with the array of uses there, is that treated um as incidental to residential use regardless of size and operational complexity or is there any bearing in our land use regulation around what can happen there? I know that what has been proposed are a series of operational commitments and restrictions, but specifically to the actual use Is there anything within our zoning ordinance that scales with the scale of the property? That's a great question. Um, I think staff would view that as accessory to the the main use of the of the retirement community. Um we don't really have a use enumerated in our table of uses for that grounds maintenance um building that is not like a you know a commercial landscaping business that's going out and servicing different you know properties all over the the area and that sort of thing. So it doesn't fall to really that kind of definition. So I would I would consider it more accessory to that larger retirement community mix and other mix of uses therein. Thank you. Um another question regarding buffering. This property has adjacency to uh property not in the city uh and so not under city zoning designation. How does the city treat buffering with adjacent properties not given as city zoning designation? So, so in those cases, we consider the county's zoning and make

the most appropriate translation to city zoning districts. So, in this case, since it's a single family, I think it's R1 or R2 as the county um enumerates it, we consider that to be a single family district as far as our buffering requirements go. And we apply those same um buffering requirements as if it was an RS2, RS4 type thing. And same with like an RM. If it was an multifamily district that the county had zoned nearby, then we would use the RM categories that the city uses. So is the buffer that's being, you know, provided the largest buffer, most robust buffer that the city requires with residential adjacency or Yes, we have two buffers, type A and type B. uh type A is 20 ft wide and that's typically when commercial uses are adjacent to multifamily residential districts and we have the type B which is a 30 foot wide buffer and that's usually required when it's a commercial district next to a single family zoning district. So out of those two this is the type B of the 30 foot wide buffer which is which is our bigger of the two uh landscape buffers. Thank you. Um last question on my end then I'd love to hear questions from my colleagues. Um uh there can you speak to the provision in our UDO that prohibits gated communities? It was a little bit difficult to access both the Deerfield and the Ramble given that both have gates preventing access to the general public. Um, is is there any bear, you know, there's no bearing on the ramble given that that's not city, but the gated nature of the Deerfield campus, is that allowed under our current zoning standards? That is a great question. I've not thought a lot about that. Um, I have two potential answers. One is that this would maybe not be considered a gated

community because it is a a more commercial use. And my other thought is it may be a non-conforming feature um of or use of the site since it goes back gosh uh 70 years now um that that it was existing prior to when gated communities were um explicitly disallowed in the table of uses which is which is probably the case. Whereas um today if they were proposing a new retirement community or residential residential community that had a gate like that, it would not be allowed by the zoning. They not required to come into performance. I mean, they're required to bring the site into zoning compliance as far as um section um 7-Eleven, which is like landscaping, buffering, parking requirements, and that sort of thing. That has specific triggers. But the only when it comes to a non-conforming use within a site that only they would only you lose that non-conforming right if the use was disallow dis um or went away for at least two years is typically how it works. So that's that's the use versus the zoning design um requirements. So, the site will come up into full design requirements for landscaping and and parking requirements and that sort of thing, but they have a non-conforming use on on the site that that can remain as long as it's not um as long as it doesn't disappear for a couple of years and then they try to bring it back basically. So given that the project is not going back through TRC, does did the prior TRC review weigh in on emergency vehicle access and all the other standards? Uh we we encouraged the applicant team

to talk to individual reviewers and departments as needed on an ad hoc basis uh to make sure there weren't any, I guess, surprises down the road when they were doing their design. They might be able to speak to how those conversations went. Um but yeah, we did not um bring this new layout or design to the TRC uh specifically feeling that becau uh because it's a conceptual master plan type review. Um you know some elements of it maybe didn't have a lot of information to review for some departments like storm water at this time and also you know things like transportation wasn't really changing. you know the access uh points were remaining the same, intersections were remaining the same, roadway configurations were remaining the same. Um so for those reasons we um didn't feel it necessary to come to the initial TRC review and the project will have to go back to TRC review as um in phases perhaps as as needed and proposed um for final technical approval if they get approved for this uh amendment to the master plan. Thank you. Other questions for staff? Yeah. So I was I'm just it's about process. Um so typically we see TRC report prior, right? You mentioned this not going back through TRC. Um because there's not for example updated detail on storm water. We noticed the previous plan has like a naturalized storm water feature. um the updated plan. I have no idea based on the information presented what the storm water looks like. Um is this common that like we're asked to approve a plan prior to TRC review? Uh it's not unc it's not common. Um but

I think it has happened in the past. Um, so I think I think the storm water is a little bit maybe of a different animal because um, you know, there are there are no conceptual storm water plans yet and that has changed um, from the last review to this one. Uh we have had a couple of these kind of conceptual master plans come through planning and zoning commission and we did route them through TRC initially in most cases and storm water on those elements were either very very conceptual or not included necessarily thinking of like the road or project Aspire where there really weren't any storm water plans. TRC did review, you know, transportation networks and fire safety, some preliminary building code items regarding like high-rise development and that sort of thing. But typically at these for these conceptual master plan type level reviews, storm water plans are usually very preliminary or or not really included during the TRC stage. So I think that's not unusual. Um but it is a it is a valid observation that the characteristic of the storm water system has has changed from the previous review to this one. I will note that the characteristics has changed and you know any future storm water could meet technical requirements. Right. Um correct but the nature of the storm water feature does have implications on site layout. um and character of the site. And I will note that in the um previous conditional zoning approval back in 2021, it was noted in the P PZC

report that the storm water the naturalized quote unquote storm water system was one of the reasons that it was in compliance with the comprehensive plan. Um, and so I just find it interesting that that is being removed from this plan. And so I posit that one of the two notes from the original uh report as being compliant with the comprehensive plan is being removed. So could this becoming less compatible with the comprehensive plan? That would be for your determination. um for sure. So that's that's something to consider is you know the consistency with comprehensive plan. Um maybe there are aspects that make it more consistent but maybe not for that reason. Um that is definitely within your perview to decide you know this project on its merits um independently as from the last review um and considering it against the comprehensive plan as currently proposed. But that is certainly within your your purview to evaluate as as the powers dictate to to mission. Other questions for staff? Seeing none. Um well I I had a question just around you mentioned a couple of times that the the road infrastructure hasn't substantially changed. Um, and I don't have like a takeoff quantity in front of me, but it appears to me that the roads have changed substantially. And I don't know, did staff do a takeoff of surface area of asphalt

um of the original approved master plan versus this or other imperous surfaces? We have not calculated that change in impervious. uh the applicant might have some of those figures uh available perhaps. Um so yeah, it's definitely accurate to say that the the internal roadway network has changed. Um the the external access points um remain the same. I think that was um that's more what staff felt comfortable with not taking it through TRC is the fact that you know the major access points from Hendersonville Road remain. Um the external um roads are are in place already and it's it's really the internal um roadway design that's changing but we have not calculated the impervious change or roadway um area or or miles or anything like that difference for these two plans. Do we have clarity on the construction access point into the site? Do you believe the applicant was working with the community on some of that information? Um, if we could defer that question to them, they might be able to answer that. Yes. Um, I had just another note here around the buffer and screening. Um, but within the UDO, we have a specific paragraph addressing screening of dumpsters, loading docks, outdoor storage areas, and utility structures, which I think um the maintenance building would come probably. It sounds like the way you're interpreting the plan that this is a utility building or utility structure um as part of the overall operations. And

