May 05, 2021 4:30 PM - 11:00 PM
If the development results in a significant increase in traffic, if the proposed development complies with these requirements, they have met the requirements of the UDL and these elements are not a reasonable rationale for opposing the project. They may be a reasonable rationale for requesting a revision to the UTO, but as noted previously, it would be inappropriate to hold a developer to some arbitrary future requirements. The cases will be presented in detail by planning staff. The applicant is typically allowed 10 minutes to present their comments. And the public is typically allowed three minutes per person to present their comments. These time limits are not hard and fast and have often been flexible depending on the complexity of the project, the authority of the person speaking, the disability of the person speaking and so forth. We have a busy schedule this evening. And as always, I will ask both the applicant and the public that they present only pertinent information that has not been previously covered
Or emailed information. And I read all of them. I hope all of my fellow commission members did. We will also be taking live public comments for up to an hour. Each speaker will have up to three minutes for public comment. Staff will connect live calls from, from our speaker queue for informal discussion and public comment callers. If you are on the line and wish to provide live comments, you will need to enter the speaker queue by pressing star three callers where we'll hear an automated message, letting them know they are un-muted and live in the meeting. I'll repeat that callers will hear an automated message, letting them know they are un-muted and live in the meeting. The caller may begin speaking after the automated message. If the caller accidentally drops out of the speaker queue, they can just redial the number and meeting code, press star three, to rejoin the speaker two, to be reconnected. And with all of that, we will move into the legislative portion of our hearing item. One under zoning map amendments is a request to conditionally rezone the property located at 70 mills gap road from industrial to residential single family, low density RS T excuse me, from industrial to residential single family, low density RS two to residential expansion, conditional zone res E X, P C Z. The property is identified as 10 (965) 545-6682 in the Buncombe County tax record. The owner is Amcor flexibles Inc. And the contact is Daniel Hyatt planner. Coordinating review is Ms. Tuck.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And just to remind the commission, when I run these presentations, I have a short PowerPoint presentation to kind of run through the conditional zoning requests for you all. And when I run that presentation, I can't see your faces. So if you need me to pause and answer a question, a clarifying question, or need me to pause for any reason, if you could just speak up and make an audible, hang on Shannon, kind of a flag to let me know that I need to stop and backup. So with that, I will get my presentation started. And if you could let me know when you see my screen. Okay.
All right. So as Mr. Hauser indicated, this item is a conditional zoning request for the property located at 70 mills gap road, and this project is a subdivision. So you often see large commercial projects or even large multi-family projects. You don't often see subdivisions, but like any multi-family projects, any residential development that has over 50 units requires a conditional zoning process. So this is a clip from your exhibit, a map. The property is split zoned. And I know that these exhibit A's are a little bit hard to kind of follow. So I'm going to trace for you. So the subject property is here outlined in red or hatched and red, the zoning follows kind of an unusual trajectory. It sort of, this is industrial zoning here and it's fought, this is the industrial zoning designation. So this portion of the property, what I call the lower part of the property is zoned industrial RS two is up here. So this is a split zone par property. The lower part is industrial. The upper part is RS two. And the request is to rezone these two halves of the property to collectively to residential expansion.
We look at the exhibit B aerial map, you can see that the property is largely undeveloped forested property. What you can't immediately tell from the map is that it is also in designated steep, Sloan sweep, steep slope zones, a M B it's. Most of the property is in zone B a small portion of the most Southern end of the property is in its own egg. You can also see on the screen, some jurisdictional streams that kind of run through the property, and I will come back and talk about those a little bit more in a moment I'm also included on the property are some jurisdictional wetlands. What is also not immediately apparent, but you can probably sort of make out in the center of the property is you see that kind of sparsely vegetated area is some unconsolidated still that was identified in the survey that was included with the materials that were submitted with this application.
The future land use map designates this property as residential neighborhood and, and that is consistent with the application that is being proposed. So we do not think a change in the future land use map is necessary. Despite the rezoning request, this also shows us that the future vision for this property in this area is probably one of transitioning from industrial to residential. So the fact that we are rezoning industrial property is, is probably not of great concern in looking at the exhibit D site plan. The property in its entirety is 34 and a half acres. However, the project areas concentrated on that lower portion of the property. That's the portion of the property that was zoned industrial. The, the far end of the property is, is actually I think, encroaches into that RS two area a little bit, but generally it's, it's all concentrated on that lower area where you may recall. I pointed out that sort of unconsolidated fill area. One of the jurisdictional streams actually runs up the flag pole of the parcel. So this is the project's primary entrance here on mills gap road. And one of those strains follows here along the edge. Unfortunately, this is the primary access point and it's a narrow piece of property. So there really is no alternative, but to pipe that portion of the stream, the stream, then sorta daylights back into the channel and you can see it kind of exit through the property. Here.
There are 76 single family, lots proposed. These are small lots, approximately 48 feet by 48 feet wide by 76 feet deep. So that's a total of about 3,600 or 36, 48 square feet per lot. That's, that's pretty small for Asheville. Our more traditional urban neighborhoods are, you know, usually more in the neighborhood of 5,000 square feet between four and 5,000 square feet there, the applicant is proposing six different home plans that would be built and that could fit on these lots. All of the homes will be two stories and they will range in size from a 1,360 to 2,368 square feet. Each lot will be served by a private driveway that leads to a garage and the lower level of the home. In addition to the private stormwater infrastructure that will be required for the project, the roads and the water system will also have to be private.
In this particular case. There are also a number of retaining walls on the property. This is steep slope property, and it's hard to avoid the use of retaining walls. So we have a retaining wall here, here, and on this edge here, we also have a fairly large wall that kind of runs through the center of the project here that kind of separates this row of homes from the row of homes behind it. You can see a relatively complex wall that kind of runs along this, that would be the North East corner of the property. And then this, I believe is the largest of the retaining walls. And they range in height from six to, I think, 25 feet. I believe that's the 25 foot wall. You can see also above the wall. We have some cut banks. This is the steepest Cutbank at one and a half to one. I believe the rest are two to one, which is within what is allowed in the steep slope development standards, the one-and-a-half to one, however, it does exceed what typically
The project also is disturbing more than what would normally be allowed in the steep slope zone. Even though it's a 34 and a half acre parcel, the steep slope requirements are designed to minimize land disturbing activity to kind of help protect and preserve those steep slopes and protect the city from, you know, erosion control and storm water or water sediment in our waterways and landslides. So it, this particular property because of the average natural slope for the property would be limited to 10.6 acres of grading. And the applicant is requesting 13 and a half acres.
Here are some of the home plans. I just picked two, as I mentioned, there were six homes or different designs that were proposed on the different lots. And this, I just picked the smallest and the largest to kind of give the commission and the people who might be viewing kind of a sense for the kind of construction that we're expecting on this property. As the commissioners may have already noticed, staff is not recommending this project for approval. We are recommending design denial as currently designed. And I wanted to emphasize that as currently designed this, we recognize this, this project has some really strong positives. It has, it's a housing type that we think is a sorely needed in Asheville. It is a relatively compact development and it concentrates that development in the portion of the property that is more developable. They do propose to mitigate that, that landfill situation in order to be able to build upon it.
And they do provide some sidewalk infrastructure that connects that community to the larger South Asheville community. However, we feel that the project as designed is just a little bit too impactful that, and that a different residential project that achieves full technical compliance with fewer impacts to the streams and slopes would be more compatible with the environment and in better alignment with the living Asheville comprehensive plan goals for compatibility, sensitivity, and community. So we think just at a design that meets the full technical compliance that doesn't exceed the steep slope limits. And that pulls back on some of those more steep, sensitive areas, such as the, the area with the very steep and tall. Cutbank also in the site plan. There were some encroachments with those walls into some of the aquatic buffers. So kind of reducing the overall impact of that project. Maybe limiting the number of lots in order to kind of preserve those areas or minimize the impact on those areas, we think would be an improvement and more consistent with the comprehensive plan goals. That concludes my introduction. I'd be happy to answer any questions. I know also that the developer team is, is here and would like to make a short presentation as well.
Yes. Due to the conditions at this site, the water system is private and because the water system is private, the roads have to be private. So we have a fair amount of private infrastructure involved with this particular case. We have, sorry, let me stop presenting. So we have the stormwater infrastructure, so that will be private. We have the water system, the roads, the sidewalk, things that would normally be publicly maintained will have to be privately maintained in this particular case. And that's on top of the open space areas. There is a small commission pointed out in the site plan. There is a small centralized community open space area, as well as that preserved 22 acres.
It's hard to know what the maintenance requirements for the, for that acreage might be in the future, but certainly the areas that are within the community, the streams, you know, where the storm water comes in contact with the streams, as well as the community space would likely require some maintenance. And that's part of our concern as well, is that a more sensitive design might be able to offset some of those costs that will be applied to future home owners and residents. All of that private infrastructure has to be maintained somehow. So you would have to establish a homeowners association to collect fees in order to be able to pay for the maintenance of those facilities.
Trash certainly, well, trash could be trash, could be handled by the city. As long as the applicant agrees to a, I think it's called an access agreement. So if they will agree to allow the city and hold the city harmless for any potential damage to their private roads, then the city will offer that sanitation service.
Oh, sorry. I saw that in the TRC comments, fire had a comment about the fire hydrants providing that That's something that the developer is willing to take on. In this case, we did the project did receive approval with conditions at TRC. And I think some of those conditions are just sort of, kind of boiler plate conditions that the applicant just needs to acknowledge that yes, my final plan will have hydrants within 600 feet, et cetera. Mr. Hyatt is on if he'd like to confirm that for me or, and please elaborate more Daniel if need be
Sure. Thank you, Shannon. And yes, we will most definitely provide hydrants at the requisite spacing to meet the fire code requirements. And I think we had shown them on our, on our submittal. I can't tell you exactly what their spacing was, but certainly adjustments can be made by the easily to that. If so, if need be.
