Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

We are live. Hello and welcome to the June 3rd meeting of the Asheville Planning and Zoning Commission. I am your chair, Jeffrey Barton, and we'll begin with a roll call. Chair Barton. Present.

Vice Chair Seichel.

Present.

Commissioner Burrell. Present. Commissioner Faircloth. President commissioner is yeah, president and commissioner. We have a quorum.

Thank you. Mr. as a reminder as some just early housekeeping, please speak directly into the mic when you're speaking and also for accessibility. If you'll introduce yourself if it's not clear who's speaking just for people following along. Um, remotely. So we will begin with our land acknowledgement. As we are gathering today as the Planning and Zoning Commission, the body tasked with reviewing and advising on appropriate land use in the city of Asheville, it is fitting to acknowledge the storied history of this land. We occupy the land of the Cherokee people who have stewarded and been in relationship with these mountains and waterways from time immemorial. This land is occupied through violence, oppression, coercion, broken treaties, and forced relocation. Please join me in expressing respect and gratitude for the present day Eastern Band of Cherokee, the Cherokee Nation, the United Gadua Band of Cherokee, and all of our indigenous neighbors, as well as the past and present marginalized community members as we seek to join in the healing of the indelible trauma that is embedded in this land.

Thank you.

Normally, next up, we have the approval of minutes. Our last meeting was May 6, 2026. The minutes weren't linked to the agenda until very recently. So I'd like to kind of table the approval of minutes to our next meeting, if there's no objection from my fellow commissioners. City Council Chambers, Okay, so we'll table that and have it in tandem with the minutes for this meeting next time. City Council Chambers, Next up under updates and reports, we have updates from committee liaisons and work groups and guessing we we'd still have an update from multimodal Commissioner and Toledo.

City Council Chambers, We have a potential meeting coming up get to be scheduled, but no updates at this moment.

Thank you. Any other committee liaisons and work groups that have updates for the commission? All right. Next up, a report out on recent legislative and administrative actions.

I'll kick it over to you, Mr. Palmquist. Sure, thank you, Chair. and legislative actions by city council these were the two conditional zonings that were before you at last month's meeting the conditional zoning for caribou commons for 100 dwelling units was denied unanimously at the may 12th city council meeting the conditional zoning for 1116 sweet and creek road apartments for 126 dwelling units was approved and adopted unanimously The questions on those.

Mr. Palmquist. Next up, our standing agenda item to hear an update on comprehensive plan and development regulations.

So not a lot of real updates since our last meeting. We are still in the RFP response evaluation phase of the project. So we are moving through that and narrowing down the the the list and and honing in on our top our top uh development teams or our consultant teams we hope to make a selection in the next few weeks or so um we anticipate the project start date uh sometime perhaps the the end of july We're kind of working backwards from the July council meeting for a potential contract approval date. So we have that date in mind and we're trying to meet all the milestones along the way to get there.

Thank you. So interpreting what you're saying, is there like a shortlisted subset of the applicants at this point?

Yeah, we had an initial screening rounds and a first round of of interviews or doing a second round of interviews to kind of narrow that pool down and should be able to make a decision from there so definitely got a lot of great responses so it's been our work challenging but that that means but we'll have a we'll have a great consultant team on board help us with the projects.

Questions from staff for staff.

On the um. The people bidding for that work, was there time constraints put on completing the work, or was part of their proposals projecting what that time is, or?

So we had proposed a draft schedule in the RFP. So they had responded to that. And I don't think there were really any issues with any of the proposals as far as meeting that timeline. So we're anticipating the projects running the rest of 2026 and then 27 and 28, essentially. So the proposals kind of morphed. Propose how they would use that time and allocate the different portions of the project accordingly. Um, but we're the ones kind of dictating the overall timeline of the projects at this point.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Out of curiosity, this is commissioner's leader. Um, out of curiosity, could you give us an idea of. How large the subset of applicants was to what it got narrowed down to.

So I don't think we're sharing that number publicly. And we'll just be cautious because there's a lot of rules around bidding and purchasing and stuff. So it wasn't a huge, huge number, but it was definitely large enough to get a really good cross-section of the industry and be able to have a lot of flexibility. Yep.

Thank you. So before we move into the public hearings on the agenda, our next regularly scheduled Planning and Zoning Commission meeting would fall on July 1st. We've been trying to find an alternate date with Commissioner absences due to the holiday, the July 4th holiday. I don't know that we have a date yet, but Mr. Palmquist, anything you want to kind of lead in a discussion of getting our next date on the calendar?

Yeah, so I sent that poll out last week to solicit availability from everyone. Thank you for responding to that. We were targeting the following week minus the Wednesday since that's HRC in this room. And there wasn't really a great day that worked for everybody. It looks like Monday the 6th, Tuesday the 7th, and Thursday the 9th worked for four people, four out of seven. So we need to make sure that all four would be available so we have the quorum. Um, we could still consider the July 1st date. I know I heard from, um, new chair and then I think, um, commissioner is F scale that you would both be unavailable. Is that accurate?

No. Who is that?

Was it you miss role? Okay. So we had two confirmed absences for July 1st, but maybe that's, maybe that is the best date still.

Um, as everyone else here on the first, I am.

Okay. Yeah, thanks for checking.

And Vice Chair Seichel, want to take a round with the gavel?

I am available on the first. Is that preferable than having more folks absent, even though I know you won't be available, Chair?

It sounds like it would. Getting buffer for having five available and four necessary seems better than going with only four that we know are available.

Well, then maybe we just end up keeping that July 1st regularly scheduled date then if it works for more people than the other dates the following week and forge ahead in your absence.

Sounds good.

Okay.

Enjoy. um great thanks for that so our next meeting which we'll reiterate at the end of today's meeting will be july 1st at the regularly scheduled time five o'clock with a pre-meeting at 4 30 on the fifth floor um so appreciate everybody's availability for that date So as we move into the public hearings on our agenda, just for the information of those members of the public who have joined us today, we do accept public comment at today's meeting for items listed on the agenda. The typical process is we will have a staff report on each item, and then the applicant will be invited to prepare and share any supplemental information, and then after that, We will ask some clarifying questions and then open for a public hearing to be able to share your feedback on the proposals that are on our agenda. We also receive written public comment in advance of the meeting via email to pzcommissioners at ashevillenc.gov. And we read all of these comments as they come in. appreciate you sharing your insight as concerned community members and look forward to hearing what people have to say today. Each member of the public who wishes to speak has three minutes of speaking on behalf of just themselves or 10 minutes of speaking on behalf of a designated group of three or more. And we will ask those three people to identify themselves to see their time. With that, we do have one zoning map amendment on our agenda, item number five, that the applicant is requesting a continuance. And now that we have a July 1st meeting date, we will at this point entertain a motion to continue item number five on the agenda until July 1st.

Did the applicant give a reason for the continuance or just was there any specific comment that you can share?

really just that the applicant and staff are working together to better understand the maybe the implications for the change of the zoning and what could be done under the existing zoning so maybe just taking a pause and re-evaluating whether it's necessary and if it was initiated and enacted what the impacts would be with like things like landscape buffering since it's next to residential zoning so I So just a chance to kind of, yeah, take a closer look at that before moving forward with requesting that change of zoning.

Okay. And I know our July meeting is looking pretty robust, just like this one was shaping out to be. Is there, does it look like, you know, that that is likely to be ready for July? Or, I mean, is there another option for us as far as continuance goes?

Yeah, I mean, if we had to continue them to July, we could either recontinue them if they request it or just re-notice it at the appropriate time. I can't speak to the exact timing. That'll be more from the applicant side about when they want to bring it forward. But we can definitely look at the case management as we get closer to that meeting date to try to smooth out the load a little bit from meeting to meeting.

Yep. Is that applicant here with us right now? I don't guess not.

819 Patton Avenue. Yes. I'm Jesse Swords with Ask Law. We're representing the applicant in that. We would likely go forward on July 1st if we can't work it out with staff in the meantime. Is that the question?

Yeah.

It's just a large load for July on our current July meeting. I'm just curious.

I mean, I could talk with my client about scheduling, but I'm hoping we can work it out and knock it off the agenda. Knock it off, OK. Hopefully.

Hopefully. Thank you.

So if there's no other comment, I'll make a motion to continue item number 5, 819 Patton Avenue to the July 1st meeting. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. And as a reminder, please introduce yourself into the mic when you're speaking for people following along remotely.

This is Chair Barton.

So to go backwards on our agenda to item number one, we have a zoning text amendment item, a request to consider zoning text amendments to the UDO chapter seven of the Asheville code of ordinances to eliminate minimum off street parking requirements, increase the maximum allowed size of accessory dwelling units and permit duplexes as an allowed primary use in all residential and certain mixed use zoning districts. This item is being requested for a continuance to July. However, we do have a presentation from staff for our discussion in anticipation of it coming back. So I'll introduce Ms. Munson-Dahl.

Good afternoon, commission members. This is Steph Munson-Dahl. I am the department director for the planning and urban design department for the city of Asheville. So today, first I'm going to introduce this topic by providing an overview of how the city is approaching any of these early regulatory changes to the Unified Development Ordinance And that's really a discussion about our anti-displacement and affordable housing initiative, well becoming known as the ADA initiative. After that, Chris Collins, the assistant director, is gonna walk you through each three of the proposed amendments and talk about them from a more technical perspective. So the Anti-Displacement and Affordable Housing Initiative is really an opportunity for us to have discussions and work in tandem across city departments and across the community to look at not only policies and programs that support affordable housing, but policies and programs that support the residents that live in our neighborhood, and to really make a statement that we care about anti-displacement. So it's visually showing that these things can happen together. the strategy for this initiative draws from a lot of work that you all or your predecessors and much of the community has seen so missing middle housing initiative the affordable housing plan and then more recently if you have watched a presentation that was given in march at city council the legacy neighborhood coalition's priorities it's a framework that helps us have a discussion about how we can work better with legacy neighborhoods And the whole initiative is really meant to be something that the city, for their part of it, and, you know, spoiler alert, we say this all the time, can't do this kind of work alone. It's depending on a lot of partnerships with different organizations, associations across our community and the region. But the things that we're talking about doing, we're talking about trying to get them done in one year. And so far... a quarter into it, we are on track. So that's the good news. The objective of ADA is through best practice engagement to identify and implement actions that can address affordable housing challenges and minimize displacement. and I paused there for a second so that everybody can really hear that and know that I think the conversation level setting is that none of us want to displace residents here in Asheville. However, I'm not sure And I hope that you are not sure either that there is a magic bullet to prevent displacement for every single person, every 92,149 or what have the population numbers be today. but we're gonna do our best. And we're gonna do that with three things in mind. So the first I mentioned, which is this requires staff to work cross-departmentally, to coordinate some of the work that we're doing and be strategic about it so that we actually create synergies and stay out of silos, put these things together. In the number two thing, which is in a mindful sequence so that it can have a better impact, and actually work in both areas. And then the third part is authentic engagement. And here's another word that I'll comment on. What does authentic mean? Anybody?

Genuine.

Do it. Say it.

Genuine.

Genuine. Honest. Jason, I saw you. say genuine but it's also thoughtful genuine honest thoughtful I think all of those things are great descriptions and what I will tell you is that part of our approach to that kind of authentic engagement is also that we are bringing intentionally people who are the most impacted to the table and that we are trying to collaborate where collaborations can really occur on the things that people care the most about and that's different than coordination. So that's collaboration is working together to try to come up with solutions and to try to come up with consensus. We'll talk about it. So mindful sequencing. I want to point out where we are and how these things are fitting together. So this is a lot on one slide, but this is the plan, y'all. And we're sticking to the plan unless we need to course correct for major things that we weren't aware of that will come in, right? Or that like, we all agree, it's council's decision to change this plan. what they have agreed to is that they would like to see early missing middle changes sometime in that July area and they also want us to begin engagement on the anti-displacement tool development mitigation options and do a draft resolution of support for anti-displacement at Council in that same timeframe so what I want you to know about where we are in this schedule is that We have actually started that engagement, and you're gonna see the engagement kind of stacked up here in a minute. I mentioned that we are on track, but I know that many of you have questions about what should be adopted before certain things are done. And I wanted to just point out that the idea and intent from council is that they're going to start considering that resolution in June, and it's up to them of when they would actually be finished and ready to adopt it. And they can also control that final date of consideration for these three amendments. So does that make sense, that they have that control over those two items, and we're just delivering it to them? Thank you. Okay. Engagement. So this engagement rests on some old stuff, 2018 comprehensive plan goals. Those goals are still valid, and we know we keep hearing them over and over, but that engagement is not necessarily who our community is today. That's why we're redoing that plan, technically at least. Then we had some engagement that was pretty in-depth on these topics in 2023 and 2024. And 2024, we had a Planning and Zoning Commission early input and work on a lot of that missing middle area. recommendations. In addition to that, I didn't put it on here, but we did have seven, I believe, working group meetings for missing middle housing implementation, the same early timeframe that coincided with some of that planning, right before the Planning and Zoning Commission meetings on this. We had Helene, and we took a year off. Tried to figure out how to do this better. Heard a lot from the community. So that was March when council gave direction to staff and said we would like to see changes that could promote the production of additional housing opportunities. And at the same time, we don't want you to do that without thinking about the people that live in those communities. So people matter too. Displacement risk assessment working group. That's a lot of words. And what it means is that here's where we began to be very, very intentional. And while we had a kickoff meeting on April 21st, for a good 30 to 60 days in advance of that, the city manager's office went around to some of the folks who were coming out the most frequently from different areas. Sectors sectors like the legacy neighborhoods and sectors like the development community sectors who were pro housing people who were concerned about a lot of neighborhood impacts and said. we would like to get you all together in a community to talk so that we can really be more in collaboration mode and we're gonna keep you updated on the entire ADA initiative but we will really focus on a displacement risk assessment tool. So sidebar on that, displacement risk assessment tool is not wholly unlike what you saw in the missing middle housing study where we use data to better understand which areas of our community are most vulnerable to displacement. What is more unique about it is this concept of potentially using it to help better understand what programs and policies we could then match with certain areas to suggest that certain other investments should happen to help protect our residents in those specific areas. That group has been meeting now for over a month and they have been looking at different options that other communities have been using and talking as a group, providing feedback with each other. We then brought together a larger group, that group plus some more people from those same intentional stakeholder concern areas on May 20th and had a pretty large workshop. to discuss these three text amendments and the displacement risk analysis tool. And what we asked them when they were at the workshop is, for these text amendments, which of these gives you the most heartburn? Which of these do you think could benefit the community most? And which of these do you have the most Concerns about and think that they may impact neighborhoods negatively and what are they so those were the three questions? last night Cape went out Cape is our communication and public engagement folks. They went out to the neighborhood advisory committee and Also touch base with them in that very same way asking those three questions And then tonight we're here with you and I'm putting this all together and that you guys are on the top here to say like this is the meat of our engagement for this initiative. But spoiler, there's a whole other review process in here too. So this is straight up just engagement. Review process, in May, that's when we officially submitted as staff an application for ZTA, is zoning text amendment, an application for zoning text amendments. That's our base proposal. We really just said these are the concepts and we're looking forward to changing these current UDO regulations on these three items. Here's where we are today, June 3rd, 2026. This is in blue because I consider this to almost be continued engagement. Y'all are not gonna vote tonight. And this is for us to hear your feedback. Please, I know I'm talking and you're zoning, I know I'm talking, but it says provide feedback to staff. This is critical because the next step is for us to review and consider all the public input that we've heard and the feedback that You provide that's what we're doing in June okay, and now I stop and tell you what kind of feedback we've heard at a really high level. What we've heard is that the most concern that people have around the proposal to remove off street parking requirements. We have heard that the strongest level of support, and it's pretty strong, is for duplexes and town homes and the additional zoning districts. And the one that we've heard the most technical questions about is the ADU proposal. People have the most technical concerns about the ADU proposal. So today you will discuss all of those with Chris and the rest of our team. What comes after that is that we are gonna take the input we've heard and we are going to analyze it and say, based on what council asked us to do and what the goals are for our overall community, how can we use this input to tweak or adjust the base proposal? If there's nothing we can do, we won't do it. If there are 14 things we can do, we'll do that. If one of them needs to be completely dropped, then that will happen too. But you all vote in July, and that's your support to city council, is you're providing a recommendation. So if you feel like, oh, we really just need more time to massage this, what we're gonna ask you to do is just vote no. That's a no vote. And it doesn't mean that you don't support housing or anything like that. It just means that we are following our process and we will go back to the board and get council's input on it. but we just need that recommendation moving forward. So yeah.

So did we decide are those zoning text amendments going to be voted on as a bunch or as individual?

Individual.

Okay.

Great question. Individual, for sure. Okay, thank you. Now, I'm going to go backwards here a little bit, and for those of you that haven't seen this, this was also presented to... This is just the lead-in to Chris presenting right here. This was what was presented to Council in March, and we said there are plenty of... Affordable housing plan and missing middle housing recommendations, but these were the key recommendations that we kept hearing a lot about in our discussions With the community and here some that were enacted or partially enacted we might call it and then here are things that we think we can bring to you with, that are not gonna have a huge impact, and this is important, a huge impact on the UDO from a standpoint of are we doing more damage administratively to the community by taking a very damaged document that has poor linkages and some cross references that still don't work, right? What can we do that's easy? We can enable duplexes by changing something in the table of uses. And hopefully that is not going to cause any problems with people's ability to understand the ordinances. So this is supposed to be answering the question of why these ordinances? Why not some others? There's plenty of ordinances, you know, that we could look at and we could talk about. There are two that are on there, the triplex and quadplex development in all districts. We did not have enough analysis on what the impact that would be on a neighborhood to bring those forward. And similarly, the small backyard lots, we had a lot of interest in and discussion in and some analysis on that, but we recognize that that wasn't ready to bring at this time. I will share that if you look at this timeline, there is another, in November, on the bottom there, council touch point missing middle regulatory changes. They have asked if there could be additional updates at certain times. so just to preemptively answer the question is like will this be the only time that we get to look at amendments before the udo is adopted to or however many years from now i don't think so i think things are going to continue to come up but that's that will all be at council direction So thank you for giving me the time to provide an overview that helps the public, I know many of you already know some of this material, but helps the public understand how we're approaching any of these changes moving forward. No more questions or?

yeah i've got a question if you could go back to the timeline slides so yeah that one um understanding that this is kind of sweet one early easy improvements that don't muddy the waters on other udo rewrite complexity I'm curious about having these come before the anti-displacement tool is finalized, and also if you could talk a little bit more about the council resolution so that, at least as I understand the strategy of running anti-displacement work in parallel with zoning text amendment reforms, the pairing was resolution adoption with and ADU parking updates. And then the further November touch point would be possibly some other regulatory changes paired with the actual tool itself that does the work of enacting some of the protections that Legacy Neighborhoods Coalition has been advocating for. Am I understanding that right?

So I'll go back and say that to be really clear, to confirm, yes, there was always an intent to have council look at it as a resolution and have that be an early adoption. And I believe that they would like to adopt that before they adopt any regulatory changes. So that's why they're looking at this right now during the same time that you're, when I say it, they're looking at a resolution and they're gonna have more conversations about that. I don't think that that is a, that they haven't been, Reviewing that that's there's nothing out there that's in a draft form But there's just been input in three by threes about what could be in there And there's also the legacy neighborhoods input about what that what could be in there, so they have that intent and The second thing when you said about the anti-displacement tool, which may suggest potential policies or programs or other mitigating actions, yes, that would be later in fall. and potentially adopted around the same time those second regulatory changes are brought forth, which could be missing middle, that's what it says on here, but there could also be some other changes that come up, perhaps from you all. I wanted to stress that I don't think that the displacement tool that there is a clear understanding of the connection between the recommendations that it would make and how the city or other partners would then be able to operationalize that, and certainly not for some missing middle things, so for example, If you consider a duplex a missing middle opportunity, are we saying that for every duplex application that we would run a displacement risk analysis tool and then require there to be some investment? I don't know, but I don't think that that's what we're talking about. I think that there is a threshold of potential impact and that that has not been analyzed yet. Where along that spectrum is there an impact where this tool would then say, oh, you should make an additional investment if you're going to approve it. And again, approvals only happen technically a yes or no for something like that. That's a council level approval. Staff's administrative approvals I don't think were ever meant to be sitting in that same space. And I didn't mention that there are things in that same space that are also being worked on, like the notification tool, like the communication and engagement plan, inclusion of legacy neighborhood input. So there was a third thing you asked.

