214-unit East Asheville apartment complex nixed by county's board of adjustment

ASHEVILLE — Amid wide-ranging criticisms levied by neighbors Wednesday, Buncombe County officials shot down plans for a proposed 214-unit housing development in East Asheville.

Buncombe County's Board of Adjustment voted 5-2 against issuing a conditional use permit to developer Michael Posey of Spartanburg, South Carolina-based RAB Builders LLC for a project planned on the site of 423 Moffitt Road in East Asheville near the Swannanoa River. It is scheduled to accommodate 214 units split between 10 apartment buildings and seven duplex buildings as well as a community clubhouse, the project's site plan shows.

In total, the property was expected to have more than 350 parking spaces, 320 of which are designated for apartment tenants, on approximately 31.4 acres of land.

Board members overheard more than an hour of public comments Wednesday from about a dozen neighbors from Eastmoor and Botany Woods. Among the nearly 50 neighbors in attendance, most raised concerns related to the traffic the development would bring to Moffitt Road, additional noise and light and that it generally does not fit in with the surrounding neighborhood.

"At the core, it’s really the scale of the project (that) is too large for what the neighbors are seeing," board member Andy Ball, drawing some applause from a mostly packed room. Board Chairman George Lycan added the development didn't meet the standard for a conditional use permit "on almost anything."

"These things have to comply with the area," board member Thomas Christ said. "I don’t like this one. This just doesn’t seem to fit the area and I think that’s something we need to look at."

Only board members Dot Cordell and Wendell Howard voted in favor of the permit.

"I'm interested in development that is controlled development and proposed well," Cordell said. "I don’t feel like tabling it would be a good issue for me. We’d hear the same things over the next time. I would approve it."

Posey is the developer of the project along with Linmar Properties LLC of Carbondale, Colorado. He said the site essentially would have 200 garden-style apartments in buildings with two units on the front of the building and three on the back.

He said he's attempting to respond to the ongoing demand for rental housing in the county and felt that East Asheville was primed for it.

"We focused on East Asheville and we love the site," he said during his opening remarks. "We very much are excited about the site itself and the project itself."

His feeling, however, was not a ubiquitous one in the room. The surrounding area to the proposed development is largely residential housing built into the mix of trees and wooded terrain.

Neighbor Jenny Heim was critical of Posey, formerly of Asheville, for being an out-of-town developer. She hammered the project for lacking in specifics for its stormwater design, the height of the proposed buildings — which would sit high off the road and slope down with the natural terrain — and its impact on traffic, among other issues.

Posey's traffic study, conducted by Mark Teague, indicated that peak traffic for the busiest hour in the morning would see 87 vehicles leaving the property and 22 entering while the busiest hour in the evening would see 88 vehicles entering the site and 47 leaving. Teague argued the road and nearby intersections can handle the additional traffic, and that the project falls well within North Carolina Department of Transportation guidelines.

Another neighbor, Sally Mims, gave a heartfelt plea to the board, begging them to consider it from the perspective of a parent with teenage drivers.

"This road is a narrow, curvy, dangerous road," she said, fighting back tears. "People speed on it; they’re in your lane 50 percent of the time. There’s nowhere to go."

Several also spoke in favor of tabling the decision until neighbors could gather more information. For Jim Horsman, a retiree of Lockheed Martin, the issue was not about being against growth, but for "responsible growth."

"(It's) growth in harmony with nature, growth that will enhance Asheville and Western North Carolina," he said.