Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

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Hello and welcome to the October 1st meeting of the Asheville Planning and Zoning Commission. I'm your chair, Jeffrey Barton, and we will begin with roll call. Thank you. Uh, Chair Barton, present. Commissioner Cycle, present. Commissioner Wheatley, present. Commissioner Zufkaya, present. Commissioner Faircloth present. We have a quorum. Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. And as we uh always h do, we are starting in our administrative section with a land acknowledgement today. I'll uh kick it over to Commissioner Wheatley.

Thank you. 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 and United Kadua 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 indulable traumas that is embedded in that are embedded in this land.

Thank you. Uh next up we have approval of the minutes of our last meeting and included in that uh is an approval of the special use permit ordinance and findings of fact and conclusions of law from the September 3rd 2025 meeting. Um any questions, clarifications? Not do I have a motion to approve? A motion to approve the from September 3rd, 2025, including the Oh, including the SU findings and facts.

Motion. Do we have a second? Second. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Uh next up we have uh updates from committee liaison and workg groups. Uh first up our anti-displacement work group and I believe we have a slide if we can put it up

while we're getting that pulled up. Um we just want to acknowledge and thank the conversations that have been happening among city council specifically at the HCD. Um, and if you all aren't aware of that, that's something great for you to check out. The last, I believe the last meeting of HCD had a lot of really good conversations and a really great presentation from staff about displacement or anti-displacement strategies and um they had a conversation about definition of displacement. So, we just want to bring this back up for you all. I think two months ago, we shared this definition of displacement. We want you to we we've sent it out. We want you to look at it tonight and we'd like to ask for a formal adoption of this definition at the next meeting. We will also be working with um council HCD and others to have conversations about this. I think the best way to move forward is for all of us to be aligned on the definition and be using the same language. Just a question on that. Um really appreciate the work that you all are doing and kind of like helping connect with other um things going around within city council committees. um if we are going to be looking at adopting the definition I think it's important to understand like as part of what document or you know is this a there is not a reference within our UDO but is there in the comp plan or are we looking at just sort of affirming a shared understanding of what this placement means? Yeah, ideally it would be included in the UDO and there's also conversations about, you know, a kind of a full overhaul of the UDO. So maybe that doesn't get included until that happens.

Um I'm looking to staff to just kind of give us some guidance on how we can

uh so I mean hasn't been proposed as a UDO text amendment or anything like that. So that would any anything like that would need to take a look at it see how it impact anything but more importantly it would have to go through that process with notification process. Um I think the mission could certainly like kind of adopt that as their working definition of it without necessarily amending a document at this time. Um that might be the easiest way to go at this point right now. um and then come along when we look at amendments that are in the future and see if there's any room what room there is for inclusion at that point.

Yeah. Um just to kind of follow up, I do think it's important um for our commission to have a definition to work around internally um at a minimum just because you know anti-displacement is used so broadly. Um, and then within the comp plan, anti-displacement is also discussed. And then within the UDO, um, I think, you know, that's the appropriate place to hold a definition about how we're defining displacement just to keep it on a level playing field with anyone who comes before the city. Um, so as we've done before, it takes quite a while to amend the UDO itself. So adopting it within the commission I think is a a really nice first step and then from there working to you know support staff in the appropriate next steps however they feel it may be or maybe there's even a definitions amendment coming forward. I know we heard maybe two meetings ago that the comp plan is being amended. Um so I think there might be a natural pairing at some point in the future. Any thoughts from um the anti-displacement working group around um environmental displacement? That was something that's referenced in the affordable housing plan is not kind of within our working definition, but any thoughts from you all on including that or intentionally excluding environmental displacement?

Um I think it would be great to have it. I think the, you know, we we saw um the environmental displacement more in the last year and that's entered our the conversation in a new way. So I think including that would be really really important and also overlap with some of what we're seeing um with interest in the other working groups whether that be riverfront redevelopment or storm water or anything like that. Well, I think it goes beyond flooding and storm water. I think it's heat island effect and you know fire you know there's a lot that goes into environmental displacement.

I like that. I think there's even a study that urban forestry commission had done around um trees inside of legacy neighborhoods and maybe the discrepancy between mature trees in those neighborhoods. So um yeah, I think if and this request from the working group is really around um having that agenda item um for you know if it's an amended definition from this to include environmental which it sounds like there's a lot of support uh on just having that open agenda item as discussion and potential motion at least for our commission to just kind of align and rally around that

great. Yeah, thank you for the work and um yeah, I think it makes sense to bring it for sort of like general consideration of adoption and then look for the vehicles to attach it to or it gives us kind of that platform other any other um reports back from liaison's work groups. Um so as far as multimmodal transportation committee goes uh we will be re uh engaging and having our first meeting back since Helen October 30th. Um so I would definitely implore any of the public and anyone from this commission who may have interest in you know all the different forms of transportation around Asheville uh to just be on the lookout for those notifications. I'll be glad to forward that information to everyone else on this commission. Um, but keep your eye out October 30th. Uh, kind of like a warm-up to Halloween, but probably less festive. Thanks for that. Any other uh report backs from work groups, leaison? All right. Uh, next up in our agenda under the administrative section, we have the election of chair and vice chair. Um, as a reminder, I currently serve as the chair. Our um, previous vice chair was Byron Grryer, who is no longer with us. Um, and so today we'll be holding elections or have some deliberation. Uh, just for everyone's kind of edification, u, Commissioner Bell has expressed an interest and a willingness to serve in the vice chair role. She couldn't make it today due to illness, but we can still consider uh nominating her. The way this works is our body um either nominates members of

this commission to serve in these two roles. Um self-nomination is also possible. So, we'll take them one at a time. Um is there anyone who would like to make a nomination for I'd like to nominate Chair Barton for chair. I will accept the nomination.

Have a vote. All those Oh, could I get a second to the nomination? I'll second that. Um, all those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? We have a new chair. Same as the old And for clarification that that's one year. Yeah, we so annually per our rules of procedure, we do elections in October or um when there is a vacancy at the next available time. So officially a one-year okay

cycle. Um so next we'll we'll consider vice chair. Um, I would like to make a nomination for um, Commissioner Bell to serve as vice chair. I'd like to nominate Commissioner Wheatley for vice chair. Any other nominations? So we have two and given that uh one is not here um we can either proceed with you know a motion to one of the two nominations or table this and come back to it next month. I'm truly open to

has Commissioner Bell been here a year? Is she eligible? Um they're a one year I believe she is but we started in September.

That's right. Um her first official meeting may have been a little bit later with the storm disruption, but she was appointed um over a year ago. So our options are kind yeah to proceedation and a vote or table it's looking to me. Um I mean I'd like to second um Commissioner Wheatley's second nomination. Um, I don't know. Personally, I feel out of respect to Commissioner Bell, we should wait till she's here. If there's two people running for them both to say their piece, I think that would be appropriate. But I guess first, do do you accept the nomination for vice chair, Commissioner Wheatley?

Yes, I accept the nomination. have um yeah, what we have one perspective on we do have an official nomination for vice chair. Um we have a nomination without a second on the other. I mean I'd like to assume she'd second herself or but I can't not being here. Yeah, we can't really speculate.

Is it too late to second her? Um, I would second that nomination and I would second waiting until they're both here. Although I know I won't be here in November, so apologies ahead of time, but I do think it would be good to have both of them here while we're voting. Other thoughts? So, we have two made um mo, you know, recommendations and seconds for nomination for vice chair. I'll make a motion to continue the election of vice chair to the November 5th, 2025 meeting. Second.

Motion has a second. All those in favor to continue say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion to continue passes. Thanks for that. Um so next up we have a presentation from staff um on the transit operational analysis. The staff presenting is Jessica Morris.

Hello Jessica Morris. I'm the assistant director of the transportation department and very excited to give you guys this presentation. And I'm doing this on behalf of our consultant um which is a a firm called Jarrett Walker and Associates. They're very well-known firm in the world of transit. And so I'm going to do my best to walk through this presentation. Um and feel free to stop me if you have any questions. Um hopefully we'll have some time for questions at the end. Um so first question is what is access and what makes transit useful? So here is a person and this person is in a city full of possible destinations. In 30 minutes she can reach anywhere in this amorphous blob I'll call it. And within that she has access to jobs. um she has access to shopping, education, government services, what have you. And when we look at how long it takes a person um to travel as far as a transit trip is concerned, it's not just the time they're on the bus, but it's also the time that they're walking to the bus, waiting for the bus, riding the bus, getting off, etc. So that is a big part of the equation. And so when you're looking at um you know how far can someone go within a certain time frame we include we try to include that time. Um access can describe the possibil all of the possibilities of people's lives and the likelihood that the service will

be useful. Um access can increase wrership. Um but access is just access to all kinds of different services. What maximizes access? So highfrequency transit routes is one way to maximize access. Um it could be these these high frequency routes could be focused on transit friendly places um including dense, walkable and linear places. And why is this? It's because how this is how you bring the most useful destinations within a reasonable travel time for most people. So what we're really going to be focusing on today is kind of this existential question that all transit folks wrestle with. And there's not a um neither of them is right. But we call this the wrership coverage dilemma, tradeoff, if you will. We'll go I'll go into detail about what that means. But one end of the spectrum is wrership. That's a goal. Do you want high ridership? Is wrership what Asheville Asheville's goal is? Um, and so part of what we're talking about is how should we take our limited resources and focus those resources. Um, so this is a fictional urban area. The dots represent jobs and residents and we have 18 buses and that's actually what we run now. We have 18 routes. So, this is meant to not be Asheville, but kind of demonstrate

how if you have 18 buses and you want to maximize ridership, you would probably do something like this where you're taking all your buses, you're loading them up onto these main corridors, and you've got high frequency going so that you are um hitting the most people, making making transit the most useful to a higher percentage of people. Um and so productivity is the performance measure associated with this. Now the opposite end of the spectrum is what we call coverage. And this is kind of what our system is is built around right now, which is um if you think about it kind of like a government service, it's it's trying to accomplish access for everybody. So if you take those same 18 buses, you can spread them out all over the place, but they're coming less frequently, right? So with the same resources, you can, you know, have different goals, but all of the goals are are valid. um serving folks across the city is is definitely um more on the spectrum of what we do today. Um but we're not providing frequent service to the the majority of the city. So the performance measure here is looking at more the percentage of population and jobs that are near some service doesn't mean that it's actually um useful in all cases to somebody because their travel time might be

