Date: July 31, 2024 (300 word limits)
In your opinion, what do Asheville and its residents stand to benefit from pro-housing policies?
Our whole community will benefit from a healthy, housing ecosystem, but we don’t have that now. Many in Asheville struggle to make ends meet as the cost of living rises while unchecked tourism strains our resources, burdens our infrastructure, and displaces our most vulnerable neighbors. It’s a matter of priorities: if we ensure this is a great place to live and work, it will be a great place to visit too.
Some ways the people of Asheville will benefit from pro-housing policies that center equity include:
- Affordability: Location affordability as defined by HUD looks at the intersection of housing and transportation costs. Building housing along transit corridors increases transportation choices, reduces commute and childcare costs, and connects residents with options for education, training, and jobs.
- Health & Safety: When people have stable housing, they can take care of their health, their families, and their communities.
- Climate & Neighborhood Resiliency: Our region is relatively safe from extreme weather events, one of the reasons we’re already feeling the pressure of climate migration. As we work towards pro-housing policies, I have consistently called for renewables in new development to help keep housing and utilities more affordable, part of housing as climate justice.
- Economic Stability & Mobility: Rent stabilization through land-use incentive grants (LUIG) and eviction protection, and home ownership programs including down-payment assistance, are tools the City is currently sharpening so they work as intended.
The benefits of pro-housing policies are documented, but the cost of pushing forward without an equity lens means continually leaving people behind. We have an opportunity to learn and heal from the past harms of exclusionary, racist zoning practices, to take better care of each other and our mountain home, and to invest in a hopeful future for ourselves and future generations.
Are there pro-housing policies or specific housing developments you have supported in the past that you would like to highlight?
My shared worked towards equitable, affordable housing includes:
- Future Transit-Oriented Housing on Talbert Lot: Council unanimously passed my recommendation to cascade funding for affordable housing and transit capacity while increasing the Reparations Fund. This land acquisition stands out to me as exemplary of staff, Council, partners, and community working together.
- American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funding: Council wrestled with process yet made significant investments in permanently-supportive housing, eviction protection, the THRIVE report, and homelessness response. Unfortunately, I was the lone member of Council to support funding the Beloved Tiny Home Village, an infill model for cottage-cluster housing that should be replicated.
- Navigating Challenges: The positive feelings towards the Haywood Street Community Development during the groundbreaking were hard-earned! Making time to engage community, find the right location, and secure partnerships was worth it. I supported 208-units on London Road because it has supportive infrastructure, a vote in the same meeting as the adaptive reuse of the historic Cappadocia church that shouldn’t have had to go through such a stringent process. I couldn’t reconcile several projects without supportive infrastructure, and remain baffled by votes at the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) where interstate expansion was prioritized over local roads. I did support Land-Use Incentive Grant (LUIG) funding for micro-housing units because: 1) I think this type of housing is a creative addition to our housing ecosystem and 2) because LUIG incentives work effectively as voluntary rent-control.
- Streamlining transit-oriented housing development: Since 2020, I have advocated for a zoning overlay with a public benefits table similar to our hotel overlay process but to streamline deeply-affordable housing on transit corridors. From recent Council work sessions and agenda briefings, it seems both my streamline suggestion as well as Councilmember Moseley’s concept for a displacement protection overlay–which would need to come first–are gaining support.
Do you have a section on your website that outlines your housing platform? Please provide the link if so
- From kimroney4asheville.com: Affordability means:
- Investing in creative and cooperative solutions for deeply-affordable housing and keeping neighbors from becoming unhoused;
- Advocating with fellow transit riders and advocates for a more reliable and effective transit system at the intersection of equitable access, economic mobility, and environmental sustainability;
- Securing our food and water systems; and
- Pressing the City to regain our living wage certification so our staff that provides core services can afford to live in the communities they serve.
Bringing Back “Missing Middle” Housing
Asheville For All has asked City Council to support “missing middle” land use and permitting reforms that are “broad, ambitious, and swift.” You can read our full statement here. Do you support an approach to “missing middle” reforms that is “broad, ambitious, and swift”?
One way to expedite processes towards ambitious goals might look like an overlay map using the corridors in the Missing Middle Housing Study to show where we start immediately and measure outcomes. We should expedite transit corridors as well-documented smart development and best practice. From Council’s July agenda briefing, it seems like we may have enough Council support to activate staff on this as well as a displacement protection tool.
It can be challenging to balance the urgency that comes with the great need for housing in our community and the need to move at the speed of equity and intentionality in order to avoid repeating the cycles of harm that the City has caused in the past. When I see cities across the country with thousands of new housing units beside growing populations of unhoused neighbors who can’t access the units, I bring caution and curiosity to the table because I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes.
I have to mention somewhere here my exasperation about unchecked short-term rentals and hope there is shared determination to find solutions. In 2021, I worked with the Vice Mayor and staff to negotiate a permitting process that would have removed no less than 300 illegal short-term rentals from major platforms automatically. That negotiation did not have additional Council support at the time, and now we are told that window has closed. The County is undertaking a process and getting push back. Meaningful change will require collective organizing and public pressure at every level of government.
I appreciate the laser focus of Asheville for All and YIMBY Action. I’m committed to sharing in learning and staying in the struggle for housing as a human right with you and our neighbors.
