Joel Burgess

jburgess@citizen-times.com

ASHEVILLE - More downtown development projects and hotel projects throughout the city may face higher hurdles in getting permission to build.

The City Council is considering new restrictions In a move to slow the number of large downtown construction projects and the growth of new hotels throughout Asheville.

The council's idea would include downtown projects exceeding 100,000 square feet -- or that are taller than 100 feet — requiring them to get approval from the city's top elected body. Any hotel with more than 20 to 25 rooms would also have to get council approval.

Right now in what is called the "traditional downtown core," any project up to 175,000 square feet or 145 feet in height can get approval without coming before the council, and hotels are treated the same as other development projects.

Councilwoman Julie Mayfield said the changes proposed at Tuesday's regular council meeting would preserve and add to the "urban fabric" and "vibrancy" of the city.

"We’re not saying that this means you’re not going to develop here. We're saying, if you’re going to develop here, what you build needs to add to the city. We are special enough that if you’re going to build here and you’re going to invest here that the construction and that use to some degree has to contribute to the success of Asheville," Mayfield said.

Any such rules would not affect hotels or projects under construction or that have already been permitted. There are five downtown hotel projects that have gotten a city permit or are under construction.

The council took no vote, but decided by consensus that city planning staff should create proposed rules that would come back to the council for final approval.

The council also asked the staff to look at the possibility of requiring similar approval for new retail projects of 3,000 square feet or more — or when large downtown buildings are demolished.

That would help preserve downtown's small-scale feel, Mayfield said, while new retail rules could keep local stores from being kicked out for chains by building owners, said Councilman Gordon Smith.

On the other side of the regulatory spectrum, council members said they might want to clear away some hurdles for affordable downtown residential projects.

The elected officials are making the move on changing the size requirement for council review despite recommendations against it by city staff. Asheville Planning and Urban Design Director Todd Okolichany said public input showed a lack of “general consensus" on dropping the threshold to 100,000 square feet citywide.

"There were a number of public comments both for and against changing the established thresholds from the public forum and the online downtown survey," Okolichany said in his report to the council. The staff did recommend a tougher review process for hotels of 50 rooms or more.

Other cities use a process that makes it easier to build downtown similar to Asheville's current rules, he said. Those rules were developed based on public input gathered for the downtown master plan put in place in 2010.

The council asked for the public input after many voters in last fall's council election expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of downtown development and a sense that the hotel industry was booming while many residents were not doing so well economically.

Okolichany said that if the proposed guidelines had been in place since 2010, it would have affected two projects. Instead of being approved by the appointed Planning and Zoning Commission, those projects would have come before the council.

Another change the council wants to see is to make all reviews of all large projects throughout the city and most hotels a conditional zoning change.

Right now some projects are approved in a strictly-structured quasi-judicial process known as a conditional use permit.

With conditional zoning, council members can talk to developers during the review process about possible changes to projects might include affordable housing, living wages or other city goals, coming to "mutual agreement" about including those aspects, council members said.

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