really long. So um as I said both goals are really important but they're kind of they're pulling and pushing against each other. um you can't really have both um with the same amount of resources. You have to lean towards one one end or the other whether it's wrership or coverage. So here's kind of the spectrum that I was talking about and the question that we're asking um the community right now and we're we just opened up the second round of engagement for this project and I I guess I should have said what the project is. It's a um comprehensive operational analysis that we're doing for our transit system, which is really just like looking at our current system, our current resources, and what can we do with it? Um, and should we change how our network operates? And so that's the study that Jarrett Walker is helping us with. Um, and so we're asking the community, you know, which direction should we go on this spectrum? So we developed two concepts that are just concepts. Um they both use the same resources. So the same budget that we have now and to reiterate that they're not proposals. It's just to illustrate like these two ends. So this is our existing network. Um on the left you see the different colors in the legend and those are meant to highlight what the different frequency is. So you don't really see any orange um because we don't have any frequency that's a 15minute frequency. 15-minute frequency is often like a a ideal situation for transit because um it's kind of that point in time where you don't really have to think about the

schedule too much. you can just kind of walk to your bus stop and you expect a bus to be there at some point soon. You don't have to like tailor every aspect of your life um around the transit schedule. So, our current system is really mostly built around a 30 minute frequency or or lower. Um in some cases like to South Asheville, we've got a uh 90 minute frequency. So um yeah, so we are as you can see we're going a lot of places. This is more of a coverage um coverage network. So with our existing network, a couple of our challenges are po we have poor on-time performance which is which is not great because people rely on on the timing especially when you have really low frequency. You want to make sure that your timings are and your on-time performance is is high. So those untimed connections makes it really difficult for folks to transfer if they need to. So this is the wrership concept. So the far end of the spectrum and I I will say that these concepts were developed um with our consultant team but also with a group of um staff transit committee members, multimmodal commission members, um artsy coalition members, which is a a regional transit advocacy group, um and others. And so we we spent literally like four days locked in a room and we looked at these different options and um looked at, you know, these are existing resources. This is our number of buses. If we wanted to do some a network that would achieve a much higher ridership, what would we do? And so the orange

lines are 15-minute service basically on our primary corridors. um the service like South Asheville would get a higher frequency 30 minutes um but really we're we're not seeing anything that is less than a 30 minute 30 minute service and again this is just a concept but what you can see in this is that there's a lot of places we're not going anymore right because you can't have both ways um so higher frequency along the city's main corridors this provides more access to opportunities in where your denser areas are, where your more population and more jobs, more destinations are, but loss of coverage is is the trade-off. The coverage concept looks almost identical to our existing network. Um, but some of the key features here is that, you know, we wouldn't take any service away from anyone. um we would be able to make some tweaks to our current system to make the on-time performance better and um make those connections better, but as I said, we're already on like the coverage end of the spectrum. So um you don't visually see a whole lot of changes here. This is just it would be a more optimized network for for our current system. Um time connections, we kind of already talked about this. the quality of the connections matters. Um, transit's like a big math problem. You got to make everything work so that it's people can go from one one route to the next to get to where they need to go. Um, let's see. I'm trying to remember what this what this was indicating, but

um oh, this is this is kind of trying to indicate how the coverage concept seeks to optimize those connections. And you can see on the left the existing networks, we've got arrivals and departures happening kind of like all over the place across an hour. Whereas the optimization that we would be able to do with the coverage would just make some of those things tighten up so that people would be able to connect connect more seamlessly to other routes at the art station. So how many people are near transit? So this might be a little difficult to see but we're we're going to throw up some bar charts here. This is our existing network. Um so 25% what this is saying is that 25% of our population is currently in the dark blue which is a 30 minute um trip whereas we've got 39% that are not even within a half a mile. Um, we've got a very small percentage that are closer to a 90 minute round trip and then we've got a 34% that are near a 40 to 60 minute round trip. I'm sorry, frequency, not round trips, but they're near a route that has that frequency. So, we have no nobody right now that is near a 15minute frequency route because we don't have any. So the wrership network which concentrates those those major routes um high frequency routes on our major arterials that would introduce the ability for 30% of our population to be next to a 15minute route within a half a mile of a 15minute route. Um so that

creates a lot more access for folks that that live within that half mile. Um, but because you're taking away coverage, it actually reduces the overall number of people that would be near any service because we're having to take service away from certain locations. The coverage network um is very similar to our existing but it does um increase some of the access to a 30 minute route and you can see the 25% versus 30% but it's it's largely similar to what we have today. Um this are this goes into a little bit deeper dive um looking at lowinccome and persons of color near transit routes. So, I won't go go through all of these, but um you can see that the wrership network has that increase um for folks of low income and persons of color um being closer to a transit route. So talk a little bit about some specific examples helps kind of visualize what we're talking about. But this is looking at the Aldi on Patton Avenue. And within that 30 minute kind of roundtrip walk um time frame, you can see that if you're looking at the wrership concept comparing it to our existing um the green area is more places that that person can go within that 30 minutes compared to existing. And then the the gray is area that would be lost with the ridership con concept.

So you can see there's a lot more access to various destinations that would be gained um with a higher access frequency. So here's some stats. Um, and here's the coverage network. This is the Grace Church up on North Marman. Um, oops, let me go back. Can I go back? So, coverage network is very similar today. Not really any change, but by loading up Marman Avenue with a higher frequency, you can see that there's a lot more places that someone can go within a 30 minute time frame with that higher frequency. Um so this this chart this graph map shows the change in job access um change in jobs reachable in 30 minutes and this is the wrership concept. So, um, you can see the darker green areas are where we're creating more access through that higher frequency and it and it aligns very much so with the the routes that are um higher frequency on those main corridors. We'll we'll provide this presentation for you guys so you can kind of see the differences. But um in 30 minutes the average person can reach 10% more jobs and um persons served can reach 25% more jobs.

And then this is the coverage concept. So it's got more of the brown because and this is kind you know basically our existing network. So there's a there's a change in the jobs that are reachable within a 30 minute uh round trip but it's very similar to what we have right now. So 30 minute access is similar to today. um in 45 minutes the average person can reach 3% more jobs. So he he changed it from 30 to 45 minutes because it's essentially the same from a transit perspective and I I'm I can't really explain it as well as our our consultants can but our existing system today because our city is pretty compact except for the southern portion um within a 45 minute time span you can get to the places that are highlighted. um just and a 30 minute would be essentially the same. So um the question that we are asking the public is which end of the spectrum should we be? there's um higher frequencies and more access to opportunities, but a loss of coverage with the wrership concept. Coverage concept is essentially what we're doing today. We're pro providing a lot of service to a lot of different areas. Um or I should say we're providing service to a lot of different areas, but we're providing it very infrequently. Um, and so it's not often useful to to people because it just doesn't come frequently enough that they can't use it. Um, so we can even if we didn't

change any of our coverage, we we still do have the opportunity and would um optimize our current network to improve our on-time performance and our connectivity. So, um, we are going to be also coming to council, uh, well, we'll be giving them basically this exact same presentation on the 9th of October. We'll not be asking them to make any decisions, but on November, uh, 18th or 19th, I can't remember which council what date the council meeting is, but that's when we'll be asking them to tell us where on the spectrum should we be. That's it. And so that's what I'm asking um for feedback for you guys today. And um you know, we're again like we're the city's not making any recommendation. The values on both sides are equally valid. It's it's really you know what what feels right for our city. We we don't have any the money is the same no matter what. Unless you say you want both, then you have to have more money. But um yeah, that's kind of that's what we're asking for today. So, I'm happy to answer any questions as best I can. Um this is uh the survey that we've got out right now. It opened I think a couple days ago and will be open until um I believe the 27th. And so, please share this with your friends and neighbors. Um, we'd love to get as much feedback as we can and this is on um this is on the planning and zone this presentation is on the planning and zoning website for anybody and then I think we've got the the survey online as well.

Questions?

Thank you, Miss Morris. That's a really interesting analysis helpful to kind of set the stage for how we can have a more effective transit system. Um my primary question is around the wrership that we have now. It seems like these calibrations may be to boost wrership. Do we have a sense of um what wrership is using transit for? We talked a lot about jobs. One of the challenges with the system now is the unpredictability and the timeliness. So being able to be on time for a job is a real challenge with status quo. So anecdotally, I hear more people using transit for kind of those elective errands that don't have a time attached going to the grocery store and things that can take longer rather than just like have to get to work by a certain time. But do we have a sense like um of of what the wrership is using transit for right now? Um, so I don't have numbers off the top of my head. We can um provide that to you. But our first round of engagement, we did ask those kinds of questions. We did a lot of onboard surveys to ask folks where they're where they're traveling to and from. Um, as well as de demographic information. Um, I mean, I can say that the vast majority of our riders now are um are typically don't don't have a driver's license um or don't have an access to a car, don't have access to a car. So, I would say that predominantly the folks that are using it are using it for all of their needs. Um, and so that is and that's a very important thing. And so those folks I think with our

current system struggle because it it's just very difficult to get from one place to the next. Um, so that's we can give you some more statistics on the actual ridership. There's I mean our city has a very low mode split for transit. We're like less than 1% I think of our population rides transit and it goes back to I think some of the inconveniences of it at the moment. Other questions?

Yeah, I found the the study very fascinating. Um and I'm I'm definitely going to dig into it to it more. Um I had one question. So we talk about resources and and resources are what they are now. Um do does writership uh influence what resources the transit department has? Like does do the do the fees gained from writership go back into transit?

Yes. So we we charge fairs. our fairs are um very low compared to most other places. Um that's not a bad thing um because there really aren't any transit systems I I don't think across the world that are self- sustaining through their fairs. It's a very low percentage of the overall revenue that we get. Um and so that's very typical. So, if we didn't have fairs, would it impact our overall budget? Yes. Um, but it's not it's never going to be something that will help pay for service. Um, transit is always typically he heavily subsidized. Um, and we currently get federal funds, we get some state funds, and but the bulk of it is from the city's general fund as well as our parking fund contributes some funding.

Thank you. Part of the reason I was asking that is I was just trying to understand if there was maybe a temporal aspect to this adding a fourth dimension to this analysis. Meaning could you start with slightly more on the writership side and as revenues or resources gain incrementally move towards coverage and is that part of the equation? And I was just that was just a curiosity of mine.

Yeah. Um well so one of the questions that we we had a a public forum last night. One of the questions we got was, have we looked at like concepts in the middle of the spectrum? And it's like, yeah, we could do a million different scenarios in the spectrum with within that same amount of money. If you increase your resources then then yes you could either take those resources and and could add more service somewhere whether it's coverage based or adding more frequency somewhere. So, um, yeah, any kind of additional financial resources could be would be added to operations. And I should say that, you know, we look at the number of buses as a as an easier way to digest the concept rather than focusing on dollars. But, you know, a lot of people think like microtransit, why don't you have little buses go around to neighborhoods and pick people up and drop them at the main routes, but the predominant cost driving cost is literally the driver, right? So, doesn't matter so much what the size of the bus is or it's really like that that dominating cost is always going to be personnel no matter what business you're in. So, um, so I think that answered your question probably too too much I added.