Providing Incentives and Subsidies for Below Market Rate Housing
Asheville For All believes that all kinds of working people and their families will benefit from an increase in housing supply in our most high-demand, high-opportunity neighborhoods. At the same time, incentives and subsidies are necessary to help those who cannot afford market rate rents.
(Some of these incentives and subsidies may serve double-duty to also promote a greater net supply of housing, and they can also be used to promote housing in particular locations, for example, near public transportation.)
Asheville For All supports continuing investment in the Housing Trust Fund and the Land Use Incentive Grant (LUIG). We also believe that the city’s upcoming affordable housing plan may be instrumental in guiding further spending initiatives, such as land acquisition for below-market-rate housing for example. We support increasing property taxes for a housing bond that will fund these investments.
Do you support such investments to increase the number of homes rented at below-market rates and that otherwise may increase stability and housing options for struggling Ashevilleans?
Absolutely. Here are some actions we’re taking now:
- Setting Priorities: Asheville City Council has six strategic priorities including Equitable, Affordable Housing. These priorities inform our budgets, plans, and policies–guiding lights to the aspirational goals of our Living Asheville Comprehensive Plan. I’m committed to centering equity while advancing this priority, recognizing disparities and partnering for systemic change because housing security is the foundation to supporting healthy individuals, stable households, resilient neighborhoods, and a connected community where everyone can thrive.
- Committing to Repair: I acknowledge my privilege and Asheville’s history of land left, urban renewal, exclusionary zoning, biased tax code, gentrification, and displacement. I believe reparations are necessary and possible, and I’m prepared to support the recommendations of our Community Reparations Commission, which includes an Impact Focus Area to address housing.
- Planning for Success: Our draft Affordable Housing Plan includes recommendations to prioritize deeply-affordable housing, advance racial equity, protect against displacement, and use data to inform decisions. The Displacement Risk Assessment alongside the Missing Middle Housing Study provides tools we can implement now so we can expedite zoning changes that streamline dense housing development on transit corridors. As noted earlier, Council paused LUIG to sharpen this tool so it works as intended, including lowering the AMI threshold.
- Funding with Bonds: The Council voted unanimously to put $20-million in housing bonds on the November 5th ballot.
A pro-housing ecosystem that includes deeply-affordable housing, land trusts, and eviction/foreclosure protection to keep people from becoming unhoused is how we address disparities so we can truly have an Asheville for All!
Making Better Use of Transit-Supportive Centers & Corridors
Asheville For All believes that in addition to middle housing typologies, flag lots, and ADUs, Asheville needs more higher-scale building forms, especially in high-demand, high-opportunity areas close to downtown and adjacent neighborhoods where jobs and amenities are found in the greatest concentrations.
Recent efforts such as the Urban Centers initiative and the River Arts overlay are a step in the right direction but more changes are sorely needed. Asheville For All supports reforms that will enable more “by right” construction at a scale that will match those needs.
(“By-right” permitting is especially important for those “town centers,” “urban centers,” and “corridors” identified as targets for growth in the 2018 Comprehensive Plan that are near downtown and/or adjacent to high opportunity residential neighborhoods, as these are the locations where housing is most likely to meet opposition from wealthier residents.)
Such reforms should include: increasing the scale of multifamily housing allowed under each “large-scale development” category—these arbitrary limits can put otherwise conforming projects into the same permitting category as conditional zoning—and instituting updated, form-based codes for urban centers and corridors across the city to increase effective zoned capacity for housing by including changes such as increased height limits. Asheville For All also supports the elimination of parking minimums in these districts and elsewhere across the city, as even in commercial zones, parking minimums have been shown to mandate poor land use and drive up the cost of housing.
Do you support reforms to increase housing options in the city’s centers & corridors with “by-right” development?
Yes, especially since we have a potential path forward with the overlay, design standards, and community benefits table established for hotel use–and I would prefer to see housing prioritized over lodging use on our major corridors as highest and best use of land. Both the Affordable Housing Plan and Missing Middle Housing Study are coming forward this year with recommendations. Council will need support for implementation, like finally bringing UDO amendments for flag lots and cottage amendments alongside recommendations from the Displacement Risk Assessment. Additionally, I continue to advocate for:
- A community benefits table will likely be a key tool in setting standards designed to meet our Comprehensive Plan goals while also providing a clear path for development of affordable housing. This can include points for deeply-affordable housing units, green-building, renewable energy, multimodal infrastructure, and MWBE contracting.
- Updates to our Land-Use Incentive Grants for creative and cooperative solutions are under review to ensure land use and new development work for our growing city while mitigating displacement and healing historic and current racial disparities in outcomes.
- Planning for deeply-affordable housing on transit corridors close to resources can be bolstered with partnership for a Buncombe-Asheville Transit System that pools resources locally and regionally to improve location affordability and offset the growing costs of transportation while reducing vehicle miles traveled as we work towards carbon reduction. The next step in partnership between the County and the City should be collaboration to increase frequency on the South Asheville corridors, then planning for job and housing growth near Enka/Candler, followed by evening service expansion and a Downtown Circulator as outlined in the Transit Master Plan as we work towards regional transit.
Thank you for the opportunity to consider these issues together!