Just how big will Asheville get?

It's a love affair with no end in sight, this relationship with Asheville.

And it's one that moves people — literally. They just keep moving here, about three people each day of each year, if you crunch the population and growth numbers.

With Asheville seemingly landing on somebody's superlatives list every week, a spate of apartment building that will put 3,000 units on the market in the next two years, and a natural beauty and mild climate that will continue to lure retirees, it begs the question: Just how big will Asheville get?

"We have one thing about us that's unique — we grow every year, and we've been doing that every year for the past 40 years," said Tom Tveidt, an economist and founder of Syneva Economics, an Asheville economic research firm.

And we're growing not because current residents are having babies; we're growing because people just keep moving here. Tveidt notes that the "natural portion" of growth (births greater than deaths) is actually negative, by 218, in the latest Census data for 2012 to 2013.

But in-migration — people moving here from other areas — resulted in a net gain of 5,390 new residents during that time frame, and international in-migration led to a net gain of 415 new residents. That's "been a pretty consistent long term trend," he said.

As Tveidt points out, the Asheville metro area, which includes Buncombe, Haywood, Madison and Henderson counties, has never lost population in any year in more than four decades. Just 80 of the 381 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas can say that.

Census data put Asheville's population at 87,236 last year, while Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, was home to just under 248,000 people in 2013, a number projected to rise to 254,601 this year — and 300,000 by 2030.

Terrifying or great?

In an area known for its eclectic mix of natives and newcomers, the issue of growth — and how much is enough — garners passionate opinions aplenty.

"Asheville should become the biggest city in North Carolina," said city resident Jerry Tillotson. "We need industry and new businesses to bring in a more diverse job market. This will bring in a more diverse population. We have plenty of room to spread out; this city has much more to offer than just tourism and culinary delights."

Another Ashevillian, Pamela Kimmell, finds the growth trends downright scary, saying she dreads more. In 2000, Asheville had 72,606 residents, a number that shot to 83,393 by 2010, a nearly 15 percent jump.

"The obvious thing to my mind is that rental housing will be too expensive for most folks, so workers will have to live further out, exacerbating their economic woes," she said. "Will public transportation improve and expand service? Will wages increase? Will schools be able to cope, given that our legislature doesn't support education in any real way. Will roads and sidewalks be repaired and improved? Who pays for that? Will more housing developments be squeezed into the few green places left downtown? Will high-rise housing take over? Where will they park?"

She continued in that vein, raising concerns that many others share.

POLL: Can Asheville support more newcomers?

Over those past 40 years Asheville has grown at an average annual pace of 1.3 percent, which ranks the metro area in the top 20 percent for growth in all U.S. metro areas. Extrapolating our current population to 20 years ahead with a 1.3 percent growth rate, that would make us a city of 112,950 by 2035.

The N.C. Office of Budget and Management puts out projections, and its numbers show Buncombe growing to just over 300,000 people by 2030.

"If you look at the people moving in here, the majority of them, a large number of the people are people from the North who have left the North and gone to Florida, South Carolina, south Georgia, and then come back here for the climate and the culture," said Tony Hickey, a professor of sociology at Western Carolina University. "I would anticipate that would only increase."

The natural constraints

Before everybody freaks out about a coming tidal wave of newcomers, consider the Asheville area's natural constraints to growth.

Hickey does not foresee Asheville becoming a Charlotte in the mountains, or even a Winston-Salem or Raleigh, mainly because of what's kept the area from growing by leaps and bounds for centuries: the mountains.

"If people want to be in Asheville — close to Asheville — you've got to look at how many places can you build," Hickey said. "There are some geographical constraints that are very different here than in other areas."

Buncombe County Planning Director and Assistant County Manager Jon Creighton sees some potential for growth in some areas of the county, but he maintains a basic human need will constrain it in others.

"What limits us is topography, and there's only half the county that has (city) water and sewer," Creighton said. "That limits that big type of growth from happening. In some respects, that's why folks are building up. There are limits on what you can do, especially in the northern half of Buncombe County."