so within that it calls out um a more robust buffering requirement and screening requirement and I just I hadn't heard that that was part of the proposed buffering plan. Um could you speak to that at all? So, I don't believe we've been interpreting the grounds maintenance building as a utility structure. That that might mean something else. I'd have to look into that a little bit more, look at the definitions more clearly. It is true that things like uh dumpsters require screening or or gates and that sort of thing. Um, as far as the grounds maintenance building goes, the structure itself, um, I don't I don't think would fall into that category and not require like specific screening all around it, but the applicant has proposed more screening on that on that buffer as it face faces the neighbors. Yeah. I mean, it speaks specifically to um mechanical equipment, loading docks, um storage areas, which I believe, you know, the site plan calls out for multiple storage areas. Um outdoor tank storage. Um, I'm I'm not I'll be glad to dig into the definitions while we continue the review, but um, yeah, it's hard to imagine that with 800,000 square feet, uh, 3,500 square foot building isn't considered utility to 800,000 square feet. Um definitely think those those other elements you cited if if those end up um I know there are some uh preliminary designs and and layout of some of those elements with the grounds maintenance building and when it comes to the final review those will be things that definitely get reviewed against the UDO for full compliance. So if they had

things of that nature um in that area of the site or or anywhere in the site, they would have to be screened um based on those requirements. I just don't I don't think the grounds maintenance building as we have reviewed it would be in in and of itself a utility structure that required like screening all around it. Um we definitely could look into that a little bit more and get some more clarity on that for sure. Um Mr. for Palmquist. Two kind of questions is um there is a blue line stream right between the building utility building whatever we're calling it and the other housing structures like there's a stream buffer we're contending with is there a stream buffer is you're asking correct I do not know there is one identified in the whatever this document is, the supplemental grounds document that CDC put together. Uh I I just wanted to that was the way I was interpreting it. I just wanted to bring that up because I think it's going to play into a conversation later about why that building is located where it is because there is a significant buffer through that part that everyone's contending with. um just for my other commissioners to be aware of. The second kind of question I had was um I did not have a chance to look this up, but is there any kind of like lighting or street lighting requirements or ordinances in the city? Because my understanding from one of the supplemental documents is we got street lights going in now that parking on the accessing there and I can't quite remember what their our guidelines are on that. Yeah. Yeah, there are lighting requirements for for fixtures in the city. Couple different elements of that.

One is the the type of fixture and that it has to be downward directed light um for for dark sky compliance measures. And then also that there's no um spillover basically into adjacent properties. And I believe uh in that supplemental grounds maintenance building um submission, there is a phototric plan showing that based on the location of those lights and and the type of fixture and and and such um that there would not be any um spillover effect onto the uh outside of the property, which is what the UDO requires and would be required for the entirety of the site. Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Follow-up question on the lighting. Um, when applying the city's lighting standards, we're looking at permanent fixtures. There is there any consideration of vehicular traffic and and light spill over from that? There's there's really not for vehicular traffic. Um, so yeah, kind of the accessory lighting, temporary lighting, those types of things are not specifically accounted for. I think that does speak to things like the buffering requirements and that sort of thing that try to mitigate some of those um effects that are not yeah specific to the lighting requirements and so forth. This might be more of a question for the applicant but in the phototric analysis or acceptance by the city is topography taken into account or is it treated as a flat site knowing that there is some topographic change between the adjacent properties in this one? I believe it's taken it into some account. I don't know if it's uh very detailed type analysis. Um having not prepared one, I can't say for certain. Um but I believe it's considered but I don't think it's uh it

might not be a super technical type analysis in that regard though question. Thanks. Any any other questions for staff before we Miss Ashley? Well, I did look up definitions. We don't have a definition for utility structure, but we have a definition for utility service area and utility substation, which I would which kind of indicates what you would think of for utility structure, utility service area, area containing surface mounted utility equipment, which is not screened from the street by a building, is less than 100 ft from street rideway. Um this is equipment belonging to public and private utilities and then utility substation structure of facil or facility for transforming or transmitting a service provided by a utility company. So it both those definitions and there's utility pole too, but those both seem to be what you would normally think of as a primary utility use. Not utilized for uh other things, but utilities and equipment. That's what it appears to be. Thank you for that. Um, any other questions for staff or should we invite the applicant to I got one quick one. Um, last question, Mr. Palmquist. The 3500 square ft calculation for the um utility structure in question. That's does that include the pole barn and equipment storage area, the under roof, or is that just the in the four-walled structure? I just want to make sure we're all talking the same. calculation here before we really dive into this. I believe it is just the Walden structure. Um, okay. Based on how we measure uh floor area can answer more directly.

They'd be able to clarify for sure, but that that is my understanding that. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Pquist. All right. Do we have a representative from the applicant team that wishes to add any information? I'm not from the applicant team. Um my name is Derek Allen and I've been talking with Mr. O uh this afternoon about um terms that we are trying to resolve with a lot of the neighbor concerns and clearly some of the concerns that these commission members have and have asked so far. Um this past Friday we got um a proposal from the applicant team uh that was pretty close to addressing a lot of the concerns that my clients have which are uh the hazes. Um and it was enough we were able to send back some proposed conditions. There's about 12 to 15 conditions depending on how you group them. Uh and we've been working on those for the last two days with Mr. O directly. Uh we're very close to having those um finished. uh we would like to have some more time. We have suggested for that reason and also for the reason that we have a pending appeal uh that's going to the board of adjustment um that we would have it continued to the September 3rd planning and zoning commission meeting. Mr. O and the applicant team has C could we hear that request from the applicant? Sure. And in respect to that I make that motion and they consent to it. So that's what I was setting up. Yes. And one of the things just teasing this out a little bit and then I'll turn it back over to to Mr. Ost is uh the grounds maintenance facility um is going to be offsite now. Uh the outside storage will be offsite. Uh the other pieces that were um kind of jammed down into that area are going to be

relocated. Uh there's going to be specific lighting uh restrictions in that area. There's going to be specific parking restrictions uh custom buffer uh uh restrictions in there. More detail really which was part of our appeal and a lot of the questions that you guys have had so far really will be answered with the those three pages of conditions and let me just add on to what he said a little bit. I'm sorry I said I've forgotten how these microphones are sorry directed. Um uh we do consent to the to to the motion and and uh we have talked with the staff. Uh we think we we can stay stay on our same critical path for uh for for final approval and and and getting to the to the TRC afterwards. Um but but rather than trying you all have been through this before ra we've had a lot of significant changes rather than try and negotiate the wording of those conditions on the floor of this meeting we thought it would be would be better to uh to come to you all with having having conditions that we agreed upon. Um, and having said that, you know, we've been working awfully hard on this and we're ready to proceed tonight, but uh, but we think that it would be a better use of everybody's time if uh, if we took a breath and uh, and came back to you all at your next meeting. I certainly respect the the dialogue and appreciate the collaboration. Um, hearing that you consent to a motion, I I think we need to hear that the applicant is requesting a continuence for our board to deliberate on that. Is Is the applicant requesting a continuence of this item? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Ost. Um any questions as we consider or deliberate on uh whether to make a motion on a request for a continuence?

Any thoughts from discuss what you would like to see? So they said that there conditions and they've discussed them, but if there's anything in particular since you don't know what those conditions are, if there's anything you would like to see, this is your opportunity to so that they're clear when they come back if that could be addressed. We've heard some of the questions y'all have asked and we're prepared to respond to those and weed next time too. What What do you all think? Do any questions or requests? I I heard uh you know questions around storm water which if this doesn't go back to TRC before it comes back to us will still not be fully fleshed out. So um it appears that maybe the changes are going to be around the grounds maintenance structure which was the subject of most of the public comment that we received. But anything else material to convey to the applicant? If if you've read the public comment, you you know how important the ground's maintenance building was and and and we think that with with the relocation of that, it addresses a lot of the issues and we hope we can get get that worked out in the conditions. I just have a question. I was curious. Is there currently a maintenance building and is it on Salsbury? Because there's a structure on Salsbury on Dorset, right? Which is off of Salsbury, right? Correct. Okay. The answer is yeah that that there is a current there's a maintenance facility but it's not where the one where the new was proposed to be and so ultimately that will be demolished. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I I I would just like to Yes. Personally I'd like to see just the intent of the storm water feature. I know it was a it was a big component of the first approval of the CZ. Um it appeared at least in the report. I was not a part of the board at the time