No, it was great. And then my next question was you said you were presenting to council next and I was curious if the uh results or summary from the public survey would be a is going to be available for for that presentation.

Not for the one on the 9th during their agenda briefing. They're going to get the same basically the same presentation. then they're going to have until November 18th gest it and make a make a decision. They'll we'll have the survey results and feedback from all of the different um outreach events that we've done. We'll have that for for council at that meeting. So, the the survey is open this whole basically this whole month and we're trying to you guys are the our first stop. Um and we wanted to get feedback from you of course because transit has a lot of interface with with land use, right? So um we want to hear your feedback, you know, kind of linking those two things together

and and beyond this uh the digital survey and you I heard you it sounded like you mentioned like um outreach events. Um could you just quickly touch on what what the outreach looks like? Yeah. And we we have kind of a smattering of different things. Um we've been at the transit center doing some tableabling and we'll be doing that um every week throughout the month. Um we will be going to probably eight to 10 different community markets this month. Um, and we'll we're going to we're going to do this presentation at the um multimodal commission. Um, but that's at the end of the month, but we've got multiple different things um throughout this month that we're doing.

Um, thanks Miss Morris. That was a lot of good information. This is really cool stuff. Um, I got kind of one opinion, one question, and one idea I'm going to hit you with. uh one opinion I'll just say it. I mean I feel like in this um committee we look at a lot of density stuff and obviously density is increasing in places and we're trying to manage that and so I feel like personally the wrership concept is something that really should be pushed on because these communities dealing with the increased density in their neighborhood. You know this one of the bargaining tokens or one of the things to help them is you know density is increasing in your area. what resources are going to help you or help mitigate that. So, personally in favor of the writership thing. My question is out of ignorance, is there like any commuter routes we have? Meaning like are there routes that just run like 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. like during those time frames?

Um, understand what I'm trying to ask? like possibly I mean because a lot of people work like a 9 to5 or an 8 to 4 or something like right you know there doesn't need to be a bus running every 15 minutes all the way down Sweeten Creek it's just Sweeten Creek's awful between 7:30 and 8:30 and 4 to 5 like has ever been thought been put to do we need to have like computer route

okay so I'll try my best to answer so all of our So scheduling of drivers is very difficult and so the concept of trying to have like more service during a peak time is possible. Um but what do you do with those people during the rest of the day? Because it's all about drivers and buses, right? So, if you've got 18 buses, you've only got 18 buses, then you got to take them off of some of another route if you want to double them up during the hours of like 7 to 9:00 a.m., right? So, that's

don't have a bus that just sits there half the day. You got to put it to work all the time. So, um it is it is possible and some places do that, but it's not always the most uh it doesn't always end up being the most logical and like financially sensical, if you will. Um so, and and we do and and all of our routes are running essentially from 6:30 in the morning to 11:00 p.m. right now. some of the routes end a little bit earlier, but one of the issues that we see, and I I think maybe somebody already noted it, is that, you know, a lot of our service jobs maybe don't fit that schedule. So, if somebody can't um they might be able to take the bus to work, but they might not be able to get home. So, keep in mind what we're looking at here. It doesn't really change our hours. And so it doesn't adding more service later into the night is something that has been a goal. Um but that just additionally requires more more resources. So that's a whole other concept or piece of this puzzle is the the time frame that you're operating in. Um and that this study is not looking at that. It's just looking at kind of our baseline what we have now.

Gotcha. Um thank you. And then the last thing I question or idea I had was um are our buses like tagged like um years and years ago when I lived in Raleigh the buses were like I had like an app I could just pull up and see where the bus was and just like okay we do have that here. Yeah. you we don't have like our own app, but if you you know went into your Google maps and you said I want to go to the mall and you clicked on transit, it would tell you and then you can set your own reminder and you can see the bus coming, right? Yeah, we have that. Thank you so much. This is good questions. Good good work

there, Miss Morris. Really appreciate the presentation. The work is awesome. It's really great to see the robust analysis particularly around um job creation and access to d jobs. Um you know the cool thing about transit is that it serves the highest need community um within our city. Uh and I think it's hard to really extrapolate what jobs could be possible with high frequency um service. It's just, you know, that's changing a parameter in a lot of people's lives. And um I hadn't got a chance to fully review this report, but it appears that um like in pages 29 and 30 of the full report, it shows both housing density and job location and job density. I think it's yeah, actual job density as well. And it's really nice to see the way those are already really tightly aligned. Um and then also staff and city council and this commission work towards the project level thresholds which I think are really really help to incentivize um larger scale development along those corridors as well. Um so it's really great timing and I just appreciate the work your department's doing and I mean what appears to be already a lot of synergy. So mostly I'm just making a statement around great appreciation for staff on both sides um in the transit transportation as well as planning and urban design. It looks like it's really well coordinated and it'll be interesting to see what the community and the city um if they align on that kind of desire for higher frequency or you know greater job opportunities. Um, on the community input front, do you

have any um planned meetings within like legacy neighborhoods or within um city- owned housing or anything like that that could get that kind of engagement?

Yeah. So the community markets that I mentioned, those are predominantly held at the housing communities and they're associated with um Mana Food Banks um free like not free yeah free food giveaways. So we try to align with those and and get feedback at the at from those markets. It's been a really good opportunity. really appreciate all the work you've done on this. Thank you.

Uh just a question to follow up on that. Does the report have data on writership? Like I'm I'd be curious to see how many people are riding each of those routes. Um I don't know if it has it by route, but we we do have that information. Um all of our buses have counters and so we can look at any any route any time of day. Um and so we can if it's not in the report we can provide like a a snapshot of that if that would be helpful like during a certain month we could say you know this is our ridership on these routes. Um we could provide that to you guys.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean from my perspective making a decision on where to fall on that spectrum, I'd want to see what the lowest numbers are. If those roots are going away, how many people will that be impacting? Right. Right. Okay. Yep.

Was the last analysis done 2018 or two? Maybe it was 2020 something somewhere in there. I feel like that was when the WE line came in. Um so we adopted the transit master plan in 2017 but the data from that was 20 probably 2016. So it's been a quite a while since we've done a really robust analysis of our system. Um the transit master plan recommended of course some improvements, some frequency and coverage improvements and there was uh in January of 2020 we did a 25% increase in service. So we added some frequency, we added some coverage and that is since then we have not added any service. Um but then you you know January 2020 so we have not looked at what has happened since co what has happened since Helen so that is also being looked at here um to incorporate any changes that we might see to where people are living um so that's part of this analysis as well.

Yep. Thank you and echoing sort of appreciation for the work that's gone into this um It's we we know we need a improved and optimized transit system to serve um people in Asheville. Um one thing I'd like to see is kind of an ongoing commitment to evaluation. So as we make a decision, you know, continual analysis of how it's going and and seeing is it having the impact that we hoped it would so that we can then target future investments in kind of a smart way. um just to yeah make sure that the the increased frequency is really if that is where we head is is yielding the results. But we we kind of know we yeah we need

improvements so that we can get the reliability and one thing that you touched on which is really important is the synchronizing transfers. That's huge. So having the ability to have that predictability when you have to change buses, which doesn't currently exist, is is a really smart improvement. So great to see that questions. Okay. Thank you guys. Really appreciate the feedback.

All right. Next up, we have a uh request to amend the conditional zoning for the property located at 30 Buchanan Place for purposes of amending project conditions. Property's PIN is identified on the agenda. Property owner is City of Asheville. The applicant contact is Dustin Clemens and the planner coordinating review is Will Palmquist. Mr. Palmquist.

Thank you, chair. Good evening, commissioners. Will Palmquist with Planning and Urban Design. I will be presenting this conditional zoning amendment request for the property at 30 Buchanan Place. This is the site of the McCormic Field Minor League Baseball Stadium um which is currently zoned institutional CZ. So here you can see uh the overall uh site of McCormick Fields um with the red dot in the um South Slope neighborhood adjacent to downtown and then a close in of the property that encompasses the playing field existing um structures and and parking lot. Uh the overall site is 8 and one quarter acres. So the existing zoning which is not proposed to change is institutional conditional zone. So this project uh received a conditional zoning uh via ordinance 5046 adopted by city council on October 24th, 2023. The impetus for that conditional zoning was for the project to receive a number of technical modifications to the underlying institutional uh zoning district. This went handinhand with the uh proposed improvements to the facility that I'll touch briefly on. Um so the so the existing zoning is already institutional uh conditional zone. Here you can see uh the most the latest plan for the improvements at McCormick Field. It's been um dialed back a little bit from the version that was presented at city council mostly for for cost considerations, but it involves things like enhanced um audience areas, club houses, uh bull pens, uh batting cages, and that sort of thing. So uh this conditional zoning amendment

is for the purposes of requesting one additional uh technical modification to the uh zoning standards in our UDO. So uh the overall uh picture on this is that have outdoor lighting standards as a section of a UDO and as part of those standards there is a limit on the maximum mounting height for uh outdoor sports stadium light fixtures and that is 90 ft. The uh existing uh lighting fixtures are are within that range. However, the existing poles, you can see six identified here on the site plan, um are proposed to be replaced as part of this project due to um the timing and the ability to replace them now as opposed to waiting later down the road and having it be a much more costly um project once the renovations are fully done. This was not really anticipated during that initial conditional zoning, but is being pursued now. the overall pole height is not an issue. Um the institutional district does not have height standards except when adjacent to um within a certain distance to residential zoning. So the height of the poles which are considered structures are not in question. But it's that mounting height for the light fixtures themselves that the project is butdding up against. um because major league baseball, minor league baseball have standards uh based on photoometric um analysis that's much beyond my ability to understand. Um but they have done a comprehensive analysis of the stadium, the location of the poles and how tall the light fixtures would have to be to achieve the required illumination for um evening baseball games. Uh so this