I have a question. That's in question. Yes. I didn't see it on the plan. Like the sidewalk on that, on the side street coming onto mills gap road, like what's the plan there for the sidewalk. And then also what's the transportation impact. Has there been a transportation study? Because there was just recently an apartment complex on that corner right there. And there's already, the transportation has already a major impact on that corner right there, especially with spring Creek road. So have those two things and address. Yeah, I will. I'll tackle the sidewalk and then I'll let Mr. Stevens and Mr. Hyatt address the traffic and I will go ahead and reshare my screen and I'll pull the site plan back out
Okay. So for commissioner bubonic, there, there is sidewalk required throughout the project. And that is the sort of stippled dark line that you can see running along the edge of the road. So the requirement is for all new road, you must provide a sidewalk. So just on one side of the road. So here we have the sidewalk infrastructure that kind of wraps around this loop and then it crossways the street here and covers the other side. And then we have sidewalk again, crossing the street and running down the primary entrance. It's a little hard to see because we have these, or maybe it's may, may, it might've even been an oversight because of, or it's hard to see, cause it'd be site visibility, triangles that sidewalk would be required on this little it's small, but there would be this little stub along those gaps. And then from here it would connect to the sidewalk next door at the mills gap, Hawthorne, apartment complex, and then beyond
Does that answer your question? Yeah, that does. I just am wondering exactly how, how far it would go and if that's something that they can bring back in, in a future proposal, because one of my concerns is that these new complexes going in throughout the County, they're adding sidewalks, but only for, you know, 30 or 40 feet and not exactly all the way down the road. And you know, a lot of people need more walkability in their neighborhoods. I do think that the sidewalks needs to continue farther than just the little 30 or 40 feet. So that's my concern. So the requirement in the city of Asheville, and it might be a little bit different in the County, but in the city of Asheville, we require that all properties provide sidewalk along their road frontage. This project's a little bit unusual in that the only piece of road frontage for this lot is this tiny little stub where the entrance connects to Mill's gap. Now, in addition to this little piece of sidewalk that would connect to the Hawthorne project next door, and then beyond we have new sidewalk along the new roads that are being constructed as part of the development. So I think we, this project will meet the connectivity that you're seeking.
Sure. I'll, I'll take a stab at it. Shannon by code and given the number of units that are being proposed, no traffic impact studies required by either the city or DMT. So while we definitely understand the traffic challenges in many parts of South Asheville, there was no requirement that we, you know, study study the impact of our additional 76 units. Yeah, I would add to that. Thank you, Daniel and Shannon, both. My understanding is that the deity is in the process of widening both sweeten Creek and mills gap. This entire intersection that's nearby is going to be expanded to be one of the largest in Buncombe County. The, the added traffic from this 76 unit single family, residential, according to the city traffic engineer, it is inconsequential. And that's presumably why the traffic study was not required.
Can I ask where the, the secondary road connects or leads to that? I saw on that? I believe it was on like the Northwestern side or the Western portion of the property. I was following correctly. Dana, you want to explain that? Sure. So the alternative access emergency access road actually goes down into the Amcor industrial site and for being the, actually being the seller of this parcel. So it would go down into their, into their site and connect with their parking area and roadway network prior to, and obviously have a data connection to sweeten Creek, right?
So they, the orientation of the site plan is, is flipped on its side. So here's the, the point of entrance into the community from mills gap road. And you, then here's where the development is concentrated, kind of on this lower portion of the property that emergency access comes up the top of that project. And it comes through the Amcor facility, which is here out to sweeten Creek, but it is an emergency access only. So it will be gated and, and the rest of the regular traffic will need to come in and out of the single entrance. And that emergency access actually goes through their parking lot. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that for me. Yes,
Sure. So the stoop slope requirements ask or they, it, it limits the extent of grading based on the slope of the overall slope of the property. In this particular case, the overall slope of the property is 33 and a half percent. So that's pretty restrictive. So it limits the amount or the extent of grading or land disturbing activity to 10.6 acres, 30% of the sites. So any project that would come in here to develop wood would be limited to no more than 10.6 acres. They are requesting approximately 13 and a half acres, which is closer to 40% of the sites. So it's about a 10% increase.
In theory, yes, I am not sure w we don't have our transportation staff available to speak to this, but I'm not sure of, of what would be gained I guess, from doing that. But, but yes, you could ask for that. And I don't know if there is some other lighter version of a traffic study that could be considered, I'm not sure. I don't know if Daniel, if you have any thoughts about that.
Well, typically a traffic traffic impact analysis begins with a scoping exercise and scoping document, and which in this case, the OT based on the trip counts would, would advise in terms of how many intersections for what period of Tom needed to be studied and, and that sort of thing. But given that the project doesn't really doesn't come close to meeting the threshold for <inaudible> requirement of a Tia. It's, it's hard to see how I'm not even sure if we did the scoping document, it would indicate any study was necessary.
Well, my thought is, as, as someone who lived down that way and goes to the chiropractor on that corner every morning at eight o'clock that another 74 cars can make a big difference. So that's my personal feedback from this. So I think that a transportation study could make a difference when there's only four way intersection a stoplight, and then
You think of 74 more cars, and then there's single family homes, two cars in each house. I mean, and then you think 150 more cars to me that makes a difference if you're trying to get in and out of that gas station and then try to go to whole foods is up there now. So to me, I believe that that does make an impact.
I have another question or concern to follow on on this path of thinking. Obviously there's a lot more land to the North from that piece of developed area. And I would go under the assumption, which could be wrong, that at some point the developer, somebody would want to expand this community into that areas that would, that then trigger some of these transportation studies that acts asking about, or my asking an inappropriate question at this time. No, that's actually Mr. Faircloth. That's a great question. I'll, I'll take it. No, our, our proposal is to preserve all of those almost 23 acres. It's pretty steep property. When I get into my presentation, I can show you some images to give you a better idea about that. But as you drive down Hendersonville road headed North, and you come to this intersection of, I mean, excuse me, sweetened Creek road and mills gap, you've probably noticed it.
And I'm sure Mr. Beneke has you look up and there was this kind of a mountain that sticks up there and it's a Ridge and, and that whole Ridge will be protected. There will be no development on that. That's part of our conditional zoning requests. We're asking to rezone the entire 34 acres to, to allow protection all of that woods. And there's mature hardwoods up there, protect all of that and then develop very densely and create the housing that we need down on the more level spot. So you don't need to be concerned about future development of that track is if city council approves this project, this will be it this 76 homes. And we won't be able to change that without going back to city council, which just won't happen. There's no more space on the property.
Additionally, it's worth noting too, that the property, as, as it is subject to steep slope development would not allow any more disturbance regardless of the conditional zoning. I think my biggest concern is, I don't know if it's necessarily anything that we can tackle, but like living next to a 25 foot retaining wall. I don't know. I appreciate the, you know, keeping the adjacent trees in the forest, but I just don't know if it's worth having retaining walls that high, your single family homes. I don't know. It's just something
To perhaps look at Dan, or you want me to take that one? Yeah. I, you know, Ms. Levi, I, I don't disagree with you, but it's not at all uncommon. And to just perhaps to clarify a little bit what Shannon presented earlier, the retaining wall, the wall, if you will, on the Northeast corner behind the units, you know, isn't this not a huge deal, but it's only, it's only 15 feet tall. The highest, the highest section or segment of wall is, is on the, the portion where she described it as in elaborate wall. That's the, that's the wall, that's the, not the highest point. And, and as research, I think we're, you know, even with that or with any of the walls, we're generally 15 feet away from the, from the wall to the units.
Wow. Correct. I just want to make one quick comment. I know we still need to hear from Mr. Stevens and also perhaps Mr. Hyatt as well, but just to tie in with something that Ms. Eugenic mentioned, and Mr. Fair cough went with as well. You know, obviously a project like this in and of itself perhaps does not need a Tia. And I know that traffic always, always, always comes up with these projects and it, and it's one that we kind of go around in circles about, and we look at each individual project and perhaps not the overall projects with an S. And, and so Ms. B Bennett, Mr. Fair cloth. It, it keeps coming up and it's, I hope, I think it is something that the city is looking at ways to go. Okay. What if these other projects happen? What is the cumulative effect of not just this one, but multiple ones. So, yeah. And I guess maybe we're ready for Mr. Stevens and Mr. Hyatt. I have one last question. What are the specific conditions that are they're being requested that make this a conditional zone for audio?
It is conditional zoning because it, first of all, it's over 50 units. So any large level three project is, goes through the conditional zoning process in order to try to identify ways to help offset or impacts. So in this particular case, we're primarily concerned about these environmental impacts. And, but there are a couple exceptions to the, that are included in this to the technical standards that are included in this conditional zoning. I mentioned the extent of grading. So we they're asking for about two additional acres of grading. They are also asking to exceed the maximum cut slope standard. The steep slope does not allow anything steeper than two to one. And they're requesting one and a half to one. I believe I will check. I think I spoke with Mr. Hyatt earlier. I had thought that there was an exception requested for open space, but I think we clarify that that isn't required any longer. And I'm just checking really quick to see if there's something else. Right. But he's, I think Mr. Houser was asking, what were the exceptions to the technical standards? Sidewalk was one Shannon. Oh, correct. Thank you, Daniel. So the sidewalk doesn't meet our full standard. We require a five foot green, a five foot strip with a five foot sidewalk, and that isn't satisfied.
Okay. And Mr. Evens, I highlighted and oversight of mine. I always like to try to identify projects that include affordable housing and this project is including a commitment for five of the homes to be affordable. And I think Mr. Stevens will give you more information about that in his presentation.
Okay. Thank you. Was that all of the items on that point, Mr. Houser, and I'll show this on the drawing. The there's only one slope that's steeper than two to one. It's, it's one corner of that retaining wall above the retaining wall. It's one and a half to one, as you know, that's allowed in the County. And of course we would have to have a geo-tech sign off on it in, you know, in the bigger scheme of this overall development. You know, we think it's a relatively minor condition. It's not as good. If there are multiple one and a half to one slugs
There, there was one other exception. And that was, there are six of the 76, lots do not abut the road. And that is a subdivision requirements in the city of Asheville that all newly created lots must Ubud public road or private road built for public standard. And we have three spots where two lots each are access via a private drive and they do not have that frontage on the public road. So it's a shared drive. Yes, for those each there's three groupings of two that have a shared driveway.
And I'll show that on the drawing, Mr. Houser, it's, it's a short distance where just because of the angle of where the, the lots come together, they just, they have a sh you know, they each have their own separate driveways and garages, and then they just join into a single driveway that then joins the main road. It's not a lawn,
Right. I have a couple of questions. So how will the hell letters be? Will the, will the affordable units have the same homeowners fees? Cause I, the reason I mentioned the retaining walls is I see a significant amount of engineering in this project. And, and potentially for just even getting, building permits on the homes, I'm just wondering how that will these really truly be affordable.
