Asheville Crossroads: Photos from Condemned Land

A piece of land I'm personally attached to is slated for development. I have no desire to join in any political advocacy on the issue, and I'm not a conservation expert or a civil engineer. But I am a photographer, and I've spent a lot of time on the land known as Crossroads.



The land's namesake, the Crossroads Church, invested in it decades ago and has now partially sold it to a developer from out of town. Locals are very unhappy with what they say will be an immensely out-of-scale project, bringing 800+ apartments, as well as retail and commercial space, to a two-lane road just outside the city limits. Environmentalists are concerned the development will force out flora and fauna, raze dozens of oak trees at the peak of their life cycles, destroy wetlands on the property, and flood the already beleaguered Hominy Creek, which the property borders, with waste and thermal pollution.





Establishment media have covered the facts, and to some extent the political quarrel, but there has been no in-depth look at the land itself, nor a broad-scope look at how human beings decide to do these sorts of things.



I'm not qualified to take the broad-scope look, but I can show you what this land actually looks like. I lived right next door for many years and I learned to fish in Hominy Creek, a body of water most locals assume to be too polluted to contain life. They're wrong about that, and while no one is claiming that Crossroads is a tract of pristine wilderness, it is a wild space, full of animals and forest and meadows and wetlands. I did my best to document what I could before it's gone.



The fate of the land will be decided by the non-elected Buncombe County Board of Adjustment at a meeting at 12:00 noon on December 11, 2019. The Board will meet in the third-floor County Commissioner's Chamber at 200 College Street, Asheville, 20881.



Some notes: The photos here are largely from the first week of December, 2019, though some are from years past. I'm not affiliated with any party involved in any of this, and I'm posting pictures of advocates' signs for informational purposes only. Here are links to media coverage as well as information from advocacy groups (I can't find any statements/info from the developer and I haven't reached out to them - or anyone - for comment).



Asheville Citizen-Times: West Asheville meeting does little to gain supporters

FOHCG Statement Opposing Crossroads Development

Buncombe Citizens Concerned about Crossroads (Lots of info here)