to be compliant with the comp comprehensive plan. So there could just be any indication. I see on the on the supplemental information that it it kind of looks like a detention, but um that's just one piece of the larger plan. So we've heard you. We've been taking notes. So thank you. Um, I would like to understand if there are any additional environmental impacts associated with the revised plan. Um, I don't know if the water storm water features shown on the original concept are naturally occurring or just they were going to be created. So, are we going to lose more assets is what I'm asking. And we'll have an answer for you. Go ahead. Just a procedural question for staff. If there is a motion to continue, do we still open a public hearing? Is that, you know, with the understanding it's going to come back? Is that still something we don't? Okay. Coming back. Gotcha. Commissioner Faircloth. Um, that was one of my questions. Um, Mr. Chair, um, my other thing was I'm I'm glad that there's a dialogue and this is working out. um between some parties because I know there was a lot of public comment that you're aware of. I will I do just want to express a little bit of frustration that you know there's only so many spots at these meetings and so you know someone else was told they couldn't have this spot because this was on here. So I'm a little frustrated that if we're just going to continue it immediately like we should have done that a little earlier in the day or yesterday or something. So, I understand it's a work in progress, but a lot of people showed up tonight to like be part of this and then just want to voice a little bit of frustration, but I am appreciative that there is an active dialogue and something's being worked

out. So, thank you. I second that. It it seems like these negotiations are wait sometimes wait till the deadline. If if this is this a member of the applicant team or member of the public that wishes to speak. So we have not opened public comment. Um we we will ple please I understand we have not opened the public hearing. So we cannot accept public comment at this time. If we are going to be uh entertaining public comment you'll be recognized and and called to the podium. But thank you. I I understand this is just a procedural matter that we have to kind of abide by our our our rules of procedure. Um any other questions for the applicant considerations that we'd like to see before we uh discuss whether we're going to entertain a motion to continue. When you say that the grounds facility will be relocated, can you share more about what you mean by that? It's It's going to be re relocated to an off-site property. And uh is it a Deerfield property or will it be operated by Deerfield? It it it's it's not it's not on the Deerfield property. Okay. So, it'll be contracted out. I'm not the best person to answer that question. I I do know that the uh that the ground maintenance facility is going to be offsite three three to five miles away. Thank you. Well, we are where we are. Um, as anyone would anyone like to make a motion to continue um this matter as requested by the applicant? So moved. Date certain of September 3rd. So we have we have a motion to continue. Uh could I amend that motion to be to

date certain September 3rd? Amendment accepted. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Motion is uh granted. Any opposed? The motion is granted uh unanimously. We'll see you back on September 3rd. With apologies to everyone who wasted their time to come tonight. Uh, I share the frustration of other commissioners that these 11th hour negotiations are um really frustrating. So, we'll see you in a month. Thank you. Want to recess at all for a minute or what are you feeling like? Let's take a brief recess. Uh, it's 6:42. We'll uh return at 6:50. You can This was submitted in advance. Um we've all reviewed it, but yeah. Um you can certainly resubmit comments to this same email address and we get all those emails. Sorry, I appreciate you coming out and sorry that there wasn't Yeah, I apologize. You know, we're all frustrated about it.

Amen.

Somebody else enough. I think it was an interesting question. about the county did a great job. County, city, you pulling out all your tricks. Can I help you? I also owe you.

new addition. Yeah, it's a lot nicer than the old. You still have to take the elevator something. Yeah. Oh yeah. We're having this on the third. We're going to need a previous meeting, but good to see you. This is here. Good to see you. Hi, Jesse. I'm Carly. Nice to meet you. Finally stuffed up. That's good. That's awesome. Did he say you were coming? Oh, are you famous?

that on your wall. Oh, nice. resume. Can we call the meeting back to order? We'll call the meeting back to order. Um, next up on our agenda is a request to conditionally reszone a portion of the property located at 587 Haywood Road from Community Business 2 conditional zone to community business one conditional zone. The property's pin is identified on the agenda. The property owner is Trinity United Methodist of Asheville. The applicant's contact is Miss Anna Piso and the planner coordinating review is Will Palmquist. Mr. Palmquist. Thank you, chair. Good evening again,

commissioners. This is a conditional zoning request for a project known as Safe Shelter and Home located at 587 Haywood Road. Get into a little more of the details of the site itself. So, this is a property I own in West Asheville, uh, just off the property itself is off of Haywood Road. It's about three and a quarter acres. Uh, the actual site itself is limited to the rear portion of the property, uh, which includes the, um, kind of community building seen here and and the parking lot. Uh the proposed use for this site has been operating under a temporary use permit through code purple that includes some of the shelter use and associated uses and this conditional zoning would be um to permanently allow for those uses on site. Uh so the existing zoning is actually a combination of Haywood Road Corridor District and Community Business 2 conditional zone. Uh the project received a uh conditional zoning back in 2011 to use the um kind of rear community center building as an educational building. Uh since the applicant is proposing to use uh that portion of the site as a overnight shelter with some other uses, a change in that district is required. Uh the CB2 district does not allow for shelters as a permitted use, but the CB1 district does. So this uh change in zoning, if approved, uh would allow for that shelter and other uses and the associated conditions um with with that operation.

So here are those uses uh spelled out. They include a nightly uh shelter with a maximum of 35 beds as well as other uses um pertaining to serving the community such as a community center, barber shop, consignment shop, preschool, K through9 learning community, uh gathering uh community gathering and training space with a focus on workforce development. There is no proposed development or site improvements at the site. It would all be existing uh with that building and other um site features as it exists today. So in terms of the u compatibility with surrounding zoning districts, uh staff finds that the proposed CB1 district is compatible with the surrounding um zoning districts. Haywood Road corridor along Haywood Road and then the residential multifamily RM8 district in the kind of remainder of the residential neighborhood to the north. The future land use of the property is traditional corridor. Uh that speaks to corridors that can be enhanced over time with multimmoal access, broad range of community service uses, parking located to the sides and rear and higher residential densities supported by transit and sidewalks. infrastructure review is non applicable for for this review since there is no proposed uh development or or buildings associated with this conditional zoning. And then as far as the comprehensive plan consistency goes, uh staff finds that the proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan in regards to uh the goal to alleviate homelessness by supporting organizations with the

mission of combating homelessness to the greatest extent possible and strategically locating services for the homeless so that they are accessible and equitably distributed throughout the city and region. as well as promote social equity and paths towards upward economic mobility by encouraging partners to promote job placement and workforce development services in disadvantaged communities and providing career path mentoring across all skill and education levels, especially for those living in poverty. Staff recommends approval of this conditional zoning request based on the compliance of those elements. project is before you uh this evening for a recommendation that would be brought to city council at a tenative hearing date of August 26. Uh the project would not necessarily have to go through or would not have to go through technical review committee but would have to go through um building and zoning final compliance review and meet um any other um zoning requirements and and building code requirements that are associated with the proposed uses. And that concludes my presentation. I'm glad to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Any questions for staff? So, how does it work to partially reszone a property? Because it's all one pin, right? Is all one pin. Um, yes. So, the um property has two different zoning districts today and it would continue to do so uh going forward. So essentially um you know some elements of the zoning would would would include the entire property. uh things like landscaping and and that kind of thing that apply generally to all districts and then the two different you know zoning districts would consider um the uses allowed on those different sections of the property

and then things like setbacks and heights and that kind of thing that are specifically called out in those uh in those sections. Um so the Hwood Road form district is is a very specific form code district. So those would have if like church wanted to redevelop into a different building, they would have to follow those form code um requirements as uh explicitly stated in that section. Whereas the um and that would be that would be a general use district. So the front of the property that the church is on would be generally Hwood Road and would would not have a conditional zoning associated with it. It could be anything that the Hwood Road corridor district allows for. whereas the rear portion of the property would be explicitly bounded by the conditions of the conditional zoning that's before you this evening. So al along with that is that physically delineated within property like is there a a note on the title or the deed that you know 200 worth of monument blah blah blah you know that's usually how it's kind of so how's that yeah it's it's not as precise Um, so it doesn't follow meets and bounds. It's not a uh survey level type delineation. Um, as you can see, the the former uh zoning line was actually kind of too far north um based on the aerial imagery of the difference between the church use and the and this community center use. So, that's kind of getting cleaned up a little bit. It is a little more uh not as specific and there's a little more discretion at at the administration of of the zoning in that regard where