That's a great question. So all of the work that will need to be done on the site will have to be done by the developer, not by the individual property owners. And typically the developer will be responsible for all of those calls, retaining walls, installation of the roads, the sidewalks, everything, and then they'll build homes and sell them all the way the affordable housing piece work is people will have to apply under the city standards. And if they qualify at 80% of AMI, they will have the right to buy from the developer, a home at an affordable price today's dollars. I think that calculation is in the neighborhood of $250,000. There'll be a deed restriction on that. That will be held by the city of Asheville. And the way it works is the city we'll we'll, we'll have the right to buy the house back.
If the buyer wants to sell it and get some equity out, they'll have the right to buy it back with some gain of 2% per year. We're working out the details with the city attorney's office, but let's say a buyer qualifies and buys it and owns it for 10 years. They can see 20% of roads. They sell it to the city, the city buys it and then the can turn around and sell it to another income qualified person. That's kind of a neat concept. That's fairly new for the city. And I, and I really applaud Paul de Angelo at the city for working with us to come up with a framework that works. But back to your root, your bigger question is, okay, what, what will it mean to be a property owner in this development? Those, those five owners will be, you know, five of 76, if they sell all the homes.
And we think there'll be tremendous demand for these homes and I'll show you why in a minute, they will, the developer, once he sold off all of the homes and all of the infrastructure is done, then they'll create a homeowners association. And the homeowners association will be responsible for the roads. These won't be public roads, but as you'll see, and as I think you saw in the drawing, we're not talking about a lot of roads. There's one main road in, and then there's kind of a road that there's two or three roads that extend out to these homes. And that's it. There's not, there's not a whole, it's just access to homes. Ms. Todd talked about a private water system, and I think that needs some clarification. This is, this will be city water supply to these homes that will come off of the main city water line.
The only reason there is a private water system is because they're the height of the property and its relation to the nearest water tower means that there's not enough gravity to, to have the water pressure that they'll need. And so it's a fairly simple quote system that just involves simply pumping the city water up. And then the water is then available to the individual homeowners. And, you know, the association will have no reason to charge them any more than they're having to pay the city. So functionally, it will feel the same to a property owner that it's just like getting a bill from, like we all get every two months from the city you'll, you'll get from the association for that. If there's any road maintenance, you you'll get that the, the sewer system will be MSD, sewer it'll flow right out. And they'll, and that'll be presumably a separate bill from MSD. So it's, you know, it's, it's fortunate that it's so close to mills gap and that we're not talking about an expensive, complicated series of systems. You know, I, I believe that th that these homes will, you know, there'd be significant demand for them. We know that there's a demand for single-family homes on small lots, because there's just no inventory out there. And, and I think it'll be a nice development, but to your point, will folks that buy in a foot, will they be able to afford for the dues? I think they will.
And, and why, and I don't know if you want me to add this as Janice, Ashley, and I'd be drafting the deed restriction, and I've talked to Wyatt about this, and I've talked to Paul and already said that in, especially in affordable housing, in a single family development, which we have not done very many, you want to be sure that they are dispersed that clustered and that they don't look very different any differently than the other houses. You can't just drive by and say, well, that must be the affordable unit and why right away said that would, well, that will be a condition in the deed restriction to be to the cyst, the same as the other units. And so, and he immediately said that that would be agreeable to the developer. So we will work out the details on that. But that's a, that's a good question because in a single family development that can sometimes happen, they'd also need to be constructed concurrently with the rest of the development. So it's not like you just wait to the very end to build them and stick them on the last lot. So we've discussed that too,
On the date of restriction? Yeah, it's, you know, that's a really good question. Mature, Mr. Archibald from the developer standpoint, you know, it doesn't matter. It could be, it could be permanently. And then the, you know, whoever owns it, they would have the right to sell it with that growth and then the next person could buy it. And so on and so forth. I will tell you that I think the city affordable housing office has some thoughts about that, that, well, you know, there ought to be maybe an outside window of 15 years where there wouldn't be that cap. They could, they could truly see the equity that a normal homeowner would see and that, you know, that's a judgment call, but from the developer standpoint, once he sells it for whatever the price is at that moment, 250, whatever it is. And then he's, you know, he moves on and he has no more interest in it. So it's a good question, but I think we're still working out the details with Paul and with Janice on that, Why don't we allow the applicant to go ahead and make their presentation? And then if we have additional questions we can do so at the end of the
Very good thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, officially Wyatt Stevens and our representative Hendersonville road associates. The applicant here, John Simpson is the owner of that company. He's South Asheville resonant has his family lives there and go to our local schools and he developed a number of around town. He's got one similar to this off of Christ school road that his teachers broken ground on. Let, let me, if I may share my screen,
You all see that on the screen? The tax map? Yes. Okay, great. So just to get you oriented again, that's the tax map. There's, Amcor that what that building is now is the Hoffman apartments. You can see it better here. That's mills gap road. Of course, these buildings are finished and then there's, Amcor this property got kind of a narrow little access point that comes up here. And what you see here, a little bit of this clearing, that is where the consolidated fill is. And I'll show you some pictures in a minute, but that's basically where this development will go. And then all of this will be protected all the way up to the edge of the Ridge. So as you drive down a sweetened Creek road, you'll still enjoy that nice view of the mountain side. So I took these pictures and, you know, I, I wish we all had a chance to walk out there and see it, cause there's no substitute for that.
But as you come in as the access road right here, as you come in and you get about halfway up, that's the view of the hostel and apartments as you come up higher on the site, you get a sense of the elevation there. You're sort of looking out on top of the Hoffman, this picture on the left, I'm standing kind of right in the middle of where the unconsolidated Phil is. And you can see the kind of, kind of new growth right there. If, if I had more time, I, I, I rotate around and show you the rest. But you're, from that point, you're just looking up at this wall of trees all the way up to the Ridge. But when you look at your feet, you see what I'm talking about with the unconsolidated fill. You see, you know, cinderblocks sticking up out, out of the ground. This is a core that was taken by the engineers to figure out what was in there. And it's just household garbage. I mean, literally just stacked on top of it. And this project will remove all of that because we can't build there unless it gets removed, which we think is a major benefit to this project.
Let me go back quickly to the site plan. I want to orient you to a couple of things. So, you know, we agree to disagree with the planning staff about whether or not we're, we're disturbing, you know, the 25 more than 25% of the slope. And here's the reason if you look up at the top of the Ridge, the slope is of course almost flat is significantly less than 25%. That's also true down here in a stream area. And I'll talk about the stream area in a minute. And it's also true in this stream area here. Now, this is the area of the fill what's happening here. This is, this is an existing jurisdictional stream and it flows into a degraded underground covert that is just literally a rusting away. And it flows underneath that. Fill out the other side, we're gonna remove all that fill.
We're gonna replace that Culver so that it is not impairing the water quality of this. And it's not a significant stream, but other civil stream that comes through here, this is the other stream on the property. It will be open end and protected by a 30 foot buffer as we're required to do. And of course the developer will have to get Corps of engineers permits for all of this work. As Shannon noted. When you get to this point, th they will have to culvert that stream as it runs down the edge of that road. And if you think about it, that's going to be true, regardless of what is developed on this property. It's just that, it's the reality of that narrow right of way there, which is 50 feet in width.
All right. So real quick, this is a cross section of the sidewalk that I talked about earlier, six foot sidewalk, all the way down the entrance road, 22 feet, and with a nice wide access road. This gives you a sense of a lot size. Yeah, it's small, but you can fit a house on it. That is three or even four bedrooms. And I'll show you that in a minute. This is the one spot where there is a cut slope of one and a half to one. And Shannon's right. We're asking for an exception there. It's just a, it's a topographical challenge in order to avoid cutting into and building up on the steeper slope, which would involve even more retaining walls. We're saying, let us, let us do a little steeper than you normally would allow. We'll have a geotechnical engineer sign off on it.
This is, this is a rendering of the, of the sidewalk that we'll be going through here. Normally you'd have five foot planning, five foot sidewalk we're asking for four feet of planning, five foot sidewalk, pretty darn close. In my opinion. Now the, of course we will. And I think someone mentioned this earlier. We will have to deal with the, with the stormwater and there, there will be a system here and a bio retention facility, and then a sand filter probably here. We're not just gonna just run everything into that culvert we're going to do, do right by, by those streams and the water that's collected on, on the site there, right there is where the little playground will be. And there's, you know, discussion about the shared sidewalks. Mr. Chairman. That's what we're talking about right here. You know, these two houses were share, excuse me, driveway, they'll share a driveway right up here.
These three will technically share a driveway. And then these right here, we think in the big scheme of things in order to create more housing, which by the way, from a financial standpoint, if you're, if you're a member of that association, you'd rather have more than less. That makes it more affordable landscaping. We'll do all the street trees and things of that nature. Of course, here are some of the house plans. Yes, there are six. You see Dr. Gordon there, most likely Dr. Horton will do these homes. They're a nationwide home builders. They know what they're doing. These are stick built, decent, nice homes. In addition to the different home plans, there are different elevations. So the variation will be wider than just six different homes. You can have a brick, you can have rock, you can do different architectural features. Some of these homes will have a single car garage, but a number of them will have a two car garage. And they'll have up to a, some of these have four bedrooms, which is kind of amazing at almost 2000 square feet. So yeah, those yards are tiny. They are, that's less landscaping for the homeowner. We think there's a demand for this product and the market will bear it. Switch back to this real quick, the conditions.
Number one, we are grading an excess of the maximum allowable and steep slope zone. But when you look at 34 and a half acres, we're only grading 13. We would be permitted to do 10 and a half. You know, it seems reasonable to us. When you balance out the equities, I talked about the grading of one slope. That's acceptable for an engineering standpoint, we committed in the County. Now the city takes a position that more than half of the required open space exceeds 25% as I show you when you calculate the Ridge and those low spots, we actually think it's a little under that. And remember, we're preserving a mountain Ridge with all that mature tree canopy in the hardest South Asheville. I talked about sidewalks. I want to mention this too. So I agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Marie Bennett. We, we need more sidewalks. I think with mills gap gets expanded by the, by the DMT.