results in two of the polls, the ones um closest to kind of home plate and the the parking lot area of the uh of the facility uh A1 and A2. The other poles would would stay within that and below that 90 foot maximum of the light fixtures themselves. The mounting height would stay below 90 ft for the other four poles. However, the uh A1 pole identified here uh it has a proposed mounting height of 102 feet 11 inches and then the fixture height at the A2 pole has a proposed mounting height of 99t 11 in. So that additional um modification, technical modification to the lighting standards would be included in addition to the previously approved modifications to the zoning. And uh that condition would read that um those those poles as shown on the site plan would have a maximum uh fixture height of 105 ft uh instead of the 90 foot maximum. regards to the compatibility uh of the request um regarding the surrounding zoning districts. Uh staff finds that the request is compatible uh with the surrounding districts. You can see the institutional zone in the blue that the site is um is zoned with that conditional zoning on top of it as well. The CBD downtown district to the west and then surrounding uh residential districts to the north north and south of the property. The request is compatible with the future land use designation of parks and open space uh which is described in part that it includes a wide variety of different park facilities, active and passive open space and greenways. Parks and open space are community need and new parks including park maintenance

will be required to serve areas of the community in an equitable fashion. Regarding the request's um compliance and adherence to existing to infrastructure um the in regards to transportation um the existing roadway and transportation network is already in place in this area and also as part of that initial uh conditional zoning comprehensive uh traffic control and parking plan was presented and referenced by that conditional zoning to mitigate and control um how uh traffic, parking, and shuttles between parking and the stadium happen um on on days and evenings when there's a baseball game. The final approval has already been issued for that initial um phase of the project. So, the water, sewer, and storm water reviews have already been uh have already been approved. In regards to the request's compliance with the comprehensive plan, staff finds that supports a couple of goals and strategies in the plan which talks about promoting access to well-maintained parks and open space for all and enhancing and celebrating Asheville's unique places and destinations. Therefore, staff recommends approval of this proposed conditional zoning amendment. see the overall time frame here which is not chronological uh necessarily. So uh the initial uh phase of the project that was reviewed a couple years ago uh went to the TRC um October 16, 2023. It went through its conditional zoning process which included the final TRC review on May 20th 2024. We're now going backwards and forwards in time uh to October 1st this evening and then it would be

considered um at the soonest October 14 for city council's adoption. It would likely not return to final TRC as these changes are uh not impacting the site plan in a significant way that would require um a full interdisciplinary review of the project. I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have. We also have staff from the capital projects department here that it's more familiar with the intricacies of the project. Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Any questions of staff?

So, hypothetically, if we did not approve this and they did not meet lighting standards, could they not play ball as a minor league team?

Um, perhaps. It's I I'm not sure I can answer that question. Um, we have Dustin Clemensree. Maybe I'll answer that in more detail, but essentially what uh what's happening is that since they're replacing the poles, it's kind of like um if you're like a building code situation, let's call it, um where if you're taking out a wall, you have to make sure everything's up to code. Exactly. So, if they weren't touching the poles, they wouldn't have to necessarily mess with the lighting fixtures. It's kind of a non-conforming standard as it relates to lighting requirements, but since they are replacing the poles, they have to bring it up to the the Major League uh baseball standards. That's that's kind of my take on it. Um potential um it'd be it would definitely result in the project not being able to be in compliance with the Major League Baseball lighting standards, which could be problematic in some form or fashion.

Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions of staff? Appreciate the kind of context and the additional documents that were shared to help us understand beam spread and kind of a conceptual phototric. I think you know obviously one of the concerns when you're replacing stadium lights is are we going to just illuminate the whole area? And it appears that, you know, with the modern more modern light fixtures, we actually had more concentrated beam spread and less light spill over. So, really appreciate kind of that. Um, that was helpful.

On the staff report, um, I did not see the demographic data analysis. I was kind of recycling the older staff report and I neglected to include that on on this version. Um, so I apologize for that. It's something I could get you um off offline after this meeting if you'd be interested.

I think it is important to note that this is within the East End Valley Street neighborhood. Um, the last time this came through, there was a lot of concern, consideration of traffic, very sort of robust and thoughtful um traffic and parking plan was adopted and codified with the the zoning approval. And I think if I remember correctly uh the commitment was made that they will follow the parking plan rather than we'll make the best effort to so it was a kind of binding commitment to the community and that stands that's not changing but that that was kind of the majority as I recall of the the concern

that was the focus of the public's concern. Um there were a lot of other modifications regarding things like the building height and um setbacks and landscaping, but the the majority of the conversation with the public um beforehand with the project and then with the planning zoning commission was that parking and circulation because it can get a little hectic out there with folks trying to find a place to park and go to the game. So, I think that parking um that parking plan's been in place for uh over I guess a couple years been um yeah action actionalized a number of times and will continue to be. I think I heard at the premeating that there was a community engagement meeting with maybe one person showing up. Did I hear that correctly?

That's correct. Yes, that's what Dustin relayed. Ju just curious while we're opening the hood. So one other point of discussion which was a you know insightful analysis by commissioner Wheatley was the proximity to the greenway connector along Buchanan Place. Any update on that project? Has it been paused or is it still kind of in the greenway planning pipeline? Don't know the status of that off the top of my head. We can definitely get you more information. Um um he might You want to share?

Dustin Clemens, uh, capital projects division manager, did kick that greenway connectors project off probably a year ago. We ran into some problems with a contractor who just wasn't able to perform work acceptable manner. So, we went there getting the bonding company involved and we have a new contractor that is supposed to be starting this week or next week. Um, and the sidewalk that was actually installed on Buchanan Avenue is going to be placed because it didn't meet the We've got a new contractor who's scheduled to kick off and it should be a seamless process. Um timing is great because you know baseball season couple months ago.

Great. Appreciate that. Just a quick question maybe not related directly to this project but for the community that connector runs along Builtmore down Short Cox over to Nasty Branch I believe. And so that entire project is now activated or just this portion? We're starting at McCormickfield and going exactly the route that you just said. So all of that is going to be constructed with the new contractor that we have on board. Excellent. Thank you. Questions, comments?

I will open the public hearing at 6:14. No. And I will close the public hearing at 6:14. Last comments and if not, I'll entertain a motion. I'd like to make a motion, chair. I move to recommend approval of the conditional zoning amendment requested for the property located at 30 Buchanan Place zone institutional conditional zone and finally the request is reasonable in the public interest is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and meets the development needs of the community and that the request one dedicates adequate resources to meet the maintenance demands of existing parks including sufficient capital and operational funding consistent with the best management practices and community standards for high level of service and two continues to create accessible urban places throughout the city and ensure services, amenities, and resources are designed to serve residents as well as visitors.

I'll second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed?

Motion carries unanimously. Thank you and best of luck. All right. Uh, last on our agenda, 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 7-14-1 relating to nonconforming accessory dwelling unit structures planner coordinating review is Sam Starbomb. Mr. Starbomb.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. It is good for you. Again, for the record, Sam Starbomb, planner 3 with City of Asheville's planning and urban design department. And as the chair had noted, what we have before us is a very targeted zoning text amendment relating to or accessory structures and accessory dwelling units. Before I get into any of that, I want to talk a little bit about the structure of what my presentation will look like. There's a lot of information. I think it's best contained in in parts, if you will. So, first I'm going to look at what the staff recommendation on this zoning text amendment is. And then we're going to look at what this amendment is. The second act will be what staff has been up to since August 6 when we saw you last. And then third, we will conclude with compliance with our our living Asheville comprehensive plan and that recommended motion. So, staff of course recommends on this. We do recommend approval. It is a targeted zoning text amendment that will aid in infill housing by allowing the existing non-conforming accessory structures to be converted into accessory dwelling units without having to go to the board of adjustments for variance. This is about the process only about removing the need to go to the board of adjustment. Staff does recommend approval on this. As I just noted, it is in alignment with the living Asheville comprehensive plan, which we will get into at that third act. But I did also want to mention ways it also aligns with other plans. Now, by statutory requirement, we have to include living Asheville comprehensive plan and talk about how planning staff aligns with our comprehensive plan. These other things are are not required by statute, but they are no less important. And and this is something where both the missing middle housing study had recommended that we remove regulatory barriers. The housing needs assessment had also said something similar about ADUs. And then most

importantly, our affordable housing plan on on page 35 in goal three and and specifically uh subgoal 3.2 had talked about reducing regulatory barriers citywide to make housing a reality. And that's what this zoning text amendment does. So what is the zoning text amendment? This is what is before you today is changing the language of 7141 to read this accessory dwelling units may occupy conforming or lawfully created nonconforming existing accessory structures or lawfully created non-conforming primary residential structures. So this is what this looks like in practice, right? This is 17 Pinedale Road. This is one of 16 VA cases that were heard over the last 26 months. This is in northeast Asheville. And and here's what you have. You have a property with two structures, a house and what was an accessory structure. Both were built in in the 40s and 50s, which is well before the Asheville UDO, which was was first passed in 1997. And these structures were closer to the property lines than those 1997 setbacks allowed. Right? So that ADU is about three feet off uh the side and three feet off the rear. The house is also closer than what the current code allows. So this is why this had to go to the board of adjustments and and claim hardship because the house that they were currently living in and and the accessory structure were were older than the ordinance allowed. And so that was their hardship. So they had to get a variance to turn that accessory structure into an ADU. So, this brings us to this statistic and also what Ashville uh planning staff have been up to since August 6. We've been doing research and outreach and this is what our research has found that 37% of all structures in Asheville residential areas qualify as

non-conforming structures. Two points on this. That is not to say that 13,000 of these structures are suddenly going to be rushing into the board of adjustment. That's not what we're saying. We're saying that these are now eligible or have always been eligible for this kind of hardship at the board of adjustment. So we have acknowledged through our research that there is a a large number of our structures over one-third are existing non-conforming. And the second point that is relevant here is that this is not just detached structures. This includes residences that are already lived in. So a lot of these and then Vidilla can give the exact numbers but the the uh the majority of these are are already single family residences that are occupied. So that's a little bit about the research. I want to talk about the outreach that staff has performed since August 6. The first thing we're going to start with on the left is the work that planning staff coordinated with Cape City of Asheville public engagement on September 1st. uh neighborhood contacts for all registered neighborhood associations received notice of two public information sessions that happened on September 10th and September 18th. Uh a nextdoor posting was provided on our Next Door page about these two information sessions. God forgive me, I had to make a a social media reel. It was uh it was um quite an experience. I I'm happy for the grace and patience showed by Cape, but we got that done somehow. And then of course we had our first legacy or our first information session September 10th. This was virtual and it was recorded. And then immediately after the conclusion of that first virtual information session that was sent to Legacy Neighborhoods and then Trey Herby who works with Cape also anytime he was at a neighborhood meeting spoke up about these two information sessions that happened. This isn't just one thing that happened on September 1st. That level of outreach happened all

the way until tonight. So like I said, we had our first September 10th confirmation session that was virtual. That recording is still available. And then the second one was in person. That was September 18th that was held at the East Asheville Library. That was in person. And that brings us to where we are today. So this is the outreach and the research we've done. And I want to talk about what we heard at those two out two outreach and info sessions that were held on the 10th and the 18th. Mostly we heard a general support for accessory dwelling units and infill. This is something that the city has has wrestled with for a while. This is something that as Villa had mentioned in the premeating, you have seen on May 1st, 2024, there have been other iterations. The public is generally supportive of infill housing that is more gentle than larger developments. We did hear about concerns with STVers. STVRs are short-term vacation rentals. They're legally for Airbnbs. This gave us the chance to explain the mechanism for enforcement and what we do, right? So, Shannon Morgan, who works for planning and urban design, is is the code enforcement officer that that works with these things. And that is not a a matter that is impacted by the process of having ADUs approved. But that is one concern we heard and and that was addressed through explaining the process and making sure this individual was was in touch. So if she sees anything illegal, she can report that more efficiently. We did get questions about parking. Again, what is before you with the zoning text amendment is really only about the process by which that this is reviewed. So an off- streetet parking space is still required for an accessory dwelling unit. So they will still have to get a zoning permit and they will have to prove one 9 by18 off-street parking space if you are to get an ADU. And then the last thing which we have I believe Villa has passed that out is the ABCs of ADUs. There were two representatives from AARP or the