The Metropolitan Sewerage District Plant in Woodfin handles 20 million gallons of wastewater a day, serving about 50,000 customers in Buncombe County and northern Henderson County through 1,000 miles of line. Officials say it runs at about half capacity.

But running new lines, especially over high terrain, is extremely expensive, and Creighton said he's actually had some rural residents fight it because of the potential growth it could engender.

Developer Rusty Pulliam, whose company Pulliam Properties has developed much of the Hendersonville Road commercial corridor, sees the topography — and the pillars of our economy — limiting growth. We are, whether we like it or not, a tourist destination and a retirement haven, he said.

"One thing is we don't have the employment here to bring the young college graduates to Asheville," Pulliam said. "We're doing a very good job at economic development, but we don't have the professional jobs here that would draw the attention of college graduates who are going to the Atlanta, Charlotte and New York markets."

Other major metros will continue to pull in or just keep their major employers and corporate headquarters, causing big metros in North Carolina to continue to outpace Asheville in population, Pulliam said.

The housing cost factor

Don Davies, founder of Realsearch, an Asheville company that researches real estate trends, points to another factor that will curtail growth: We're an expensive place to live, and that trend likely will continue.

"I think the thing that's going to limit us, in terms of real estate, is we're heading close to a $500,000 average asking price for all the houses on the market," Davies said.

Asheville has the highest cost of living of 13 cities listed on the website of the Economic Development Coalition of Asheville-Buncombe County. Asheville rates a 103.6, which is just above the national average of 100. The number factors in various costs, ranging from housing to food.

In North Carolina, Wilmington (98.6), Charlotte (95.7), Raleigh (93.6), Durham (92.7) and Winston-Salem (88.4), all scored better.

Davies offers some sobering statistics of his own. On Jan. 19, Buncombe County set a new record high for that average asking price, at $493,948, and that's going back to 1986. Buncombe County had 1,453 homes on the market.

"This Monday, we had 1,461 homes on the market, and it jumped to $496,249," Davies said. "It's done that every single week this year. Every single Monday it's up, up, up."

And that number of homes includes everything from mansions to mobile homes, he said.

"A couple of things have to happen for Asheville to keep growing," Davies said. "We're going to have to have someone come in and start building houses — homes and town homes, in the neighborhood of 1,600-1,700 square feet. What's happened now is the better priced homes, something in the $280,000-$290,000 range, don't stay on the market very long, and that's really the affordability of our area, not $400,000 or $500,000."

Of course, asking price is not selling price. Davies' stats show Buncombe averaged 297 sales a month last year, with an average selling price of $269,403. Still, that's up more than $100,000 from 2001, when it was $162,547.

"What we're not seeing is the development of duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes — small residential housing, small-scale builders who are only building single-family housing," said Jeff Staudinger, assistant director of community and economic development with the city of Asheville. "As we think about density, that's one of the trends we need to see: as demand increases for affordable housing, we need more people to see opportunity in doing duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes. Small-scale development that fits in very well in neighborhoods."

Staudinger noted the four-county MSA grew by about 25,000 in the past five years and is projected to do roughly the same the next five. He said it begs the question: Where will those folks live?

Right now, the apartment boom continues unabated. Asheville just approved 477 new apartments, east and south of downtown, and it recently increased the density allowed in several commercial corridors.

Kit Cramer, president and CEO of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, wants to see more housing built and believes the apartment deluge should result in more competition and lower rents. She points out that Asheville is a regional employment hub, with a "labor shed" that draws workers from 10 surrounding counties every day.

"In Western North Carolina, we're dependent on jobs here in Asheville," Cramer said. "The latest estimate is we're going to have 1,500 new hotel rooms coming online, and as far as I can tell they are all in the process of actually occurring. So my mind goes to, where are you going to get those workers?"

As Tveidt will tell you, they'll very likely move here from elsewhere.

In Davies' mind, growth is as inevitable and gorgeous mountain sunsets. The nut of the issue is, how do we want to manage that growth?

"That's the question," he said. "You'll always find people who want to get upset about the growth of Asheville, and that's fine. But it's going to grow."