Surely they will build sidewalks headed East on those gaps. But what we'll do is we'll have a short sidewalk where our road comes in and it'll connect up with a sidewalk that is associated with the Hawthorne apartments. And then, you know, you've got a little bit of area around the railroad tracks that, that need of sidewalk that don't, but that'll happen to when the DOD wide and smells gap and you'll have an, and then you get to the apartment complex just past the railroad tracks. And you've got sidewalk all the way down to whole foods, and then you can cross it the cross walk and go to go to ACE hardware, et cetera. We think, I mean, w we think this is, this will actually be a pretty pedestrian friendly of development. The living Asheville priority strategies. We went through the goals. I want to hit them quickly.
Goal number five, make streets more walkable, comfortable, and connected. We think this does that with, with a wide entrance road, the sidewalk, those along the entrance road, as in the development. And then as I mentioned, the pedestrian access to shopping goal seven, celebrate the unique identity of neighborhoods through creative placemaking. Well, this we will create, we know we need them 76 small individual homes with five, that will be deed restricted, affordable, but loss are in full compliance with the UTO. Yes, they're small, but they're in full compliance with size spacing and parking will be adjacent to the Hawthorne apartments. That's multi-family they could do multifamily on this, but we think there's a need for single there's large single family loss, just to the, just to the East. And then there's an industrial facility, the import facility, that's our neighbor on one side, and then we've got a big protected Ridge.
That's a pretty good use of that 34 acres. It seems to me, and there's a little playground amenity. And as I said, pedestrian, access goal, number 10, improve transit service. This neighborhood is right on the bus line as close to many different kinds of jobs. Folks actually won't have to have a car. They can walk down, catch a bus and go anywhere. They need to go go 13 increase in diversify, the housing supply, and 14 promote the development of affordable and workforce housing. We're doing that with this project go 20, 23 and 37 preserve and reinvigorate, hillsides protect land and water assets implement green infrastructure. You know, you, you can't, you, you know, when you're on a, on a site like this of this size, it's hard to use natural swales and things, which is why I showed you that bio retention pond and the sand filter.
But, but we're, we're gonna comply with the clean water act. And we're going to comply with the Corps of engineers permits, and we're going to protect all of this hillside, and we're going to create housing, and we're going to get rid of unconsolidated fill and garbage, which is going to have to be done regardless of what happens on that site. I apologize for the quality, this picture. I had to take it with my cell phone, but this will give you a sense of what it'll look like when it's done in a sort of cartoonish way. All of this will be protected. We're right next to this Hawthorne. This is single family. This is Amcor facility. I don't know. I think it's pretty, pretty efficient use of, of that property. So with that, I will stop presenting. And I thank you for your time,
So we're working with an environmental consultant. It's not entirely clear yet, if will be an individual permit or a nationwide permit, you may be aware of the Corps just changed their, their guidance on stream impacts from millennial feet, foot basis to an acreage basis, much like wetlands. So, you know, that's something we'll just have to work through. We do believe there'll be some mitigation payment required to impact the, the amount we're looking at. So, yeah, it's a challenge, no doubt, but we're working through it.
Okay. Thanks on the water system. I assume that what you're describing is a system that will be beyond a master meter. And so you will be the charging or not charging for the water individually. You'll basically be splitting that cost across the entire development. Is that correct?
That's why you have that Rena. Can you bring up the play area for the kids again? I have a question about that. Okay. There was, there was another screen where you showed the play area and when the storm water drain, it looked like they were pretty close by. So I just wanted to clarify that
Yeah. So that, that's, that's, that's an idea at this point. I mean, I think the play area itself has the square footage is regulated by ordinance. Given the number of units. The idea there is that we may be able to create Assad covered, stay light bio retention, basin in conjunction with that quote play yard area that, you know, Mike pawn nine inches, if you will, during a heavy rain event, but is same dissipates.
Yeah. So let me, let me do a back to the us. Whoops. All right. So if, you know, if you come out on the mills gap on this, right here you go out across sweetened Creek, there was a gas station right on the corner right there. And there's railroad tracks. It's just right there. Right. Where my cursor is.
So I don't know if you've made it this far, but like with the building materials and things like that, like have you thought about the noise from the train and the building materials for the housing and the impacts and things like that on the residents? Because I can hear the train at my house and I'm a couple miles away.
Yeah. That's a good question. You know, and I wonder if any effort was made by the developer of the Hawthorne apartments to address that. I don't, I don't know. So I, I can't answer that question. I think that, you know, the train is unfortunately a reality, you know, in a number of areas of the city. I know it can be an issue in the river arts district as well.
Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. What was the reason why you would let's see, I'm just looking at here, going from a four-foot sidewalk, planting strip to a five foot planting tree to a four planting strip. It says just a simple economics lesson or, and there is a sidewalk connecting to <inaudible> gap. It's really hard to discern whether the trees are planted back of sidewalk. I believe that's what I'm seeing.
Daniel. You want to take those two questions? Sure. Yeah. The, the entrance road to mills gap, that's the street section we're in, we have the six foot six foot sidewalk right along the back of the curb. And so indeed the street trees are planted to the back of that sidewalk with respect to the, to the forefoot planting strip. It's, it's largely, it's not economics by any stretch. It's, it's largely a dimensional challenge. You know, we've, we've compressed the project plan North and South, as much as we can to minimize and limit the grading that's required on either the, you know, the, either side of the, the body of the project there. So that two feet was really two plus feet was really helpful to keep us, keep us away from the adjoining property lines and work with the topography.
I want to say it would be in the neighborhood of 10 feet and, and yes, that's, that's a good question. And we did look at that, that that little finger raids there is, is a challenging spot. We don't want to grade up the Hill any further than we need to hence the one and a half to one
10 feet higher Mr. Hyatt, or I'm assuming you're talking 10 feet higher than what is required. And then I would follow that with the question of, and you partially answered it. Why would you not do two walls? That seems perhaps I realize it's grading further up the Hill, but perhaps more reasonable from two walls at lower height, less engineering and less maintenance down the road.
Terrorist walls might, might be an option. My experiences that depending on my height of each wall and the horizontal distance they're apart, they're often perceived from a structural standpoint as one wall. And so the, the engineering and infrastructure required to build them as equally as invasive furthermore, pushing them further apart would, would result in a similar area of disturbance to what we've shown. Now, I believe
I have a couple of questions that are in some ways related in it. And it has to do with both the overall kind of layout of the homes in, in relationship to the site. If I'm not sure who's sharing the screen, but if you could kind of just zoom out to the larger one question is, you know, I, I appreciate the fact that you're trying to make this compact. It certainly is a challenging slope that you're dealing with trying to provide, you know, compact homes at reasonable price points. You know, I do appreciate that. One question I would have is, was there consideration given to given to share driveways zero lot lines I E townhomes where the house is literally are shared walls. You know, that concept you could, you know, when, when we were just having the discussion about the planning strip, I mean, that's, that's a two-foot change.
You know, you talk about eliminating the 12 feet that's between each house, which let's face it, who needs a six foot piece of grass Timo that's, I'm sorry. Ridiculous. You know, that really starts to take some square footage off and really starts to make a compact community that limits the impact on the site even further, you know, kind of, I mean, I'm looking at these, these slope profiles too, and, and I appreciate the sidewalks and I'm thinking, yeah, I wonder how many people are going to carry their groceries up that 13% entrance road, my guess is less than two. Again, I, I appreciate, you know, kind of what you've done, but it seems like there some things that while they are perhaps untraditional in the sense of, you know, zero lot line homes, I think that's something that would be worthwhile looking at. And I'd just be curious to, to see if that had been even thought of remotely
Daniel, you want to take that? Yeah, we, we did not, we did not look at a townhouse type development. What, I guess the primary reason is the developers, you know, really, really looking to do this, you know, small lot single family type type deal. The, the other issue is having the buildings separated, even if it's only by a small amount, gives us the opportunity given the slope of the road to step the units so that there, you know, so that we can transition grade along that roadway within the foundation of the building. So, you know, admittedly it's, it's, it's flat and this two dimensional perspective here, but, you know, generally between, between those units, I want to say there's upwards of nine, nine feet difference between the, the floor one unit to the, to the neighboring unit. Oh, sure. I mean, that's, that happens in townhouses though, too.
There's some like that on Fairview road where it's single family homes, but it's almost like there's reduction in parking and access roads to the properties. It's almost like clusters of homes. I mean, I'm sure Shannon could explain it a lot better than I could, but yeah, I mean the cottage concept is to have central open space with little pockets of homes that are sort of sensitively designed. The most common cottage development model is the plan uses the planned community act to not have individual lots, but rather just they're, they're, pre-standing single family homes, but they own the property for the drip area around, you know, around directly under the home. And that gives, usually gives a little bit more flexibility to kind of position the home in such a way that it reduces the impact.
And so then I guess the answer miss Levi's, I don't, I don't think that my client did, did evaluate that. I mean, he definitely, he, he understands the need and the demand for individual single family homes that are, you know, they'll have that lock, they'll have their driveway, their, you know, their garage and not, and not own that common area was with somebody else. I think I'm fairly describing that.
Yeah. I mean, I, you know, this is, it's just a tough site, you know, with the consolidated Fil, with the steep slope, with the narrow access, you know, I, and I think the original rendering, you wanted to do 85 homes and he realized that it just wasn't going to work and we're down to 76, but you know, the idea is because you've got site acquisition and prep, cause she got retaining wall costs, et cetera, to just get as many homes in there as, as he can was the goal. And he understands that business model and that's sort of where he's coming from. You could redesign this site, you could have fewer home sites, you could do cluster homes and have fewer roads since you were retaining walls, but you would have literally fewer homes and it may not make economic sense if you're going to do what I would call workforce type single family homes, because of all those other costs, you know, everything's a trade off,
I've got two, two questions real quick that you can help me with. One of them is I'm certainly glad there's a storm water plan and being somebody who lives in this area off sweeten Creek, the storm water measures that are in place are often dilapidated or far undersized. Is there any kind of expected life span of the systems you are putting in place or what the, I mean, just the water problem on this area of Asheville is extremely troublesome to people like me who own a home in this area.