that line falls. Um but it it is not um it is not a survey level detail. The conditional zonings are recorded and they run with the property. So, anybody would look at this map and I think you're close enough on there to say, "Okay, that's the section that is encumbered by this conditional z. Could you walk us through the the neighborhood engagement that you did during the conditional reasonzoning process?" Um, the applicant has performed some of that. We can probably let them speak best to that. Um, the the city has not performed any neighborhood engagement outside of the notification requirements for uh this public hearing. Can you remind us the radius the notification radius? So for um planning and zoning commission hearings, we uh send out mailings to property owners within 200 feet of the you know geometry shape of of the property and also post signs at the uh the major um street frontages of of the property and also the legal ad as well in the Citizen Times newspaper. Any other questions for staff? Do we have a representative of the applicant here that wishes to provide any supplemental information? Hey, how are y'all doing? Um, I'm Christian Chambers. I'm the director of

the safe shelter and home. Um yeah and I just want to say I mean it was pretty comprehensive there. Um we have uh reached out to the neighbors. It's been monthsl long process. Uh we go all up and down the street. So we do a community cleanup every Tuesday which engages all the neighbors. Um we got we get requests in like we got a Burton Street uh neighborhood association. Uh I spoke with the head of that uh this morning. Um and they were in full support. Uh and we really have let everybody know that our doors are open to whatever feedback, whatever time of day, whenever. We're we're there all the time. Um but we've held two uh community meetings so far. One was a little smaller with direct neighbors and one was basically the entirety of Haywood Road um at Trinity United Methodist in the sanctuary. We're having another on We've been very engaged. Thank you. Any follow-up questions? I say I appreciate uh the commitment to make this sort of a permanence setup instead of under an emergency uh allowance. I think that that shows commitment to provide this um much needed service to the community. So, thanks for what you're doing. Other questions, deliberation from commission members? Um I h I have one more question for staff if I can there. Um it looks like this parcel is included in the appendix 7F um newly created inside our UDO and I

might missed the information or or overlooked it but I believe this appendix was created council level. Um, and so I'm wondering what the applicability of appendix 7 listed as other parcels reference map um might be for our review purposes. Sure. So the appendix 7F um is basically delineates are delineates properties um that are um governed by the old so to speak um flag lot subdivision regulations whereas the uh updated flag lot um subdivision regulations apply to the remainder of the city. Those are generally a more liberal um type of requirement and allow for more lots to be created with fewer with smaller widths um of the of the lot size. Um and and and this property being an appending 7F would would have to comply with the older probably more stringent uh flag lot requirements. So in that case, since this is not um proposing a subdivision or anything of that nature, would would not really apply to the consideration for this conditional zoning or the use of the property going forward. And cottage courts, right? Yes. Thank you. And and cottage court developments, which um we we loosened up those rules a little bit uh for nonappendix 7F properties. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification and question. And so the applicability is really limited to those two application types, flag lot development and cottage court. Um and has not been added more generally to any zoning application.

Any other questions before we open for public comment? None. We will open for public comment at 7:08. If you'd like to speak on this matter, please approach the mic and introduce yourself. Being none, we will close public comment at 708. Any other further deliberations? Not I would entertain a motion. Like to make a motion. I move to recommend approval of the conditional zoning request for the property located at 587 Haywood Road from Haywood Road Form District Corridor HR3 and Community Business Zone CBI-C Haywood Road Form District Corridor H3 and community business one conditional zone CBI CZ and find that the request is reasonable is in the public interest is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and meets the development needs needs of the community. One supports organizations with the mission of combating homelessness to the ex greatest extent possible and strategically locate services for the home homeless so that they are accessible and equitably distributed throughout the city and region and urges partners to promote job placement and workforce development services in disadvantaged communities and providing career path mentoring across all skill and education poverty. A second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. And last but not least, we have a zoning text amendment, a request to consider a proposed zoning text amendment to the

unified development ordinance, chapter 7 of the Asheville Code of Ordinances to amend section 733B, 761 C, 7520, and 7141 relating to board of adjustment membership and legal ad notification requirements and non non-conforming accessory dwelling unit structures planner coordinating review as Sam Starbomb. Mr. Starbomb. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. It is good to be before you. I have not one, not two, but five zoning text amendments for you this evening under one omnibus ordinance and there is a specific and targeted reason for that. All of these zoning text amendments are minor and they are process related in making the BOA operate more efficiently and to save staff time so staff can work on other components. These do not in any way, shape or form change the lot geometry or any building requirements for the built environment. This is about existing building inventory in the city of Asheville only. And I will go ahead and move forward. For those of you that have seen my presentations before, you know, I like to put the end at the beginning. Staff is going to recommend approval of this for a number of reasons. I will get into comprehensive plan compliance, but there are other factors at play here that make this omnibus ordinance, the these five zoning text amendments a little unique in that we are also taking this forward with clerk support and and clerks had urged this. uh the Bunkham County had had urged this because we need to get closer compliance with session law from the North Carolina general statutes with Bunkham County processes and then also there are two other factors that come into play for evaluation of these zoning text amendments this batches is that you have the fast team feedback and then also the accepted missing middle housing study recommendations play directly to these

things. So, I will get into this and and of the five zoning text amendments, I'm going to start with the four that specifically and directly address the uh board of adjustment. So, even though I made this presentation, I'm going to do the opposite. I'm going to start at the bottom and work my way up. 761 and 762 are the easiest of the five zoning text amendments. This is about where you submit your board of adjustment application. For some reason, we have it in our UDO in these sections that it goes to the city clerk. This is particularly frustrating for both applicants and the board of adjustment liaison, yours truly, because what happens is they're usually down at 161 working with PAC. They're working with planners. They're speaking with us. And this means that I have to take, you know, an hour to run down there, get the application, run back up, take this a number of places or it's it's clunky and inefficient at best. So what we are proposing is changing the language in 761 and 762 which are for variances and appeals to say that that goes directly through our online permitting system or it goes to planning director Steph Monsonal or her designate the BOA liaison. So that's all that is easy peasy that's 761 and 762. The third one 7520 is about noticing for quasi judicial hearings. The board of adjustment is quasi judicial which means that we don't accept public comment in a normal way. What we are proposing is not to take away all noticing. What we are removing is the requirement from statutory notice which no longer applies here that we will not post in the Asheville Citizen Times. This is the only statutory noticing we are removing. We will still have the flyers. We will still have the signs. All other processes of noticing will be followed. We're just taking out the notice in the paper again and that is to better align with session law as advised by the clerks and by the North Carolina General