Now, that's helpful, I think, just to articulate the logic of the sequencing for, you know, the things that are planned for July versus the things that are a longer term, you know, take a little bit more work to build. Right. I think the question that I have is really around in the spirit of authentic engagement. And I'll just share from my perspective, I have seen that unfold in a really exciting way. I think the city staff and impacted community members are collaboratively working together to kind of forge the path ahead. And that's a really exciting momentum to build on. as a component of us contemplating regulatory land use changes that will also accomplish the goals of anti-displacement if done the right way so i think that's all to the positive i guess i i'd like to understand a little bit more um what's driving the july other than just, we have been talking about this for a long time. You know?

Oh, yes. I mean, why is council wanting to see the amendments in July? Exactly what you just said. Yeah, at this point, we've had three years of exploration, sometimes slow and paused, but Under our belt, we know from so many data sources what the best practices are and even from studies in other communities what the results can be with just making small changes to the UDO that basically decriminalize, if you want to put it that way, specific types of housing that were already legal. many years ago, and so council said, you know, we're ready to take a crack at some of these. We're not gonna make wholesale changes, but these items were already on our plate, let's follow through.

Thank you. That's helpful. And I think I'll just say one last thing and would love to hear my colleagues' thoughts. That authentic engagement is a practice, not a process. So it needs to be something that becomes embedded in the work of crafting the zoning text amendments and UDO reform. My hope is that we can remain authentically engaged with the impacted community members and the groups that are representing and reflecting not just excitement about the text amendments, but also concern as part of the long-term UDO overhaul, because I think that'll be the real measure of our collective impact as a community, is whether we can convert this intentional task force into a recurring practice.

Well said.

Yeah, I wanna, I'm just gonna echo that. Been witness as part of this workforce to a lot of that really positive engagement. I feel like people in the community have been livened by the engagement and feel reengaged in the process. And I would like to see that momentum continue in that way and you know would hate to want to to jeopardize that in in any way um because i think it's you know the trust trust is hard hard to earn and it's and it's you know it's it's being built back and it's a wonderful thing to see um commissioner bear cloth here i got two quick questions um

i saw on your breakdown slide mr hall um the funds at the end um of that timeline are those funds that are already committed or set aside or that is uh it is that money there or is that money like oh a want to have come from all this.

So I don't want to say for sure that that money is there, but when this slide was put together, this was the agreement. I believe that I can give you an update on that. I actually think there's some better news than what's on this slide. I think things have changed. and you'll see some other monies coming down the pipe from council decisions like on home repair and making other investments. So let me absolutely clarify and not speak out of turn.

I was just excited because Well, resolutions and stuff are good intent, you know, when there's actually funding for these things is when it really like gets teeth behind it sometimes. So I was excited to see that. My second quick question for the zoning text amendments coming up is the 7F stuff part of that conversation or we're going to dive into that more with like are we going to?

Yeah, it's a really good question. And I would say that staff remains opposed to the use of 7F on any additional text amendments for several reasons. One of the reasons is that it's legally convoluted. and it's not a best practice. There are other tools that we could create during the upcoming UDO update process that would be much more sound planning, like land use planning practices, so that would be the first one. There are loopholes associated that I'm not gonna describe here because I'm not gonna encourage people to use them, but there is a pretty obvious loophole to use with 7F and some other issues with it. So staff is just strongly, Opposed to the use, technically, can this body recommend that it continue to be used? You can make that kind of a recommendation.

Sure, and I'm not trying to put you in the hot seat. I think this board has mixed feelings on 7F. I don't want to speak for everybody, but I just want to be clear when we're looking at these zoning text amendments, whether that's part of that or not.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that, Commissioner Faircloth. This is Chair Barton again. And I would hope that a replacement of the intent of the protections of 7F can be contemplated before the UDO overhaul, because I think those loopholes and the legally compromised nature of what the intent of it is should be reconsidered.

This is Commissioner Broll. Just a quick question just to make sure I understand. The council resolution, like when this timeline was proposed, the council resolution, the idea there is that that resolution includes some sort of future commitment to creating and implementing an anti-displacement tool?

I believe that it's a commitment to work on anti-displacement actions and to work in a collaborative nature as described by the chair and vice chair with legacy neighborhoods and other communities or other neighborhoods. I think that question of exactly what that commitment looks like and what's included is really gonna be a conversation with the city manager's office and council.

Okay. And has the Legacy Neighborhoods Coalition provided like feedback or like on this timeline? Like have they indicated they're on board with the timeline? Okay.

Yes, so the legacy neighborhood representation is what I'll say, because they are very large neighborhoods, and then they have associations, but the coalition itself does have someone that helps represent them, and that person has been working with the city manager's office throughout the development of this initiative, and absolutely, this timeline has been seen, and... and commented on yes okay

So question to follow up on the timeline. Now that our vote is pushed to July, does then it go to council in August?

Right now the council day is still in July. So we had purposely at the beginning of this set it up so that you could have two months, knowing that in the past these decisions have included a lot of public input and that there would be a desire to do... some extended discussion right here on the dais.

And would that be at the same meeting as the resolution is adopted then?

That is unknown and up to council. Yes. So technically, public administration information here. The mayor sets the agenda. The mayor works with her team of city council members to determine what needs to be on or off that agenda. But I... I'm going to make a guess. Normally I don't like to guess, but I'm going to make a guess that they very much would like to have that resolution as soon as possible, but they have to work that out amongst themselves. Yep.

Thank you.

Thank you. And Steph Montindal, I'll just close that.

So do we have an overview of the substance of the text amendments? We'll kick it over to Mr. Collins.

All right, good afternoon. I'm Chris Collins with the Planning and Urban Design Department, and if you'll give me one second, I'm gonna refresh this to make sure some changes got committed. And that should do it, maybe. All right, hopefully they did, but don't hold it against me if not. All right, y'all are gonna get to hear from a lot of staff members tonight, which is different than some nights, so thanks, Steph, for that, for teeing this off. And what I'm gonna do tonight is take you through the concepts and the content of the amendments as you will see them mostly, depending on what your feedback is tonight at the July meeting when it's time to actually look at making a recommendation. So this package of updates has three concepts in it. First is an entitlement update to duplexes. Basically that just means allowing duplexes more places, allowing accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, more broadly and more flexibly across the city. and a reduction of minimum parking requirements for most developments citywide. So first let's take a look at these duplex entitlement updates. So everything I'm gonna, just to reiterate a conversation you had with Steph a minute ago, everything here is not related to Appendix 7F, it's just gonna deal with our base zoning districts and code. So as we follow through, take a look at that. This would modify section seven, two, five, seven, eight, one D, seven, sixteen, one, twenty eight. So this would be to expand zoning permissions for duplexes and create a concept and known as a two unit town home. Now, bear with me on that. This presentation will explain why we're doing that as we go. So quick facts moving in, duplexes are currently not allowed in any of the city's RS districts. That's our single family zoning districts. And an expansion of housing allowances and removal of regulatory barriers have been recommended by multiple plans and studies over the years. And this amendment would allow duplexes in all residential districts and provide the flexibility needed to create ownership opportunities out of those duplexes. So let's start with what is a duplex? So simply put, it is two units in one building on one lot. Right now, the UDO definition reads as follows. This is in front of you, a building that contains two dwelling units on one lot sharing a wall, to paraphrase. Floor or ceiling, sorry. So there are a few different configurations you can see. You could have them on one on top of the other, side by side. You got a little rendering there of a little kind of corner by corner situation too. So really it's just two buildings, two units, one building, one lot. Talk about duplexes in Asheville today. So the last year from April to April, we have received 18 permits for duplexes. So presumably that's 36 dwelling units, right? We currently allow duplexes in 26 zoning districts across the city. Again, none of those are RS or single family zoning districts. This amendment would allow those duplexes to be in all residential districts, as well as some mixed use districts, such as those in the River Artsborne District that don't allow them. The important distinction there, we're going to talk a lot about the residential districts because that's the only place it's a slight increase in intensity, right? Going from only allowing single family to allowing two. In these mixed-use districts like River Arts, they already allow more intense uses, just didn't allow duplexes. So that would just be bringing that housing type into the mix. Current zoning allowances. After I drew this, I know it looks really festive or Christmassy or whatever because of the color choice, but I apologize for that. We're in the wrong time of year. As stated, duplexes are allowed in 26 districts. You'll see on the map. Those 26 districts are green. They are not allowed in every other district that you see on red on the map. So what that means is that duplexes are allowed on over 15,000 acres of land, or 51% of the zone land in the city right now. That is 19,539 parcels. They're disallowed in 14 districts and disallowed in 13,759 acres of land. So 45% of the city's own land does not allow duplexes right now. And parcel-wise, that's 47% of all parcels. The proposed zoning expansion or expanded entitlement would include everything you see in blue here. So that would add are the following districts to the allowance for duplexes. That's R. S. two R. S. four R. S. eight N. B. which is neighborhood business. Rad residential rad and T. and red line and hollow. So, again, that would add forty one percent of the city's own land or forty three percent of all parcels to the allowance for duplexes. So basically that red and green map, this one here, if this went through as proposed, would change to that. So then we'd be looking at duplexes allowed in 92% of the zone land area of the city, 92% of the acres of land of the city, and up to close to approximately 99% of the parcels. because really the only thing non-duplexible, that's not really a word, but we'll use it, really would be our industrial districts at that point and a couple of RAD open space or conservation districts.

Sorry, can you say that again? It was conservation, open space, and what was the other thing? Industrial, sorry. And all housing is excluded in those industrial districts?

Not necessarily, no. We do have allowances for some housing in our CI or commercial industrial district. Not for single family or duplex in there though.

Okay.

all right so the other goal we wanted to do here is not just be able to create two units but also create and maintain ownership opportunities so there's flexibility in housing and when you've heard talk about townhouse updates in this this is why so townhouse uses within the city are special they are subject to special standards and these special standards actually increase allowances rather than restrictions on the use When you think of townhouses, we're mostly thinking, most people are like, oh, there's a row of eight connected vertical units. That's traditionally the kind of thing you see, and the special standards allow those to waive or reduce minimum lot standards as well as setbacks where there's a shared wall. That's how townhouses are able to go in where they are right now. So where that comes in handy for us with duplexes is our first proposal is going to say let's go into these RS districts and let's apply those special standards to a new type of thing which is a two-unit townhome. A two-unit townhome is the form of a duplex, right? So what this does is enables that interior side setback, so where the shared wall is, to be waived so two units can be connected on two separate parcels. It also waives that minimum lot width and area requirement so those parcels can be created, right? So that would let us take an existing duplex or a new duplex and create ownership opportunities out of those units and land. And that looks like this here. So let's say we have a standard 40 foot width plot with a duplex on it. Could be new, could be existing. Utilizing those two unit townhome standards that we are proposing to introduce here that would enable you to put a lot line right down the middle of those two units at 20 feet each and have compliant lots so through a minor subdivision or Plat someone could create an ownership opportunity out of these two units I have a question

If you can go back one slide, I was curious about the special standards. Is that an additional application or can you talk procedurally how that would be attained?

Not an additional application. In our table of uses, we have certain things that are identified as allowed with special standards, and we have a separate section of the UDO, section 716, that has special standards for certain uses, right? So if you go through the table of uses in our UDO, if you see an S next to use, that's gonna refer you to section 716, and a lot of times it's things like more restrictions on a use. In this case, it's actually more allowances on a use for townhouses.

I THINK THIS IS CHAIR BARTON. I THINK THIS IS REALLY EXCITING THAT THIS WILL BE KIND OF PROPOSED AS PART OF IT. MY QUESTION ON THE WAVING THE MINIMUM LOT WITH AN AREA IS IF THAT APPLIES ONLY TO VERTICALLY SEPARATED TOWN HOMES, SO DUPLEXES WITH A SHARED VERTICAL WALL, if the stack duplex would still be subject to the minimum lot area of the underlying zoning and lot widths of the underlying zoning?

Sure. So you can't really associate land with the stacking, right? Because they're one above the other, right? So in that case, there's other tools out there that we don't deal with in zoning. So we don't regulate those through our UDO. Things like condo ownership and things like that that could be done, but really there's no way to divide the land between two stacked units. So in this case, this is really the only option available to us to deal with through the UDO.

Understand that the land conveyance with the unit itself is the motivation for allowing for this but from just purely a form perspective you know we have our say rs2 and rs4 that have larger lot area requirements in order to we may be allow we may be incentivizing this model of duplex with attached shared wall because it may be feasible on more lots in those districts as opposed to a stacked And so because there's going to be some serious misalignment between lot areas that can be legal under an attached townhome versus a stacked duplex. So I just to kind of harken back to some points that Commissioner Anzalito has made in previous meetings, it may behoove us to. at least look at the lot areas requirements in the underlying RS and whether that could be a component of this if we're also considering this attached duplex townhome model as part of the suite of changes.

We will certainly, I'm not sure if that's one we can reach an answer on right now, but we'll certainly take that down as feedback and try and find ways to present anything we could incorporate. Definitely.

Great. Sure. I'm not sure if we show it here, but earlier Chris pointed out the front to back version, which also can separate land relatively easily. And if we don't talk about it here, we can come back and identify how how that can work, because I think what you're addressing is a better use of land. and in Asheville's narrow lots, the front to back, this middle version would be much more appropriate, right, because it's gonna take up less land than the side to side. So that might be a more appropriate template for Asheville, and we can sort of draw up how that would work, because obviously the back unit would still need some access to the front, like an easement. So that can be something we can work on.

Yeah, and we'll go back and draft up, see what we can figure out to work with that about different options for subdivision ownership or lot area.

This front-to-back model, though, would that not get caught on the minimum lot weight regulation? Since conceivably that's still a 40-foot lot weight, like both of them are on 40 feet.

But if the front to back, that requirement of minimum lot width would be waived under the attached townhome model. So it's kind of a quirk. It feels like maybe it would be incentivizing side by side and front to back as opposed to stackable, which is, it's just something that for all of us to understand that that might be the unintended consequences were driving a particular form

rather than creating flexibility to adapt within the particularities of each lot meaning we should we should look into lot size i i would and that could be a potential november right additional added on to additional suites too right i mean i don't think we're going to work on yeah yeah i agree not in the next month yeah but i agree i think we should look at minimum lot sizes um You mentioned the townhome special use requirements allowing additional use, but there are some pieces in there that are more restrictive. For example, on a townhome, you have to park in the rear. Is that required in this scenario?

So for townhomes, what it says right now is you either have to provide a garage or park in the rear. And we have left that for now. We'll take any feedback on that. We do run into issues with pedestrian zone and vehicle parking. conflicts right on a lot of our residential developments and. We feel kind of a goal is an urban form goal, but also a functional goal of trying to keep the vehicles out of the pedestrian zone and allow pedestrian mobility by having that vehicle out of the front of the house or townhouse.

So in this case, it's still going to be in place. And so if we have 20 feet, I'm imagining your lots are now 20 foot wide. let's say that unit is 16 feet wide, 14 feet, there's just not room necessarily to get a car back there.

And I can see where that would hamper an existing duplex, subdividing as well, so.

Would these amendments apply to both converting a single family home to duplex and brand new duplex?

Yes.

Just to clarify that. Okay. And a home with a downstairs apartment, for example, would that be considered a duplex?

That could be. It could be, certainly, depending on the size of the downstairs apartment. It also could be an ADU. So there's multiple ways that could go in a regulatory, from a regulatory perspective.

Mm-hmm.

That's an interesting question. Is the intention for it to be regulated with the sort of special exceptions of townhomes if you were to have a downstairs second unit kind of thing?

No, so the townhome would only come into play if you're trying to subdivide the land, right? So a duplex, enabling duplexes in all these zoning districts, these guys here, would just bring us to two units, two attached units by right per lot. So if you didn't meet the ADU, like a downstairs apartment didn't meet the ADU requirements, then it could be permitted under the duplex allowances. We searched and searched for easier ways to do ownership on IDUs, but we're like, this is kind of the, it doesn't feel clean, but in our UDO, it is probably, in our opinion, the cleanest way right now.

I got to say, I'm a fan of the duplex being considered as a townhome, allowing that ownership model to, Just because, I mean, I think trying to increase, giving people opportunity to either who have an existing duplex to be able to sell off that, right, instead of just renting it out, be able to sell off a piece, I think allows a lot more flexibility.

I agree. This is Chair Barton. And it's a model that's been used by Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity. So it's a way to further kind of absorb land and site development costs to keep homes affordable. And they've kind of championed this attached duplex ownership model many times before and seems to be working well. This is really exciting data also. And just before I forget, I'd love it if this presentation could find its way into the meeting materials so we can refer back to it.

Absolutely. Sorry, we were working out things on this presentation to the last minute, but it'll definitely be there. great thank you all right it'll be there in just a second um all right i'm going to keep moving on uh well real quick anyway so this is go ahead commissioner faircloth um as of right now there's no

square footage or size limitations to these proposed townhome duplexes, correct? No.

It would just be locked, dictated. Right, setbacks and height are going to dictate that, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so any other questions, suggestions, feedback? We'll have another catch-all question, suggestion, feedback slab before we're done, so... If you're a post-processor like me, take your time. All right, next up we're gonna talk about ADUs. So accessory dwelling units, this board, or a few of you on this board at times have touched ADUs in different actions. So accessory dwelling units, you're gonna hear me say ADUs a lot. This is be modifying section 725 and 714 . to allow larger ADUs, ADUs with a duplex, and remove the requirement to provide a parking space with an ADU. So a couple of facts as we dive into this right now, the ordinance limits ADUs to 70% of the size of the primary structure or 800 square feet, whichever is less, right? This amendment would allow ADUs to go up to 90% of the primary structure size or 1,200 square feet, whichever is less. Uh, 80 user currently only allowed on single family lots as I stated previously here, this amendment would allow 80 use on duplex lots as well. That would be 180 per duplex lot. And this amendment would remove the minimum parking requirements for it to use. So like we did with duplexes, let's start at the very bottom. What is an accessory dwelling unit? Here's some lovely pictures of different types. You see a detached garage with a unit above it. That's an accessory dwelling unit. There's a detached single-story small building there as an accessory dwelling unit, or it can be attached to the primary structure like you see in the third picture there. The UDO says right now that an accessory dwelling unit is a separate and complete dwelling unit that is contained on the same lot as the structure of a single family house or business. I don't know if we actually have land use allowances for businesses once I read that to have ADUs, but that's what the definition says, so. Okay, then let's summarize some recent ADU actions. So first off, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended in May of 2024 to expand allowable ADU sizes to 1,200 square feet. This was as a part of a suite of backyard housing amendments for anybody who was on the commission at that time. So we looked at Those small backyard lots, we probably talked to a little flag lot. We were always talking flag lots back then. And of course we talked about ADUs. I will tell you the initial staff presentation that was brought to this board at that time was an increase to 1,000 square feet. This board did recommend, this commission did recommend that going forward with a 1,200 square foot maximum rather than 1,000. Then in January of 2026, the not-so-distance passed. This commission recommended approval of a zoning text amendment to allow non-conforming accessory structures that were existing to be converted to ATUs. And that was the last action we had on them. So we have a few different changes running through here. So this table tries to capture all of those. So I'm gonna go through them again, even if you already heard me say them once. But right now we are at 70% of the primary residential structures goes for gross floor area or 800 square feet, whichever is less, for the maximum ADU size. We're going to bring before you this proposal to go to 90% of that primary structure size or 1,200 square feet, whichever is less. Right now, we do require one on-street parking space, one off-street parking space per ADU. We're going to be bringing before you a change that would remove the requirement for that on-site parking space for an ADU. Wouldn't prohibit someone from providing one, but we're not gonna check for one under that circumstance. Right now, ADUs are only allowed on lots containing one single family residence. We're going to propose that we allow ADUs allowed on lots containing up to two dwelling units. So the easy way to think about that is if you have a lot with a duplex, you can also put one ADU on that lot. And the last one is, Yeah, it is a change. Well, right now there's a requirement that ADUs be limited in height to 25 feet. In most of our in all of our residential districts, the height limit is 40 feet. So that keeps these structures lower. Right. It does still allow for two story structures, but doesn't necessarily allow for three or two and a half story structures, things like that. We also have an allowance right now that allows an ADU to pick up one extra foot of allowable height for every additional foot of setback. We're removing that. We don't see that done in practice, and we think it's just easier and more predictable across the board to cap ADU height at 25 feet. So what would happen is that just becomes an across-the-board cap at 25 feet in height for ADUs. Again, that's keeping these at a lower height restriction than primary structures which are at 40 feet in residential districts. There's just kind of a mass and bulk comparison, right? Right now we max out with an 800 square foot ADU. So on your left, completely random primary home size number of 2,462 square feet. So you're looking at a footprint of half of that right there. Right now, the maximum footprint or size of an ADU you could have would be 800 square feet at that house, right? That house size again, and the example on the right with the proposed regulations would be enough to max out the allowance. So that would allow a ADU at 1200 square feet. In this example, that would be a 600 square foot. That would be a one, would not be a two story. Yes, it would. Okay. So that'd be a 1200 square foot ADU allowance. It's just kind of meant to show the proportionality and how we go. We did run some numbers. So just so you know, to get to that 1200 square foot max, it would take a 1,333 square foot minimum primary structure. That's what that ninety percent restriction these are accessory structures. So you'd be looking at required six foot side and rear setbacks rather than primary structure setbacks. It does ease with citing a little bit. so that's what we're going to be bringing forward you want to put this out there too if in the course of this discussion neighborhood compatibility becomes a concern we have been tossing around and wanted to throw out the possibility to this group of a footprint limitation to go with that 1200 square feet we haven't written that up it's not in your proposal slides but it's something we've tossed around if needed for neighborhood compatibility concerns and that would work like hey you have an 800 square foot footprint limitations still with 1200 total, so you can go two stories or do whatever you want with that configuration. But just putting that out there for discussion for this group we're not necessarily recommending that right now, but it is kind of a tool that's out there if neighborhood compatibility becomes an issue. All right, questions feedback suggestions on ad us.