It's a good question, Daniel. You want to take that? Yeah, that is a good question. And, and, and the short answer is, I don't know that there's a good answer to the lifespan. You know, a lot of it has to do with the type of system it is typically above ground systems will last longer by virtue of the fact that they're visible. If there's a problem, you can see it and fix it, you know, with obviously we would meet the city's requirements for, for treatment and peak flow attenuation. Yeah. Tough question.
Yeah. I guess where I'm going with this is since this will be a private road and private infrastructure, I'd imagine the HOA would be required for being the one to maintain it or paying to keep it going as opposed to the DOD or sitting at that's an assumption I'm making. I might be incorrect in that statement.
You're exactly right. And, and I think that's pretty, pretty typical of, of any private development the developer or an end-user owner is responsible for maintaining it. And the city has, I should know it, but I don't some inspection interval that, that all these systems are required to, to be reviewed and improved if need be annual annual. Thank you. And then my second question, thank you for the answer. A second question was the area that is going to be protected Ridge or protected from further development, is that what's the legal, you know, is that being put into a conservative time or what's the legal protection of Atlanta other than your good intent? So the way conditional zoning works and Janice can jump in if I get this wrong, but this entire site, including the 22 and a half acres, that'll be preserved. If, if city council approved, if you recommend it and city council approves it, this is all that can be built. Nothing more can be built, nothing can be built into the woods. It would be a violation of the, of the literal zoning approval for this 34 acre piece of property.
It is permanently restricted, Mr. Pear called. I mean, they're the only way to change that would be, you'd have to go all the way back to city council and you'd have to convince that city council to modify that ordinance, which it seems very unlikely. Okay. Thank you for explaining that to me, or the lot sizes simply defined by the size of the units, plus the required setbacks thing you want to take that. Yeah, generally, yes, that is true. We were aware of the 3,600 square foot, minimum lot size requirement. And so that the unit doesn't totally take up the entire setback area, but, but generally that was the metric by which we aligned, arranged and laid out these lots and to, and to keep as much area within the property and common, common ownership and open area rather than individually owned Any other comments from staff or excuse me from the commission
Will be a homeowners association, but the B one conditions don't speak to that. I know sometimes in these kinds of developments, the developer forums, that homeowners association, and then eventually when all the lots are sold, it becomes the association, but that's in place. And there have been a lot of questions about how these common areas will be maintained. So I don't know if the commissioners have a question about that or have an interest in seeing that reference somehow in the B one conditions.
So I, I can say with some certainty that my client would have no objection to a condition requiring him to create a homeowners association. That's simply how it's done in subdivisions like this, that eventually get turned over, you know, the developer retains control until a certain number of lots were sold. But yeah, that's the only way to do it, you know, when you've got these responsibilities. So if that, if, if it's a commission, you want that to be a condition. We can work with you to come up with language that's acceptable to the city and to my client.
May I make a comment before we move forward with voting? If that's the case, I've got a few concerns that I've been writing down as we're talking about this. And I thank my colleagues for bringing other things to my attention. I'm concerned about the grading on the steep slopes requiring the 15 foot parcel retaining walls. I'm concerned about the high density of single family homes, surrounded by lower density established neighborhoods. And yes, there is an apartment complex on the corner. I would rather see as my, my, my colleagues have mentioned maybe clustering of homes and things. The first thing that when I saw the, the, the site plan was this rigid superimposed grid system of how, of, of home sites. There's no regard for creating more uniquely shaped, lots that accommodate the existing topography. I'm concerned about the reduction of the tree planting strip. What may be seems nonsensical to you. I think that that's providing trees with a grower, a larger growing roots zone that will eventually bring back some of that, that tree canopy. And we need healthy trees. I am concerned about the disruption of the regular streams and repairing areas. And I don't get an answer. I just wanted to bring that tonight to your attention.
I don't see how you could add another structure within the size of the lot. No, definitely not. Not based on, they've got a small, you know, drawing of a typical lot than you did on sheet five of the exhibit D it, it pretty much is set back to setback. Okay. Any other questions or comments for the applicant? So at this point we will open for public comment at six 38,
I was about to say, Marie, before you bring in the next color, I was about to say, I'm a little surprised that we would have four members of the public calling about this. And I kind of was wondering if they might be actually here for, you know, trying to comment on the next item. So I think we might be prepared for a repeat of this. Okay. We'll try again.
Hi, this is Susan locked us in. I am Shannon Moore calling in for the next agenda item. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. So if you will just exit the, well, I would like to speak on this end that I have heard the entire presentation. And I would like to make the comment that I think that particularly Mr. Rodriguez and others who've mentioned the issues with the site and the specific conditions there, I totally would as a citizen and a planner, agree with the concept of asking them to do some redesign so that this particular project can be more amenable to the site and more amenable for the people who lived there and more minimal for the environment. Overall, I feel like it is like a grid attached to a very specific Topo that could, could be improved. Thank you.
And open for further discussion amongst the commission, if there is any and technically, so we don't make the mistake we did last time. We have to recess this discussion, not actually vote on it. So I will make an additional comment based on my question earlier about the depth of the driveways. I would not be in favor of approving a project where the length of the driveway from the sidewalk to the garage is less than a standard nine by 18 parking space. There are just too many communities where we require sidewalk to be put in and people pull in their driveway and they block the sidewalk and it's just points. It makes it a non walkable community. As soon as that happens, I would, I guess, point back to some of the comments that Mr. Archibald made regarding making the site more efficient by sharing driveways or using common walls between numbers of buildings. And as an example, would point to the Creek side village located in Weaverville as a good example. Okay. I appreciate the, the size of the, these units. I think it's a great product that's definitely needed in Asheville. I'm not terribly concerned about the additional disturbed area in light of the fact that so much of the site is being preserved. I don't have a lot of concern about a height of the walls. I think they're very common in Asheville. It's part of living in the mountains.
That's all I have to comment on. Yeah. I just feel that, you know, it, it it's good. What has been presented. They've definitely done some things, you know, certainly preserving a lot of the land, working with the problematic typography. What they've done is good. I think it can be better. And I think just with some, you know, what I will call out of the box, thinking again, shared driveways, common walls, townhouse units, and maybe not all of it is maybe just parts of it. I think you could squeeze out even less disturbed area. So I, I would love to see some changes to this. Let's just put it that way.
And if nobody else has any comments, I'll be happy to make the motion to recess, but also willing to hear any other comments as well. I would just add to what you, just, the comment that you just made, that, that making those improvements in efficiency might allow the space to move that wall far enough into the site, into the development area, that you could eliminate the one and a half to one, or at least increase it closer to two to one, working for a company that does do technical work. I don't have a concern about one and a half to one, but it does violate the requirement for the, for the steep slope ordinance. So that that's problematic.
I would just like to add that I would like to see a traffic study done because we keep getting numerous projects in this size, in that area. They will all add up to projects that are larger make traffic studies necessary. So that is, and Archibald's point that everybody's always worried about the traffic. Well that's because traffic is getting bad all the time and worst in South Asheville by the day. So that is a major concern with this project coming. And especially right after the apartments were recently built across the street.
Well, I don't know that I would place the burden of providing a traffic impact analysis on this applicant, but I, I think that, I mean, under the consideration that they haven't met, met the threshold is required, but I would like to, I guess I would, you know, based on your comments, Ms. Bubonic, I, I would like to hear from the city engineer, traffic engineer, and perhaps from VOT speaking to those or speaking to that issue,
I think the biggest diag is, is like they cutting back. I mean, I know you mentioned 85 homes, but down to 76, maybe try to cut it, cut another nine based out from cost perspectives that can help with, with the rest information concerns about the road sidewalks and also some of the infrastructure. But thank you for your time,
I think an email would be positioned if the rest of the commissioners agree with that. Can we get a show of hands from those that are on video? I think it could. I think it would answer the questions. I don't know that it would, if the public is paying attention, if it would address their concerns, unless they can see Ms. D back, do you have a comment on that? No, I was just raising my hands and you can't see me.
This is, this is Janet. I have a point of order that this is unusual because we have to, recess is recess and then you'll vote at the next meeting. And that's how we handle it in virtual meetings. But typically by now, there would be a sense of when you say like this or this would like to see this, you would kind of know where you're leaning to vote. Or if you were asking the applicant to continue to present more information, or are you saying to the applicant, you know, there's certain conditions as you've seen typically once you've heard it, and this is all the presentation, then we have to open it for 24 hours for more comments, those comments can be taken in, but typically it's up to you. You don't continue the discussion you vote at that time. So I'm just not sure by these comments, if you are, and maybe clarify for the applicant, what are you planning on? There will be more discussion. Are you anticipating that you you're requesting that this additional information be presented at that? That would be my only comment.
This, but we are undecided until we see perhaps other information or perhaps the applicant decides, yeah, maybe I'll, I'll try to make some tweaks. And so there may be changes if we recess it, that does prevent more information or those changes from happening, correct? Or, I mean, we're reassessing it, no matter what I guess is what I'm getting at.
That's right. You're reassessing it no matter what, but typically if we were opening it up to, this is not what you're voting on the next time, and there's more discussion or there's a change to plan. It could end up either being reset again for a vote or the applicant. We might get to a point where the applicant says, you know, this is what we're presenting to you P and Z, and then you need to make your decision based on that. So, Y jump in, if you're seeking more clarification or what is being asked of, of the applicant for the next time, this is, this is unusual. Typically you can tell which way you're going and whether what's what's on the table before you, the conditions as presented typically what you would be voting on next time with perhaps some additional input from the public who might call in 24 hours after,
Right? Yeah, no, I appreciate that. That this is unusual. And I really appreciate all of the commissioner's comments has been very helpful for me. And I know that John Sampson is watching. I know it's going to helpful for him. I will say this, you know, it's clear to me that the commissioners would like more information would like, you know, consideration of maybe a little bit less density, moving some things around. I will say this, I will discuss that with my client. And, and we will, we'll discuss it with Daniel. He's the engineer and knows the site better than anybody. And if we decide to make changes, we'll submit them to the planning staff to Shannon, and they will we'll figure out Janice how we do that. But I think they would need to be posted in a timely manner before the next hearing, if we go forward in a month and that way that we would open it back up for public comment and discussion at the next planning, zoning commission hearing. But my client may say, no, you know, I, I want to go ahead and have an up or down vote. We've done the best we can with his site. That may be his position. I don't know, till I talk to him and I'll have an opportunity here. You don't ordinarily, if we were in a meeting like this, I'd say, hold on, let me go talk to my client. I don't have that opportunity here. So I would just ask that this commission and indulge me with that in mind, that if we up with some changes
That I think would be that this group would be interested in seeing that we, we do that in advance of the next meeting, whether it's the next meeting or even the July meeting so that the public has time to see it, and then we can discuss it. When we gather again, I would only respond to the, to, to your comments by saying that I do not have any problem with density. I think density is what's going to allow you to achieve the additional reduction in space that could potentially remove that one and a half of one slope, or at least increase it to something closer to two to one. If I had to place conditions right now, and we were going to vote on it tonight, I think the two conditions that I would re I would put on it would be the one of a full-sized parking space beyond the sidewalk and condensing the layout to include shared driveways and common walls in order to achieve that, that denser condition and eliminate that steep slope. The other, I think I spoke to it a moment ago. I think the other specific conditions that Ms. Tuck mentioned that, that you've brought this case before us for are mitigated by the property that you're putting into conservation effectively, and the access to the six lots that don't butter road. I think we have to start looking at opportunities like that in order to increase density in organic in order to, to make these sorts of developments work and I'll stop there. If anybody else has any comments or questions, please proceed.