American Association of Retired Persons who attended that second session and they passed out these ABCs of ADUs. And here's what they said about ADUs. And these are the benefits. You can read these. You can see the fonts which is fun. Uh but this is this is generally the benefits of ADUs as espoused by AARP is that you can provide housing for a hired caregiver. What is is most common is that this is an area where you can provide some independence for family members but have it be on the same lot. Right? So if you have parents, this helps for aging in place. If you have a boomerang situation where where a a child has gone to college and is coming back, you want them in the same area, but but they still need their their independence from the family unit, that's something the ADU can provide. And of course, this is not just benefits for landlords. There's a tenant benefit here where where these smaller, more subordinate structures are are typically uh more affordably priced than other forms of rental housing. So that's what the AAP says about the benefits of ADUs. And I wanted to include this slide which was also featured in in our outreach sessions and this was also I believe in the August 6 presentation. But these are are 15 of the last BOA cases about non-conforming existing structures. This is important to note for this reason alone that that no one geographic area or neighborhood is benefited more than others or nor harmed more than others in terms of of these accessory structures. They are are evenly spaced and and we find as we did when we were doing the analysis of how many homes are are non-conforming, how many structures and residential areas are non-conforming that there's a a even geospatial spread across the city of Asheville. So this brings us to this third and final component of of our presentation with its owning text amendment this evening. Staff recommends approval

because again it aligns with the comprehensive plan in three ways. The first of which of course is it encourages and facil facilitates infill by using existing non-conforming building inventory. That's encouraging responsible growth. Second way is it improves government efficiency. Going to the board of adjustment takes time and money. It is a much longer process than by right developments and and that is a challenge for anyone who has an existing accessory structure that they want to turn into an ADU. And then third and finally, it allows residents with existing non-conforming structures to build wealth without needing time, money, expertise. Right? So this is an equity issue. Uh there are people who have these resources that is not available to everyone. And this is this is providing all residents with the ability to turn an accessory structure that is existing non-conforming into an accessory dwelling unit. So for all those reasons alone, staff recommends approval for this zoning text amendment, and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Starbomb. As always, a very uh thorough and and helpful presentation. Um any questions? Yeah. Um I had a question just about process of identifying lawfully created um non-conforming structures um through aerial like how how do we determine when a when a structure was built I guess.

So there are a couple of ways to do this. what I can do for you is walk through the methodology of coming to this number, this 13,768 uh non-conforming structures and residential areas. Right? So, what we did is we looked at building footprints, which is a county geospatial layer and and then we were able to see which of those were within six feet of property lines, right? Because the setbacks as they are currently for accessory dwelling units are six feet off the rear, six feet off the side. So that's how we looked at that is we were just simply doing a a building count of structures that were within that geographic measurement that was aerial. There is a way to filter those out based on building data. There is a property card and there is a year built column that is information we can look at but we did not do for this presentation. This is simply looking about this structure and its relationship to the property lines because that is what a nonconformity is. And again, most of them tended to be single family residences that were already occupied but could support

Yeah. I'm curious about structures that don't appear on property cards that maybe also not have a a building footprint in the Bunkham County, you know, like like a

how do we determine if a structure is lawfully created or unlawfully created? Well, I would say this in response what we used was the more stringent metric because it is an aerial capture for the building footprint layer. So, it will capture all things not in the property card if there are are ways in which they have matched building footprints and have been ground truth to existing structures. So, we are already capturing more perhaps than what the property card would. Uh for instance, I I know that there are a number of accessory structures that aren't included, but because their roof line is shown, that was captured by that building footprint analysis. Now, to your other question about what makes it lawfully conforming and non-conforming, that's that's a little trickier part to do geospatial geospatially from an aerial analysis. We can only look at nonconformities from the property line. And that is by the way what most of these variances were for. Only one of those 16 we have seen in the last 16 months exceeded the gross floor area. And that's because that was a much larger lot from a much different time. So So overwhelmingly the number of board of adjustment cases have been about that proximity to the property line. So that's what we an uh analyzed. Um,

yeah. I'm just I'm I guess specifically what I'm asking is so this language for the text amendment is lawfully created non-conforming. Mhm. I'm trying to get at how do we tell if it was lawfully created? Oh, uh, it was permitted or captured in our permitting system. So, so it is a permitted structure, correct? Okay. So, an unpermitted structure that exists would not you can never even if that structure was precode wouldn't count as lawfully created because it doesn't have a permit.

I want to be careful about that because I you know I live in a house that was built in 1919 and is is way closer to the property lines. I that certainly did not get a permit. I I don't think I am in violation. Um what we want to be sure there is a way where we we capture that's meant I I think what's important is did they follow the procedures of the time which they did in 1919 unlawful structures would be they didn't get permits now

so maybe another way of asking commissioner cycles like very I think good question is um the current process through board of adjustment variance application is a at attestation about a hardship and so that is the applicant like states their hardship. were this to become an administrative byright review, what would the process be? Would there be sort of a similar like this structure was built lawfully at this point or

Yeah. So, that's an excellent question and there's a way to make that lawful, right? So, so again, this is only about that BOA process. You will still have to get a driveway, a grading, and a zoning permit to turn this into an accessory dwelling unit. I had referenced that parking question, right? So, you're going to still need to submit a site plan with that information. We are still going to be capturing that building information that was built before our our permitting and and ordinance rules.

Is that just a a followup um to the 37%? I think I maybe heard you say in the premeating that you do have a map of those and they weren't concentrated in any one area or any one neighborhood. Right. Correct.

Other questions?

Um I'd just like to make a comment um and say thank you Mr. Starbomb. think kind of a little bit off from this topic, but I've been here for years and one of the common themes I've always heard is p, you know, about public engagement. How's that being done? Um, and in your presentation, you very clearly show what was done and even what was heard. Um, so thank you for that. I feel like I'm very happy that staff and you are like it. I know it's been done. I have been on many meetings with Mr. Zaka online. And I I know it happens, but like seeing it laid out like that is awesome. You know, so many times we see developers come in here like, "Yep, did a community meeting last week and they just keep talking. It's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, like what was said, you know, what are the cliff notes?" So, um, I just wanted to say thank you for that. It seems like that's what I would like to see on like these projects, not just from you, but like the other applicants and stuff. So, thank you.

You're welcome. And thank you for that feedback. I've got a couple questions about community engagement, so I'll just piggy back off of that. Um, one of my questions is you mentioned the the um, Trey going to neighborhood meetings and I'm curious if there was feedback and what kind of feedback um, came from those neighborhood meetings aside from these two info sessions. He was not there in the capacity to get feedback from there. He was just promoting these two info sessions and and in fact the meetings he went to were unrelated to ADUs. He was speaking on other matters. So it was just for advertisement.

Okay. Thank you. And then for the two info sessions, um I'm curious, a lot of feedback that I've heard is still a lot of confusion about what is an ADU even, what do those letters mean? Um so before we even get to the conversation about lawfully conforming, etc., um there's still a lot of questions in the community. And so I am curious, were these sessions specifically focused on the text amendments or just talking about ADUs or a combination of those things?

It was in effect ADUs 101 and and I can get you the presentation. I can probably pull that up. We talked about literally this what is an accessory dwelling unit and there were examples provided about how this can be attached and detached, what this means in relationship to a property and what the city of Asheville UDO says. Right? So you're only limited to one ADU. You can't have ADUs and commercial units. It it only gets to be a single family residence and an ADU on a residential lot. So the the 101 of ADUs and then we got a little bit into well actually we got a little bit into non-conformities and this is the exact example used. I think a visual example really paints this picture where people go, "Oh, wow. My house is way closer than that, too, because this is, you know, Asheville experienced this tremendous boom from 1919 to 1929 and again in the 50s well before our UDO." So, so once people see that, they tended to relate to it more. So, it was really about what are ADUs, what are variances, what is the city doing, and what are we hearing.

Thank you. Um, just kind of as a side note, I know that the legacy neighborhoods have had conversations about wanting kind of a a planning 101 and that would be a series of workshops. And so I think this would be something great to have. And if you all do others in the future, um, please let those neighborhoods know that, you know, you've got these snippets of of recordings. Um, I think my last question on community engagement is did you get did you collect any kind of information about who showed up at those meetings and and um I'm really specifically asking where do those folks live, what parts of the city, what neighborhoods. Did you get any of that information?

We did not get any of that information captured. Unfortunately, turnout was lower. uh the online 10 people RSVPd only two attended and then at the Hawk Creek East Asheville Library folks who were there that was better attended there were were six people there were also some people from staff and then the individuals from ARP those individuals tended to be in in sort of the north or east area because of proximity but it was um you know it was with best intentions we had Spanish language materials We had we were getting ready for child care, all these things and then it just it was a beautiful sunny day and no one wants to do that, you know. So, it's it's our best intentions fell short of the reality. So, there wasn't a need with that few people.

Um I I do agree that it's great to see you all getting out there. It's great. You know, I saw the social media posts and you all are excited about it and trying to get people excited about it. Um so, I appreciate that. Um, I think it's important to continue doing these and, um, when we speak about how this relates to equity and how it's potentially, um, helping those lower income individuals. Uh, I want to make sure that we understand that a lot of families and households don't even know that they can do this. Um and so if we're going to talk about equity, let's also um involve neighborhoods and lower income residents to make sure that there is at least that base understanding. Um another comment that I have heard from residents is that when folks go to sell their properties, they don't know that they have that value in the property. And so in in that scenario, it um negatively impacts those lower income individuals who are not able to capitalize on the future value of being able to do something like an ADU. So I just wanted to put that out there from comments that I have heard.