Thank you, Mr. Collins. Yeah, a couple of pieces of feedback on the footprint limitation. We did receive some public comment about that, that it makes a really compelling argument that we oftentimes hear ADUs as age-friendly and, you know, dwelling units that can help assist families accommodate an aging parent or relative. So by imposing a footprint area, we may be encouraging or driving two-story ADUs where one story might be more appropriate to help an aging population. So I strongly encourage we resist the urge to impose footprint area limitations. another comment we received that was a good one is the small home penalty so if we have primary if it's fully indexed the to the primary residence square footage and there's a modest primary residence the ADU is required to be smaller and even if that primary residence is smaller than the average homes in the neighborhood So to get around that, the city of Hendersonville has kind of a two-tiered approach where you have a 1,200-square-foot limitation if the residence falls below that threshold that would otherwise allow that, and then for larger residents, it tracks with a percentage. So I think that's a really smart, common-sense approach. I know we're looking to...

add simplicity and not complexity to these changes but that's one that i think is worth investigating and over the next month thank you commissioner faircloth here i got two questions real quick so we're part of this is referring to both attached and detached adus correct correct so the follow-up to that is i don't really get the 90 personally like what is cutting off that 10 do for us especially if it's an existing home and you're trying to make the basement or a part one of those levels that attached adu it becomes really weird and complicated when you're trying to cut off 10 of your square footage down there I I just think if we're moving that threshold up from 70 I don't personally understand why not just take it to 100 is what I would throw out there thank you yeah we've a similar sort of question I think is just like was was there I guess like the origin of those thresholds would be helpful like where 1200 square feet or where 90 percent

came from, yeah, I think would be helpful context.

Yeah, so my immediate answer for you on that, and we'll try and provide some data before you move forward at your next meeting, but as we went through the history, the original proposal where they'd use this body last saw we brought at 1,000 square feet. so i do know we went to the 1200 at the recommendation of this board so that's how we got that number originally and quite frankly to 90 was as far as we felt like we could push it to retain the accessory nature of the structure if that's important right so that's something for this board to kind of discuss some way in on i think

And this is Commissioner Broll, by the way. And an additional question I had is, is there, if you had a, you know, for example, like an existing shed or an existing detached garage or some other structure already in your lot that was non-conforming, if you convert that to an ADU, do you have to, can you still be non-conforming either in setback or... Yeah, other like block coverage or some other requirement or something like that.

Yeah, absolutely, so that's what this board and council fixed, I'll say, in January. Those non-conforming structures do not have to, they have non-conforming setbacks. You can't expand those non-conformities, right? So we can't get, if we have a three-foot setback, we can't get closer than that three feet, but we can work with it to build an ADU. Similarly, if you're a little larger than allowed, that's allowed, too, if it's a non-conforming structure, so.

This may also be a question for our next meeting, but I'm curious about how this works with our short-term rental regulations. So how are ADUs considered and would any of that change with this?

No, none of that would change with this whole dwelling unit. Short term rentals are still not allowed in the majority of the city of Asheville outside of the resort district. And that wouldn't change. The only thing that is allowed are home stays, which are also not allowed in their own. In its own dwelling unit, right?

So even a. A detached ADU is not considered as a bedroom of the primary home?

It is not, no. It is an additional dwelling unit. So outside of the resort zoning district in the city of Asheville, I'll just state this clearly for everybody, a short-term rental is not allowed to operate fully within a dwelling unit.

This is Commissioner it's leader, I have a question about the how or where the benchmark starts for the minimum or for the maximum square footage for the ad you so in the example of like a like a garage apartment if you build an ad on top of a garage does the space for the car parks is that included in the calculation for the total square footage.

So, as the code has it now we're generally working off gross gross square feet right. And that is. pretty much equates to anything covered, right? That's gonna count as gross square footage. In this case, the ADU code does have something in it right now that does, check me on this, it does count parking area as part of that. Normally, gross square footage is not counted as parking area, like when we look at commercial projects, parking decks are not included in the gross square footage for certain calculations, but our ADU code does currently require parking to be incorporated into that. Okay.

but yeah my feedback there would be if we could change that to a living space and if it's if it's a car or something or like a patio even that it would just be where wherever like a human being would be living in the dwelling and it would just be where we calculate from great thank you like a real estate agent would calculate it right heated area heated heated space heated square footage right i mean that's just yeah

You're saying like heated, heated space. Heated space, right, exactly, exactly. I just want to say something for the record. It doesn't have anything, I mean, it's nothing we can solve in this next month or whatever, but as we get into UDO change, one of my biggest concerns related to we have a lot of concerns with storm water right within the city and we were working hard to try to address those things um with with udo change and just with our resilience efforts um one of the big drivers um is private property right we have very little control over private property and um sub 10 000 square foot uh project work or disturbance area has no regulation, right? And so when we start adding in ADUs of 1200 square feet, all that additional impervious surface is not required to have any level of treatment. And so, as we get in, I'm a big fan of this, we need the housing, but as we get into the UDO rewrite, I would like to explore how we can capture, infiltrate, do something and look at doing something with that water. All those parcels, those 19,000 parcels you're talking about, if we get 1,200 square feet on all those, that's a lot of water. Take note.

Thank you.

Has there been any discussion of allowing these in other districts, like multifamily or business districts?

the uh not at an official level right i'm sure as staff we've tossed around a lot of ideas but um right now the only proposal this is as far as we've taken it it's been for single family we have some kind of really weird classification or udo that's like a accessory caretakers unit for a commercial structure we've seen it used like once and we don't fully understand it but um At this point, no, taking these ADUs to a duplex lot would be the first kind of step out of that single family ADU arena.

I'm just trying to like think about scenarios where like if you And maybe it's not an ADU. But like if you had a small footprint, you know, business and like it was the use was a commercial or business use and then wanted to add a residential structure in the rear of a lot. Could you do that or on top of the existing structure?

Right now, no, per the code. Although it is interesting, I pointed that out when I read the definition off, that it does say the home or a business, but then when you actually get into the regs, it doesn't allow for that. So it's an interesting kind of, did they mean to, did they not back when this was first happening? But right now, no, the code would not allow it.

And similarly, like if you had a single family home in a multifamily district, are you allowed to build an ADU in that case?

Yeah, it's going to be based off of use. Well, OK, in a multifamily district, honestly, you can have multiple units on the lot. So we probably wouldn't need to restrict it to the ADU restrictions. The city would just review it as an additional dwelling unit. Because you have a zoning allowance for more than one dwelling unit on the lot.

Yeah, okay.

On to parking.

Yeah, like I said, we'll have one more catch-all at the end. And parking's a little shorter. All right, so the next one to talk about are the minimum parking requirement proposed changes. So this would just modify Section 711-2, specifically our parking table, which has gotten a good bit shorter over the last 18 months, but this would propose to make it a little shorter still. So, quick facts and supporting statements to start out here. Minimum parking requirements have proven to be a barrier to creative development, and those developments may pass the cost of that extra infrastructure on to residential users. We do have local data points for you to show that parking is frequently, if not almost always, provided by developers, even when not mandated. And this amendment would remove minimum parking requirements for all uses except hotels within the central business district zoning while retaining maximum parking allowances. All right, so there's a lovely picture of a parking lot. And what is minimum parking? Well, it's where we go into our UDO and we say we're going to use some ratio of your business, your dwelling unit, to say how many spaces we need you to provide for safe and adequate space for the temporary storage of vehicles. That's what we call it in the UDO. So let's talk about past parking efforts. So in January of 2025, this commission recommended approval of a similar amendment that eliminated minimum parking requirements along transit support of corridors and within mixed-use zoning districts. Quite a few of you were with us for that, so you remember. This did include a recommendation to city council that all minimum parking requirements within the city be eliminated within six months. It has been a little more than six months, but here we are talking about it today. So here's a quick table summary of the current and proposed UDO requirements. So right now, this is the easiest way to distill it. It's a little messy in the code, because it's by zoning district now. But within transit-supportive zoning districts, those are those along our major corridors and within places like Haywood Road downtown, All residential uses have no minimum parking requirements while thirteen non residential uses still have minimum parking requirements. Outside of transit support of zoning districts, all uses still have minimum parking requirements. What we are proposing and discussing tonight is that we would move that to really two standards. Inside the CBD zoning district, only hotels would have a minimum parking requirement. That is a carryover from the work that was done in 2018. Is that right? with the hotel moratorium and hotel overlays and new hotel development. There was some strong supporting information in that for hotels to provide parking for their guests who are generally arriving by vehicle. Outside of the CBD zoning district, the proposal would be for no uses to have minimum parking requirements. So the only other change right now, all uses in the city do have maximum parking requirements, not to exceed this many parking spaces based on certain ratios. What you would see in the actual ordinance would be a simplified but still set of maximum parking requirements. So I think we'll try and group it into the fewest use categories possible and make it as easy to adhere to and understand as possible rather than

Complex math and all that stuff.

So no change, really. All uses would be limited to a maximum quantity of parking spaces. All right, so history of parking provision in the city, what we have experienced so far. So right now, well, let's say pre-March of 2025, the only places that were exempt from parking were within the CBD district, and a certain distance is generally a mile outside of that district, right? Kind of our urban neighborhoods. So we did an analysis of 13 projects that were approved in these areas. Those were 13 projects composing of 689 housing units that did not have a minimum parking requirement. Parking was provided at some level with each of these 13 projects. And in total, 7% fewer parking spaces were provided than would have been required if they were in a different zoning district. Those are older projects. That zoning regulation's been around longer than I've been here with the city, so we've got a few examples. The changes that were made, recommended by this board last January, January before last at this point, and approved by council in March of 2025, these are those for eliminating most parking requirements in those transit-supportive corridors and mixed-use centers. Um, we've tracked some data on that. Um, it takes time for developments to get approved. So we have had 9 projects approved so far. That are would have required parking. Previous to that effort, when aggregated, those 9 projects would have required a total of 170 parking spaces minimum. Under the current ordinance, okay, let me back up. Those are nine projects. Not all of them were exempt from parking. Most of them were, you'll see here in the third bullet. Of those nine projects, they were only required to provide a total of 47 spaces between them. So here's what I really want you to take away from this. Nine projects would have required a total of 170 spaces. What was actually provided with those nine projects, even though only 47 spaces were required across them, were 228 spaces. So all of them provided parking, even though they weren't necessarily required to, and they actually provided it at a higher rate than what the minimum would have been.

So that's an interesting stat there that's a fantastic stat and it's it's something that is a stat taken from our own actions here, which is great because. A lot of municipalities across the nation have been getting rid of parking minimums and they're producing similar data. And I just know that the community, the workshop that I attended for Ada, that was the item, and Ms. Munson-Dahl said the same thing, that was the item that caused people the most heartburn was the elimination of the parking minimums. but the data is showing over and over and over again that the market is driving this and that elimination of the parking minimums doesn't mean that we are removing parking spaces, it just is adding more flexibility.

Correct, and that does match trends that we've seen from these other jurisdictions as well.

And I'll just add to that, Mr. Chair Barton, the Neighborhood Advisory Committee had a robust discussion on all the proposed amendments, and again, this was the one that caused the most heartburn. That, to me, indicated that parking is a pain point for people in neighborhoods, and we need to share this story and kind of help people understand that the regulatory requirement for off-street parking is not the resolution of people's experience in their neighborhoods with overtaxed on-street parking and narrow roads. Reducing and or eliminating minimum parking is a common-sense flexibility tool and it doesn't it won't alleviate or Address the existing pain point that is there.

Yeah and going to the to the pain point I Think it would be beneficial for the city to and I know I know the city is doing this with the transit study and everything but like kind of coupling these conversations with improved

multi-modal transportation yeah absolutely i think the i would just on this conversation i would like to add like one piece of anecdotal evidence i so i did previous work when i was in austin i was there whenever we eliminated parking minimums and i was actually working in the council office that had like led the charge on that policy front And the piece of anecdotal evidence I'll add here is that we were given a considerable amount of public feedback from small businesses that were very much in favor of this. We got a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls from people who said that they would have wanted to expand their business, adding on an addition so they can have more seating, things like that. But they could not have done otherwise without adding more parking spaces. And so yeah, I just wanted to kind of add that to the conversation that this is maybe not something that we are seeing quite yet from feedback from the community. But it is something that I've personally seen in other jurisdictions.

Thank you. All right. So this is actually we'll leave more room for space on questions, comments, suggestions on parking.

There was one comment I think I saw at the neighborhood commission meeting yesterday about just to clarify like this wouldn't necessarily change the requirement to provide

um accessible parking or how does accessible parking fit into that requirement so there are a couple of scenarios when parking is provided there are requirements to make some of that accessible right okay um there are some requirements that are get into the building code that i'm not going to try and specifically reference but give you a general idea of and we can feed you back exact information on this after the meeting as well but with certain types of units they are required to provide accessible parking spaces to go along with them that's about as much as I can go into that right now and still feel like I know I'm talking about so but no there's not necessarily like if you have a business you build a retail building and you don't provide parking I'm not certain yeah it would be required But if you do provide parking, then it does require accessible parking.

Okay. This is Commissioner Bell. Why was the hotel minimum parking added in? Was that an issue before?

So this goes back to the 2018 study with moratorium study and enactment of new regulations on hotels. That was something that came out of it is most uses downtown do not have parking requirements, but hotels do. And that came out of that study there. I think the feeling was I mean, there is definitely an impact to downtown from tourism, it's positive impacts, and there's impacts of more cars, more people, right? And it was a way to address that impact. So.

Okay. And then my other piece of feedback, kind of touching on Commissioner Cycle's point earlier, I think it was for the duplexes, or no, townhomes requiring parking in the back, I would strongly suggest against that. I understand the kind of form-based idea of we want cars hidden. We don't want the fronts of houses to be garage doors, things like that. But the longer the driveway is and having to park, that's just more impervious surface. And that's less space that could be rain gardens and open space and utilized in other ways. So I would really support keeping parking as close to the curb as possible for all the different types of development we've talked about today.

Great, thank you for that suggestion.

Commissioner Faircloth here. Thanks for all your work and staff's hard work on this. I had one thought that I might have brought up before, and I don't want to throw it into this set of text amendments, but I think it's related to the parking. I know you said you're not, the proposal won't change maximum parking amounts. However, parking is a huge contributor to pervious surfaces and stormwater runoff. You know, perhaps lowering the maximum and providing a bonus if people use permeable pavement, pavers. I mean, there are products out there, and I don't know the commission or if council's appetite on something like that, but I feel like that might be a cool idea to explore in a UDO rewrite.

Sir, prior to the March amendments, last March amendments that we referenced, we had an allowance to go above the maximum by using pervious that was removed. So it's a mechanism that's been there before, but we'll take note of that suggestion. Thank you.

One last comment on the parking proposal. We should also acknowledge there's kind of a parallel effort going on in Raleigh via House Bill 369. So this is a proposed bill in the General Assembly that would disallow municipalities from imposing minimum parking requirements. It passed overwhelmingly in the House. It's now in the Senate's court. And this morning was just reviewed by the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Energy and the Environment. So this conversation could be moot. And I think that it would be helpful to get ahead of that so that we can tailor our municipal zoning regulations for what's appropriate for our community and to kind of firmly you know affirm our values as a community so I hope that I won't be here in July I hope the parking continues to pass even if there is community concern but even if it doesn't Raleigh might do it for us so

And then to add to that for you all just this week, I think there's there's a bill that's not as far along on the state that does some of the same things we're looking at with as well. Removing the part of removing our ability as a city to require a parking space with them and. Affecting how we can impact minimum size maximum size as well. So. All right, should I keep going? Okay, almost there. All right, so main points tonight, right? We're not gonna get into, we're just having a discussion, getting feedback, we're not gonna get into recommendations and motions and all that, so this is the most you're gonna get from me on that end. These three proposed amendments are believed to add to flexibility in housing type, size, and site planning. We will at some point find that they're supported by the comprehensive plan, missing middle housing study, and affordable housing plan. And I did want to make sure everybody knew we talked about this at some pre-attended meetings that while these amendments are complementary and they do build on one another to kind of achieve that first goal, we are writing these up so each could be recommended independently of the other. So if there's one that really you can't get anywhere with, it's not gonna hold up the other amendments if you want them to move forward. Timeline, today is June 3rd, correct? Yes, good. We put the right date down. Success. Preliminary discussion. We are aiming for your July meeting, which we just established will be July 1st, to have a hearing before this commission and receive a recommendation. It will proceed from there to city council for yet another hearing and final action by the board. And as I promised, one last call for questions and discussions.

Just thank you to both you and Ms. Munson-Dahl for the great presentation. I know there was a little bit of kind of procedural confusion when this wasn't going to come for a vote today, but I think this was a really beneficial look at it to kind of build and tweak and refine as we move forward. So just appreciate all the work that's gone into this. The data that was shared today was really valuable and look forward to seeing how this plays out.

Just a quick couple of comments from me. Again, thank you for the presentation. If we have any data on what has prevented some of these from occurring to date, like duplexes or ADUs or things like that on given lots, I think that would be helpful to see. City Council Chambers, or any projections around how many additional units, you think this could attract I know that's really hard to project, but would be curious to see like the magnitude of what each of these maybe perhaps just the duplexes and ad us like could potentially. City Council Chambers, Create. City Council Chambers, And then the last thing i'll say is, I would be. curious to see if the adu proposal could be extended to other districts outside of the single family district districts yeah absolutely we'll work on all that and i'll say with uh possible capacity like possible capacity what the amendment could do

We'll at least try and get some asterisked data. It's hard to get something really precise there, but we'll see what we can do.

Sure, and obviously it wouldn't get built on every lot or something, but I think just trying to understand, maybe even potentially percentages in other communities or similar things that occur or things like that. Absolutely. Yeah.

I can just add that Durham added flexibility to duplexes. And in the five years before that, they were averaging six duplexes a year. And after that, over the next four years, the average was 40 per year.

Thank you.

I also add, I was at a conference this past weekend and talked to one of the lead planners in Hendersonville who just enacted a lot of these changes a year ago. So they've had a year of data. here's some of the things they did they decreased lot sizes so they have a small lot they have backyard lots they have duplexes tries and quads in all residential they have a thing called double density so if you have a unit that's 1200 square feet or less it only counts as half a unit increased adu size to 1200 and relaxed setbacks he said the biggest impact out of all that was the smaller lot size so

Yeah, that was something I wanted to see if we could discuss further too, and I know it was raised already, but particularly in RS2 and RS4, when I was looking at them at least, the minimum lot size is very large. And I think exploring the potential impact of reducing lot size and lot width across potentially all districts is something that we should consider as an added text amendment.