I think what Guillermo had to say about the site and how the plan is laid out with respect to the topography is really important. I think you'll be able to achieve density assuage some of the concerns about the steep slope, but also, you know, bring in some of that diversity of housing type that was also on the staff report. And I also think, you know, the affordability may be achieved when you're working with a slope rather than against it.
And I would, would definitely agree with that. I, I, you know, I would love it if you had 90 units on there, but, you know, pack them together so that it worked better. And I, and I certainly think that if you were to do that, then if I really wanted to like fro another condition, I'd love to see you hit at least the minimum 10% Mark for the affordable housing. And right now it's it. I calculated it at 6.5, you know, 10% would be great to have. And, and Mr. Stevens, I appreciate, certainly understand that you need time to talk, you know, talk to your client. I appreciate you hearing what we have to say. And,
You know, certainly look forward to seeing what you bring forward or, you know, bring back. And we'll certainly, you know, give you that chance. Thank you. I appreciate that. And if there's no further comment, I would like to make the motion to recess the public hearing for the conditionals and a request for the property located at 70 mills gap road. Second, that we have a motion on a second to reset the project and we will vote Ms. Levi, Mr. Ball, Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Farrell hall. I also, the project will be recessed until June 2nd. Before we move on to the next site, would you like to consider a very brief break currently? Six 56. We come back in 10 minutes. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay. Moving on. Item two on legislative hearings is a request to conditionally rezone. The following properties located on Charlotte, East Chestnut Fermin and Baird streets from community business. One CB one, residential multifamily, medium density, RMA, and residential multi-family high density, RMS 16 to commercial expansion, conditional zone, C O M E X, P D S C Z. Along with one adjustment to the future land use map from traditional neighborhood to traditional corridor. The owner is RCG, Kilian, Chestnut, residential properties, LLC, and the RCG killing an asphalt arms. And the contact is Chris day. The planner coordinating review is Ms. Tuck. Shall I read that list?
So as Mr. Houser has indicated, this is a conditional zoning request for the property or the, for the project that we commonly refer to as the Charlotte street East Chestnut mixed use development project. I think it's also been known as one Oh one Charlotte street. And to begin, I w just orient the commission and everybody listening this evening to the subject property or to the project site. This is a clip from the exhibit, a map that identifies the 17 parcels that are included in this particular conditionals. I mean, request that it's a mix of zoning today. It is combination of CB one, RM eight and RM 16. And again, I will kind of trace the boundary. So for folks who are trying to understand, so it's these front parcels that are zoned CB one, which is community business one, and the boundary for that fall falls like this. So it is these six on the P on the corridor. And then these two parcels that turn the corner on East Chestnut. And then we have RMA zoning, which are these parcels along Baird, as well as these couple parcels here on Fermin. So this is the boundary here for the RMH zoning, and then this Southwest corner, or excuse me, Southeast corner is the RM 16 zoning. And of course the request is a conditional zoning request to a mixed use expansion season.
So when we look at the exhibit a B aerial map, you can kind of get a sense for what's on the property today. Again, there are 17 parcels in total, 13 of those parcels currently support historic single family home structures. Now a lot of those structures have been converted, and I think most of them are multifamily apartments. The one, and then there is also one office, a structure that's been converted into an office located here at two 76 Charlotte streets. There is one non-contributing structure that is the Asheville arms located here on the corner corner of Fermin and East Chestnut. We also have two vacant parcels. This parcel here, located on the corner of East Chestnut and Charlotte street, this one on East Chestnut. And then we have another parcel that supports just a surface parking lot. This project is particularly unique in that it is almost an entire city block.
We have frontage on Charlotte street here on the West East Chestnut street on the South Ferman Avenue on the East and Baird street to North. And it is just these four parcels here at the corner of Baird and Fermin that are not included in the project area. Additionally, all 17 parcels are located within the Chestnut Hills national historic district. And I'll emphasize that as a national historic district, not a local historic district, but it is a historic, a designated historic district, also eight of the 17 parcels along Charlotte street. And it's these actually, it matches the CB one zoning it's these six parcels on Charlotte street. And then the two that turned the corner on East Chestnut are located within the Charlotte street transition overlay.
We always examine the city's future land use map, which is included as part of the city's comprehensive plan. This is the existing land use map as it relates to the subject area. And you can see the front portion or the portion closest to Charlotte street is designated traditional corridor. And this is in the comprehensive plan is that designation that's described as an area that would provide a mix of uses with a development pattern that most closely resembles a main streets. So we're describing buildings that sit closer to the street that might be multi storied, might be a mix of uses, and that this development would be enhanced with multimodal access and higher residential densities. While the back portion of the property is designated as traditional neighborhood, which is a designation that describes a mix of housing types at a rate of approximately four to eight units per acre, the mixed use expansion zoning designation is not listed as an appropriate zoning category for the traditional neighborhood. We don't expect to have that zoning in this area. So a rezoning to MXD CZ or MFC expansion would necessitate a change to the future land use map. And it would just simply look like this. We would just pull that traditional quarter designation back into the rest of the
Now, before I get into the site plan and all the details, I know that the development team, the applicant and his development team have a really thorough and comprehensive presentation. So I'm going to try to provide a, just sort of a broad overview of the project and, and, and let them kind of fill in some of those finer details. So by now everyone's probably pretty well oriented to the site, but just to recap it again, here on the left or on the Western side is Charlotte street to the South is East Chestnut to the East is Ferman Avenue. Then here to the North is Baird. There are four primary buildings proposed as part of this mixed use development. Starting here on the North end of Charlotte street is building a D this is a four story mixed use building with a commercial level at the ground floor and residential units above. And then moving South, we have building a, which is another mixed use building, but it steps up in size and height and is five stories. And these two buildings, buildings, a and D have, I think the greatest presence on the corridor, obviously they front the corridor and there's some of the larger buildings. Then we turn the corner on East Chestnut and you have building B. And this is again, another mixed use building with a commercial at the ground level and residential units above. This is also the building that includes the live work units
And then moving further down to the East on East Chestnut, we have building, sorry, I always have to check building C. And this is a, three-story all residential building, continuing down East Chestnut is where you come across the Asheville arms. That's the existing 56 unit apartment building, and then turning North on Ferman. You have a new three story, residential building. And then one of the historic homes is proposed to be preserved located here at one 34 from an Avenue. So this, this structure is an existing structure. That's proposed to be retained and converted into two condominium units
We also have included in the project, some enhanced and wider sidewalks along Charlotte street and East Chestnut. We also have a bike lane improvement there's proposal to add a buffer light or buffer strip here next to the existing bike lane. We have public open space. The main entrance into the sort of courtyard Plaza space of the project is I think is at this corner flanked by buildings a and B. This is sort of that prominent court corner heading North on Charlotte street, and kind of draws you into the site where there's some additional sort of Plaza, courtyard space. That's kind of internal to the development. We also have a variety of walkways that connect the project to the different buildings within the project, as well as to the existing asphalt arms and out to the larger. So overall, this project is about 210,000 square feet with the 181 new residential units, 18 of which will be set aside as affordable housing. And we have over 45,000 square feet of non-residential or commercial space. And of course, other features that are typically associated with projects like this, such as surface parking and some shared surface parking access into the site
Which is just South of that. This is the larger five story building, turning the corner on East Chestnut. You can see the outline edge of building a and then that transitions over to building B another four story mixed use building. And you can see this ground level activation along. This is Charlotte street, and then the top elevation. And then at the bottom elevation, you have additional commercial non-residential space at the ground level along street
My introduction or my overview of the site. Again, similar to the project that came before this one staff is recommending denial of the project. And again, I want to emphasize as currently designed similar to the first project, the proposed project has many positive aspects that we think are consistent with the goals for mixed use and housing in strategically located areas, supports goals for walkability and connectivity. It has a strong relationship with the public realm and it supports affordable housing. The project, however, is not consistent with the goals for historic and cultural presentation, excuse me, cultural preservation through the demolition of the 12 historic structures. Additionally, we feel like there is information lacking to better understand or assess the project's compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood. So this is one of those projects that tends to kind of cultivate polarizing opinions. And we just don't say it that way.
We think that the goals for historic preservation and the goals for more intense, mixed use walkable development are not mutually exclusive. And while we recognize that we likely can't fully satisfy all of the goals, we do think that there is some middle ground that hasn't been explored that could potentially preserve some of existing structures, which would also likely help address some of the compatibility concerns with the surrounding neighborhood, because nothing's going to be more compatible than the existing historic homes that are already in place. That concludes my introduction. As I mentioned earlier, I know the applicant has a good thorough presentation that they would like to go through before they do that, though. I'd be happy to answer any clarifying questions.
No, they are contributing historic structures in the Chestnut Hills national register, or excuse me, national historic district, so that the designated historic district identifies which of the structures are contributing to the integrity of that historic district. And all 13 of these structures are listed as contributing structures.