Thank you. Please do not like and subscribe to anything I put on social media. But the good news is is we have the blueprint to do that. It was it was surprisingly easier for the script in working with Cape and I do think we will see more of those in the future uh because it is such an effective way to get that messaging out and and you mentioned planning 101. I know that Christina Israel and I had discussed similar things especially as we're considering larger items with with recovery dollars to get that information out there. But that is staff agrees with you and and thank you for that input. Um just you know these are maybe a couple of broad thoughts not really in the weeds but we have a I think I have a few questions um one you know kind of around regulatory reform in general because you kind of touched on that as um one of the imperatives that we have and a goal in the affordable housing plan. Um, we we know, you know, study after study shows we know we know we need more housing units in Asheville. We know we need a greater diversity of housing types. Um, we know we need kind of all the tools in the toolkit. Um, there's also the question around how, you know, how do we implement it? And I think that's the one we've been wrestling with as a community for the last couple years. you know, we had um a lot of energy and impetus put into the missing middle housing report. The first time this came through planning and zoning commission, it was really bundled with a, you know, what was at the time contemplated as a phase one of missing middle reforms and we've, you know, evolved and had a deeper understanding of the broader conversations we need to be having and in tandem with anti-displacement measures and the affordable housing plan. So I think we, you know, those of us on commission who are engaged

um in this work for the last couple years see the progression. My question around this one is why this very targeted surgical amendment now uh decoupled from kind of the broader enterprise of facilitating broad regulatory reform. I if you recall in August 6 there were actually it was I was calling it an omnibus zoning text amendment ordinance because there were five those other four were related to the BOA. This was imperative just because of the BOA load. One of the things I didn't talk about and it is less of interest perhaps to the PCC is the staff load. There was a lot of staff time spent on these and and so this was it was targeted. It was paired down from what was already approved by the PCC on on May 1st simply because we we were working with those four other things which came from statutory requirements and and more aligning with Bunkham County. We threw that in there because that can be a small uh lowhanging fruit if you will, but it was again this is is more related to BOA process than it is anything. Thanks for that context and I think that is helpful you know that this is the tail end of kind of BOA related reforms. Um you know it begs the question though we we know we have so much more to do.

Yeah. Um, yeah, I guess is is that kind of the most important focus that we have is relieving a very minor administrative burden on BOA? Sam, if you'd allow me to Okay.

add something here, that'd be great. Um, really this was approached as a technical fix to the ordinance by staff coming in u with the benefit of it may create some additional housing units. Um, one guidepost for us when we're looking at how our development code is working is if we are issuing a lot of variances for something that tells us that section is broken. Um, and as we were approaching board of adjustment really truly administrative fixes, this seemed like a good fit to go with those to fix this ordinance provision to uh fix that part of the code that is telling us that it's broken by hardship being found on a recurring basis, the grant variances.

Thank Thank you for that. you'll you'll get no argument from me that the code is broken. And I think we even have, you know, the the coalition has built the mayor even said u and I'm quoting here, the UDO sucks and it's very old. Um I hope that's close to a direct quote, but so um you know the the question is it's a it's a statement of our values of where do we start? And I think that, you know, this was seen as an, you know, at face value as a very adjustment to kind of relieve some administrative burden, maybe facilitate a few more housing units in the community. Um, but, you know, it's like if we're spending the energy, why why not go bigger? Oh, well, I will answer this and then Steph can weigh in. I will say this. I don't think that's mutually exclusive. Again, this is BOA related. That's why it was quick. There is no one silver bullet to all of these. You you can you can't have either large ones or small fixes. You kind of have to have both. Staff is cognizant of that. So, this is one again targeted and BOA related has taken us, you know, now four months from July. So small small ones is also somewhat of a misnomer because there is no small thing that we do when we we provide info sessions, we do outreach, we do this level of research. So I I I would say that small isn't really accurate either, but but we have to have both approaches and this is just one of those many. And we have other approaches in our quiver and and I'll let Steph or Director Doll speak to that. Anything she wants to add?

Yeah. Hi, Commission. Steph Dah, planning and urban design director. I just wanted to remind everyone, I know um these things sometimes aren't put on signs that we keep out and remember, but uh in this past year, we did relay to council twice. um both at a work session that they had to set their annual priorities and then as council committee at uh peed that we would not be bringing them any more substantial changes for ordinances um until we did UDO work and part of that also included until we had a significant amount of anti-displacement work done in the community. So this may seem small to you, but we absolutely believe that this is the kind of work that doesn't trigger a need for um additional displacement measures. That's why we're not bringing you that substantial work.

Okay, understood. Any other questions for staff? And then we will open for public comment at 6:46. Commissioners, please approach my I should have started the meeting this way. Uh we accept public comment in advance and in person in person public comment. Uh please state your name and you have three minutes if you're just representing yourself. 10 minutes of speaking on behalf of a group. So

well my name is Laurel Radley and I live in South Asheville. Um but I'm here with three hats. One is that I was one of the people at the um October 18th session um as part of um a being a volunteer for AP um and most of my volunteer work for them is revolves around housing issues. The other um hat that I that I wear is um I'm a member of uh Bunkham County's age friendly housing options for aging in place uh task group and um we've been looking at ADUs for some years and we've held f focus groups and you're right there's a need a great need for education. Um just what is that? Um, thank goodness you now now have a an ABC to um to refer to, but um and we really struggle because we're just we're a group of volunteers. Um, and so we've only been able to kind of move so far with some of those efforts, but we would love to work more closely with the city um in in kind of getting getting these options out to people so that they know um that there are options. Um and I think the main thing about that we understand ADUs to be uh beneficial to people is that um there's there's a whole constellation of how as you move through the aging process they can be useful to you either just as a as a feature of um affordable housing or as you're aging and on a fixed income perhaps um using that extra income or providing a home for a caregiver or living in it yourself so that your family can come and and live in your um primary home. There's there's all kinds of permutations of how it can help people problem solve um how they

can meet their needs not only to uh get through the later stages of their days uh with more accessibility perhaps um and other ways of meeting physical needs but also the emotional needs of still being able to remain in their community and um be a part of what uh makes their life meaningful. I even and then my third hat is my more personal one and I have created two ADUs in my life. Uh one was for my mother who never used it except when she came to visit us. Uh we used to live in DC because um it was a wonderful space that would have allowed her to come and live with us in an accessible way and still have autonomy. I think that's an important piece about ADUs too. It's not just an in-law apartment where they they just have a room in your house. The other piece is that um we realized that even though she was willing to come and live with us, when she really needed the caretaking um that we would have had to provide her, we didn't want her to leave Mon County where she lived, where she was just a treasured person in that community. So we came down and took an out building in that county um in our prop where our property is in that county and um were able to live with her for the last three years of her life because we had this um separate building where we could allow that separation if she was getting tired of all that chatter I was making or whatever. um you know we could go over and and and just give her some peace um and and other ju it's just to describe to you how um impactful adus can be to people and how simple it can be if we make it simple for them. So, I highly recommend that we do um move forward with these kinds of acts and do much

much more. And the HOAP group, even though we're with the county, um we're very willing to work with you as well to help um maybe create some educational experiences and figure out some other ways of simplifying access to these uh kinds of options. So, thank you for letting me go on way too long. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, chair and commissioners. My name is Siku Coleman and I'm here representing the Legacy Neighborhoods Coalition. Um, we understand your role tonight. You will recommend for or against the ADU changes and item will proceed to city council either way. We also want to acknowledge the way that several of you, including your chair, have been active in conversation with us. That steady face-to-face engagement is the kind of relationship LNC strives to build with city partners. Our understanding of the proposal is that it is a process change. Some ADU conversions will move from the variance and board of adjustments path to an administrative path. This underlying uses are not new. The path would be and streamlining can help and in high pressure areas it can also reduce community visibility. But for the record, we want to clearly state several points that matter to legacy neighborhoods. First, displacement is not only the moment when someone is forced to move in our communities. It also shows up as cultural loss, social disconnection, and environmental stress. Any change that affects where and how small units cluster should be viewed through that line wider lens. Of particular concern to legacy neighborhoods is the increased density and the impact on quality of life, lack of parking planning for this increased density. Also, recent public information on ADUs did not clearly link to this specific amendment, and so many residents remain unaware that a process shift was being considered, which contributes to confusion and mistrust. Additionally, there is concern that legacy residents will be even more vulnerable to predatory investors who will see now additional rental income potential in aging homes with aging structures like garages and experience pressure to sell for undermarket value. Understanding where pre-existing structures are located across neighborhoods is important because without basic mapping or counts, it's difficult for the public staff or

council to weigh whether conversions are likely to cluster on certain blocks. Many residents continue to view ADUs as a family and aging in place tool. So clear communication about how detached ADUs relate to the primary lot and what cannot be split off and sold as a separate dwelling in single lot neighborhoods helps align expectations. Finally, transparency builds trust. Plain summaries of outcomes over time, such as where conversions happen and how access and parking are handled, will allow residents to see the whole picture. Thank you for considering this perspective as you forward your recommendation to council. LNC is not opposed to adding homes. We are for adding homes in ways that keep people and culture at the center. And we appreciate the relationship you are building with us, which models how lived experience and planning expertise can work together in Asheville. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Quite the setup here. Um, my name is Andy Paul. I am a lead organizer with Asheville for All. We advocate for prohousing policies. Um, and I'm here to offer support for this amendment. Uh, you know, I wasn't going to come down here tonight. My understanding this was a really simple cleanup uh amendment. And I read the letter that you all were sent. um some of which was just reread and it and it really struck me that there's a lot of fear um it seems like there's a lot of fear sort of fear of the unknown fear of change um and that's understandable and I I think particularly when you're a homeowner when you've been in the same place for a while when you're comfortable where you're at um you know change can be change can be scary um I think what's less understandable is when fear becomes fear fear-mongering and um and and then that that goes to sort of less understandable and more unfortunate. Um I believe we don't have anything to fear from modest incremental housing in our neighborhoods. Uh given that we have what we need to add 11,000 homes in Asheville over the next 5 years. Um I believe we don't have anything to fear by welcoming uh new neighbors into our communities by by welcoming renters to live alongside homeowners. I don't think we have anything to fear by welcoming younger people to live alongside older people. Um and um and I just want to say just one thing. I I feel like I need to say this at every opportunity whenever someone talks about displacement which is our missing middle studies displacement risk assessment. I think I got that right. um clearly states that missing the missing middle

itself is an anti-displacement strategy that it needs to go alongside other strategies. Um you know there's no way to prevent people from being displaced when when when you're playing a kind of a zero sum game um I had I had one more thought um which is um you know I can't remember what it is but that's okay. Uh thank you all very much. Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak during public comment? Seeing no one, I will close the public comment at 656. Um, any other questions, deliberation by the commission.