Assembly. This is particularly important and of note here is that we spend right now between 3,300 and 5700 annually on these notices. So that is another uh money monetary inefficiency where at a time municipal budgets can use every dime we can get. I've been in this business 10 years and it's never gotten cheaper. So the the numbers I have just quoted you are in 2025. I'm sure that will increase in future dollars as you move further down the line. So that is what $7520 is is just taking out the statutory noticing which no longer applies from the paper. And then that brings us to the the fourth of the BOA specific and direct ones. And forgive me, I'm still trying to figure out exactly how close to get to this mic. And it is uh uncomfortable. It is these are really sensitive but 733 is about the composition and much like 7520 this is not coming from from the comprehensive plan. This is coming from the clerks who tell us how we can be in better compliance with session law and in particular session law 2013-30 uh which talks about the board composition. So what we are proposing is going down to three alternates down from seven, two COA alternates which is down three from five and then going to one member and one alternate who reside within one mile of the municipal limits. This is those two are appointed by Bunkham County and currently there are just two members appointed by Bunkham County. So what we have in our UDO does not even align with what Bunkham County has. So this is simply about changing the board process to better align again with general statutes and what Bunkome County has. This is a ministerial process issue based zoning text amendment and is is something that has been in the works for quite a while. I want to be perfectly clear to all existing members that have board seats will remain in their seats and will term

out. So this will not affect the current composition of that board. So those are the four board of adjustment zoning text amendments. This brings us to to the other one and and again I I will I have said this before I will say this again and I will probably say it a third time as well. What what we are proposing is about BOA processes only. So while this pertains to ADUs, this is about ad uh board of adjustment processes. You can see here on this slide, this is one of the 7141 variances that was approved by the board of adjustment. It is at 73 Swan Noah Avenue. It's 450 square feet, which is exactly the median size of all of our 7141 variances and it is 2 and 1/2 ft off the rear and 1 and 1/2 ft off the uh side property line. So, this means just because it isn't 6 feet off the rear and six feet off the side, even though it was an existing accessory structure that the city recognized, it had to go before the board of adjustment. This is of course not the only one. This has been a burden that has been coming back and back and back to the board of adjustments. When you have a hardship, you get a variance. When you get a variance 16 times out of the last 38 variances, you have an inefficient regulation. And that's what this is. Again, we're not changing anything about what is allowed, what has changed. This is about existing inventory. So we will allow already existing accessory structures which are you know perhaps closer than the required six feet off the rear and six feet off the side to be occupied as accessory dwelling units without having to go to the board of adjustment. So this is where we will get in the comprehensive plan review. There are a number of things here where all five of the zoning text amendments hit the mark in the comprehensive plan. And again we're also talking about the general statutes. We're talking about Bunkham County processes. We're talking about

city clerk processes and we're also talking about the missing middle housing recommendations which I'll get to in a second. But specific to our living Asheville comprehensive plan, we find that this does encourage responsible growth. It improves regional collaboration because we're coming into line with Bunkham County. It it does help the community involvement and decision-making. It makes the process much clearer. I have heard repeatedly people confused about how just to drop off a variance and this is that's frustrating but it's also a time cost. I I think that that's something that planning can do a better job of is acknowledging the time cost of both staff and our residents and that's something that happens when submitting a variance and going through the process of a variance. And then of course as I had mentioned earlier we are meeting the goal of fiscal sustainability saves us between 35 or 33 and $5,700 annually. 2025 I think that number goes up as we go further again because I have never ever ever seen advertising get cheaper. So that's the comprehensive plan review. I did also want to talk for a second just particular to the ADU zoning text amendment about the the compliance with our our newly accepted missing middle housing study which is about reducing those soft costs. It says as a development tool that um you know it's not enough to peak development that you have to reduce soft costs and this is a process that takes six weeks. It costs over $500. You have to do noticing. You have to take the time. oftentimes people engage in attorneys or or some other representation for this for already existing structures that we recognize as accessory structures. So by reducing this and not requiring applicants to come to the board of adjustment, we're saving them money and and meeting the goals of the missing middle housing study. I want to be clear too that this does not change anything if if the ADU zoning text amendment were not passed. Nothing would really change. they would still have to go back to the board of adjustment, but that is something that would be granted automatically because

the building stock would be older than the UDO and would therefore be a hardship. This is something where we have granted all of those. And that's what brings me to the the data that we have on this which which causes us to bring this before you. All of all of what we do is data informed or at least I hope it is. Certainly the the presentations I do are. So these are the 16 of those 38 uh variance cases we've seen since 2023. Only one of them is in a legacy neighborhood. Again, the median size of these requests is 450 ft. The average is 533 square feet. Only two have gone above that 800 square foot. That is uh that's 173 Mon and 32 Dalton Street. Those are also different. I I hesitated to include these, but I did. So, I have to be fair and include this here as well. Those were different. Uh 32 Dalton Street was relating to a long-standing building permit issue from 2003. And that's a larger lot where there were two buildings. While clearly subordinate, it was still just a larger home. And 173 Min was also a a zoning compliance and an NOV issue, too. So, those are are the only two that are over 800 square feet. But what we're finding is that the people that request this are just trying to get homes and and create infill to create the missing middle we strive for and it is in compliance largely with our ordinance. It just is closer to the property lines than six feet off the rear, six feet off the side. It would not be a presentation of mine if there wasn't a map. So here is of course the spatial distribution of all of these requests. You can see 297 Clayton. That is the only one in Emma. The one furthest left kind of looks like it's in Emma. It is actually across the street. That is 167 Country Home Road. But I think the data here tells a story. All data tells a story. And the story here is that there is no particular

neighborhood that is either disadvantaged or burdened by or or given an unfair advantage or benefits from this kind of of policy. So we're finding that all the ADU requests are all over the city and it is again a ministerial process request to make sure that these existing accessory structures can just be converted to ADUs. So that brings us to where we are today. It's it seems like a lifetime ago, but uh this has been heard in 2024. So this originally went through the clerks with Maggie. Uh this included the ADU and the BOA zoning text amendments that was heard by the board of adjustment on February 26, 2024. We took a pause for Haw Creek and we were going to do it sometime in the fall. Then Helen happened on May 20th. We did go to Planning and Zoning Commission. You had heard this ADU zoning text amendment. You heard that on May 20th. And then that brings us to today. We're targeting August 26 for city council. that is tentative. As we know from from previous agenda items this evening, all dates are are tentative when it comes to what we do. And that brings us to our recommended motion. Again, I would like to stress that these are are ministerial. They're minor in nature and they're all related to BOA processes, which is particularly why we are recommending approval just to make sure we are in conformance with not just the comp plan, but the general statutes and our our friends of Punkham County. So that's a lot of information out of me but I would be happy to stand for any questions you may have. Thank you Mr. Starbomb. Appreciate the information and presentation particularly around where we have seen variances um in the last couple of years. Um did you take a look further back than 2023 or is is there a way to capture kind of a a broader time horizon for these types of variances?

There is a way to do it. It is it is more time inensive. It was easiest to do it on a rolling 24-month period. So that's why it goes all the way back to the beginning of 2023. Understood. Um any other questions from from commission about this. Thank you for your presentation. Always thorough and uh also a little bit visually more stimulating than others we've seen. Um I had kind of a question about the board of adjustments itself. Um the quasi judicial nature of these variances are generally focused around hardships. Is that correct? Yes. Um so would a hardship be defined as buying a property with an existing structure under an existing regulation within the UDO? Um, is that does that define a hardship? There are four statutory standards that have to be met by a hardship. It is not my place to say what a hardship is. It is up to the board of adjustment to to evaluate the application. And in our application, they have to address those four statutory standards. In typically, I will say broadly, if buildings were built before a regulation, it is seen as a hardship. But it is ultimately up to the board of adjustment to make that call. Yeah. Built before but maybe not purchased before. Um so in other words, if I purchase a non-conforming building and then the regulation changes to become more liberal or more um providing more opportunity for uses that may enhance the value of the property. I would leave that to legal about the influence of finance on a hardship. There is some gray area there. Janice, do you have any any input on the

difference between purchasing a property even though the the age of the buildings is older than the regulation? Couldn't consider, you know, so they Audit balancer in the stand. Last one which is of the are times Overall, it's serves the purpose that we're intending to go. One I can think about that's come before this onetory building for like a sidewalk that had to be a certain and the building was already there. They were like also existing building and some requirement to add on some second story time. They requested Why? What he's saying is this tends to I

