Government Accountability Project Asheville

Asheville City Schools Equity Statement – Asheville City School Board Meeting, September 11, 2023

Back in June, the Asheville City School Board adopted an Equity Statement. At last week’s meeting, the School Board voted unanimously to read this statement at the beginning of each meeting.

We want to salute the school board for these steps, and especially lift up the leadership of Executive Director of Equity and Community Engagement Marta Alcalá in developing this statement and the overarching equity strategy in Asheville City Schools. We would like to commend Director Alcalá and the School Board for centering racial equity and committing to anti-racist policies despite resistance and hostility that seem to accompany these important steps toward racial justice.

Update: Rezoning of 1 Oak Street for the development of several multi-story buildings consisting of residential, hotel, retail, and office uses. (Staff memo, Presentation)

City Council spent over an hour on this public hearing on September 12th, but ultimately voted to table the official public hearing (and vote) until September 26th. They are being asked to approve a rezoning request for a 10.5 acre parcel containing three properties. The long-term plan is to build five buildings: a six-story building with residential and retail spaces, a second six-story building with office and commercial spaces, a third six-story building with residential and commercial spaces, a nineteen-story building with residential and commercial spaces, and a twenty-story hotel.

Thanks in part to the actions of GAP subscribers, the final vote on this issue was postponed for a second time. We continue to have many of the same concerns raised in our August 21st GAP Report and our September 11th GAP Report. The East End/Valley Street neighborhood is Asheville’s oldest historical Black community, and its residents have misgivings about aspects of this project, including the height of the proposed hotel, which is projected to be the tallest in Asheville at twenty stories. This is why we have been emphasizing how important it is that East End’s concerns and needs be influential as this process moves forward.

Before the September 12th meeting, we reported that the developers (Project Aspire) had communicated a commitment to “offer (East End residents) a seat at the table next to us during the project process.” These commitments were not recorded as conditions for the rezoning. This omission was raised at the City Council meeting, and one of the reasons for the delay in the vote was to remedy that and make sure that the developer’s commitments to the community were included in the conditions for the rezoning.

We will be reaching out to the East End community to learn more about their concerns and desires regarding the revised rezoning request, and will share that in our next report.