Uh, I I appreciate Excuse me. Sorry about that. Um, I appreciate the public comment. It sprang a question for staff. Um, has staff reviewed and do they know or feel if um, property values will increase for homes with existing non-conforming buildings on their site?

That's on a case- by case basis. It's going to depend on the type of accessory structure. We have not done that level of review for this amendment. Villa, is there anything you would add to that? Um, so in your professional opinion, having an existing structure already in place built that has um an expanded allowable by right use um you're unsure if that will increase the property value.

I'm not unsure. It's going to depend on a number of factors. If it is in good health, it is is something that can be converted to an accessory dwelling unit. It probably would raise, but again, it's it's just so much of it is contingent on the type of accessory structure, the footprint, what what condition it is in, but generally certainly could.

Okay. Thank you. Um you spoke a little bit about um the geospatial threat um being evenly spaced throughout the city. Um yeah, that slide is a perfect perfect slide that I was thinking about. Um and it it does look relatively evenly spaced. Um but uh do we have we studied if harm is e uh equally spaced throughout our city?

It depends on the type of harm. I know that there are are climate justice, climate threats, other other types of of harms that have been analyzed and that would be included in the missing middle. But again, I would ask for specificity, but are you talking about in relation to uh like displacement harm, like lack of access to culture, lack of ability to stay in housing, um age in place, all of those sorts of potential harms. Yep. So those I don't think those are based on the the missing middle housing study. I don't think those are equally spaced around the city. So right

I just wanted to point out that the claim that though the you know they're geospatially equally spaced the impact of each of these identified properties may the harm or displacement index might not be an act. Um and if I may commissioner wheately these are only the ones that went to the board of adjustment there. Um these are only for the ones that received variances. This does not include ADUs that were approved by Wright that were new builds. So, this is only looking at BOA cases. I want to be there's a lot of nuance and specificity in this. So, I just want to be clear there.

Yeah, I really appreciate that actually triggered kind of a different question, which is do we know how many ADUs have been permitted in the same 26-month period? Not in the same 26-month period. We do know from 2021 that is 116 accessory dwelling units. 73 of those are detached and 43 are attached. And that's in another equal heaven geospatial distribution. We can send you the the web mapping layers. Yeah, I I really appreciate excuse me appreciate that because you said that was 2021,

correct? So, that was four years ago, and I'm not great with math, but it looks like about 30 a year um are being permitted. Um so, 16 over a two-month period, or excuse me, a two-year period. Um there definitely that's cool and significant um relative to the overall number of UDA ADUs being produced. So, I appreciate that. um since I think it was March 11th of this year um when the flag lots and cottage clusters um were passed by the city of Asheville and uh city council adopted a new ordinance which included appendix 7F um I think at that meeting there's pretty clear notes um at that time during that meeting around discussion obviously many continued deliberations by city council on those two ordinances. Um but a lot of discussion around putting on pause um development inside of the leg legacy neighborhoods or amendments to the UDO inside of legacy neighborhoods and kind of a reaffirmed commitment to looking at those areas as potentially being we'll say a little bit uncertain or unclear as to what the harms may be. Um, is there has there been any, we'll say, better understanding about displacement in those areas that would make us want to exclude including appendix 7F in this amendment to ensure that we meet the commitment of pausing the UDO modifications within the other parcels appendix. Commissioner Wheel, sorry I got a little

lost in that question. So in other words, has there been any new information that would y I can I can reframe the question for those who didn't understand, but essentially is there new information that would make sure that would ensure the community feels that they're being honored as city council, I'm assuming, would want to be honored by their request to pause um UDO amendments within the appendix 7F parcels.

So, I want to clarify that what city council said is that they are interested in in additional anti-displacement measures similar to using the 7F section of the UDO to modify certain new amendments. Um, I did not hear that council was interested in necessarily pausing development, but I think we understand each other. I think we're on the same page. Um, and to be clear, I think what staff's position is is that this is a amendment to rec that recognizes that at the board of adjustments, people are having to pay money and go through a latigious process in order to do something where we know they are going to be proved that they have a hardship and we're just eliminating that eliminating that hardship. In essence, what staff believes is there is no difference between what people can do now and what this ordinance, if adopted, will enable them to do. Therefore, the risk of displacement of any kind is extraordinarily low compared to the risk of displacement from the ordinances that we have in place right now.

That's really cool. I I appreciate you articulating that so well um better than I articulated the question. Um you you brought up a a a point in there which I I find really interesting which is that we know there's a hardship um that these nonconforming structures are creating by not being allowed to be able to be turned into ADUs. And so I guess is is any place where we can't have an ADU is that a hardship? So for instance, is having a setback at all? Is having a setback at all a hardship?

Um again, that's going to be context dependent. If if if it is an existing structure in a setback again like my house which predates the ordinance that is considered a hardship if it is a new build that would not be a hardship right because that's that's the existing regulation. So I think in this instance it's more about age. Um so presence of setbacks alone is is neither a hardship or not a hardship. It just depends on

Yeah. I guess specifically if I bought a house in 2024 under the 2024 regulation that has a nonconforming structure on it and therefore I buy it with the knowledge that that non-conforming structure cannot be an ADU. So that's knowledge I have at the time of purchase. Is it truly a hardship that I cannot turn that non-conforming structure into an ADU since it's the law? Maybe. And and I apologize. I'm not trying to be reticent or or stubborn or combative, but it is it really is sort of a case- by case basis. The ones we've seen have just simply been older. I I can't speak to knowledge they had, but the board had to evaluate all of these things, right? There are some that are are inches from the property line. There are some that are again, there was one instance that it was actually larger in terms of gross floor area if that was a hardship and and that's what the BOA evaluates on a case-byase basis. Generally, I will say just as I did for 17 Pinedale, if if you purchase a structure, the structure was built at a time that is is the house and the accessory structure were were older than the regulation, then that would be a hardship.

Sam, can I add to your answer? Um, I just want to add that it's not staff's we we don't determine if a hardship is present. We don't determine whether or not the state f state required findings in order to grant a variance have been met. That would be the board of adjustment. Um what we do determine is a track record of 15 consecutive applications that have been approved for this hardship. So that illustrates a pattern for us.

Excellent. Thank you. It is it possible though that the board of adjustment as as as our board changes it possible that the board of adjustment this pattern dissipates for example with new understanding similar to what commissioner Wheatley was saying which is you buy something with the understanding with the current code that I I can't use that as an ADU right I bought it for that price can I now then claim that as a hardship the board of adjust currently has been seeing that as a hardship, but is it possible in the future the board does not see that as a hardship?

Again, I don't want to speak for the board and and the question about trends is something that was asked on August 6. There was some question about what the board of adjustment can see and and you know again not all 13,768 uh non-conforming structures will line up out the door to get a variance tomorrow but there is there is a clear evidence that there is a significant inventory over one-third nearly 40% of residential structures would potentially qualify uh to seek that variance if this were not approved. So that's as as far as a trend. I I I think again we're not concerned with what the board order of adjustment does or does not approve. That's not our purview. What we're interested in is is the trend line which is telling us that there's a lot of of structures out there that are non-conforming. And that takes time, expertise, and money. And that is a challenge for for staff and for homeowners alike. I don't know if this will help or not, but it would seem that it's not a hardship if you bought the land and came, you know, had knowledge of it, but the legislature changed the rule of variance standards um when they created 160D several years ago. So, one of the things you're supposed to say, the hardship did not result from actions taken by the applicant or the property owner. Then they added but the act of purchasing property with knowledge that circumstances exist that may justify the granting of a variance is not a self-created hardship. So it's become more of a less of a test that part that you're speaking about. I you know so I I just yes it's the board of adjustment that decides but these are the state mandated man mandated standards and I think staff legal their staff would start to caution them if they you know if they were going for a field of applying these standards correctly. I

mean you can't control it but just like in your quasi judicial there there's times where we say well you know these are the things to weigh but variance standards are much more sort of cut and dry. I just wanted to point that out. It's kind of like that uh cintillaa of evidence that I have to go over with you. So there yeah if that helps at all.

No that does that helps a lot. Thank you. I appreciate all the information and discussion and I think adus are great and I'm sitting here kind of continuously thinking of the question for whom who is being helped with ADUs and something that I'm coming back to is uh the condition of the structures right and so there may be ADUs in the legacy neighborhoods that um could be benefited by the changing of this amendment and do those households have access to capital. Um so those are the kind of questions that I'm grappling with and I think it's really important to be thinking about those questions and have some sort of answers to those questions. Um the other and with that it may not cause direct displacement of the physical type that we talked about but it may cause that social or cultural displacement because who has access to capital are the people that are going to be able to convert the ADUs. So I just wanted to make that comment.

Yeah. Um, I appreciate you bringing that up. Uh, within the missing middle housing study, um, they provide a ton of great information and on page 136, it really talks about the application of anti-displacement strategies to specific areas um, including high vulnerability, high change type areas. And one of the key components to this is they list an ADU affordable loan program. And I think that's something as far as like legacy neighborhoods, you know, equity, um, access to building out ADUs is is really important to kind of pair with that anti-displacement measure. Um, I mean, I can speak to upfit of um, we'll say underutilized structures because

136 on the actual bottom of the sheet.

Yeah. Um, I am, you know, a licensed general contractor who focuses specifically on adaptive reuse. And if someone were to just call me up and ask, you know, how much is it going to be to upfit a currently uninhabited structure that has no plumbing, that has no insulation in the exterior walls, that has all these parameters, I would actually quote them a a price likely higher than just new construction. Um, because in this case, you have to go into the existing building, deal with the existing framing. It may not even have 2x4s 16 inches on center. Like I've seen these. It's like really it can be slap dash construction inside of these non-conforming structures. So what that looks like is probably at least $350 a square foot. Um so taking round numbers say a,000 square feet that's $350,000 just to get a detached ADU up and running. And I think with inside some of our marginalized communities with inside the legacy neighborhoods that $350,000 say 250,000 really any number over I mean I think the statistics something like 70% of the United States doesn't have even $1,000 to access in their banking account. Um that's to me that seems tremendous burden within our community to think about you know lifting ADUs up in a meaningful way within neighborhoods in our city.

Go ahead.