I don't I haven't seen enough of them, but I would suppose that the reason Yeah. which is buffer is is not to have use of the and we don't want to make the process so ownorous that a and I want to be clear again in going back to this data it is clearly subordinate which is the purpose of an accessory structure none of them are larger than the primary residence yeah I guess what I'm getting at is um an issue that I see regularly which is asymmetric information Um so for instance a person good intent bad intent whatever intent um may know information that another person doesn't. Um so they would approach them to buy a property and say oh um well that structure is of no value because it's required to be within a setback concealing the fact that they may know that the board of adjustments is regularly providing variances as an ADU. Mhm. Um that level of nuance um may have allowed these 38 units to seek value above and beyond the market rate they purchased for their home. Um so uh I guess what I'm getting at is that just because the board of adjustments is facing this question and may not like this question, that doesn't inherently mean that it's out of step with what's going on in the real world. um even if there is a cost associated with it and a burden. Um so that's where I would say that and also previous performance like what you're showing us here is no necessary prediction of future performance. In other words, say a regulation passes and it appears that for the last two years it hasn't been

used in a nefarious way. um that doesn't mean that tomorrow it doesn't become used in a nefarious way. So I would hesitate to say that any regulation is necessarily non-impactful when we are obviously making changes development pattern. Um, that's just kind of my perspective there. and having observed, you know, the board of adjustments on a number of occasions, uh, I do think there's a very thin line to walk sometimes between what's considered a hardship or actually a development subsidy, you know, because it is a subsidy when somebody leverages asymmetric information to their benefit, particularly against um, folks who may not have the particular knowledge or skill set within the, you know, the UDO. Obviously, it's easy for any of us to get up here and get a little bit confused and turned around and, you know, whether it's it's a utility building or a utility use or if that's the way the word utility is supposed to be used. Um, and so I am a little bit hesitant to say that this map represents what we'll see in the future, which is equitable distribution of the modifications that are being presented. And I was wondering, so this is you said 16 of the 38. Was there a reason for choosing the 16? No. So that 16 were agendaized between 2023 and now. Uh so that number is what the number of variances that took place between let's see. So yeah the bottom number that 38 is all the variances we heard since 2023. That would include flood variances that would include sign

variances. 16 is the number of variances specific to 7141. Yeah, I I think the the line of inquiry or analysis is is interesting and um you know I do think that we know and understand that zoning conformance or zoning allowance is a tool used in the marketing and sale of properties. Um I I would maybe contend that the plausibility or the you know um undeniability of a variance that is pursued because of this is a u yeah it is selective information. So wouldn't the equitable solution be to clarify within our zoning regulation what is what is allowed almost um automatically although it's only accessible through a variance process that seems to be kind of always granted. That's correct. And I mean I don't know enough about it. I think clarity is super important. I think that's by far the best way to provide equity. Um however I'm not sure what data we have around existing non-conforming structures. Um, so this is kind of like uh maybe uh a strange thing to say, but you know, if we don't have an understanding of the inventory of non-compliant structures, then we really don't know where this is going to be most densely implemented. So, is that more likely to be up Kimberly near Country Club because there's a lot of detached garages or is it more likely to be an Emma because nobody really is so concerned if a shed

is within setbacks and they've been allowed to have more variance in their um building structures. I I personally don't know. It's kind of more of a question or an examination kind of appealing back of where are non-conforming structures? Why do they exist? How did they get there? I think those are valid questions because that's the future supply we're talking about. Yeah, if I may, Chair, if I can respond to that. Excellent question, and you and I are so on the same page. I wish we had that information. The closest we come is there is a building footprint layer from the county that is you know the last one is 24 2024 that does not have any relation to the setbacks or to the property lines again when that is shot through ortho imagery that is not always accurate I always recommend anyone that comes through the planning office to get a survey because that's going to tell you exactly where that building is in relation to the property lines that is just not something that's reliable and again there would not be a way to query specifically non-conforming. I can tell you from all the ages that these the board of adjustment since 2023 in those 16 cases none of those have been new buildings. They have all long predated the UDEO I'm going to say the the majority are are around the 1950s or when they were built. So it's one of those where it was an entirely different permitting process. So there have there haven't been new buildings. there was not a a case of an illegal build that instance. So it is it is all older development. I know I think the oldest uh was 17 Pinedale. That's one I took through that was the applicant was McKenna Manspeaker and that was 1909. Uh and that's one of those where they they built it wherever they wanted to because they didn't go to his zoning office. I really appreciate this this this thoughtfulness.

um just around potential unintended consequences of these actions. Um I know you know exploring this a little further uh like Commissioner Wheatley I feel has done here uh makes it feel to me that maybe you know this particular one 7141 [Music] uh may not be super minor in in nature. there may be larger larger impacts um especially since we we kind of hard to know how this will impact development pattern and I'm just curious because we're doing a lot of discussion talking about legacy neighborhoods right now was were the legacy neighborhoods confronted I I certainly wouldn't say confronted no certainly not so I classify public meetings public input and and working with communities as direct direct and indirect directly. There was not again because we a lot of this particularly four of the five or 80% of the zoning text amendments is just compliance with general statutes and things like this. But there is absolutely indirect public input because we're acting on plans that were accepted and approved like the living Asheville comprehensive plan and the missing middle housing study which had extensive public input in those neighborhoods and they're telling us to make it easier to build smaller structures and do infill. I could excuse me if I could add some information for Sam. Now I'm too close to the mic. Okay. Um, just for the the commission's information, a very common barometer of when a text amendment is something you should investigate is when that text amendment uh that text provision is no longer regulating the way you want it to. Um, in this case, we've had 16 cases over the last two years. Y

um where the board has consistently and in every time found been able to make the statemandated findings to grant variance um that generally has told us in the past that that is likely to continue right um it's not really about making the board of adjustments clear uh it is more about making regulations work better with uh where we community and what our applicants are looking for. Um 16 out of 16 is a pretty good streak. So I'd say the chances of setback variances for existing accessory structures coming to the board of adjustment in the future and the same findings being made are pretty high. So that's why we brought this forward. Um we do feel these will continue to receive variances and these will be converted datus when people want them to be. Uh so it really is a more sensible direction to update the regulation and again makes things more predictable. Now is there a chance there's one and the next backs just 16 that doesn't uh go the same way? Of course. Um but again 16 out of 16 is a pretty good streak. And if I may I actually have to clarify it's 15 out of 16. I had referenced uh 173 min. I had mentioned that was a notice of violation. What had happened was that was already existing as an accessory dwelling that was related to an addition that was done without any building permits, any any zoning permitting. So by denying it, it got to go back to to an ADU. So that one was actually technically denied. Just to be clear, that was denied at the board of adjustment, but their denial allowed that to operate as an or continue to operate as an accessory dwelling unit. That's a totally different one, but I ethically feel weird to say because it is not For those of you keeping track at home, data is very important to me. We got to be clear on that. So, that was denied if you go back to the minutes, but that is

to keep that as an accessory dwelling unit. Thank you. Um, and to go back to Commissioner Cycles kind of point, it it feels like, you know, all the discussion and question and concerns so far among us, and obviously we're going to open for public comment surrounds the 7141. Um are there any questions or concerns with the the other provisions more um composition of board of adjustment and notice receipt of you know I guess and this would obviously involve uh consent from staff but is there a split the split the review and recommendation option that could emerge? Quest one question about um the composition of the board of adjustment. How many seats are we losing recommendation? So existing seats does not change. We're going to three alternates. What we have in parenthesis is what the existing regulation is now. So we're down four to three alternates. two uh from the city of Asheville and then one voting member and one alternate will be appointed by the Bunkham County Commission. Uh which is we currently just have two appointed by the commission. But how many is that total? The how many total of the membership? How many total of the reduction of the new membership? So there are no new member. They're all a reduction. What we're saying is that there would be Okay, hold on. So, there would be four regulars. There's always three. Yeah, there's always five regular there's always five regular alternates. And the reason that you want alternates for a