I'd like to chime in there, actually. I've brought this up, and it's been alluded to earlier in this conversation, about the point of previously in other meetings about the way that the land is regulated here. Part of it is the units, and then part of it is just the size of the lots. And so I think... There was a council meeting, I think a month ago, where it was brought up about the elimination of RS2. And so I just kind of took it upon myself to do my own kind of spatial analysis on it, looking at basically where's the negative space in all the different zoning districts? What is the median lot size based on all of the different zoning districts that we have? Then I did like a loose projection of like what could conceivably be added to each of those based on the negative spaces and Each of the parcels, but I would love to kind of continue this conversation about the lot size lot with uh reforms if we could add that to maybe not July it seems like that meeting is going to be kind of packed but if we could do like August would it be possible to kind of discuss like my findings and then have a broader conversation amongst this commission yeah I would support that for sure

Yeah, I'd be interested in kind of understanding, you know, decent ways of looking into the crystal ball and tailoring regulation to generate effect. So after we look at these before us, that that'd be something that would interest me on a future agenda. Absolutely. I think that's all the feedback we got we with apologies to those who are gathered to weigh in on future agenda items on this meeting I know this has gone long so appreciate your patience and sticking with us. Thank you, we do need a motion to continue this item the zoning text amendments item number one on our agenda to July 1 would anybody like to make that motion to continue. So moved. We have a motion to continue, do you have a second?

Second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

So just wanna check in with everyone. We are headed for a long meeting. Do we wanna do the next item before we take a break or take a break right now? Break. We'll take a five minute recess and be back at 5.30.

Take some.

kind of a delay it's hard to say we're good okay all right welcome back uh we'll resume our meeting um before we jump into item two on the agenda vice chair cycle reminded me there was a something we wanted to return to um we talked a lot about the zoning text amendments but kind of wanted to go full circle on the anti-displacement work so commissioner cycle

Yeah, I'm sorry. I just didn't know if there was going to be discussion after the presentation, and so I was going to leave it for that. So I just wanted to raise this to staff. Uh, you know, with the, this being coupled within that displacement, and I understand, um, what director, uh, was saying as far as. We're just voting on, you know, approval of of these measures and it's up to council to work on the timing piece. Um, but I wanted to see if I could throw out at least an idea that I think that you maybe mentioned Mr Collins in the. one of the working group sessions to see if it was even feasible to look at, which is the idea of a process overlay for the communities, the disadvantaged communities that are showing great deal of concern with how this might affect anti-displacement. as a way to address some of those concerns with the timing piece of this, because we are building a lot of momentum and I feel like it would be a sign of good faith to kind of try to see if we're doing everything that we can to address those concerns as we really do try to move forward on the missing middle housing. And I know there's a lot of pressure to move on this timeline-wise, but I don't know like the ins and outs of what that process overlay might look like, but I know that I've heard that that concept would be received well, and I just, if you could speak to that maybe.

sure let me make sure i'm in the mic okay there we go um so the first thing i'll say is anything kind of we as staff are going to continue recommending anything that involves any kind of zoning change districts overlays happen with the udo just because of the level of coordination that's required with the rest of our regulations on that I think when that conversation came up in, probably there's too many meetings, but I believe it was in one of the anti-displacement, displacement risk analysis tool meetings. what what i heard was a preference for hey what if we had higher thresholds for by right review in certain areas than other areas um so like what if it stayed 50 units to us easy in this place but changed in other places that's the kind of thing i was thinking i was hearing i don't know how we would apply that to something like as granular as duplexes and things like that

so if that's what you're saying is related to these amendments um i have a hard time i might have figuring out how to get it there but we're happy to give it some thought and report okay i'm better understanding that now then um but i had a so then i had a question uh miss munson doll uh brought up the idea of a communications and engagement plan and I guess I'm not too familiar with what that is. What I'm hearing from the community is we'd like to be engaged earlier in the process. We may be comfortable with these things, but we need to know sooner what's going on. whether it's a process overlay or whether it's some tweaks to the engagement with the communities, is there movement on that, or is there something that we can do in that realm to help say, hey, yes, we wanna move forward on both of these, and yes, we're gonna possibly have a resolution, but also we're working on this thing.

so there are a couple of elements to the anti-displacement and affordable housing project what people keep calling ada adaha because we need more acronyms that are dealing with earlier engagement and notification so the communication engagement plan is a tool we use in the city to Whenever we're starting a new project or initiative, such as this one that we've been discussing tonight, we work with our communications and public engagement department to work through a template to create a communications and engagement plan. So we make sure we're incorporating the right folks, talking to the right folks, whether they be within the city, outside the city, neighbors, other agencies, things like that. We try and identify all that right from the get-go. And one thing in that Ada project is to make the legacy neighborhoods a required communication partner in that plan. So they're always there as I step. So you look at, I believe that has already been incorporated in the template, but I will make sure and verify that before the next time we talk about this in July. So you guys know for sure the other element that's part of that plan. So that's one thing that. IS EITHER ABOUT TO BE OFFICIALLY DONE OR IS DONE, RIGHT? TO BE INCORPORATED INTO THE TEMPLATE AND BE PART OF THAT POLICY, RIGHT? THE OTHER ONE IS THE NEIGHBORHOOD NOTIFICATION SYSTEM, AND IF ANYBODY WHO DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT IT, SIMPLICITY.ESHVILLENC.GOV, YOU CAN SIGN UP TO BE NOTIFIED OF ALL SORTS OF DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS THAT COME IN AROUND THE CITY. There was a team of our IT folks and some planning staff too, I believe, looking at improvements to that system to provide more contextual and better notification early on in the development review process. So there's kind of 2 spokes there communications and engagement plan for things like ordinance amendments and projects that are not initiated by developers per se. And then there's the development notification side. I don't know the timeline on that simplicity development notification improvement yet, but we can get an update for you before July.

both of these though are notifications or early communications from the city side correct correct yes okay so I guess what I was imagining with the process overlay was I get an overlay that required as part of the process the developer to reach out

Could be, I'd have a lot to, we can take that back and come back with some answers on that in July. Okay.

Okay. Thank you, yeah. Appreciate the kind of postscript conversation about this, just to have clarity moving forward. So with that, we will move forward to item two on our agenda, a request to rezone the property located at 99999 Deaverview Road from residential multifamily medium density RM8 to residential multifamily high density RM16. The property's PIN is identified on the agenda. The property owner is Deaverview Apartments, LLC. The applicant's contact is Mr. Jayden Gurney. Planner coordinating review is Will Palmquist. Now, before I kick it to you, Mr. Palmquist, I'm sure you'll go through this in the presentation. But as a reminder to my fellow commissioners, this is a straight rezoning request, so different from a conditional zoning request or a special use permit. The task at hand for a straight rezoning is for us as a commission to analyze all the potential prospective uses of the proposed rezoning and make a recommendation on whether that's reasonable in the public interest, yada, yada, yada. So with that, Mr. Promquist.

Great. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Commissioners. Will Palmquist, Planning, Urban Design. I'll be presenting this rezoning request for the property without an address called 99999 Deerview Road from the RM8 multifamily district to the RM16 district. So as Chair Barton mentioned, this is a straight rezoning request. There is no development or project associated with this. The site itself is about half an acre, and staff is recommending approval of the rezoning. So you can see a couple different views of the project or the the property sites outlined in red it's located in western ashville off the review road near the city's western boundary. You can see it's actually it's kind of an irregular parcel it's it's landlocked without any any frontage does not affect the rezoning per se but it's an interesting quirk of the of the geometry there. So as mentioned the existing zoning is residential multifamily medium density and the applicant is requesting a rezoning to the residential multifamily high density arm 16 districts. Looking at the compatibility of this request and zooming out a little bit, looking at the surrounding zoning districts as mentioned, this is near the city boundaries. So I wanted to kind of show the existing city zoning geography and also the county zoning that you can see kind of on the on the West side of the map here. So. Uh, directly, uh, surrounding the site is arm 8 zoning and then, um, further to the West and even these little pockets here of the green are are 3 zoning in the in the buncombe county, uh, zoning code and jurisdiction. And then I believe it's our 1 or 2 in this, um, kind of cream colored, uh, off the map here. Uh, but staff does find that the request, um, to the arm 16 district would be compatible with those surrounding districts. There's a note here about the purpose of the RM 16 zoning, which talks about permitting a full range of high density multifamily housing along with other appropriate land uses. Looking at the compatibility with the future land use as designated in the city's comprehensive plan that is designated a residential neighborhood, which talks about variation of building types, including townhomes, duplexes, apartment complexes, et cetera, that over time, the densities can be increased to the benefit of these neighborhoods. 16 is cited as an appropriate zoning district within that future land use category. So staff finds that element in compliance. There's no infrastructure review as there is no project proposed. And staff finds that the rezoning does support goals and strategies in the comprehensive plan, including to increase and diversify the housing supply by promoting zoning policies to encourage more housing and to celebrate the unique identity of neighborhoods through creative placemaking by continuing to support contextually appropriate infill development and a variety of housing types. Uh, so staff has identified a pro of the rezoning would allow for a slightly higher densities of multi family residential development on a smaller minimum lot sizes and did not find any cons associated with the rezoning. So this table just breaks down some of the nuts and bolts of the two zoning districts. Kind of the middle column here shows the RM8 existing district and what those requirements are, and then the RM16 proposed on the right. You'll see many similarities between the two districts. The allowed uses are identical as far as the types of uses allowed on these lots. Building heights and setbacks and parking requirements are all the same. The only differences really are in the density Allocations where the arm 16 allows for more units per acre overall and then even more importantly is the minimum lot size where the RM 8 has a 4,000 square foot minimum lot size arm 16 has a 2,500 square foot minimum lot size City Council Chambers, As mentioned, staff recommends approval of this rezoning request. City Council Chambers, It is before you this evening with a tentative City Council hearing date of June 23. City Council Chambers, And i'd be glad to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, Mr. Palmquist. Going back to your tables during side-by-side comparison of RM8 and RM16, understanding that the allowable types of uses are the same between the two, are there any different uses that are allowed in RM16 that aren't allowed in RM8?

No. No, they're the same.

Great. Commissioner Faircloth here. It is odd to see a landlocked parcels there i'm assuming there's some kind of easement through one of the adjacent properties.

Yet my understanding is that the applicant or owner of this property has either control of those fronting parcels to the north or can have access through them to develop this lot, but they would have to be some kind of access easement established to have a connection to the to the site. It's definitely not a lot that would be created today, but it must be a vestige of older lot lines.

Sure. Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Any other questions? Would the applicant like to add any information? Please introduce yourself into the mic.

Jaden Gurney here. Note to Mr. Faircloth's question, it is a completely landlocked parcel with no existing easement. We do have control of the parcels to the north. There are requests here in going to RM16. While on the table there, it doesn't exactly look particularly different, it does help us with some

other zoning issues that we got to take care of on that parcel sure and i'm i mean i saw in the application where you wrote out what the the plan for that was but yeah i'm trying not to think about that because i'm supposed to think about it as a straight rezoning but um i was just kind of curious how you get access to that property right just me okay thanks

thank you um yeah i mean this i'm very supportive this is a reasonable request to get um you know greater use out of a parcel that could accommodate potentially more units of housing just for the record though i i guess i i pulled up the use table and it looks like there are a couple of odd differences between rm8 and 16 rm16 under special standards can allow assisted living facilities civic social service and fraternal organizations adult daycare or child daycare and then as a permitted use rm16 allows orphanages while rm8 does not i just want to make sure i'm correct on that you're correct on that thank you for clarifying that i missed that um that is accurate though but just for the record i mean the the intent is likely to facilitate greater density but there there are a few additional uses allowed any questions deliberation public comment We will open for public comment at 5.52. Anybody here to speak on this matter? Seeing none, we will close public comment at 5.52. And I will entertain a motion. Anybody want to make a motion?

Yeah, I'll go ahead and make one. I just had to pull it up. Sorry. This is Commissioner Broll. I move to recommend approval of the rezoning request for the property located at 99999 Deaverview Road from residential multifamily medium density RM8. to residential multifamily high density RM 16 and find that the request is reasonable is in the public interest and is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and meets the development needs of the community in that the request one promotes zoning policies to encourage more housing and two supports contextually appropriate infill development and a variety of housing types.

We have a motion and a second. Before we take a vote on this, there was a little staff chatter. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything that you wanted to weigh in.

Yeah, we're just looking at the idiosyncrasies of the table of uses.

Gotcha. Great. Thank you. OK. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Thank you, and best of luck. Moving on to item three on our agenda, we have a request to conditionally rezone the property located at 3862 Sweden Creek Road from residential multifamily high density RM16 to residential expansion conditional zone RESEXPCZ. The property's pins are identified on the agenda. The property owner is James and Becky Woodruff. Applicant's contact is Ms. Shawn Sainz, and the planner coordinating review is Sam Starbaum. Mr. Starbaum.

Yes, thank you. Mr chairman members of the commission again for the record. My name is Sam star bomb. I am a planner 3 with the planning and urban design department. This presentation will mirror all my presentations and that it takes part in 3 acts. The 1st, we'll look at context where we are in the city of Asheville. We'll look at the plans and proposals itself and then get into compliance. So where are we in Asheville? We are in South Asheville along Sweeton Creek. I will take ownership of this not being the best slide, even though I was the planner who made it. This does not show this location relative to Hendersonville Road and airport intersection. This is less than six tenths of a mile north of that airport road, Hendersonville Road intersection, but it is just to the east. Of Sweden Creek, it is surrounded by other M. 16 properties and other multi family developments and near that transit corridor. But this is the area we're talking about. You can see where 1 bridge road goes across and you can see where Hendersonville and Sweden Creek are about to go to that bridge. Both of these parcels combined or 12.06 acres. And this is the zoning we're looking at. It is currently RM16. It is proposed to go to residential expansion. Again, this is a CZ. You just saw a straight rezoning. This is a conditional rezoning. So what's going forward is the site plan is effectively the zoning as well as those conditions. But you can see from the mix, this is exactly what you would expect for South Asheville. It is a... a combination of institutional, commercial, industrial. There is an RM16CZ just to the south of this, as well as some RS4. A real mix of other RMs as you go to the west and to the north, but this is more or less in line with what you see throughout Sweeten Creek. You do not see any zoning designations to the east of this because that is Buncombe County property. That is why I will talk about that when we get to landscaping for property buffers.

But that is where this property is and what the zoning context is.

And here is the site plan before you today. Five buildings, 130 units, 100% of which will be affordable at that 80% AMI or below. The applicant is here and can speak to that. You can see the access just west off of Sweden Creek. It is only one access point. we just talked about parking right so this is proposing 200 spaces the maximum required or the maximum allowed i should say is 300 spaces and the minimum is 173. so in 2025 you removed minimums for some districts the minimums stayed for all residential districts this is still one of those districts where there are minimums that's 173 so it is Not that much more than the minimum, but that is something that the applicant can speak to why they still chose to provide more than that minimum. You can also see how a jurisdictional stream and some wetlands bisect this that will dictate where the applicants have proposed to put their open space and tree canopy preservation. But again, 5 buildings, they're the traditional 3, 4 story split, which you see through here. And then this is the landscaping plan. So there are a few things to note here. You can see in the green hatching along the top, because this abuts residential multifamily zoning district, it is required to have that type A property buffer. That is what is proposed there. That is also true on the southeast, because if it is to the county zoning that is adjacent or similar to one of the city's zoning designations, we also require that buffer that's being provided there. Insofar as other landscaping elements, your vehicle use area and your building impact are also provided. You can see street trees running along sweet and creek that is required. And with that, I actually. I know I have a few slides about technical modifications that are forthcoming. I'll actually just go ahead and cut to the chase and talk about them here since this is probably the best slide to do. So there are a couple of technical modifications that the applicant is proposing here. One of them does relate to street trees, right? You are required to have street trees within 20 feet of the road right of way, because of the entrance from sweet and creek 3 or 4 of those southern most trees will have to be moved back beyond what is allowed for the street trees. So there is a technical modification to have street trees be 40 feet from the right of way. That is not going to apply to all of the trees that will just happen for 3 or 4 of those trees to the south of this property. then you can also see that there are sidewalks along sweet and creek the applicant is proposing a six foot sidewalk with an eight foot planting strip and then also six feet internal sidewalks residential expansion requires 10 feet external and internal so that will be technical modification for that as well so those are the tech mods you're looking at with this project And then you can also see 1 thing that is worth pointing out here is this is currently underwater stormwater detention. That is what that is highlighted as. That's not a rendering error. That is noted as stormwater. That's something that will be under the parking lot and that gets them that open space deduction, which we will also look at. So here is your tree canopy plan. The applicant is proposing all of their canopy to be preserved there in that Northeast corner. That makes the most sense based on on where the vegetation that is existing is as well as where the jurisdictional stream and wetlands are. Anything in red is a stormwater easement. They cannot keep trees there, nor do they take that into consideration for their tree canopy calculation, because it can't be preserved and maintained in perpetuity. That is the same for all utilities or all other easements. We see this traditionally in Sweeten Creek. That is for railroad easements. This is the first we've seen of this type, but that area in red is deducted from their calculation for overall tree canopy plan requirements, but by and large conforms with what we are looking at. So here are the buildings being proposed, as you can see, there are a mix of styles. E and C tend to be a bit larger a. D and E the other ones will be of the other style, but they are the same palette the same materiality that are associated with the modern mountain aesthetic of all other apartments you see along sweet and creek and ashville writ large. And again, these are the three, four-story split, just because of the elevation, which does slope gently as you go into that jurisdictional stream. And again, those are your tech mods, both for sidewalks and then for those street trees, just to be 40 feet rather than the 20 feet. So that's where we are. This is what is being proposed. Let's look at compliance. So do we find that this is compatible with surrounding zoning? Yes, we do. As I had said, this is close to a transit corridor at that intersection at Sweet and Creek, Airport Road, Hendersonville Road. All of Sweet and Creek have this mix. Will talked about it in his presentation with the neighborhood. Or a residential neighborhood designation, you're going to find a mix of these with all ranging varieties. RM 16 is allowed. That is something we talk about in the living actual comprehensive plan. That is something you can see here in this photo. You can also see the smattering of rs and rm districts as well as multi family and attached. Single family elements in commercial, industrial or institutional. So yes, staff finds this is compatible with surrounding zoning. Again, this is a residential neighborhood. This is the type of housing in residential neighborhoods generally offer little variation of building types, but over time can benefit from having more housing diversity. It is also worth noting that in that same section on page 346 of the Living Asheville Comprehensive Plan, that the residential expansion CZ, as well as RM16, which is our highest residential density, our appropriate zoning districts for this future land use. So we do find that this is compatible with the future land use, because that is what the Living Asheville Comprehensive Plan tells us. Infrastructure review, water check, sewer check. We do not bring anything before you unless there is a letter of commitment or wastewater allocation approval that is issued. Stormwater is an ongoing matter. It's a separate thing, but that will not get to final TRC. That does not get to PASCO unless they have all the appropriate documentation for that. So that is ongoing and concurrent with this process, but we do find it will be served by that stormwater infrastructure. Nancy Watford and other members of the have not found anything to to prevent this from moving forward and then transportation. Yes, this is a sweet and creek project. Yes, this is not on the Hendersonville road or airport road intersection. But there are a few things to note here that this is. This is distinct from what you had seen last month at 1116 because there are alternate points of access in a much closer area than that one. And then it is also worth noting this. No traffic impact analysis is required. This is well below the threshold to trigger 100 peak hour trip rates under the trip generation manual that the Transportation Department requires. And this is something I know to some frustration of Commissioner Faircloth, because we talk about this on Sweeton Creek all the time. Sweeton Creek, it is in the design and engineering phase for an expansion. That is what NCDOT says. It is not funded under the state transportation plan though. So that is something we do have to note every time with a Sweeton Creek project, which is to say it's in design and engineering. What does that mean? We don't know, nor do we have a timeline for that because it is an NCDOT. COVERED ROAD, BUT WE DO FIND THAT IT IS SERVED BY INFRASTRUCTURE AND, AGAIN, NO TIA REQUIRED BECAUSE OF THE SIZE OF THIS PROJECT. AND THAT BRINGS US TO THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN REVIEW. I TALKED A LOT ABOUT THIS IN THE COMPLIANCE OF THE FUTURE LAND USE PLAN, BUT WE DO FIND IT IS CONSISTENT WITH THE LIVING ASHVILLE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN, PARTICULARLY WITH THE RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD FUTURE LAND USE MAP BECAUSE IT ENCOURAGES RESPONSIBLE GROWTH AND INCREASES AND DIVERSIFIES THE HOUSING SUPPLY. So that's a lot of information out of me and not a lot of time, but staff does recommend approval for this and I would be happy to stand for any questions you may have. I'm not going to talk about required reviews. I just got back from vacation. I haven't had a time to set City Council with the applicant or have that conversation. If I were betting man in Vegas, I'd say probably the July 28th just because there's no July 4th meeting, but that's for us to discuss and I would. I stand for any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Starbon. So you mentioned this being well below the threshold for a TIA, which is 100 peak hour trips. What is the estimate that this has, or is that a question for the applicant?