Okay. If I, if I may take that Mr. Hauser to expand on it a little bit, because we've studied that pretty closely so that the national historic registry, the Chestnut Hill historic district covers a pretty big geographic area, and it has over 264 contributing structures. It has a number of non-contributing structures. She's right. 13 of those were contributing structure that does not however mean that they are necessarily, we have historic structures within that designation. They would include the Vaughn ruck house that is owned by my client, that Kelly and family that they renovated and preserved and got an award for. It would include the Jeter Prichard house that they renovated and restored that has actual history. It would include the Commodore. It would, it would include the manner in, it would not necessarily these, these homes, they're contributing structures. There's no restriction on their removal under federal law.
And, and there's, there's no particular history attached to them. In contrast, you look at the patent Parker house next door, that is absolutely a historic home. And the Siemens have done a fabulous job of renovating and restoring it. And it has a deep history in our city. None of these structures have that kind of history attached to them. They weren't homes that were, that were purchased by Dr. Kilian in the 1970s and eighties, they were all built in about the 1920s. And by the time he bought them, they had already been cut up into small individual apartment units. I'll show you some pictures here in a minute, but, but they were no longer. They no longer had their single families character. They were essentially old homes that offered affordable housing to in many cases, college students who needed it. And Dr. Kilian put his office in one of them.
And I'll show you a picture of that. But the rest of them were just, it was housing, small individual unit housing. And though he did do a historic renovation on these other structures. He, he never intended to preserve these in any sort of historic way, the opportunity to do that had long since gone by the wayside. And, and when he passed away in 1998, his widow, Fran, and his, and his boys, Hume and Frank who were in college, I believe at the time that they, they, they never intended to do a historic renovation for any member of the spore that hasn't worked on all homes. I will tell you it's very challenging and incredibly expensive. And, and to restore these homes in the way that the preservation society would have us do, it would be prohibitively expensive. And if you did it, they would be multimillion dollar single family homes of which we have plenty in city of Asheville. So some context is important with respect to what we're talking about when we talk about the chef's not all historic district.
I have a question to build off of what you asked Mr. Houser and Mr. Stevens kind of expanded on this a little bit, but the historical society. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Like, so this it's not on the registrar of historical districts or any thing, is there like a plaque outside of the homes? Is there anything like that? Can you tell us, like, what exactly is this group that is the historical district? What do they do for this help?
So, so I, the preservation society of Asheville and Buncombe County is a, is an outstanding nonprofit organization, local organization that exists to promote historic architecture and structures in the city of Asheville. And as I mentioned, they, they gave awards to Dr. Kilian for his restoration of the, of the homes that I, that I mentioned. And they've done many more. They've done a tremendous work that they want us to try to preserve these homes. We respectfully disagree with that for all the reasons I said, and all the reasons I'll say in a minute, the Chestnut Hill historic district over to really answer your question. That's, that's a federal designation. And what happened was Roy Trantham the mayor, you know, w when he probably had the city attorney do it, they submitted an application to the department of interior, I believe is the governmental agency and said, you know, here's a map of a really important part of Asheville's history.
And, you know, we, we want to get it on the historic registry and to do that, they had to identify all of the structures, both contributing and non-contributing, and they, and they did that. And as I said, there was about 264 contributing structures of which 13 of these homes were on there. Now there's varying categories are contributing. There's I can't remember the term, but there's a term for like really special. That would be the patent Corker house, the bond rock house, the Jeter Pritchard house, and so forth. And then there's kind of this contributing, well, these are contributing structures, but what that means is that if, if you're up, if you own property in a historic district and you want to do a historic renovation, you can get tax credits for it. If you follow a very stringent set of guidelines. But if you, if, and, and, and you do, you get tax credits and help offset the cost of the renovation, my client has looked at these homes and to do the kind of work that you would have to do to qualify for those tax credits, what would mean that you would price these out of any sort of affordability, any sort of, you know, multiunit housing.
It just wouldn't make sense. So what, what, you know, perhaps you would change some of them into commercial structures, but even then it would be very challenging from an economic standpoint to, to really, for that, to make sense and, and really the bigger, and we're going to talk about this in a minute, but the hums that are, that are probably most interest to most of the people on this call are the ones right along Charlotte street. And you will see that we can't do what we want to do to open up the streetscape, to create the walkability if we preserve those homes. And so a long answer to your question, but there is no legal protection for these homes. These are privately owned homes that were purchased by Dr. Kilian, and there is an existing condition. They haven't fundamentally changed. His family has kept them. There was about 12, 12 total units out of 30 occupied on that site. Our vision is to create 180 to 183 new homes, and to create a vibrant, active commercial walkable public space oriented neighborhood that we think will just transform that part of Asheville in a really very positive way. I hope that answer your question
And let me also add and let or inform the commission and let you all know that we have asked Alex Cole, who is the city's historic preservation planner, who works in the planning departments. One of my colleagues, she is here this evening. And if there are any specific questions or more technical questions about the historic districts designation, or what these houses or what these houses contribution to that designation is. So she she's here. If there are any questions for her,
I'm sorry, my, I apologize. My I'm having some technical difficulty with my camera, but my name is Alex coalition and said, this definitely is onto the HRC and also manage the city's historic preservation program. And I can just offer a couple of clarifying points on the national register district and the different types of designation that come into play. So as Mr. Stevens pointed out, there are some properties that in the city that do have a special historic designation like Gabon County. That's a great example. It is actually a contributing building to the Chestnut Hill national register district, but it is also a local historic landmark, which is a separate designation that carries with it, an overlay that requires any other requires design review, excuse me, the, the, the 13 houses on the 101 block of Charlotte street, our country are all contributing structures to the national register has registered historic district. There is not a difference as far as national register historic district listing in terms of like varying degrees of, of contributing versus, you know, partially contributing or more special significance contributing. There's just contributing
Non-contributing. And sometimes we call non-contributing like infill or fill construction, like the actual arm building as an example that was built later in like the seventies or eighties. So hopefully that helps clarify, but if you need more context around the Nat, what it means to be listed in the national register, happy to help clarify. And also just in anticipation of a lot of public comment, that's going to talk about historic structures or discussion that we'll talk about the historic district designation and these structures. And there is a difference between the preservation society, which is Mr. Stevens has indicated, is a local non-profit organization. And our city's historic resources commission, which is another body that is appointed by our city council, who reviews, who has a variety of responsibilities, including review of projects in our local historic districts, which this is a national district, not a local district, but they also serve as the cities or as a certified local government, a CLG and have other responsibilities in terms of making comments regarding the integrity of our national historic districts. So I just want to kind of jump ahead of any potential confusion over the difference between those two bodies.
Yeah. And I would just jump in real quick, just point of clarification. I'm looking at the national historic registry right here, and there's, there, there are variations, there is contributing non-contributing and then there's like a special mentioned category that they, that they use for like the Beauford house on Liberty street, the bond rock house, and others. So there, there actually is a distinction in the national registry and none of these meet that special category, they are though contributing structures. That's true. Pivotal is the term they use.
I thought also in terms of renovation, there were varying levels, as well, as far as tax credits, whether you're renovating rehabbing or making slight alterations, aren't there different levels that you can do within a contributing structure based on the tax credit level? I would say no. The, the standards that the national park service uses to review tax credit applications is very stringent.
Hi, this is Lindsay. I don't know if anyone can hear me. Okay. Would you care? I'll just do a quick screen share and just make sure that it works. No, that's fine. Okay, great. I'm on two different computers so I can see faces and have the sure. I'm going to echo too bad. Okay. Got it. Thank you. And I'll meet with not talking. Thanks.
Okay. All right. No echo. Okay. I'm going to step away for just a moment. Get the OBS ready. Todd is Todd online here. Todd's going to be joining us. We also have, Marie will be working remotely and helping us with the live public call-in and managing the public input side of things. So we've, we've got only two cases on this agenda, but we are expecting a fair amount of public comment with the Charlotte street case. It's also a very large project, pretty complicated. So I anticipate there'll be a fair amount of discussion. So I don't think this is going to be a short meeting, even though we only have two cases. So if you all would like to grab a snack bottle of water, that sort of thing, we will plan to try to take a couple breaks. We'll kind of just feel our way along and when there's an appropriate time to take a break, we'll try to do so.
If we feel like things are going on for a very long time, and we are going to start the agenda by voting on the items that well, well, first we'll do, I guess the administrative business of voting on the minutes and the findings of fact and conclusions of law from the last meeting. And then you will have the final vote for the items that you heard at the last meeting. I think we had some communication that I, I'm not sure where our collective consciousness was at the time, but we kind of rolled along and made votes and, or made motions and voted on those items. But really we should have recessed the hearing. We did not get any additional public comment for those items. Otherwise I would have shared it with you. So we're just going to go ahead and just redo the vote today. And I included, Oh, I didn't include Joe. Can I ask you to maybe pull up the staff reports from last week? And can you maybe be prepared to make those motions just to kind of make it sort of seamless and easy?
Get their traffic impact study a little further along. So we kind of know what those findings are. So we'll just expect them to come back in June. I think Bob, if he hasn't already he'll join us just in case, we also have at least one of the petitioners from last month, joining us again, just in case our questions. So if there aren't any, once those items are done, those, those folks will just fall off. I anticipate. Yes. I'm sure that Sarah had sent over a sample script for Tony for live comments, with everything going on. I don't think I'm sent that over to you, but I've just did. And I didn't know if you wanted him to follow that tonight or what your thoughts were, but it says in addition to prerecorded and or emailed note, if anywhere received, and we know we received many, if you want him to use this, I can send it over to him real fast. We'll go ahead and send it to him and Tony, I think you can just kind of review it and if it looks good to you, I, I think the best thing about that script is it tells you exactly what to say to help guide callers, to hit the right button at the right time. So I think it's a useful script to this. Go ahead and read.
Great. And then once, right. Okay. So we already talked about, we'll do the adoption of the minutes, the findings of fact, and then we'll have the final vote for the items from last month and then we'll move into today's two conditional zoning, legislative hearings. And we made sure
So, well, I would recommend going ahead and just making a motion to continue that item, assuming that the commission supports that request just to kind of get it off the agenda. So you don't have people sticking around just to see if something will be continued later. So, and that's, that's typically how we handle that. If we get those kinds of requests, just to go ahead and juggle the agenda so that we can kind of just move those along and just kind of get down to the meat of the, of the meeting
Tony. It's Janice again. I just want to be sure. You're fine with the findings of fact, you're not reading everything. You're just when it says approve the minutes or whoever reads and we're approving the minutes and the fund is a fact and conclusions of law. I was confused and I know in my email, but you got that right? Yup. Thank you. Okay. Cause they're attached. If for anybody else who's new to this, when we do a variance, it will be attached to your meeting. Minutes does just consolidate the decision in written form. What you've already decided about that there is, but then legal, I write that up decisions and it's attached.