board of adjustment is because you have to have four fifths vote to um a super super majority to pass a variance. But seven alternates is kind of overkill and I don't know how often you call the alternates. Yeah. But so as long as you have some alternates that are trained in quasi judicial procedures and you can call on them or I guess what you were saying Sam is the countyy's supposed to have five alternates but they always they just kept city of Asheville had five and then the county had two but what they've been doing is they've been per per the statutory law it's been a little different. So I wasn't aware what you were asking. So, yes, five members. We've always had more alternates than members, which getting people to attend meetings is hard. This is not This is not as fun as Monday Night Football. It's um it is hard thankless work. So, thank you for your presence here. But yes, this is just about a reduction uh because that's what the statutory compliance says. And we'll be down uh we'll be down four alternates to just three. So it will be five regular members, three alternates. One of the regular members will be appointed from the county. Yeah. Sorry. Another a question on the rules and of commissions. There's something that says boards may allow up to 30 minutes of public comment. So does that change all boards and commissions? I I think you're referencing a boards and commissions uh document that is not part of this package. Oh, that that's was circulated by city clerk and adopted by city council which we could certainly discuss and clarify questions of that after this. Uh that's what I call a will palmquest problem. Okay. All right. Well, just let me know when

that comes into play. We'll put a pin on that one. The only question I kind of had around was the published notice. Um, I personally am not for a hard copy of the newspaper. Um, but I also know that different age groups act in different ways. And I just worry that $700 um is relatively little. Um, and a $350 million budget annually to uh to worry about given the fact that I I mean I may contend that one person finding that as valuable in their life and being able to publicly engage um that has value I've seen particularly in the most marginalized communities. Um, so I'd be interested to hear what others have to say or if you have any insight as to people who are reporting because they heard in a newspaper clipping. Um, but it's already pretty hard sometimes to know exactly what's going on. So, if somebody who's in their 70s or 80s, which we have showing up at these meetings, catch the average age of the, you know, previous hearing we had, but it looked like there were folks in there who probably really rely on more traditional media. Um, that that that would be a thought that spring. Well, I can comment on that and and meeting attendance. The last meeting was a a little bit of a statistical outlier just because it was involved in a legacy neighborhood. It was involved in the neighborhood that organizes best. Uh everything that happens in Shiloh is is noticed and and they show up and we love that. On average, most people who show up, again, because this is quasi judicial, they have standing. They are typically a neighbor, so they see through the sign. And I do I hear what

you're saying about the budget. I want to be clear that this comes out of the planning budget and I would love it if we had 350 million for planning but we do not. So that number is much much much smaller. I'll I'll also if I could add to that um the it does is there any hardship or burden right now on the administration? You know there's a time window when the notices have to appear. If there's some defect in the notice, it has to come, you know, be continued or, you know, has that happened or hasn't happened under my watch, but you are correct that if it doesn't go off, then we're going to have to renotice and do it again. It is um it is a constant source of anxiety to always be on top of noticing for this. Mr. Mr. Star Bomb runs a tight ship over there. No doubt. Let the record show. Um I want to look for that in the minutes. The notice the notice procedures for quasi judicial are different from legislative. So it's a notice that you asked about 200 feet but for quasi judicial it's only adjoining properties or the property owner because they have standing. And if you go to a quasi judicial, you'll always hear the chair say it doesn't mean you can't speak, but only people withstanding um should be considered in this decision. Well, we'll take your comments, but our what we what they have to base evidence are people withstanding. So it has in the past created confusion for the general public who comes maybe because they saw it published in the paper who nobody wants to be told well we can listen to you but we're not we can't really take what you're saying into consideration. So it it was interesting you brought up the equity because some people think a quasi judicial procedure is antithetical to

equity because there are people that maybe have maybe they have an accessory dwelling unit on the well they have a what is that anure yes structure they'd like to use it as an ADU but they don't want to go through the process which cost $500 to get a variant. So it's you can see it both ways. So there's a process to go through, but that's a little bit of a tangent, but for the notice part, it we do limit it even in our UDO because as it's permitted by the stat the statutes and the statutes actually would allow legislative to only be adjoining property owners too. But we choose the city chooses to broaden that. But in the case of quasi judicial it it helps so that people realize that it's it's really supposed to be the impacted properties which are joining property. Yeah. Thank you. I would just add to that that even adjoining property owners who have the standing may not understand what's happening. And so it's important to have a notice to the general public and the neighborhood so that they can help engage those adjoining property owners to understand and be involved in the process. Mailed notice. The adjoining properties get the mailed notice and then the site itself is posted. Right? So if an adjoining property owner gets the notice and disregards it because they have no idea what a quasi judicial hearing is or what's happening but there's another member in that community that understands the process more and that member doesn't know because it hasn't been published then there's a lack of information. There there's also the last meeting which was referenced. You know, standing is often given to HOAs who sometimes are more wellunded that can be um educated

down different channels and have different lived experiences and know how to stake a claim to standing. Um, however, you know, legacy neighborhoods have organizations that I would contend if made arguments that aligned with, you know, standard nomenclature for quasi judicial hearings may actually be able to access standing. Um, well, standing's pretty clear. It Well, clear to somebody who has experience. I'm just saying I don't think it any HOA would have standing. They would have to be adjacent somehow affiliated with an adjacent property owner. So that they'd have to have adjacent property owner and they have to show a special harm on that they suffer. So there is something to it, but I'm just I'm just saying it's not just Well, I have an email clarifying it with the city. I'd be glad to read the email discussing the differences and the standing between HOAs and neighborhoods. Um, so I've done my research on this and to be clear, there are legacy neighborhoods who have not been given standing who have duespaying members of adjacent property. So to be clear, I think there is a very contentious argument to be made that I have direct experience with. And in this case, if someone who's in the leadership from a legacy neighborhood gains access through the advertisement of the newspaper instead of just the posting and just the adjacent properties, I think that's relevant. Um, that's good information to have. I didn't realize Yeah, I think there's a lot of nuance to the conversation and one-off instances is what quasi judicial hearings are

established for. And that's why we're here discussing, you know, also the ADUs is because it is not so much an anomaly as a reoccurring theme. And that's when I think we should trigger amendments to the ADU. So, or to the UDO. So, I just to be clear, the only thing with inside the board of adjustments that I had concern with was the publicly noticing. Um, and I personally would prefer that we maintain that public noticing process, especially, you know, just because we don't know. It's hard to prove who receives what information and how that impacts our community. Um, and I'd be glad to speak at city council to encourage them to boost your budget to ensure that we can continue to paper notice folks. Um, but I would love to hear other commissioners thoughts if and maybe it's just one knucklehead. So to to answer my original question, there is concern consternation on section 7520. Um, which would leave 733, 761, and 762 that I haven't heard any questions about. So 7141 the ADU 7520 the notice questions about the composition. We're really whittling this down, but I just want to be clear on kind of like where there's no question or concern uh before we open for public comment. Yeah, I I was just seeking clarity to make sure that there were clear bookends on where we were on at the stage of this particular agenda item. Uh, can we get feedback from staff or commissioners on separating out those when we proceed to a vote or should we do that after public comment? Let's hear public comment and then maybe in our further deliberations we can see where where it's heading. Um, any other questions for staff before we

open public comment? All right. At Thank you, Mr. Starbomb. At 7:52, we will open for public comment. Thank you for your time. Please uh introduce yourself, state your name, and share your your comments with us. Yes. Um good evening, chair, commissioners, and staff. My name is Seeku Coleman and I'm speaking today on behalf of the Legacy Neighborhoods Coalition which includes leaders from the neighborhood associations of the Burton Street, East End Valley Street, Emma, Southside, and Shiloh neighborhoods. We respectfully urge the planning and zoning commission to delay sending the proposed UDO zoning amendments for 7141 to city council at this time. LNC leaders and legacy residents are only just beginning to receive and process the full scope of these changes, specifically those related to the ADU regulations. Thanks to a newly established liaison with this commission, Chair Barton, community leaders from our legacy neighborhoods are now gaining access to deeper and more detailed information. But this process is still in the early stages. Our leaders are actively reviewing the materials, but they need more time to fully understand the implications, particularly as they relate to potential displacement or unintended consequences for historically marginalized communities. Delaying this decision would allow for more informed engagement, better questions, and more thoughtful responses from our communities, many of whom are just now in a position to turn their attention to these critical zoning issues. It would also support a more equitable planning process that respects the pace at which residents from these neighborhoods are able to engage. We're not asking to halt the process only to ensure that progress includes those who have historically been left out of the conversation.

