There are countless ways the proposed 101 Charlotte Street project does not align with the goals and vision of the Living Asheville Comprehensive Plan. Let the Planning and Zoning Commission know you oppose the conditional zoning the developers are seeking due to these inconsistencies. Below you will find examples from the Living Asheville Comprehensive Plan to include.
Historic and Cultural Resources (p 104-105)
A 2011 survey of historic resources, the Asheville Survey Update, revealed that Asheville had seen fewer historic demolitions than other North Carolina cities over the last several years, a finding that is perhaps indicative of many ongoing efforts to expand historic preservation efforts within the city. Since the Asheville City Development Plan 2025, the city has completed a Historic Resources Preservation Plan, the Downtown Area National Historic District was expanded, and a joint sub-committee was formed with representation from the Downtown Commission and Historic Resources Commission to review downtown design review processes and bring them into alignment with historic preservation goals. Outside of downtown, eight new districts were added to the National Register of Historic Places, and the guidelines for three of the four local districts were updated, including those for the newly created Saint Dunstan’s Local Historic District. After a brief interruption the historic tax credit program has seen ongoing success. To better monitor preservation efforts, a comprehensive survey of 4,400 historic properties was completed and a new web page has been developed that includes a Landmark Story Map and more easily accessible information on landmark designation.
Foster Resilient Neighborhoods (p 114)
“Neighborhoods are the soul of Asheville and should be included in all placemaking efforts. The city should continue to engage neighborhoods to develop a Plan on a Page and consider neighborhood needs and concerns when developing small area plans.”
A Livable Built Environment by Jim Stokely (p 127)
“Asheville’s 60+ neighborhoods are diverse and eclectic, containing the varied pasts and forward dreams of their peoples. Like trees in a forest (call it the City of Asheville), these neighborhoods come in a variety of types and shapes. Their best hopes for the future lie in a balance of optimal individual growth and wise forest (City) management. In other words, every Asheville neighborhoods needs a combination of local and citywide planning, leadership, and involvement.”
“Key amongst the challenges [of rising housing prices, affordability and inclusivity] is a need to balance preservation with the accommodation of new population growth.”
“The City of Asheville commits itself to the empowerment of its constituent neighborhoods. The City stands ready to listen to neighborhood plans and possibilities. Through mutual discussion and prioritization Asheville and its neighborhoods can confront issues together, resolve them transparently, and move as one toward the beloved community for which we strive.”
Key Ideas for the Future: (p 129)
Enhance Creative Placemaking Through Preservation of Neighborhood Character and Historic Resources
“Asheville is a city with a unique appeal built around its authentic local character. The city’s sense of place can be enhanced creatively through preservation of neighborhood character and celebration of the city’s cultural and historic resources. These strategies can leverage existing plans, groups, and initiatives. Living Asheville identifies ways to take them further.”
GOALS
#1 Encourage Responsible Growth: (p 130)
“Asheville should encourage development decisions that are predictable, equitable and cost-effective, built on a foundation of stakeholder and community collaboration and engagement. Policies for responsible growth should encourage thoughtful holistic decision making on behalf of residents to encourage a mix of land uses, diverse housing and transportation options, infrastructure to support growth and development, respect for and enhancement of existing neighborhoods, and compact, walkable design. They should also encourage distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place, preserve open space and critical environmental areas, direct development toward existing communities, and maximize the potential for a variety of transportation options.”
#7 Celebrate the Unique Identity of Neighborhoods Through Creative Placemaking (p 152)
“Asheville is a city with broad appeal built around its unique identity and authentic character, reflective of its picturesque mountain setting, distinctive historic architecture and rich cultural heritage. The city can continue to build on this legacy through creative placemaking strategies that both celebrate and honor the best of Asheville’s past while forging a vibrant vision for its future.”
#8 Elevate the Arts and Cultural Sectors to Strengthen and Preserve Heritage and History
“The concept of preservation is often connoted with stagnation, when in reality heritage and history can be a catalyst for in novation and advancement. Moreover, heritage and history are frequently essential sources of meaning that lend character and resonance to a place. The arts, history and design are at the core of Asheville’s cultural capital. Celebrating the city’s unique heritage, by imprinting the authentic character of Asheville on all aspects of the city’s urban design and placemaking efforts will enable the city to further nurture and elevate its creative, cultural, and iconic identity.”
#39 Enhance and Celebrate Asheville’s Unique Places and Destinations
“By supporting density and the growth of urban nodes in the city, using our existing urban areas as models, we can help preserve the more residential quality of the city’s beloved peripheral neighborhoods as well as intact natural and agricultural land outside the city. Encouraging density in our urban areas will also help facilitate more sustainable transportation, which will be beneficial to the city and the regional community as well.”
HOW WE’LL GROW IN THE FUTURE
Growing to Take Advantage of Land Use Opportunities (p 300)
“While aspirational objectives will guide much of the city’s future growth, it is also paramount to recognize the importance of identifying specific opportunities that already exist for additions and transformations to underutilized parcels. While growing along transit is a citywide priority, it must be balanced with an understanding that many of the most immediate growth opportunities will exist haphazardly on areas where land is most readily available: for instance, on vacant, formerly industrial, or city-owned land and areas with surface parking.”
Growing Responsibly in Neighborhoods (p 301)
“A key housing strategy in Living Asheville is to encourage neighborhood compatible infill housing in residential and mixed-use districts throughout the city. This concept is sometimes referred to as the “missing middle” and aims to provide more housing choices, such as townhomes, duplexes and triplexes, in addition to single-family detached homes and larger-scale multifamily housing. If implemented incrementally throughout the city, the impacts of infill housing to a particular neighborhood can be minimal, while the positive impacts could be great, including greater housing diversity for households of different age, size and income, and more walkable streets.”
Growing to Enhance the Character of Our Five Geographies (p 301)
“Any citywide growth strategy must be recommended carefully, and must be tailored to the placemaking needs of specific neighborhoods. In other words, the question is not as simple as where to grow and where not to grow; but rather how sensible citywide growth strategies can interface with and enhance the qualities of communities that people really like. Thus, the existing land use character, density, historical and cultural elements and landscape qualities that give the city’s neighborhoods unique identities should all be taken into consideration.”