Kim. If I have an error on there, you can let me know and I can try and fix it. Yeah. So the part that I saw was it's, it's the beginning of a paragraph Ms. Levi asked if this was a situation where Mr. Allen was trying to avoid upgrading the space. I was referring to the site, not the space. Okay. I have the wrong thing. I don't know that my intent was the site. Yeah. That's okay. I can replay space with site. Does that work? Yeah. Sometimes we laugh about this. Sometimes I say, I need to have a professional license to keep up with you guys. Sometimes there's some of these projects where you will finish each other's sentences and I'm like, Oh my goodness. I think you do a great job,
Marie, even though that's corrected now, Kim, you'll still have to say that because if anybody else will have rad these meetings, same ones you're reading. So you're going to have to let everybody know that there was this correction, but explain it just the way you you did, which, you know, it says this, but I meant it to apply to the site, not to the, whatever it takes. And when I'm going to do the reason I was asking is I'm going to try during the meeting because we have findings that Tony willing to sign. I'm going to try and send over those for signature tonight and I'm gonna attach them to the minutes. So that's great. Thank you.
Janice. Yes. Are we going to need two time callers that call in for comment? Yes. And I think telling me it's going to be announcing at, I don't know if you've already agreed Tony to give them more than 10 minutes, if you know, just announced that, but we're going to time it. And I've talked to Maggie. This happens at council too. That they'll be given time, but we're supposed to be calling it. And then it's up to the chair really to manage it. If you feel like you want to hear more information or not, or you're probably going to have to remind people, please keep it to, to this. So yes, we do need to time even the applicant's presentation. So based on what the chair says, you know, you have X amount of time. We'll time it from the college and the vice chair is responsible for the timeline. Okay. So that's what I was gonna about to ask. So how, how are we controlling the time with Colin? Because you know, if it was in person, obviously they are standing
That's what I was wondering. I think for the applicant, there was a discussion about 10 minutes for the presentation. And then you all will decide, tell me, I, I believe whether or not that's a hard, fast 10 minutes or not. And then as we have callers that are calling in, I think that's a three minute. Yep. And then I know Maggie does an alarm when that three minutes is up. I have the control over here on mine and Marie, I don't know who that individual is, Ariel. So I guess you'd still be tying it, Joe. And then Marie, can you, I'm sorry, your time is up. And then Maria will do the final cutoff so she can get the next caller on. Is that okay?
Historically, what I have done on before I took care was to begin timing after the person introduced themselves. Yep. So they get that for free. Once they start talking beyond their name and where they're from or whatever, that, then you start at the timing and I've got the alarm.
Okay. Welcome everyone to the planning and zoning commission meeting of May 5th planning and zoning commission will hear public comments only on items that appear on the agenda. All live public comments will be limited to three minutes per person. Additional information may be conveyed as always to the planning and zoning commission in written form. We will begin with roll call Ms. Levi, I shouldn't be doing roll call.
Thank you. We will begin our first item under administrative, the approval of minutes from the April 7th, 2021 meeting and approval of findings, of fact and conclusions of law associated with the variance that we heard during that meeting. Some of, I think someone had a comment
Motion to move with amendment or changes. We have a motion from Mr. Rodriguez and a second from Mr. Hoke, I believe. And we will vote Ms. Levi. Hi, Mr. Hope. Hi, Mr. Archibald. Hi Mr. Rodriguez. Aye. Mr. Fairclough. Mr. Bennett motion carries unanimously. We have had a request to continue item three under the legislative hearings to June 2nd. Do we have a motion to continue though? I'll make the motion to continue the rezoning at 1617 Hendersonville road to date circled on June 2nd. I'll second. Who was that? Mr. Fairclough? Yes, sir. Thank you. We have a motion and a second, Ms. Levi. I just hope. Hi, Mr. Archibald. Aye. Mr. Rodriguez. Hi, Mr. Farrell hall. I just moved back. Thank you. Okay. We now move on to unfinished business. Two cases that we reviewed last month, the first was a request to rezone the property located at nine nine nine nine nine Glendale Avenue from residential multi-family high density, RM 16 district two commercial industrial C I district. The property is identified as ten nine, six five eight two one four eight four seven and the Buncombe County tax record. There is no further discussion, a chair or commission members. I can, I have that language pulled up from last
Month and can make the motion looks like you're good to go. All right. I move to approve the rezoning request from residential multi-family high density, RM 16 to commercial industrial CGI with an amendment to the future land use map of the living Asheville comprehensive plan from traditional neighborhood to urban corridor, thereby assigning zoning and land use designations that are more compatible with the surrounding properties and can find that the request is reasonable is in the public interest as consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted plans and meets the development needs of the community. And that the rezoning will one assign a zoning designation that will better support future infill development in a locationally efficient area, and to remove an unusual zoning condition that can be a barrier to future development. We have a motion on the second. We will take a vote. Mr. Hope. Mr. Archibald. Hi, Mr. Rodriguez, did we lose you?
You might want to just wait one more minute. I mean, we have a Corum, so you're, you're fine. I just, we didn't vote to recuse him. He might've been disconnected. If that happened. We can just go ahead with the boat. Yeah. Let's let's just give him a minute. Cause I know sometimes people solve their technical problems by exiting and then reentering the meetings. So
Anything, any activity Shannon or him trying to come? I don't see anything. So maybe we'll just note for the record that he got disconnected. So it's going to be a six. It sounds like a six to zero vote to go ahead. Okay. Motion passes. Six to zero. We will move on to item two of unfinished business consideration of a proposed zoning text amendment to chapter seven of the unified development ordinance, amending articles three, five, six, and seven related to decision-making administrative and advisory bodies and related functions in order to bring the city's development code into alignment with recent state legislation, one 60 D. And again, there is no discussion. I already have that motion brought up that I can read. That's good for everybody. Yep. I move to approve the amendments to the UDA articles, three, four, six, and seven to clarify language and otherwise bring provisions in compliance with NCGS chapter one 60 D We have a motion and a second and we will vote. Ms. Levi. Hi, Mr. Ho. Hi, Mr. Archibald. Hi, Mr. Fairclough cause we've done it.
Yeah. Sounds like no. So here again, the motion will pass six to zero and that is the end of our unfinished business. I don't know how many folks are on the call right now, but I want to go over a couple of items before we move on. I want to begin by pointing out that everyone is participating remotely. This includes the public, my fellow commissioners and our civil servants that attend to the operations of the city and the applicant and their representatives. We're all equally disadvantaged in this format, but we decided as a society that this is what is best for the public. Good. We may not be particularly happy about it, but it is where we are.
As the chair of this commission. I received the correspondence from the public about it coming cases, and I read each item and forward it to all of my fellow commissioners. There were over 75 pieces of correspondence on one of the cases we're looking at tonight. I want to applaud the citizen's efforts to become more involved and to better understand the development process. And as I'm sure you would agree, it's neither my role as a civic volunteer nor the city's responsibility to edit, educate the citizens in these processes beyond the basic understanding of government provided at high school level, it is a citizen's duty to educate themselves in the operation of local state and federal government, frankly, it was insulting to me that some suggested there was a lack of transparency in this process, the process as well, codified and has not changed significantly in the nearly six years that I have voluntarily served on this commission.
A citizens failure to understand the process does not reflect a lack of transparency. It simply reflects a failure on the part of the citizen to educate themselves on the processes, the opportunity to change them and the obligation to fully engage in civic discourse. I will take a moment to tell you that simply opposing a project is not productive. Like the applicant. The citizenry has an equal opportunity to get in, to engage in this process, both through individual participation and through representation provided through their elected officials, submitting one's opinion, working within the framework of the unified development ordinance, working with planning staff, and actually communicating with the developer is productive, but you should not expect that you will get your way and the project will go away. Conversely, I encourage property owners and developers to meet with the community early and often in order to reach a reasonable compromise.
I'll take a moment to tell you that simply, excuse me, a property owner that wishes to develop their property, whether a local residence or not, which was a frequent comment among many of the responses that we've got about one of the projects we'll be talking about tonight, should that property owner should have the right to do so within the existing codified requirements of the local and state government, the requirements should be well-defined and relatively static so that the owner can achieve a reasonably predictable outcome because the cost of design services, legal services, surveying, and other pre-construction services that are required just to permit the project are not insignificant often running into the millions of dollars for a large development. The conditional zoning process is an opportunity for this commission and ultimately the city council to allow the property owner conditions that are not allowed by, right.
And perhaps more importantly, it is an opportunity to request conditions from the property owner in return for granting them the flexibility that they request. Keep in mind. However that if the property owner is not granted, that conditions requested, they are certainly free to drop back and develop their property as is allowed by, right? The disadvantage of the citizenry is that it is the business of the professionals that assist the property owner to understand and be able to navigate the development requirements and processes. Whereas the majority of the citizenry has neither an understanding nor an interest in these requirements, unless the property being developed happens to be in their neighborhood. And even then it is typically only a fleeting interest. For example, as many of you know, we will be reviewing the one Oh one Charlotte street proposal tonight, we received approximately six calls and 75 emails about this project, the majority of the responses, opposed to the project, but that number represents less than 0.08% of the city's population.
So it is by no means a majority of the population. I strongly encourage the citizens of Asheville to be involved in these processes, to learn how to work with in the codified framework, where to revise the existing framework, to better fit the requirements of future growth. However, the conditions under which these projects have come to us tonight are based on the existing framework and it would not be legal to revise them for the projects we are about to consider. As we commence these cases, I would like to note that the UDL requires developers to upgrade infrastructure, to support their project. This includes roads, water, sewer, storm, water, and other utilities that may be undersized for the project. In the case of stormwater, the developers developers required to detain and treat the increase in runoff that will result from the development. The Udo's specifies the requirements for parking and what the modifications may be required.
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