That would be a question for the applicant. I did want to talk about this, though, because we get questions all the time, and I think it is the staff responsibility not just to answer to the PZC, but to answer for the record, right? And this is something that other commissioners had asked about in the past. The last project on Sweeton Creek that required a traffic impact analysis was 3183 Sweeton Creek, which is represented, or that one was represented by Derek Allen, who is also here representing this project. Trip generation rates can vary. It depends on if it's a mid or high rise apartment or if it's in an urban or suburban setting. 3183 Sweeten Creek was 280 units of multifamily and 24 townhomes. The 280 units generated 110 peak hour trips. So that's only 10 over the threshold, and that was for 280 units. So you're looking somewhere between the 260 to 280 range to hit that threshold for the TIA. So that's where that is. Again, because this is not required, we can't speak to what that is, but maybe the applicant can.

So let's call it approximately half of what, of the scale that would trigger a TIA?

Yeah, that's a fair assessment.

Thank you. Any other questions for staff?

Yeah. Mr. Starbaum, can you remind us why this has to come before us, being RM16? Why is it a CZ? Just to reiterate for the crowd. Yes, that's an excellent question. I mean, minus the technical mods that are...

minor yes so there are level one two and three thresholds in the city of asheville which are the level of review not necessarily the density based in the zoning right so rm16 is your high density multi-family district there is a certain density allowed per acre however our review levels change based on level one level two and level three level two is anywhere between 20 and 49 residential units anytime you're above 49 residential units even if you have the acreage and the density in this type of zoning district because you're above 49 units you still have to go to planning and zoning and city council as a conditional zoning to get that approval just because of

Because this is not within a transportation quarter, which has the alternate thresholds.

Yeah, this would be a different story. If you recall, you know, we're asking you to recall a lot from 2025 and 2026. That was actually one of the amendments I took through, which was looking at the changing. Well, I guess that was will. One of us took three changing threshold amendments. But yes, that is correct that if there were other if you were in commercial industrial or other corridor amendments, your thresholds were much higher.

And see requirements within RM 16. It doesn't exceed that based on based on acres of RM six.

Yes, but again, because it is over 49 units, we are before you this evening.

Any other questions of staff?

To what extent do we know about the DOT project right now? Is it absolutely nothing?

I'm happy to opine on everything, but that is the degree of confidence in which I have in speaking to NCDOT funding and timelines.

So as I understand it, it's slated for design and engineering only, not included in the construction stip. And so I guess what that means is it will be studied and then a cost can be put together for a future stip. And it's this section of Sweet and Creek that is undergoing the design and engineering study, correct?

That is correct. This is part of that study. It basically ran from just south of this to just north of actually the project at 1116 that you saw at the last hearing. So it is a significant portion of Sweet and Greek, but again, it is design and engineering phase only for cost estimation to then get on the state transportation improvement plan.

Other questions of staff before we invite the applicant to speak? Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Starbaum. Thank you. Would the applicant like to supplement the presentation?

Sure. My name is Jesse Swords. I'm a land use attorney with Allen Stahl and Kilbourne, and we are representing Atlantic Housing Foundation on this project. Thank you, Sam, for your very thorough presentation. I don't have a lot to add on the policy points. I do want to introduce the project team that we have here tonight rob sessions is the developer representative, we also have Andrew actually who's a civil engineer on the project and Sean saints who's a landscape architect on the project. I did want to mention again the. The density issue, we're at 10.7 units an acre, which is about half of what's allowed in the residential expansion district and way, way less than what's in RM-16. RM-16 is a little tricky to calculate because it's based on the minimum lot size, but it's more than 20 units an acre. We do not have the traffic count numbers on hand tonight. They were so much lower than the threshold that they just didn't get included in our materials. But we can find those out for city council. And then finally on the parking question, we can actually look at reducing the parking even further. And that's something we're willing to study between now and city council. And with that, I'll introduce Andrew to go through the site plan if y'all want, and obviously we're available for whatever questions you may have.

Are we gonna pull up the site plan?

Do we have it in there somewhere? Yeah, go to the agenda tab.

I'll just leave it off the landscaping plan actually. Okay.

Hi, I'm Andrew actually with assuming white side is the civil engineer for this project. Uh, so the site plan has 1 access point, um, off of the road. It's in compliance with the with requirements. Uh, we are exceeding the parking requirement of the minimum. Um, we can't explore going lower. We have studied this site for the topography of the site, making sure slopes are three to one, and then where we can't achieve tieback slopes, we're providing retaining walls that are set off property lines so that any geogrid is not within any other adjacent properties and well within ours. With this project, we have a wetland and stream, a jurisdictional delineation that we need to get updated, but we do have the last record on hand. Use that to develop this. So in our project submittal to stormwater and permitting, we will get an updated one. But with this project, we are proposing a stream crossing in the back. um to the last building that stream crossing right now is a land crossing with a culvert that culvert will be studied to determine the watershed draining to that area so we can appropriately size it for the municipal requirements we are providing fire hydrants tied in at the appropriate spacing requirements and providing gravity sewer through the development as a part of this project will be removing a small section of line and routing it through this development. That's why one of the easements is running straight through the parking lot. And then the underground stormwater touched on that a little bit, but that will be developed and sized appropriately for the water quality and quantity requirements. Does anybody have any questions that I can address?

Thank you. So first I want to say I appreciate you so clearly identifying the wetland boundaries on this plan. It's something that I appreciate seeing. And secondly, you had noted that these are maybe previous or historic boundary identifications and that you plan to do an updated jurisdictional analysis.

I'm gonna change the seaman right side I'm gonna speak to that part if that's all right yeah the delineation was done pre Helene and so as in terms of us getting through the legislative process of this rezoning and then the client will re-engage environmental to kind of sink the money back into doing another delineation that's all it's just timeline

Okay. So just my question would be then if the updated boundary changes such that some of the site plan is impacting new wetland or expanded wetland, is the client amenable to adjusting the site plan to stay out of there? Or is this a fixed plan and you're just going to have impacts?

Our hope is to not I mean, ideally, we don't want to have impacts, we have impacts will minimally show like any impacts are going to be minimal.

yeah I mean, I really appreciate how this site plan responds to the hydrology of the site currently that's what i'm saying will it will it reflect the updated.

Our goal is to retain that. It will be, I can't say if we will or will not in the end, because it's one of those, if the boundaries do change, we'll look at it, and I hope that we can still respond appropriately as we are here, is the end goal.

Thank you. To that end, this is Chair Barton. If this gains approval or recommendation of approval, would parking flexibility be something that could help achieve that objective?

we're willing to look back at the parking and bring our numbers, I know I think we're at a 1.5 or five five ratio, right now, and we can look back at that and it's also tied with that applicants funding for their affordable housing application, so I just want to make sure it's a light tech project is that correct.

yeah yeah so we just we just last month sent forward one that was had a ratio of 1.17. So they were seeing that they weren't seeing the need to go above beyond that and they got approval from. from the agency to do that. And so I would strongly reiterate what Cher is saying here in exploring reduction in parking, if it feels that parking isn't necessarily needed.

and to that end the exhibit e project conditions appreciate this from staff it just has that the project will comply with the minimum and maximum parking space requirements so i believe we provide for that flexibility and so we don't necessarily need a new condition or anything it's built into the project conditions to adjust as needed and but I think we could you know that that's feedback I think from a couple of us on the Commission that we support the applicants willingness to consider some parking reduction if it improves the site plan yeah we can we can look into the parking reduction even before City Council sorry

Yeah, another thing I wanted to know, it's a small improvement, but it's in the right direction. We've been seeing a lot of these with the technical modification of going from 10 down to five feet on the sidewalks. I like to see I like that we're starting with six here. You know, with, with it being affordable housing, a lot of these people, you know, are using multimodal means for transportation. And so six, eight, you know, if we can start edging this up as time goes on, it would be nice to see but I'm happy to see the six over the five.

One question is, is there a pedestrian bridge proposed over the stream to access the north side of the site that's allied in green?

So the pedestrian route is along with the road. There's a sidewalk on the south side of that road, a top kind of upgrade with the road. There won't be an actual bridge, a land bridge, if you will, but it'll have retaining walls on each side with safety fencing for those that are crossing.

At the road? Like, where the sidewalks are along the road?

Along the road.

Okay.

Were you asking about the north side? Or the east side?

Oh, there's one there.

Yeah. How about I thought she was asking about the north side to get across to get to access this part of the parcel?

Yeah.

Is there any way for for residents to get access to the north side of the parcel?

That would that would be fairly tough because we would a impacting streams and wetlands to achieve that yeah But that is something we can look into if it's Desired, but there's there's enough currently you're showing it.

Sorry. We don't have We don't have I'm not seeing these particular sheets the landscaping plan and whatnot in our folder This was the first time we're seeing these sheets I Just as an FYI.

So the area that you're seeing in that top corner is where we're preserving the trees right now. So there is not.

So that's tree preservation up there. And then as far as like open space, there's enough open space on the south side of the creek, like within the project area. Yes, sir.

OK. Any other questions of the applicant?

As far as the vouchers, is it correct that there's no set aside for vouchers, but all units are open to vouchers?

Rob Sessoms with Atlantic Housing Foundation. Yeah, we do accept vouchers, but we don't have a specific set aside. It's more dictated from North Carolina Finance Housing Agency opposed to mandated by the city.

Do you all have other developments in Asheville?

No, we do not, but I've worked in Buncombe County before with a shop in Charlotte, so.

And do those have any set-asides, or is that just kind of your norm for accepting vouchers?

Yes, typically it depends on us working with the housing authority or not, but typically if we work with the housing authority, we do have set-asides that are reserved, but in this scenario, no, we do not.

Have you reached out to the housing authority about?

Yes, we have, and at this time, they don't have any vouchers that are selected for this property project.

Yeah, and I know that they might be increasing their number of vouchers. So is that a conversation that can be revisited in the future?

Yeah, absolutely. That's something that we're gonna complete. Thank you.

Other questions?

while we're on the topic of affordability, just to note the Project E draft conditions, condition 12A is the affordable housing condition. At our last meeting, when we were reviewing the Shiloh proposals, we had some discussion about the language of that. And I think this might be the old language that says shall be leased to households and wondering if this heads to council, can we update that so that it's sort of lease or ownership neutral language?

That's a good catch. We'll go back to our language we had at one point where I think it says shall be made available to is probably the most neutral language there. Yep.

Great.

Thanks.

City Council Chambers, Shall we open the public comment, thank you. City Council Chambers, will open the public comment at 623 as a reminder, if you're here to speak on this item, you have three minutes of speaking on behalf of yourself 10 minutes of speaking on behalf of a group if those people are here to see their time to you. City Council Chambers, We did have one person sign up for public comment. City Council Chambers, And then we'll open it to others carolyn covash.

Good afternoon, my name is Carolyn Kovach and I live at Royal Pines Townhomes on 14 Holiday Drive in Arden. We are downstream from the proposed development associated with these two pins, 9654444259 and 9654441465. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. I want to be clear that my comments are not in opposition to housing or multifamily development in general. Our concern is whether this particular site can safely support a project of this scale given the existing site conditions and infrastructure constraints. Over the past several weeks, my husband and I here, he is our HOA president also, have been working to better understand the review process and we've spoken with members of city staff regarding stormwater and downstream drainage concerns associated with this property. The proposed development appears to drain into a natural drainage system upstream of existing homes, including ours. We have documented significant downstream flow through this system during multiple storm events over several years, including moderate rainfall events, tropical depression, FRED, and Hurricane Helene. These observations are important because it is not a fully engineered stormwater system. It is a natural, already active drainage corridor in an area where we have seen increasing rainfall intensity and changing runoff conditions in recent years. In our conversations with City of Asheville staff, we learned that these systems are considered flashy, meaning they rise and fall quickly during storm events. That description is consistent with what we personally observed downstream from this site. We also understand that the project is substantial in scale and would add significant impervious surface area upstream of existing residential properties. While stormwater regulations may address certain design storm standards, our concern is whether the cumulative downstream impact to this existing natural system is being fully considered. In addition to stormwater concerns, Sweet and Creek Road is already heavily traveled corridor with accidents occurring frequently at the intersection of Carrington and Sweet and Creek. And we hope traffic impacts will also receive careful review as this process moves forward. Again, we're not here simply to oppose development. We're asking that the city proceed carefully and ensure that downstream conditions, infrastructure, capacity, and long-term resilience are fully evaluated before approving a project of this scale. I appreciate your time and consideration and ask your permission if I can give you a copy of what I just read.

Sure. Okay. Sure. Thank you. Thank you.

would anybody else like to speak on this thank you please come to the mic and introduce yourself hello my name is casey coppenbarger and i live in 3844 sweeten creek which is an adjoining property to that in the north northeast corner I have two main concerns, and the number one is the traffic that obviously doesn't have to be studied, but I can guarantee you that there's a traffic issue. We have the new apartment complex that went in just shy of, just across from Carolina Day Fields, which I believe has 300 units, 319 units up in the top, and then there's an over 55 unit that's another less than 200. There's gonna be more units up there apparently. So we're talking, I don't know, 600, 800 units eventually. So on a two lane road with a light. So we have a bottleneck on the north end before we get to Rock Hill Road where it opens up to four lanes. And then you go south, just south of this is that, bridge at the Shell Station, as the Christ School kids like to call it, up at the Shell Station, which is a very congested area. It's hard to get around things. There's an auto repair site there that has a storm drain that drops this far in, so you cannot go around traffic to alleviate motion. So if somebody's turning left on Christ School Road, you're just stuck there waiting for them to go. So the traffic is very heavy right through here. And Your sidewalk, I know you're happy about your sidewalk, but it goes nowhere. It goes in front of this piece of property. There's no other sidewalks within a mile of that sidewalk. So it's very nice to have a sidewalk, but it serves no purpose to the people who live there because they can only walk up to my driveway. to walk down to access the poison ivy in the wooded area down there, which is not suitable for it. It's quite an angle down to the creek. As she said, everything from the mountain, from Royal Pines, above Cedar Lane, that mountain drains down through this area. There's never been anything done to really control that storm water. You should have been there for Helene. It was quite the ride. So, I'm concerned about traffic. Storm water is always a consideration, because it comes right down through my yard. Also, I'm a little concerned about four-story buildings on the south side of the city where we have no buildings like that until you go up to the overflow from Givens Estate that comes up off of Mills Gap corner there where they built those taller buildings. But we are in a residential neighborhood. We do not have multiple story buildings beyond two story homes. We don't have four stories. And I guarantee you, you come down from the north, and you see the backside of those buildings, they're going to look skyrocketing because the lot really cuts away there. So it's going to be steep looking, and the buildings are going to look huge.

That's your time.

Thank you. Traffic, traffic. You're never going to expand Sweet and Creek. Thank you. Because you've given building permits to subdivisions next to the church that are actually going to build.

I'm going to have to ask you. Thank you. Yep. Is there anybody else who wishes to speak on this matter? Please introduce yourself at the mic. My name is Forrest Nelson.

I'm the president of the Boyle-Villanova Home Owners Association. And I'm not going to double on the comments that are already made, but you really have to consider a traffic study for this site. That corner of Carrington and Sweeton Creek Road, and you can look up the city records on this because we can hear the accidents from our porch. They're on a regular basis. You've got two hills on both sides of the development, one coming down this way, one coming down this way. The folks coming from the south to the north, they're speeding up because they've been sitting at that darn light down there, and they want to zoom down Sweeton Creek. And coming from the north to the south, They're exceeding 45 miles an hour all the time you put a Another street there next to Carrington and have Traffic coming out of there. You're just asking for trouble.

Thanks for your time Thank you Is there anyone else here who wishes to speak on this item I? Seeing none, we will close the public comment at 631. Any further deliberation or questions from the commission?

I just wanna thank the members of the public for coming out and speaking their concerns. They're very valid concerns. As far as the stormwater goes, I mean, that's why I wanna ensure, I do have a question for the applicant, but I wanna ensure that every measure is taken to preserve those natural wetlands there because they do a lot to mitigate if those wetlands get impacted. it increases the flashiness of the system. So that's a comment that I just wanted to raise again. And then the second is, to the applicant, you're showing one currently kind of just shaded in underground storage near the front of the development, but I'm curious about the treatment of impervious area by building E.

the other side of the stream because that's there's no way that water is making it over to that storage uh it will so the topography of the site building e is the high side of the site where we've located that blue square ground attention that is the lowest point of the site so the intention is for building e associate parking all pavement to make it down to that underground system you're going to run it across the the stream the storm water okay underneath the road

Is that all your question?

Oh, and I was just curious, was for staff, where the nearest transit stop is?

There are two stops right at the Hendersonville Road and Airport Road intersection. I don't know which line that is, but those are the two nearest stops. Again, that is 0.59 miles. That is outside of the typical walk shed that planners consider, which is usually a quarter mile.

Commissioner Faircloth, I want to thank the public comment we got and the applicant. I will say I'm going to be speaking not only as commissioner, but a resident of the Royal Pines community, you know, just north of this. you know i think i've telegraphed on the last few sweet and creek projects that i was close to hitting a tipping point on what i thought sweet and creek could handle i have no issues with the project itself my issues is with the continued not improvement of sweet and creek and the traffic there so i i'm gonna i'm not for this project because of that because i'm still not seeing any commitment to that road being improved and i realize that's not on the applicant or staff that's a rally but i've hit my tipping point um i do understand the argument that this project is closer to the um 25 connection where airport road starts in sweet creek ends um however you would be turning left out of the development through oncoming traffic you know there's no stoplight going there you're not turning right to get there so having gone down this area a lot i see people stuck trying to turn left through that every morning and it's not to me it would be a serious problem for the residents trying to get out let alone trying to get into that traffic flow and the The other issue I see with that, and I think it was Mr. Kallenberger who brought it up, is that light down at Pensacola and where Christ School Road kind of comes in, it isn't a two-lane road to go through. If you're turning, it blocks traffic, or you try to go through that pothole, manhole thing on the side, so... I really hate that I'm having to be against an affordable housing project. I try to make exceptions for these projects. However, I've personally hit my tipping point for projects on Sweet and Creek. I say that having voted yes for several of them. So I'm culpable for part of the traffic on there. I don't shy away from that fact. But I won't belabor it anymore. That's my opinion. Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Faircloth.

And just to echo, appreciate, it's always really helpful and instructive to hear comment from neighbors who may be impacted because you experience the daily challenges, safety issues. And while we make every effort to really fully understand and digest the particularities of the sites that come before us, it's really your feedback that rounds out what it looks like for a 24-hour resident. So just appreciate that.

This is Commissioner Bell. Just kind of adding to the comments of Commissioner Seichel, talking about stormwater, which is something I, it's very near and dear to my heart, stormwater, and looking at the environmental factors is my background and really what I try to narrow in on these types of projects. And the comment I want to make, and it's really a PSA, widely is that we have this fabulous data set from the North Carolina Emergency Management, which is the flood advisory data. And this goes beyond what FEMA maps for flooded areas during large events. And looking at this area in that data set, I do see that The siding of the building seems appropriate with where the flooding is. I'm not concerned. I do, this is just very like at a glance, I do see that there's a real backing up of water at Sweeten Creek. probably indicating an undersized culvert under Swain Creek, which is DOT. So all that to say, it's really important that this property maintains the level of flood capacity that it already has. It's certainly doing something, It is mitigating some flooding downstream, just naturally the way that it is. So encroaching into that area beyond what is shown could be problematic, but I am satisfied with what I'm seeing. That's what I'm seeing.

Thank you. Other thoughts or further items for clarification before we entertain a motion?

Knowing that there is a backwatering effect, would the applicant be amenable to oversizing their system a little bit beyond what's the minimum required?

Jesse Swords with ASCLAW. That's something we can certainly look at. I mean, how much oversize would make a difference to you so we know where to focus our study?

Well, I mean, I... This is just a personal thing in all the projects that I design. Anywhere I can where there's space, I try to design to the 100-year storm. That would be my goal is if the applicant could design to the 100-year storm.