Thank you, Mr. Coleman. There any other members of the public who wish to speak on this item? Seeing none, I will close the public comment at 7:54. Um, appreciate the the feedback and comment and affirmation that legacy neighborhoods are engaged in in the um, evaluation of land use changes. I think this is something that has been a um, long-standing commitment of the city, however, with uneven kind of um, reception and and progress. So, um, looking forward to kind of more robust engagement with legacy neighborhoods, especially as applies, um, the recommendations in the missing middle housing report and the acute attention to areas of our city that are vulnerable. So, um, points well taken and appreciate you showing up tonight for what would have been a much longer meeting and, uh, ended up being just a regularly long meeting. So, um, any further questions, deliberation, thoughts on how or what could proceed at this time? So, can we separate out the 7-14-1 and proceed to vote on the other amendments first? Do we have staff feedback on separation or is or would that be something that's given to the discretion of this commission to provide in a motion? Yeah. However, the commission wants to proceed. I'm looking at Janice, but I think we would just need separate motions if you separate them out. The amendments reason. No, separate motions and

that's really it is decision. Um, but we have had in the past where you might vote for some things, you might not vote, you might deny something is at and what you you think I I think yeah I think the cleanest way forward and and we are open to working together of course is that to separate these and to have the four BOAS uh 73 75 761 and 762 and then a separate motion for 714. That way we can work with with engaging and scheduling council a little different. Um but all options are are on the table. Thank you for that. Um, I would address what Janice said, too. If if what you think is needed is more engagement, we would entertain a continuence over denial because we still think there's merit to the amendment. Certainly, and I I believe that's in the spirit of what we were hearing a request from uh community members and other members of this commission was just kind of more time to assess information. And I think absent time we end up doing something reactionary which could be you know do we apply appendix 7F which you know I know is administratively complex and maybe not supported by staff. Um so I think a cleaner approach could be just to allow more time for engagement and and consideration. Do we do we want to so if that's where this seems to be heading on 7141. Do we want to talk a little bit more about the notice requirements? Hearing some concerns from fellow commissioners around um alleviating publication and newspaper for quasi judicial. I I second the I think it was a really good point that was brought up about

neighbors helping to be, you know, in some neighborhoods, you know, community looks different than in others and and um neighbors helping neighbors try to understand things that are happening adjacent to them, I think is really important to consider. and and you know sometimes those things get missed when we're trying to to to do these text changes uh changes um and maybe you know because we're sitting here from a place of privilege we say okay if I get a notice I'm the one getting the notice I'm the one with standing but maybe you know we're not considering well enough the I think what you brought whatever. I hear that and I just wanted to say that I think um that kind of follows suit. Um so I guess we have a couple of options on the broader BOA proposals. There could be a recommendation to deny the changes to 7520. the publication notice. Um, is it that that one feels like there's not a desire for more time or is there an information request? It's more a we we have the information or is there further information that this commission requires in order to evaluate that one? I think it's just a matter to me it's a matter of weighing the public notice

potential benefit that it could be providing that we And if I may uh chair just on this one and and please let me know if I am overstepping my bounds here is that staff does have a preference on 7520 particularly that you do vote if if you choose to vote that one down as you do vote that as a recommendation to move forward to council. I do want to stress the fiscal responsibility component. There was a $15 million budget shortfall last year. We will have another very very very tight budget this year. There are cuts all over. Uh hiring FTEEs is difficult and this is something we're looking to move forward with pretty quickly because um everything is is we're counting pennies in every department right now. Understood. Um I it feels like the questions raised are more about the effect of information sharing rather than the mechanism. I think you know we're we're all sympathetic to administrative efficiencies and costs. Um I I guess if this were to be a continuence then perhaps is there an option that replaces publication by newspaper with alternative alternative costfree means of and I don't know what that looks like tonight. I just wonder if is is there any appetite for staff to explore that or is this kind of a an eitheror? There's not an eitheror. There's always a third option and and you know um I hear Commissioner Wheatley. I agree that the every every generation receives information differently it would be hard to do a like for like

um but we can certainly engage with Cape between now and council and come up with a number of different solutions. Of course Instagram is not the same and would not have the same audience. Um but I mean that's something we thought off of between the last time I sat down and got back up. So, I I think there's absolutely an appetite to explore alternative options that are inhouse um and can be done without What about notifying neighborhood associations? I mean, that's just one we would pick or or something. I mean, since there's no rule about having to do a particular type of notice, if there was just that kind of additional notice, would that Yeah. No, I think that I I think that's a good solution. No, I think that's like that hits the nail on the head perfectly, you know, and if I may, for example, in TRC, if you are doing a major subdivision or a level two development, you are required to do certain types of noticing. And then if you are in a neighborhood association, there are special noticing requirements. So, we can copy that from TRC. Would this commission feel comfortable with a recommendation tonight conditional upon inserting language to provide notice through alternate means to neighborhood associations? Does that feel like a solution? So, I think we're there on board of adjustments stuff. Um, anybody like to make a motion or hear me out on a tortured attempt? I can make the tortured attempt or I can second your tortured attempt. Either way, go ahead. All right. Um, make sure I've got the right ordinance

referenced. So, one challenge with the prepared motion is um consistency statement number three is really only applicable to the 714 one. So, we may want to eliminate Yeah, that one for sure. I want to start with the continuence. That's a good point. Yeah. So, let's start with is there a motion to continue the portion of the uh staff recommendation related to section 7141 concerning ADU's accessory structures? I I don't want to make the motion, but can we continue it? Can we give it two months instead of one month? I I think that would be wise. I would recommend that. Yeah. Yeah. Would the date certain be October? Okay. October 1st. Okay. I'll make a motion to continue the portion of the zoning text amendments related to section 141 ADUs uh to date certain October 1st. Second. All those in favor please say I. I. I. Any opposed? A motion to continue passes unanimously. And now to revisit the remaining items on the table. Um, Commissioner Wheatley, you want to I move to recommend the approval of the approing amendments to chapter 73, 75, and 76 of the Asheville Code of Ordinances and find that the proposed with an amendment to 7520 um recommending that the city establish a standard of disseminating

information with regards to the board of adjustments to associated neighborhood organizations and find that the proposed amendments are reasonable, are in the public interest, are consistent with the city's comprehensive plan, and meet the development needs of the community. and that the amendments will one align boards and commissions with statutory requirements and two improve the efficiency of the city's operations. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Commissioner Wheatley, for helping land that plane. Um, that brings us to the end of our formal agenda items. Uh before we make a motion to adjourn, uh there was some information shared around um applicants to fill the vacant seat on planning and zoning commission. Um I know this is not on the agenda, but could we have a quick dialogue around recommendations to pass to city council? Um I I just wanted to kind of share with everyone else, you know, given the immediacy of the loss of our um of our fellow commissioner Byron, the speed at which appointment of a new member feels kind of out of step. And it's it's my opinion that we should advise city council to slow down the process, reopen the application for um interested applicants, but I wanted feedback from the full commission before I relay that request. Um, if there's any thoughts, I certainly second that time

for our healing and processing and just time for more applicants to process and be able to talk to us. You know, a lot of applicants have one-on-one conversations with or other staff and we need Thank you. I would agree as well. Does does anyone have concern with me um speaking on behalf of the commission to relay this request to reopen applications and take a little more? Uh Chair Barton, I just want to say I appreciate your leadership on this. Um, Commissioner um, Grryer's leaving a tremendous hole of knowledge, skill, experience, um, community engagement, support, um, connection here on this commission. And, um, I I don't think that's filling that kind of hole is not something that I I think can be done quickly or um, you know, kind of without consideration for the healing that uh as a commission we should go through. Thank you. Okay. I I will certainly relay this uh you know on behalf of the full commission and pass along any uh response I get. So thank you. And with that uh I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Favor. I I thank you. We are adjourned. [Music]