Well that what what that raises for me then is like who has access to capital right and then and then we talk about the education piece. So now we're now in my mind we are talking about the potential for physical displacement because you have a developer who understands the ADU structure situation has access to the capital maybe resident doesn't understand the value of the potential that nonconforming structure. I I think one one thing that I'll add as context to the the broad continuum is um to me there is a a sequencing challenge to doing um the important work of facilitating more house more diverse housing types in our communities. This one does seem like the obvious and correct first move because it it mobilizes our existing building stock. And so it is sort of that that gentle density if other broader reforms come first. This is kind of my questioning earlier was getting to um we place existing properties more at risk if we facilitate say quadplex in a lot of uh residential areas before we have enacted a more by process to actually build a physical structure within an existing habitable unit that just is non-conforming lawful structure. So I I do think this is the correct first move. I also agree that it needs to work in tandem with access to capital and some of the provisions within the affordable housing plan. However, we we know that land use regulation and land use reform is the slow game and programmatic um opportunities can't if they're available before the land use then they're not useful. And so

I think we we you know the land use is kind of the first piece and and then in very clear and direct tandem the mobilization of some of the contemplated programs within the affordable housing plan would would need to quickly follow. So, um, while I understand the kind of residual concerns from the Legacy Neighborhoods Coalition, I I support this and I think that this is an important first step and we need to redouble our commitments to ongoing engagement and ongoing work towards anti-displacement measures within the affordable housing plan. And I just I just want to add on to that. I I don't want it to seem like um you know all these questions are confrontational in any means or ways possible, right? Like um these I just all this information is very important and I think we've learned a lot over the last two years or so um in regards to this and so I think the conversation just needs to be had. I'm not, you know, I I too am in in support of this. I just think the education piece, um, the programs need to come as well.

Yeah, I was I was just going to double down on what, you know, both the previous commissioners said is that, you know, these these questions aren't to be combative. there to have open dialogue to build faith as best we can in the community to um provide resolution to the amount of detail that we're trying to review the text amendments with. And really an attempt to just operate in the be best faith and I got to say I'm always impressed with the amount of work that you guys bring to the table and how much you especially on the data side really dig into helping us understand helping the community in the city.

Definitely not intended to be combative in any way. So,

and staff feels the same way. Thank you. We we do feel that the the quality of conversation has been elevated. I I don't feel that way. So, so we appreciate the questions and the conversation and and staff acknowledges it's it's $35,000 and that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. There's a lot of challenges with housing. This is not easy work. If we wanted easy work and we wanted to be popular, we'd open an ice cream shop. This is housing though, and this is just one less challenge to that part. Any parting comments, questions, or are we going for a new record on our uh time of meeting? Just kidding.

Um I I would actually like to make a motion if that's okay. If you'll entertain it. Okay. Um I am going to attempt to make a motion um with a slight modification. So if I stumble or don't say quite the right thing and we need to discuss it, we can. But I move to recommend the approval of the approve of the proposed wording amendment with the exception that we exclude other parcels as identified in appendix 7F to chapter 7 of the Asheville Code of Ordinances. And I find that the proposed amendment is reasonable in the public interest, consistent with the city's comprehensive plan, and meets the development needs of the community, and that the amendment will encourage responsible growth by one, simplifying the process to create backyard ADUs through adaptive reuse, two, using existing building inventory for infill development, and three, improving government efficiency. So, we have a a motion. Before we um second that, could we get some feedback from staff on the feasibility of applying an appendix 7F exclusion?

I'm thinking of this. So, we have the downzoning issue that we cannot downzone. make some non-conforming uses able to go around the variance process and you say that others in other certain neighborhoods can't have that relief. I think that's a legal problem in a way that what we did before was we added new restrictions on to certain areas and we left the other neighborhoods as is. We didn't change the zoning for the legacy neighbor, left theirs as is. And then we added the more permissive like flag lot standards to areas that were outside. So we didn't downzone and we didn't create some process that you know so if a certain thing needs a variance I don't think you can say well in these neighborhoods they still have to have a variance and That's what I'm thinking.

Does the UDO read that something needs a variance? You don't have to seek a variance for nonconforming structures. If if somebody in one of these neighbor

if a property owner wanted to use property owners that are other places who choose like good the whole time we've said we're not this doesn't by changing this it doesn't say to anybody that they have to create an ADU or do anything to their property. There is the discussion about are they going to have pressure on them to sell their property and then they might have then they might do something but that's not the same as saying okay now all property owners have to do this

if I can chime in um that that helps and I'm having trouble understanding how it's different from like easing the law uh the regulations on flag lots, right? So, we're not making anything more difficult than it is now. add an existing flag lot and we held that standard up zone. The other same in this instance.

No, it's not a zoning thing. It's a process thing. They're not have variances for some areas and other have to do a variance in order.

Are you suggesting in this case it creates some sort of unequal protection? Yeah, probably. by the city pro.

Two two points to add here. Um, first of all, we I I just do want to go on record specifying parcels that are exempted a part of a zoning district or overlay is a very um non-user friendly way to go about zoning the city. Um, but more importantly, it creates some very large loopholes uh that can be used to get around it. Um, so just so you all know about that method uh of designating parcels, but um I will also say that uh with the information Janice has given you and that information, y'all do have a motion on the table. Um I would urge y'all to just proceed with business.

Thank you, Mr. Collins. Um yeah, I you know I share this I share the concern that appendix 7SF was not a solution that actually came through planning and zoning commission. It was kind of an 11th hour contemplation. Um, and so it I I have some hesitation about sort of doubling down on a methodology. While the underlying values I think I share, the sort of mechanism doesn't seem like one that was uh has withstood the test of sort of planning staff analysis and scrutiny. So um yeah, I I don't know where others are at. I think I would seek a friendly amendment to um suggest a deeper exploration of the appendix 7F applicability and a clear um report as to why that could or could not be permissible as this as our recommendation heads to council. So that is I don't know if that's something you're open to or whether you want to keep the motion on the table as stands.

Um first off I'd just like to reiterate again none of this is combative. It's all trying to open like just have an open transparent dialogue. I think to be really clear, I'm sure everyone at this table shares some feelings about the 7F appendix and having that come along afterwards and us not maybe have a full understanding of it. Um so there's also kind of a learning process for us in the um 7F appendix. Um and also um what I've seen when there is a variance between what staff recommends and what this body recommends is that staff in it totality including legal does a very good job of defining the differences between those recommendations and guides council in a very appropriate way. So, I would like to re uh keep the motion as stated and I really appreciate and look forward if should it pass um for to staff's analysis and office analysis. So, we have a motion on the table. Do we have a second?

Second. We have a motion and a second. Um all those in favor, please say I. I. I. I. Any opposed? We have one. Nay. The the motion carries. Sorry. Did you not vote? Um, did not. No. Uh, I'll vote. I'll vote. Yay. So, the motion passes 4 to one. Um, and look forward to the that is the recommendation out of this body. We know it goes to council and look forward to the further analysis. Thank you.

Appreciate everyone's work and all the debate and contemplation up here. Um so with apologies, we are at the end of our agenda. I we did contemplate in the premeating that we would have a brief discussion and deliberation around um new membership. So, there was an application period for uh joining planning and zoting commission that closed September 28th. Council, I believe, will be reviewing applicants before we're back together. So, um would those of you here like to spend just a couple minutes talking through what's missing, what could be useful to join our board just as informal advice to council?

And I just have a clarification question before that. Do we what do we have any kind of input on looking at the applications and recommending who we may be interested in?

Yeah, good good question. Generally, the clerk's office send and has sent the applications to the chair. Um, in the past, I've distributed those to the full commission seeking input, and you're certainly welcome to weigh in. I will do that. I have not yet looked at them but can commit to kind of sharing the applications with the full commission so that you can review. I think for this conversation it might be helpful to be more general rather than just like specific person that we recommend thoughts on what would be useful as qualities for this board. High threshold for pain.

Yeah. Um, no, thank you. I think it's good that we talk about it really briefly. Um, I do appreciate the mix of backgrounds on this board. We have contractors, we have architects, we have landscape architects. With um the passing of Byron, we are now missing a on the board. And I know it is my opinion that like those are key people in the planning and zoning thing because they are seeing what units are being asked for by people coming here, people. So, you know, I value in having a realer's opinion. I also feel strongly um not just an optics thing, but I reiterated this when we got our last two um members. You know, I do think it's important that it's not a group of all men or all women. I think it is important on the board to some degree and I stated that last. happy to see we got not just an all male, you know, we got two, you know, female replacements. I think is important, not just for optics, but just for, you know, representing an actual pie slice of the community others. I I really appreciate um you pointing out just the gender diversity as well. I think commissioners of a skaya has done incredible tonight. I know anytime that it feels like maybe you're in like a minority position or have a minority perspective, it can be hard to speak up and share. And so I would definitely back Britain's call to keep the board as balanced as possible. Um I I also think we have a really strong uh competent board and so you know continuing to build on that in areas where we don't have competency whether that be in lived experience um in marginalized

communities or the legacy I think that lens is really important right now. Um and I also found it interesting to call out like the real estate market. Yeah, I think it's been a drastically changing time over the last 18 months, whether that be um interest rates or political instability. I think the housing market has changed significantly in the last little bit.

Yeah, agreed. Um yeah, one thing that I'm I I see as a value I definitely agree with the diversity of opinions strengthens our ability to kind of look at um issues from a broad range of perspectives. Um you know one thing that's important to note is as we look at housing issues we are now uh a majority renter community or very close to it. So um you know renter perspectives being reflected in land use considerations is really strong. It's it's also difficult to achieve. Um but that's something that if if we do have applicants that reflect the tenency background rather than the ownership background that's that's helpful. Yeah, thank you for that. I would also add or someone who has recently become a homeowner like in the past five years because that's a whole different process than a couple decades ago. Um, and then I'm curious how other people feel about this. I haven't fully thought through if this makes sense or not, but maybe somebody with an economic development background because I think sometimes what we're missing is hearing um like how how housing impacts other markets. In in some housing presentations, I've heard people talk about um employers, right, and what they're looking at and what they're thinking about. So, um some of that experience And the last thing I'll I'll iterate is um I've said this before when we've had other new applicants and I'll say it again. I like that the Legacy Neighborhoods Coalition is, you know, appears to be getting more organized. I'm seeing more input from them. I love that. The best way to give someone agency is to give them there's a way to get them they're obviously a group who feels like they want to be heard and are making moves

toward that and toward any kind of person from those groups you having more agency by having full seat at the table. All all of my thoughts were were taken. Great. Well, uh, and unless anyone has anything else to say to stretch us to our no more long meetings. All right. Well, then, uh, we'll I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. I I Our next meeting is November 5th.