Obviously, we can't commit to that. I hear you. But, you know, I can say that, you know, we will study, you know, enhancements. And I believe we're waiting on a delineation that may change things as well. So that's kind of an opportunity to look at it again.

So that would be a recommendation that I would put moving forward between now and council, or between now and the end of the project, obviously. You know, stormwater permit is one that would have to go through, but. Any upsizing of the system post-Haleen is a great nod to all the residents in the area. Everybody's still feeling the pain from Haleen. um and we all know that a hundred year storm is no longer a hundred year storm anyway so um i'd like to see people move towards designing towards a hundred year storm as a minimum um whether or not we need to change our standards as a city but um anyway it's just a nod any any nods to to oversizing or or wetland improvements or increasing the wetland uh bandwidth um in that area for flood storage or mitigation flood impact mitigating flood impacts i think is a benefit to the whole community and and as a developer not just thinking about your own parcel and and your own development but providing uh benefits to the larger community in which you're you're choosing to enter so i'm not a civil engineer i don't know what all is involved but uh we will you know look at where it may make sense to do enhanced measures no i mean it's feasible right yeah as a designer myself it's feasible it's just it's it's usually just money related but i'm just saying i would push that forward as as a consideration i would highly recommend that i don't want to make it a project condition but i would recommend designing towards a larger storm event

And I would second that, both for the detention and the stream crossing culvert.

Having it as a recommendation to study is totally fine with us.

Anyone prepared to make a motion? Looking at you, Vice Chair Seichel, since you have some recommendations teed up.

This is Vice Chair Commissioner Seigel. I move to recommend approval of the conditional zoning request for the property located at 3862 Sweeton Creek Road from residential multifamily high density RM16 to residential expansion condition zone residential expansion CZ and find that the request is reasonable in the public interest, is consistent with the city's comprehensive plans and meets the development needs of the community in that one, prioritizes greater density of development overall, throughout the city as appropriate and two increases the supply of housing including affordable housing in proximity to schools transit and parks with the recommendation that the developer and design staff look into and seriously consider upsizing their stormwater controls to a larger storm event, ideally a 100-year storm, and or wetland enhancements to mitigate for downstream flooding, in addition to the culvert crossing being sized at a 100-year storm event.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Who got it first?

You can take it. Second.

All right. Commissioner Ancelito is second. We have a motion and a second. Any further conversation before we take a vote?

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries six to one. Thank you and best of luck. Next and last on our agenda, we have item number four, a request to rezone the property located at 3 South Tunnel Road from urban place to regional business. The property's PINs identified on the agenda. The property owner is Asheville Mall Capital Holdings, LLC. Applicant's contact is Mr. Jesse Swords. Planner coordinating review is Vadila Satvika. Mr. Satvika.

Good afternoon, thank you. I'll try to be brief to not keep us here forever. As stated, this is a street rezoning at 3 South Tunnel Road. It's 42 acres. You can barely see the outline of the property here in red, but we'll have other images. Staff recommends disapproval of this request and I will go through the reasons for why that is the case. Here is an image of the mall. You've probably been here. The property is about 41 acres. It's currently a one-story building that was built in 1973, Class C commercial, totaling almost 200,000 square feet. And the structures, according to the footprints, look like about 4.5 acres, assessed at approximately $91 million. The owner is Asheville Mall Capital Holding, and the applicant is Jesse Swords. Here are two images of the existing zoning on the left and the proposed zoning on the right. You can see the outline in red. It's a very strangely shaped property and the little lines connecting are not errors here. This is just that the property has some minor connection points. You can't see this in the aerial, but the spaces here in between our buildings, they're connected. This is a mall structure where you have tenants with shared walls, in this case on three sides of them. I've placed a star here to highlight that there are several properties here that although they're part of the same zoning, they were part of a lawsuit that does not require them to comply with the zoning. So they're somewhat unique, but the property is still zoned urban place. And on the right here is the proposed zoning where you can see that this parcel is very strangely laid out. Looking at the review of the zoning, we're saying that the proposal is not compatible with the surrounding zoning that has all been rezoned to urban place in 2022. The purpose of the urban place form district is to implement a more trans supportive land use and to accommodate the future growth of Asheville. So it's really looking to bring in residential uses and the urban place form code has some strong incentives to do that. And you'll probably learn about that a little bit later. Some of the intention is, I just wanted to highlight some of the analysis that has been done on this property. This is showing, the mall is right here in the front, and this is just a diagrammatic conceptual drawing showing the main entrance points and pathways that vehicles take to go through here. So it's kind of showing what block structure could look like that is part of the intent of Urban Place District. So in the town center, goals we're trying to lay out a structure that can have real streets with real sidewalks with trees and that within that block structure you could see here here's another image that you in the future might see buildings and So the intention is to make more of an incentive and to encourage development to move in a pattern where malls like this can expand and have more development that is mixed use, that continues to have commercial activities, but expands to have more residential presence. and not to do that whimsically, but to try to do that in a more urban fashion. And so that intention comes through in the requirements in the zoning and the block structure and the uses as well. The uses in urban place are a little bit more urban. We don't allow as many auto-oriented businesses. When we look at the future land use map, it calls for this to be a town center, and that was really the driving factor behind the rezoning to urban place. So here's just some language from the comprehensive plan. Future land use designation of town center is described partially the areas that are able to support strong growth as Asheville's population continues to increase in the future. These areas include commercial areas with large service parking fields such as the Asheville Mall and the Asheville Outlets. In these areas, residential uses are currently not a common component but should be a focus of future redevelopment in order to create vibrant town centers. with various housing types and options. So this is not compatible with our feature land use map. We didn't do an infrastructure review because we do not have a plan. There is plenty of infrastructure here, so it probably wouldn't really be an issue. When we look at comprehensive plan, we find that it's not consistent for the reasons I've been discussing. This is growth, but we believe that it's not responsible growth because it's not prioritizing growth within an established plan. uh growth area the way that that the comprehensive plan and the community believes it should be which is more mixed use and residential now the plan we don't know what plan is coming so they may include residential but if they're going back if they're asking to go back to regional business uh they're likely not looking at at these these comprehensive goals And likewise, the comprehensive plan also calls for mixed use development, which is a part of the urban place form district, not a part of regional business. Pros and cons. For a pro, we can say that any type of investment is maybe good for the city because it adds to the tax base. So we put that here. Some of the cons are that it is inconsistent with the comp plan and the aims of the established forum district. It undermines some of the site scale and possibilities. It doesn't likely have a mixed use component, potentially leading to more big box stores that will be there for a long time, and perpetuating some of the negative impacts of this suburban sprawl type of land use pattern, reduced walkability, et cetera. So for these reasons, staff recommends disapproval. And at the earliest, this would go to Council at the end of this month, but that's very unlikely. So it probably would be in July, should it move forward. And I will take any questions if you have them.

Thank you, Mr. Satvika. I guess I'll start by saying this is a really complicated one, so this may take us a while to wrestle through some of the detail and nuance and to maybe jump to the conclusion. Personally, I agree with the recommendation, but the rationale and reasoning to get there is a little odd to me, so I'd like to go back. And actually, there's a couple components I find problematic. So could you go back two slides? Three, sorry. On the cons, the idea that there's a mixed use requirement in urban place, I feel like undercuts the whole way that urban place was allowed to be structured, because it's really an incentive for residential, right?

Correct.

So I think that's an important distinction because in the use table, which is as a straight rezoning, we're tasked with looking at the allowable uses and kind of contemplating what's allowable in the proposed or sought after use that isn't allowable in the current. The residential uses are allowed in both. Right.

Correct. Yeah, that wasn't phrased well. Let me just clarify that the Urban Place District states that you can have 20,000 square feet of commercial by right, and that if you want more than that, you have to provide housing. So for every market rate housing unit you get, you're allowed another 1,000 square feet of commercial, unless it's affordable housing, then you get 2,000 square feet of commercial. So you're right, it's an incentive. Effectively, it kind of works out that a large development is going to have to build in housing. So you're right, that could have been worded better.

The other thing I'd like to go back a little further is the sort of diagrammatic block structure. And while it is very difficult to analyze what's possible or promoted under urban place because the section of that code is very complex, I guess my question is we're not really looking at a site plan from the applicant. should we really contemplate a site plan that is kind of the staff notion of what urban places intended to function as? Does that question make sense?

Do you mean why are we looking at layout of circulation? That's fair. I think in my mind, this idea was to help understand some of the requirements in urban place, to talk a little bit about block structure and how it relates to urban development and urban patterns, which is... the intent, a strong part of the urban place form district code. So this isn't intending to express what we want to happen as much as to say conceptually block structure is important. and we either need to see a plan to review it for a large 40-acre site, or at least to give you a sense of what Urban Place is trying to get to, maybe so that when we hear from the applicant, it may fill out the picture of the intention.

That's understandable. And it is helpful, I think, to understand the requirements within urban place around internal streets, you know, and all the standards that apply because that is a, you know, I think that is something that the city has wanted to use to promote a type of development pattern that is just totally not enumerated in the older zoning districts like regional business, highway business. So I do appreciate that it kind of helps us contextualize. I just want to be sensitive to the notion that we're really looking at a straight rezoning and not a specific proposal.

Correct.

Yeah, okay. And then I think the last thing, which is sort of a comment question that we can explore further with the applicant, is this is a, and you showed the very complicated parcel boundaries. In staff's analysis of the rezoning request, can you talk a little bit more about the implications of a rezoning to regional business and leaving these kind of islands of urban place?

what friction would that create or what um you know requirements buffer requirements and that type of thing would it certainly would be a problem you know we would have to look at that and consider whether it makes sense to keep those as urban place um it is it is is a challenging um I suppose it would really depend upon what the applicant is looking to do, whether or not the applicant is even considering acquiring those properties. If it's a full-on redevelopment, it would be very difficult to do without having control of those properties. So if you have control of those properties, then the point is moot. So again, it's a straight rezoning and we don't know what's proposed. We don't know what's coming, but should they not acquire those properties and should this be rezoned to RB, we would have to look at that seriously because having some landlocked different parcels with a very strict zoning code could be challenging and unrealistic maybe.

Thank you for that. And I guess to ask it a clearer way, like, are we imposing hardship on the remaining urban place parcels? Should a regional business zoning be accepted? Are we effectively down zoning those parcels disallowing certain things to be possible or requiring them a harder procedure for redevelopment of the remaining urban place that shares walls and boundaries with the applicant at hand?

Well, I don't think it would be considered a down zoning because urban place is more restrictive, I would say. But whether or not it's consistent is a fair question and how viable it makes some of those properties. I don't know, we'd have to look at it

The parcels are not, like, they're not currently owned by the same entities that, you know, across the... I guess sort of to ask the flip side of that question, it's like, is it possible to... develop under the urban place restrictions when without ownership of the entire area to create the block system, for example, or like, you know, like, I think in the image that you're showing of the conceptual idea, like, cutting through a building with a street or, you know, it almost seemed like if you take into consideration parcel boundaries and differences in ownership, I don't necessarily see how that's possible.

Well, without having any clue what they want to do, speculation, they may be interested in putting a McDonald's in the front of the parking lot, which wouldn't touch the existing buildings. So yes, if you wanted to completely redevelop the existing structures under that boundary, that probably couldn't happen. So they would have to have some, I'm sorry, we're really speculating, but you have to get more control. But likely it's possible that that's not even the consideration. It might be outside of the building footprint.

See what you mean like going from secondary to tertiary streets and having that kind of model like you need a pretty big contiguous landmass to really accomplish that.

And this I mean this is even a 40 acre parcel but the shape renders it such that and the existing structures I think render it so that.

I'll say that we did over the years have several applications for the Sears project which is where that star is and had some decent proposals that included residential mixed use and block block structure so it's possible with good designers you can make it happen. The fact that we haven't seen it yet here doesn't mean it's not possible.

It just means it hasn't happened yet.

Have we seen development in other urban place districts since it's been formed?

No.

Can you speak to what, oh, go ahead.

If I may, we have seen applications for them. There were some along the river. Obviously, Helene changed the course of that. So when you say development, there's some nuance there in terms of having ground broken. The answer is no, but we have seen a series of applications and interest.

Yeah, and I'll add of note, the majority of urban place properties share the same property owner within the city.

Yeah.

Commissioner Faircloth, I mean, so we passed the urban place in 22 correct? 21 and 22 there were two phases um you know so four or five years helene was one of those years um from the development world you probably know this better than me commissioner burrell but you know commercial development happens on the scale of 10 15 years it's not a you know four years in the commercial world is a blink of an eye so i'm just gonna throw that out there but there have been applications that have been

like compliant and approved under the urban place district do we know how many of those you don't have to i mean if you don't know that's fine yeah uh i was working on reviewing one before helene i don't think i got the final approval but they were able to uh from at least in an interim phase meet all the requirements they didn't get a final stamp plan because helene happened i think but they had a viable site plan on thompson street So it was a smaller property, so a little bit different context, but they were able to put a project together that met urban place requirements.

Okay. And this year's property also provided a proposal that was not approved, or?

It was several different properties over multiple years. I believe they were different property owners. I'm not sure if they ever actually formally applied. I think they were pre-application sort of discussions with the city.

Okay.

And it was at least the last viable publicly known development proposed on Sears property was prior to Urban Place Initiative, wasn't it?

Sarah Taj projects.

Yes, just prior to urban place, but it had a lot of the mixed use principles. But I believe at the time, it was the first time there had been a proposal in that area in a long time. And I think the neighborhood, which is that small neighborhood, White Pine Drive, they didn't like some of the higher buildings. And so sort of

Nothing had been there in a long time, but there was opposition. I believe that was one of the main reasons they got turned down.

The other thing, if you don't know the history of the urban centers, is that the city, after we passed it, after three years of working with property owners on this, the city was sued by a certain number of property owners. These parcels that were selected to be urban centers And we were sued by, they were owned by a number of property owners, but some of the largest ones were the three or four property owners that sued the city. And it resulted in a settlement where we did not repeal or have to repeal or say that our urban center zoning was invalid. when we want to redevelop it, we can either do urban center or we can do our existing zoning. And so I think the one with the star, that would be the case there because that was one of the ones that was part of the settlement. So just depending on if they ever move forward of course what we would always say is we're never forcing a property owner to do this they continued with their uses you know one of the other sites was the steinmart down on off of merriman you know it had always been that commercial development and it could continue that way but if it sought to expand then it would have had to go under the urban place so hopefully that that helps to address a little bit the question of why haven't we seen seen this kind of development because there are some property owners who said they didn't want to do it, but at least we were able to defend that it was a valid rezoning. I mean, it was a, yeah, so it didn't get repealed. So there are certain parcels that have this urban

um place and that's so oh sorry the last thing i was going to ask you is just that is so after the comprehensive plan was passed in 2018 what was the zoning at that time prior to urban place regional business okay so at the time that the comprehensive plan was passed, like it was seen as appropriate for this. It's discussed in the comprehensive plan as this sort of town center idea and that regional business was an appropriate use for town center or appropriate district.

The comprehensive plan spurred on this citywide rezoning effort for urban place. So it was because of the comprehensive plan that we took this three year process to rezone hundreds of acres of property.

Okay, so it was just, okay, so the three year gap was really in an effort to implement the recommendations and the comprehensive plan.

Correct, there was a lot of back and forth with the community and it just took a long time. Chris, were you gonna chime in?

No, I was just gonna say the same thing. I think actually it doesn't, the town center does not list regional business as an appropriate zoning district.

Say that again?

The town center future land use category does not list regional business as an appropriate zoning district. Okay, thanks.

And it's unusual to even, I think it's unusual to even have a future land use map designation that mentions specific areas that might be what we're talking about for that future land use, as I think Fedele called out, that it mentioned the Asheville Mall would be the kind of place where you would want to see in the future more of a town center development.

Commissioner Faircloth, so this question is for Ms. Ashley. So with that lawsuit, was the settlement just an agreement upon their ability to change zonings, or was there a financial component to that too? It was just on their ability to change zonings.

So they got to keep, they could choose. Sure.

addition there's a time stipulation too right 35 years what 35 years 35 years isn't there a threshold on how much expansion they can do under the RB as well 120 percent yeah so if you go above that then it's you're kicking into the urban place so the settlement allows them to expand up to 120 percent but if they can't meet any of the development requirements they still have to go through a CZ process

I guess what I'm going with this is if one person in the urban place got a settlement through a legal case, doesn't that mean all the other urban places are?

No, only the certain property owners that brought the action, and now we're beyond the statute of limitations, so no. They brought the, the specific property owners brought the action and they are the ones that took the settlement. And I'm not talking a money settlement. I'm talking. Correct. Yeah.

But no one else in Urban Place could come forward with a different property?

Not now because the zoning's been in place for... They would have had to bring their own lawsuit. I'm not trying to make a point here. I'm just trying to understand. I don't live in the legal world. No, so that's... And I'm glad you brought those details in about the expanding because what we used to argue too is that... you know they could continue to use their property just as they always had but what once you rezone it becomes a non-conforming use so you can't expand that use but in the settlement they could expand what they were already doing or they could go with the urban get confused i say urban center but it's also urban village it is a very complex part

With the lawsuit, was the settlement to prevent going fully to court and it was just kind of an agreement between the parties or did it go in front of a judge and that was the final verdict?

It did go before a judge. We argued at the courts for a while. I forget whether it went up to, and I'm sorry, our city attorney handled this more closely than I did, but it just got to a point where I don't think, it never got to a point where it was decided at court. It had gone to court, we both filed, and then there was discussion about the settlement.

Thank you. This is all, I think, helpful context to the background of Urban Place and how it has played out in various ways. As a sort of reminder and refocus, we're looking at kind of this rezoning parcel, whether regional business is an appropriate and acceptable rezoning. And one thing I'll say is I think I given the scale of this and the location and it being designated in the COMP plan as a. component of our preferred growth scenario and given that urban place was seen by the city as kind of the tool to help achieve that I think it is really important to work with this property owner to understand. what could allow and facilitate a redevelopment. I'm skeptical that a straight rezoning is the mechanism to do that, but the complications of the parcel boundaries, multiple ownership, and the scale, I think all invite a really deep conversation that needs to happen so that this property is allowed to do something more than just City Council Chambers, exist as is so that that's just kind of my thought, but it may be time that we should hear from the applicant or go ahead yeah.

Commissioner Anzalito, I have some questions about the land use table as it relates to the drive-throughs. There's some contradicting lines in the land use table on this. I was hoping, we had some emails back and forth about it. I was hoping maybe we could get some general context and then I had one or two extra questions.

i think the drive-through item we looked at that and i think i responded maybe you were on that chain uh commissioner anzaluto um sort of yeah close the loop on that um yeah the long and the short i think is that drive-throughs are uh permitted in the table and there's a lot of different lines in the table it's very cumbersome the takeaway is that drive-throughs are allowed in both regional business and urban place but in the urban place they are limited to one drive-through lane per you know, drive-through operation and a drive-through has to be located behind the building. It can't be located between the building and the street. So that's basically it.

And I can highlight or expand on that. In the beginning, of our negotiations for that, for the Urban Place Form District, we excluded drive-throughs, but we got a lot of pushback from some of the existing businesses that have drive-throughs, and so we met with them and we came up with this, we kind of negotiated, and so we found the middle ground was to not push too far, but to allow them to have drive-throughs, but to reduce it to only one lane and to sort of subordinate it a little bit.

Okay, I think, so I guess the.

I have no idea what that is.

We've reached our time, so.

That was weird.

Okay, so the, I guess I'm, so the bottom line is that the, so just in case anybody else was kind of curious about where that question was coming from, there's a line in the use table under, I think, the section other use types, and then it's a subline underneath that that just says drive-throughs. Drive-through facilities or uses, that's permitted in regional business, but not in urban place.

So let me clarify. Sorry, did I interrupt you? Did you have a further... Did you want to expand on that question?

Yeah, I had one more, just kind of like a half thought after that, is that there are several other uses that are called out specifically under retail services or... Yeah, exactly. For example, a pharmacy with a drive-thru isn't permitted in either one. A restaurant with a drive-thru isn't permitted in either zoning. If you can't have a CVS that has a drive-thru and you can't have a Burger King with a drive-thru, is that or am I incorrect in my reading of the table because of the superseding nature of the

yeah it's kind of like supplemental so if it says like you can do a retail use or a food establishment and then the drive-through use as well so if those both are on the permitted use you can do a eating establishment with the drive-through the urban place the table is kind of weird it might be uh we kind of consolidated these tables a couple years ago like urban place had its own use table we brought them all together under one master table and it made a lot of like translation issues and add a lot more lines um not to get all into it but it was it's it's made a little more cumbersome although it's all in one table which is great i think there might have been some kind of translating error or whatever that um there is not a p on your drive-through in urban place but it does say in the urban place district that drive-throughs are permitted with those special requirements of how they're located and the limits on the one lane per drive-through so yeah you are correct that it's not noted as a p on the table which I think is an oversight on our part. But you can. Our interpretation is that you can definitely do a CVS and a drive-through or a Burger King and a drive-through in either district. Oh, in either district. Yes, affirmatively in either district. The urban place just would limit you to one lane and then have to have the drive-through behind the building, not in front of the building.

Oh, okay.

Yep.

I guess, is that not within the spirit of a mixed-use walkable?

I mean, like Vadil was saying, it kind of was a compromise, I guess. Sure.

Yeah.

allow allow for that function, but regulate it in a way that keeps the the street facing activation, you know, intact and doesn't have a drive through cutting off the building from the road if you have behind the building. So it's a maybe it's a compromise, I guess best way to be trying to move the move the needle a little bit.

But to be responsive to push back an interest that we got from existing property owners.

Okay.

Can I ask one more question? Sorry. I've been interested in trying to learn a little bit more about the role of like economic development staff in planning and zoning matters. Is there are there like staff that are just given that the mall obviously could use a little injection of investment and life and certain pieces of it. And I did see that like Buncombe County just announced that they're going to put an emergency operations center in the JCPenney. But like, are there staff that are kind of assigned or dedicated to trying to promote, you know, economic development, particularly for this area or this property?

I can't, excuse me, I can't say for this property for sure now, but we do have a community and economic development department that does have staff dedicated to working with economic development opportunities. Here a lot of it is done in conjunction with the, oh gosh, somebody bail me out, Clark Duncan's group. Sorry, the EDC, the Economic Development Coalition for the region. So sometimes it's those opportunities come through them. But again, that's extra departmental. So the best answer I can give you is there are staff dedicated to that in the city.

And I'll say we're really amenable to working with development. We have great designers in-house to deal with the design. We have economic development staff, but it requires them to come to us. You know, so this is a case, in this case, that didn't happen, not that I'm aware of.

Okay, thanks.

One last comment before we hear from the applicant. Back at the time that the urban place rezonings were made, I think it was in really close proximity to the French Broad River MPO developing the Tunnel Road Corridor Study, which is not a... Is it a city adopted plan? I don't know. It's not. It just kind of runs in parallel with our plans. But it's a really good document to kind of understand what it takes to transition. So, you know, City of Asheville had the Urban Centers Initiative and started defining parameters of the type of development pattern that we would like to see that align with the comp plan. I think that tunnel road corridor study is also a really rich document, kind of brings in some of the economic development aspects that Commissioner Brohl has mentioned. And in particular, I'll just, I mean, I'm cherry picking, but one piece of it is multimodal transportation improvements and a greater mix of uses improvements may be the catalyst for redevelopment. That's in a sea of a lot of recommendations, but I want us to kind of continue to understand and think about multimodal transportation, especially as the city potentially realigns its transit routes with the redevelopment potential along this corridor and get ahead of it with our zoning and start to have revisit conversations with property owners that have redevelopment potential. So just a plug for that to happen. And we happen to have one of those property owners represented.

Is there funding allocated for transportation or pedestrian improvements on Tunnel Road here?

No. The only thing I could see was in the STIP some minor improvements for sidewalks, signal, and crosswalks at the intersection of South Tunnel and Mall.

Okay, okay. Okay, thank you.

Can I just make a comment on the transportation issue? Actually, city council had bus routes, and they just had sort of a work session and heard from the planner. And one of the interesting things, they were saying, well, why are we cutting down on this route or that route? And the planner said, it's a struggle. This is an outside consultant. He said, it's your land use pattern here. It is broken. And it's so spread out that it makes it very difficult to now take a bus system that's going to work. And I remember Councilwoman Turner said, say that again. So it does, it relates.

Thank you. Mr. Sortz. Good evening now. My name is Jesse Swartz. I'm a land use attorney with Allen Stahl and Kilbourne. I'm here representing the owner of the mall, which is aptly named Asheville Mall Capital Holding LLC. As we heard, the Asheville Mall property was previously zoned regional business. The Urban Place form district and the initial rezonings happened back in 2021. So the initial Urban Place was adopted September 28th, 2021. The mall was in the second phase of rezonings. That happened on January 11th, 2022. We heard a little bit about the comp plan. As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the comp plan that says this land has become unsuitable for the previous zoning. It was really, I think, more like this land is suitable for this new initiative. But there is... a lot of regional business and highway business still in this corridor. I'll get that to my next slide, but regional business and highway business are very similar and regional business and highway business have a good amount of overlap with urban place form district, but not totally. This is an excerpt. Obviously the whole table won't fit on the slide, but you can pull it up to see the differences. And this is the slide that says, that has What's been rezoned urban place with the blue arrows and what remains regional business and highway business, the lighter red is highway business in the darker red is regional business. So it was pretty controversial when it went through, at least among the property owners. I went back and listened to the conversations at city council, and there were a number of comments that I thought were pretty on point. Gerald Green, who y'all may know, he's a retired planner that shows up and has input from time to time, said this, the challenge is how to get from the current reality of existing development patterns to the vision that the Urban Place Form District implements. The draft ordinance does not address this challenge. It attempts to move the development pattern from the current suburban standard to a highly urban standard in one giant step, irrespective of market forces, site constraints, and impacts on surrounding uses. urban place will serve to stifle development rather than promote it. He also made a point about kind of being concerned about whether redeveloping these specific pieces of land as primarily residential would affect the ability of people who already live nearby to access commercial services with only a short car drive or a bike ride or a walk. And his point was if these are redeveloped and the commercial uses go elsewhere, you know, there will be people that actually have to go farther for their needs. The same thing happens, although this wasn't part of his comment, the same thing happens if the commercial areas just fall into disrepair. It actually has the, you know, the effect of increasing sprawl and increasing, you know, time spent in the car because folks have to go farther to get what they need. Clyde Holt, who is one of the attorneys representing one of the landowners that sued the city, said this. It appears that your planners believe that all they have to do is announce a desired change in development patterns and it will happen. This is without regard to the realities of the market, the realities of lender demands, title insurance company requirements, or physical conditions on the ground. The result. very well in Asheville may be more vacant and underutilized sites where the owner is not allowed to renovate, upgrade, redevelop because financing for the plan or envision urban place form is not available or because conditions on the ground make it impractical if not impossible. And finally, White Stevens, also representing one of the landowners. I suspect many folks would like to see these centers redeveloped, especially Innsbruck, with new buildings, new landscaping, new sidewalks, all of which would be required under current zoning. But a mandate which fails to take into account the characteristics of these sites and attempts to require private property owners to build something they don't want and that won't work is doomed to fail. We'll come back to the point about the current UDO standards and what will be required later. So these quotes have really done nothing but come true. We have had some activity on this corridor, but zero have happened in urban place here and elsewhere around the city. One of the developments is the Panera slash Moe's slash Chick-fil-A kind of across from the mall. That has since been rezoned to urban place, but it was initiated under the previous zoning, which I think was regional business. I also noticed recently that the old Cracker Barrel is being redeveloped as Ichiban, which is kind of relocating from Biltmore Village after Helene, and that is not urban place. It's still regional business over there. So I want to talk about, in addition to the fact that many of these urban place properties are owned by a landowner that's famous for not doing anything, there are some other reasons why we haven't seen activity in urban place. The first one is that under the UDO, you cannot do conditional zoning in an urban place district. So it says, you know, except for those that require a master plan and urban place requires a master plan. As an aside, once you meet level three, so I'm sorry, I lost my place. So pretty much unless the development is large enough to meet the level three threshold, you can't do conditional zoning. You're stuck with the urban place standards as they are. As an aside, once the project is level three, it is the expansion district zoning standards that apply. So for projects that are big enough to maybe take the city up on some of these more expensive standards and mandates, urban place won't actually apply to that. Another reason is over detailed regulations. Derek and I have talked about this issue on several projects recently where we've run into kind of overly detailed standards and overly specific conditions that are causing projects to have to come all the way back through the process. This one I just thought was interesting, requires a lobby with a minimum of width of 20 feet along the street facing facade at the level of the adjoining sidewalk. Lobby has to be at least 10 feet deep, transparency must be applied. This is from section, is it from section N or section T? subsection N or T of section 2.1 of the urban place. This section, section 2.1, goes all the way to the letter V for subsections. That's the 22nd letter of the alphabet, if I counted correctly on my fingers. That's like a lot of details. Another reason is the housing mandate that we heard a little bit about. It is kind of enormously expensive. It enormously complicates a project, and not just because of the design complexity, but because commercial developers don't necessarily know how to do housing or even mixed use. And what's interesting to me is, so commercial has to incorporate housing over a certain amount of square feet. The section a up there actually is a mixed use mandate even for residential so that's a mandate to have some kind of mixed use at least ten percent of the total gross square footage even in an otherwise purely residential. All these details kind of get. you know, wrapped into the difficulty with the housing mandate, and one example is the step-back requirement, which basically requires the top floors to be smaller than the building footprint, which, you know, pretty much eliminates some of the most prime, potentially, you know, space in the building, reduces density, and complicates the process. Then there's the street connectivity that we heard a little bit about. That also limits the potential density and the building footprints, and it really limits the site design, especially for these oddly shaped parcels. Some of y'all know more about that than I do, but it does say ideal block length is 200 feet, and one of the interesting things to me is you're required to connect to adjacent parcels even when the grade will be 15% at the connection, which seems pretty steep to me. So let's move from problems inherent to the urban place and talk about the goals a little bit. The intent I mean, I don't really want to read this whole slide, but I guess i'll read part of it, you know, a to accommodate a growing population and support new businesses. You know, I can see how the regulations would be designed to further that goal. We've had no activity, so we certainly haven't seen that goal, you know, or move any closer to that goal. Mixed uses and integrate wide range of housing options. Again, we can't do that if we have a code that makes it impossible to redevelop. Improved connectivity with an emphasis on walkability, accessibility, transit, supportive connections. Again, no activity, but we have current UDO standards that require sidewalks and all these things. And finally, to support a healthy environment for residents, workers, and visitors with trees. You know again no activity and the reality with many of these urban place. zoned projects is you know they were built in 1973 or 1990 or something like that before we had you know street tree requirements parking lot landscaping tree canopy standards and I would bet that the stormwater control regulations were quite different. And I actually have what I think is a pretty informative illustration. I pulled some aerial images from GIS. This one is from 2006. It shows what is now the Whole Foods Shopping Center on kind of the top right and the mall on the bottom left. And this is, note the sea of largely unbroken asphalt. I didn't know when these were initially developed, but the model we heard was 1973. But certainly the standards were an older version. This is from 2010. So in addition to the, the addition of the Barnes and Noble to the mall triggered new UDO standards in effect at the time. And I think that was around 2008. And of course you can see, for example, the parking lot landscaping, and I'm sure there's some invisible stormwater improvements as well. And this was all, this was done when, you know, the mall was zoned regional business. And finally, this is from 2024. The Whole Foods redeveloped around 2013. Again, it was RB or HB, pretty sure it was RB. And you can see the difference with the parking lot landscaping, pedestrian accommodations. Um, and note how nicely the trees have grown in in the Barnes and noble parking lots. Um, and then we can see the areas, uh, of the mall parking lot that weren't redeveloped. They look exactly the same. Um, they receive asphalt, uh, that that shows, um. I think that was the emergency Walgreens tent, uh, and some other Helene recovery related things. The point is zoning back to regional business doesn't make us give up everything Urban Place was trying to achieve. Rezoning to a district that realistically allows redevelopment will at least get us closer to the new comp plan goals and the UDO's goals now because they will have to comply with the new standards. And finally, you know, this is a straight rezoning, so we're not talking about a specific project. But my client, you know, wants to activate part of this sea of parking around the Asheville Mall. We all know Tunnel Road is, you know, the whole corridor is in trouble. It is falling into disrepair. And here we have somebody who wants to add new economic activity out here. Which is part of the solution to you know some of the very complex problems we have out there, but they just need a workable zoning code in order to do it. So you know, ultimately, I think urban place was you know, a great idea everybody would love to see that come to fruition, but it has to be calibrated so that people can actually take advantage of it, you know. And you know I hear Brenton your comment about it's only been four years, but I mean based on hopefully based on kind of the details that I went through, you can see just how how difficult it is anecdotally I think. my firm worked with three different clients on potential projects for the seer site and none of them none of them penciled um it was just too it's just too expensive and so they went away So I think that's my presentation. I did wanna, actually there were a couple things I wanted to address. I looked at a couple different scenarios for the mall, including potential residential there under urban place and under regional business, and my study, which was pretty preliminary, it looked like regional business would support more density there. And that's just you know that's just anecdotal, but I think it is kind of intuitively obvious that you know regional business has fewer constraints it it lets you fit more housing units on a site. and I had a note to talk about the drive through thing there, there is a specific section in the text of the room place that says all the uses in the permitted uses table, except the following, so it does kind of override certain things. And with that happy to answer any questions you may have or happy to sit down.

Thank you, Mr. Swords. I wasn't going to ask this question because it seemed not necessarily relevant, but since your presentation kind of reopens or attempts to re-litigate the value of urban place, this has been in place as the zoning for close to five years now. When did your client first understand that Urban Place was going to be a problem for their future ambitions on the property? And I guess the real question is, was your client approached to join in that lawsuit and decided not to?

I think I'm not exactly sure of the timing, but I think the current owner bought the mall as kind of a distressed property after After all that happened not totally sure gotcha Which is what you say which is

you're prevented from doing a CZ to an urban place. And I've looked at it, Brad Branham has looked at it. We think that there's an error in the way that it's written. There's several inconsistencies. We don't see anything in the statutes that would prohibit a conditional zoning for a property that requires a master plan. Also, as written under urban place, it allows for variances So that's different than a conditional zoning. So I just didn't know to what extent you talked to staff about this because my premise is it could be a conditional zoning. We think we need to clean up the UDO. and we also made that argument when we had the the lawsuit which was we're not forcing you to do this you could always do a conditional zoning it's just that if you are able to make it work you don't have to go through that process but if you have to tweak it because you can't do connections so you can't do that you could come and bring a conditional zoning So I was very surprised, and so was Brad Branham when we looked at that today. So just to frame that for you, that it could be a possibility. You're not, your client is not tied to this. We probably have to just clean it up. If they wanted to bring a conditional zoning, they could.

Just by the text of you know I think that's section 788 the conditional zoning section yeah it simply says conditional zoning is not available, so I guess that would require an amendment of that section to allow it in urban place.

We think it just didn't get cleaned up with it at the time. So it would allow for conditional zoning, even if there's a master plan. And again, the odd, there's several inconsistencies because when I read urban place, urban place doesn't mention a master plan. Urban village mentions a master plan. Then urban centers mentions a master plan. But urban place doesn't mention a master plan, but allows for variances to be decided by the planning and zoning commission. So there's two options. You could either try to go down the route of urban place and request variances from this commission to certain things, or probably conditional zoning would be even more flexible.

There's a section, I don't have the citation off the top of my head, but for sites larger than two acres, a master plan is required.

Yeah, that's under the urban center.

Yeah, I know, but anyway, I'm just saying that

Yes, there's inconsistencies and we can interpret it that it was not meant to read like that. So if you had, if you talked to staff about it, we, you know, it's something that, it's a route that you could go because Brad Branham and I, there's no statutory reason that that would be the case.

Well, I lost it, but, you know, I, I just, yeah, I suppose we could talk about that, but that's not what we're interested in. I think that would require an amendment. I don't think you can interpret your way around a pretty clear distinction there. And if it's a problem with how urban place is written, I mean, that's not really a surprise. There are problems all over the place. That's one of the issues that makes it so hard to develop. So that's why we're asking for the previous zoning of regional business.

Other questions for the applicant?

Could you expand on the three projects you said didn't pencil?

I personally cannot. I was only part of conversations for one of them, and it was a while back now. I'm sorry.

Didn't your firm handle Seritage, which was prior to urban centers, but very much that mixed-use development? I thought that Derek Gatlin had- I didn't personally, so I can't really speak to it.

Commissioner Faircloth here. Thanks Mr. Swords for the presentation. I guess I'm trying to read between the lines a little bit. I mean I imagine your firm isn't doing this as a thought exercise but your client is John Potter, either needs to build something under residential business business that they can't do currently or is trying to sell the property and I don't know if I can directly ask you that question or. John Potter, I mean, do you know more about what the. John Potter, intent is here your client just wants more options with that property or is there a specific.

You know, there are a number of possibilities, and if it were certain enough to do a CZ at this moment, we might have recommended that working with staff or something. I still don't see how it will work, but basically they need to know what zoning they're working with. And there are a lot more options, and it's just a lot more possible under regional business.

So yeah, so whatever is. whatever is happening there is still in its infancy there's not a fully plan um i guess where i'm at with this is you know i i just want to see um tenants who are investing money in the property and upgrading it whether that's through urban place or residential business i'm a little torn on this because i do feel as though urban place has a lot of good ideas. I'll agree. Yes. It's somewhat cumbersome, but, um, I love the intent of where it's going, but on the other side, you know, residential business is less restrictive. Um, and I'd like to see just that area of town have some new investment going into it. Cause it's a rough area of town. Um, I say that as my office is on Tunnel Road, so I get it.

And with with the Udo rewrite coming up, I mean, I thought about whether I should say this because I don't want to add, you know, to anybody's to do list. But with all the consistencies that inconsistencies that have already been mentioned, I think, you know, looking at urban places probably already on the to do list. But that to me is a prime opportunity to recalibrate, you know, to see how we can move toward these goals without just letting this area just fall off the face of the earth in the meantime. I mean, that's my personal opinion of what I think should happen.

Yeah, so I agree with you. And whether this was intended or not, this seems to be becoming a referendum on urban place, right? Especially for two reasons I see. One, your presentation points to that directly. It seemed to be a referendum on urban place is, you know, doesn't work. And then to this is such a large parcel with such a strange geometry if we rezone this one parcel it's effectively going to kill urban place in that location, in my mind, because of the frictions between the land, then some of the remaining urban place parcels.

So maybe on the mall site itself. I think you know, developing these independent parcels is going to be difficult anyway, unless they're developed all as one which you know I don't think we can mandate through zoning that all everybody work together. And as Vadilla pointed out, the Sears site is already exempted from our own place. The JCPenney now county site is 6.1 acres, which is not tiny. But I'll be interested to see how they change that.

Could I add some info to you all, since it was mentioned about the UDO and comp plan, something that didn't come up, but under the current state structure that prohibits down zoning of sites, When we look at that zoning from urban place, we would be able to loosen the restrictions of it. But we, if we were looking at a site that was our B, we wouldn't be able to add back any of those restrictions if that down zoning is in place. And I think that's an important consideration for you all to know once we go to our B.

if we go to rb all the uh site design elements that are required that are aimed at promoting the comprehensive plan would not be able to put that be put back in place that's exactly where i'm where i'm going with my comment is that because this feels like a referendum on urban place i don't think i'm ready to make a decision right now in this meeting in the next 10 minutes to rezone this parcel

when that conversation to me should be happening at the udo rewrite level and that that's just where i stand with this you know urban place does need to be looked at um the udo rewrite is is happening over a span of probably a couple years i don't know how long it will take You know we're asking in the meantime to be able to do something with this property I Appreciate your thoughts about you know does this kill urban place at the at the mall site well? It's already off this year's site I Don't know what the county is going to do, but I suspect they end up with a conditional rezoning to an expansion district I don't see how they do it otherwise So it may well be gone already, in which case the mall would be the only urban place left over there. There are other urban place zonings all around the city. This doesn't kill urban place. It just lets the mall do something with the sea of asphalt that's there now.

Are we open for public comment, Chair?

Can I make one clarification? The presentation pointed to an image that was critiqued, and I just want to point out that it was incorrectly stated. It was actually an image for flood area buildings, which this would not be applicable to, so it just wasn't, I think, very helpful, maybe misleading. And I think it's important to remember that this is a straight rezoning. So when we're hearing a critique on a building, a form-based standard that, for example, has a step back at the top story, which in this case would be the fifth story, this would imply that there's a concern that a site plan is going to have a five-story building. We don't have a site plan, so I don't think it's appropriate to... be speculating on how the standards may impact a proposal that we're not reviewing.

Does that make sense? Could you clarify on the flood provision that was referenced in the presentation? Sure. Was that the lobby?

Do you mind opening up the presentation again? I can speak to it a little bit. That is applicable only to projects that are in the floodplain. It has to do with parking can be underneath and all this stuff. I didn't mean to say that that would be an issue with... the mall specifically, it was more of a descale that jumped out at me as being a bizarre one and kind of an Easter egg. Similar with the five-story step-back thing, obviously we're not looking at a specific project, so I can't say it would affect what my client wants to do, but it is one of these inherent limitations that makes it difficult to do a project here that's going to work in an economic,

thank you for that thank you for the clarification mr safika um i do think we should open for public comment um so we will open public comment at 7 52. is anyone here to speak on this seeing none we will close public comment at 7 52. Yeah, I think, you know, you've heard us wrestle with a lot of the nuance and details, both in the complexity of urban place, but also in the request that's before us. I would echo what the vice chair has said that, you know, if we are here to really review urban place and and determine whether there's something there that is of value that's kind of beyond the scope of what what we're tasked with today so um i will make one other clarification that besides the um property that buncombe county is exploring acquiring there's also the dillards that is kind of like in the middle not part of the applicant request for regional business is that correct

That's the whole there's a lot going on over there, but as a, as an applicant, like, you have to be the property owner. Uh, so we could only apply to change the rezoning of the property that my client owns.

Correct. So that's like, you know, if. The city were to grant a rezoning to regional business that. Dillard's former dollars property or current dollars property would remain urban place. I think that's what the vice chair is alluding to is that, you know. that impacts that property owner if everything else is regional business and almost sort of forces them into a conditional zoning or reversion to regional business as well. It's hard to kind of, even though they're not part of your application, it is hard to imagine that last little remainder vestige being any way compliant with urban place.

If they want to do something, when they want to do something, they're going to have to change the zoning to do it. They would have to do it whether the rest of the mall was still urban place or not.

And the last point I'll make is that if your client was not the owner at the time that the rezoning to urban place was made, that's all well and good. As part of their due diligence in the acquisition of this property, they were acquiring a property that was zoned urban place. i would have hoped that any potential buyer of an asset like that would explore the potential for redevelopment if that was part of their their end ambition so um in my mind i feel like there were there were avenues to correct this um and to miss ashley's point there there remain avenues available to pursue redevelopment in partnership and conversation with the city through a conditional zoning process I struggle to see a way to support the applicant's request to rezone to regional business, but open to others.

It looks like the property was acquired after the rezoning.

So are you saying that just because a property is bought with certain zoning that owners should be stuck with it?

no it's just part of their due diligence to evaluate what's possible under the zoning and you know they can avail themselves of any process post or pre-closing on the property to enable them to to affect the level of investment that they envision for the property so so that's why i'm here okay yeah and i think that you know the yeah the question is is to me it's like i i share the city staff's objective of like we'd like to understand what specifically is um is the impediment or is the request and or is there a way to put forth exactly what um your client would like to do with the property i think all of us share the goal of converting underutilized asphalt into productive use that that's i don't think anyone has questioned that objective i just question whether rezoning straight rezoning 40 acres to regional business is the way to accomplish that and i and i wonder based on the conversation tonight if there's opportunity for you and your client to engage in a exploratory conversation with city staff about what other ways um could could achieve your client's goal so

you know we're here asking for rezoning because we don't think we can work with urban place period it's been evaluated by not just me by engineering firms the options are extremely limited and it's extremely difficult unless you want to raise the whole mall which is an issue because of all the property owners that have interests that all would have to agree on that Even if you did raise the whole mall, it is still an onerous and expensive code. It's unworkable. No one has been able to work with it. We've had at least three clients hire civil engineering firms to do site plans that haven't been able to make it work. You know, this doesn't have to be a referendum on urban place in general, but I wanted to point out the difficulties in working with it, you know, and the fact that. You know, without a rezoning to regional business, we're going to be waiting. To see what the next iteration of the says about urban place and we don't know when that's going to come. We don't know what that's going to say. And so, in the meantime, why not. You know, let this property redevelop, get the new standards in there for all kinds of things that we want, like open space, tree, canopy, sidewalks, parking lot, landscaping, pedestrian, connectivity, all that stuff. And and then the city can work on urban place. Um, the, the point about down zoning was an interesting 1. we don't know how long that's gonna last every local government hates that, uh, and is lobbying against it and it could change any time. There are also you know issues where it's not a down zoning if you're allowing the same number or more uses, but you can change those uses so it's not like a total you know prohibition on making changes that you want to see I can be worked with so. Basically, we're asking to be able to do something with this property now, rather than wait an indeterminate amount of years to see if something is feasible under a new code.

Understood. And I don't think that's the only alternative. Um, I think that's the alternative that you're characterizing, but I, I do believe that there are alternative pathways other than a straight rezoning, um, that are available to your client. And, um, I'd, I'd implore you to explore those.

And we have talked about those. Um, all of them. Are are very difficult. That's why we're here asking for a straight rezoning. You know, we've seen not everything can be a conditional zoning. Not everything should be a conditional. There's a huge. You know, time and homework thing that goes into all conditional rezonings before you even know if it's going to be permitted or not that. That's something I think should be looked at in the new UDO code. The old urban village, I think, worked better than our current CZ because the site plan was preliminary, approved by city council, and then everything else was level two after that. It kind of put things in a better order, in my opinion. Conditional zoning is difficult, especially, I really can't, I don't know how to elaborate on it, but it's not going to work for my clients.

is is there you know if the goal is to develop portions of parking lot is there a way to create parcels create new parcels and apply for um a zoning to be assigned to those new parcels is i mean that's kind of theoretical question because that's not what we're being asked to look at but It just seems like there's multiple avenues to achieve development of this parcel, and what we're being asked to is really contemplate a straight rezoning that has a much broader implication than the specific goals where I think the city and your client align.

And I do want to point out that street rezonings are OK. There's already a pretty big swath of urban place rezoned land where the city has already agreed not to enforce that. So it's interesting to me that the city is putting other property owners in the urban place in a different position there. It boggles the mind how they can be treated differently under the same zoning code. We think urban place is sorry regional business is the way forward for this site right now with this with this owner. They're not interested in conditional rezoning. They're not interested in, you know, all of the speculation and then finding out. Well, they don't want that either. Uh, you know, we, we just need a workable zoning code. And I do want to point out once more that, you know, that has changed a lot since 1973. And they're going to be benefits from just for redeveloping it under anything because. Tree canopy and all that applies everywhere.

Understood Thank you. Um, any. Additional comments, clarifications before we put this to a vote. Oh, sorry. Thank you.

Yeah, we did.

Yeah, we did.

No, don't worry commissioner for the classes on it. Yeah. Um. I guess I'm going to disagree a little bit with, it seems like the chair and vice chair, but. I do think, um, staff has put a lot of work into. I think we all agree the staff has put a lot of work into thinking through what this urban place could be. However, I think the question in my mind is whether anything is ever going to happen with urban place. And we can all argue whether four years, five years is or isn't a long time. There's multiple urban place sites around town. I mean, it's just a case study. You make one different and suddenly this takes off. you know this is more effective than urban place or if this also sits there like urban place and it kind of proves that. I don't know, I'm looking at it as a, we're talking about this as though it's the urban place referendum and this is one property owner and while I hate to go back from the ideal vision, maybe we see what someone can do under the old zoning and if just urban place isn't market ready, I don't know. That's where I'm at.

Yeah, I think, you know, I'd spent some time sort of reading through the urban place language and I tend to, my initial reaction was, I don't see how developers make this work. It's extremely prescriptive, like extremely prescriptive. And I think while I am absolutely in favor of, improved connectivity, promoting housing development there, incentivizing housing development. I think it is unduly burdensome in just how it's written. I think my challenge here is like, City Council Chambers, I don't want to lose the prioritization of those components, you know the the connectivity that pedestrian support the transit can you know connection, you know, supporting housing development there. City Council Chambers, So I think that's what i'm kind of wrestling with. City Council Chambers, But. Yeah, I think it's more describing sort of like an ideal state, the ordinance, rather than providing necessary flexibility. So I think I'm, you know, I think this area is very much in need of investment. And I'm hoping that comes in the form of transportation improvements and investments, but also economic investment and redevelopment. And I think I am landing towards favoring wanting to rezone in order to allow for additional investment in the area. I do have concerns about how that's gonna impact other adjacent parcels with this strange structure, but I also don't think the concept of the urban place can feasibly work as it exists right now with the way the parcels are structured. So it's like, if we're hearing that we can reinvest here by rezoning this, then.

why why wouldn't you why why do you think it wouldn't work with the way they're structured now because it's one contiguous block of urban place because they're not all owned by the same entity right but i mean as a planning board or we're not we want to look beyond ownership right we want to look at land use i think you know that like there's

You know, like, it's, I think, just like the way that it was speaking about, like the master plan and needing to create blocks and, you know, and the way the measurements of those blocks and things like that, I sort of interpreted it as like, I don't, I mean, if you, I think there could be opportunity to just develop like one piece of the parking lot, for example, but like, if you wanted to develop 20 of the 40 acres, like you're gonna have to make blocks and stuff.

I mean, I need to say this, but just to clarify and maybe to make it simpler and easier to understand, regional business does provide a lot more flexibility. If what you're interested in is allowing someone to build something tomorrow, like a fast food joint or whatever, regional business is the tool to help that happen. The urban place form district is much more restrictive because it is trying to align city goals and the middle ground is have is forcing a developer to go through conditional zoning process that has to respond to the form district, but not necessarily follow it. um so that's that's the path to go if you want to kind of push the the goals of the the city council and the comprehensive plan so i'm not sure if that simplifies the thinking can you so they could sorry can you just clarify that and say that again like a bit if under urban place to develop it they would be they would have to go through a conditional reason so when when a conditional zoning is brought forward it's it's reviewed through the lens of the existing zoning district that you're trying to um clarify here if i'm getting it off base here it's look through the lens of what is the existing zoning so you're trying to change the the base zoning district you're saying um urban place doesn't work because of this and this and this, and we want conditions to allow us, for example, to not have to build block structure, or we don't want the top story setback, because those are the best views that we want to sell. And then, through the conditional zoning process, we negotiate and we allow them to change the base zoning district, right? So then, it kind of, you compromise, and you come to, a closer point of reaching the city's goals but allowing the property owner more flexibility to get what they want but if you if you just um straight rezone it controls out of your hands and you can get anything without knowing what you're going to get it may not align with the city goals

would it require a text amendment in order for conditional rezoning to occur like based on what i mean it sounds like what you were saying is that you interpreted it differently but as city staff and the zoning administrator for the city i feel pretty confident that it would not say that again it would not require a text amendment okay

So with an active neighbor association very nearby, I don't see how we can invest in a conditional rezoning that disagrees with the actual text of the UDO. So I think it would have to be amended or it would be a huge risk to go forward with a conditional rezoning because it could be a post.

Well, they're conflicting provisions.

You just heard from the urban planner who could make that decision.

And I do apologize that I didn't know until this afternoon needed to Brad Branham that that was your position, that you could not avail yourself of a conditional zoning or I would have clarified. And I did not know. We did not know. Legal did not know. that whether you'd asked staff about that and they'd come out and if staff had we checked with staff and we said can you think of any reason why a project with a master plan or requiring a master plan couldn't be rezoned and staff said it I think you're looking at it going, this must be something that we missed. We know that the UDO is not perfect, but that's an option. And I don't even know, I was even thinking another rezoning. But of course, it's the applicant that picks the rezoning, but I don't know how much discussion was, and I just asked Chris, what about if you rezone to urban village? You said yourself, urban village worked better, but I don't know.

Yeah, I think... i i do understand the point that like if you're going to get financing for development like you need your approval to be very sound so if there is like a structural sort of like clear oppositional statement in the in the text that would question whether the approval that we provided in the future if it was a conditional rezoning was valid even if it needed a text amendment i think it could get through in a month yeah what i'm saying is that maybe maybe that's the appropriate route here is to pass a text amendment that would allow for a conditional rezoning and then move forward with that.

I think it's a couple of points. The one conditional rezoning is still a difficult process to go through that requires a lot of upfront investment, even with the text amendment. Shoot now I lost my train of thought. Oh, I did bring up the CZ thing at the pre application meeting and the response was, oh, and then I didn't get any follow up. So it was discussed, you know, months ago.

Well, but regardless, even if a text note went through, you're saying you and your client still want it. You still want to rezone straight. You're not interested.

We still prefer a straight rezoning. And, you know, philosophically, I don't think we should change the world. So everything is a conditional rezoning. I think that's the wrong way to think about it.

No disagreement. And I think what we're trying to get to is, is there a process to enable... investment in repurposing while the long-term project to overhaul the UDO takes place. Because I think the future UDO, I hope, will solve a lot of these discrepancies and issues. But in the meantime, it's not fair to your client to deprive them of the ability to reinvest in a property that could use investment so i'm very sympathetic to that and i think the question we're trying to figure out is is there a pathway to do that outside of a straight rezoning of the entire parcel and and that's and i don't know that any of us really for what it's worth i i wrote something like a 20-page memo to the client and this is the option we this is the only one that seems to work um

And to to an earlier comment, you know, I think you're more likely to see housing on this parcel under regional business, because I don't think you're going to see anything under one place.

I mean, just to kind of go back to it, if the question before me personally was, are you defending urban place, my answer would be no. I didn't like it from the beginning. I voted against it. But it is the zoning that is on the books for this parcel, and so you're your client is asking for a rezoning and we need to then contemplate all the potential ramifications of that. But I understand that the effect of denying the request to regional business is de facto reinforcing the existing zoning verb in place, which I fully agree is problematic, but I also just don't, I personally don't find the straight rezoning to regional business to be the mechanism to achieve the objective.

And I'm having a hard time understanding. Is it because this one property owner would then be treated differently?

That's one of many things. I mean, I think that it is kind of an elimination of the city's ability to align with comprehensive plan, which regional business was not in alignment. It was the zoning that was on the books when the comp plan came to be. But the preferred growth scenario in the comp plan spurred a investigation of how do we get to, you know, mixed use, greater density development in these favorable development areas. No disagreement for me that urban place may not be the vehicle to deliver that vision, but I also don't think regional businesses, it wasn't the, you know, it's not in the future land use agenda.

The reason we're asking for regional business is that's what it was before. That's what the lawsuit folks got was the previous zoning. I looked at the issue. Regional business isn't recommended for any future land use designation in the comp plan. And, you know, I wasn't around when that was happening, but my speculation is, it's almost identical to highway business and highway business is still recommended for, um, several, um, future land use designations. And there's highway business and regional business that continue to exist in in the same area. Yeah.

So it feels like we're starting to enter the talking ourselves into circles phase of the meeting. So in the interest of kind of bringing us forward. Commissioner Bell.

Commissioner Bell. Okay, a lot of my comments have been taken. I've tried to jump in multiple times. It's okay. Lots of very good comments. I do want to support this application tonight. I think that burdensome, as you mentioned, is really the right word. to refer to the complexity of multiple owners of a single big mall structure of the urban place district kind of being applied to all of that. I would much rather see something be built and more activation happen there than the mall to continue to be what it is. I do go to the mall sometimes, but there's a mixture of liveliness there. So I do want to support it tonight. And I guess the flip side of that is I don't In a perfect world, we could demo them all and start over and make something amazing that would check so many boxes and meet so many of our needs. And part of me would love to see that. But it's also not crumbling to the ground. There's still lots of good things happening there. And I don't think there's a reality that we're going to tear down to make urban place.

I have a question I wanted to ask you about something you said a moment ago that housing would be more likely to get put on this parcel if it was regional business. Uh, there are other regional business, like, zoning can you expand? Are there other, like, housing projects that have gone up on regional business?

so housing is allowed there in regional business um and the comment i'm sorry it was a little bit of a snide comment that you know some development is going to happen in regional business and and so we're more likely to end up with housing than in a place where no redevelopment is going to happen for what it's worth totally anecdotal i looked at housing on this site for my client

Well, are we at the point would anybody like to make a motion?

Yeah, I would. So, before I make my motion, I just just to reiterate, I think. I agree with the chair that I'm not I'm not I'm not I think, like, everybody on here. I think it's open over burdensome. Um, but I, I. The comprehensive plan is a long use plan. And the future land use map designates this area as an urban center. And I feel like we may be at risk of going against the comprehensive plan with a straight rezoning. I think there are other avenues in place for this parcel. I think we have a UDO rewrite coming up. I think there's conditional zoning. I think there are variances allowed. I think there's a lot of opportunity here for other routes other than a straight rezoning. So I'm going to make a motion. I move to recommend disapproval of the rezoning request of the property located at Three South Tunnel Road from Urban Place from District UP to Regional Business RB and find that the request is unreasonable. It is not in the public interest, is not consistent with the city's comprehensive plan. and does not meet the development needs of the community in that the request proposes a zoning district that differs from the vision outlined in the city's comprehensive plan, does not fully reflect the community's goals of turning key growth areas into walkable, transit-friendly neighborhoods with a mix of housing and businesses.

We have a motion to recommend denial.

Do we have a second?

Second.

So we have a motion and a second. Before we proceed with a vote, as a reminder, a vote in favor of the recommendation to deny is a vote to recommend denial. I know that can be a little confusing sometimes. So all those in favor of the recommendation to deny the rezoning request, please say aye. Aye. And all those opposed to the motion to recommend denial, please say nay. Nay. So the motion to recommend denial passes four to three. This still will proceed to City Council with recommendation from Planning and Zoning Commission to deny if the applicant so chooses, right?

I have a question. There were a couple of items that were brought up during that discussion about things that might get cleaned up within the UDO as it pertains to urban place. Is now the proper time to suggest that to Council or do we leave that to staff?

I would leave it to us right now. Honestly, I would expect that we've closed this case, right? Okay, I would expect that there would be a retooling of districts to implement the comprehensive plan in the future land use areas to a degree right for our commercial and mixed use districts for sure i wouldn't expect the same zoning result post-udo that we see now on the ground necessarily so i think it's a pretty understood goal that we need to take a total look at all these districts and see how they're working on multiple levels and just to follow up on that i mean

I can see both sides of this, and I do agree that the UDO rewrite is the way to go, and since that will take years, I do see benefit to cleaning it up before the UDO rewrite.

Yeah, to echo that and with a specific recommendation, this is in Section 7-8-26, the Urban Place Form District, Subsection 4.1a, Master Plan Large Sites. City Council Chambers, Sub subsection number one that's where it says sites over two acres in size shall propose a master plan for the entire parcel, etc, etc, it seems like adding in. City Council Chambers, administrative discretion by the planning and urban design director would be the. mechanism to then allow it to comply with the conditional zoning requirement that excludes master plan sites. So if that's possible to add a few lines of text that just say subject to discretion of the planning and urban design director, that seems like it would solve it.

Yeah, I mean, we're open to looking at stuff for sure that could loosen it up a little moving forward.

To clarify it for now, I'm not sure what. It's up to staff if you have the ability to do a minor text amendment like that.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We're open to looking at the possibility of a minor text amendment to that, and we can report back to you guys on that.

I would also just like add, just reiterate the one that we had mentioned earlier that was like in the Lange's table that like...

Cleaning up areas. Yeah, totally.

Could you come and speak in the mic, even though we're not really doing public comment, but if you have a valuable thing to say.

Under the zoning statute, the discretion of administrative officials is severely limited. I don't think anybody in planning staff has that kind of discretion to allow projects on a case-by-case basis to go under conditional zoning or not. I just don't.

I was specifically talking within the urban place form district, but we'll let staff maybe chew on options. I think you've raised a valuable discrepancy, inconsistency within the UDO that merits investigation.

It may just be removing that part that says if it's a project that has a master plan that it can't have a conditional zoning, because that, from our understanding from legal, was not an intent, and it's not required by statute.

I'll say, staff, we understand the initial homework assignment, and we'll report back to you.

Great. And one final clarification. The applicant's representatives stated that regional business is not identified in the comprehensive plan future land use designations, but it is under regional corridor and industrial.

Control F failed me in that instance. I apologize.

Thank you for the clarifications.

robust discussion and almost made it to our nine o'clock estimate but any other items before the next meeting of the planning and zoning commission will be july 1st at five o'clock in this chamber anything else before we adjourn we subcommittee versus working group oh my gosh we are adjourned