GAP Report for 5/25/26
URGENT
- 0 Items
QUESTIONABLE
- 0 Items
POSITIVE
- 0 Items
REPORT BACKS
- Buncombe County’s proposed revitalization initiatives and FY2027 budget lack meaningful anti-displacement safeguards (unresolved)
Summary of the Report
New Issue: Asheville should shift public safety funding toward prevention and community stability instead of continued expansion of expensive reactive policing systems
This week’s GAP Report examines Asheville’s FY2027 budget debate through the lens of public safety. As the City considers continued investment in policing technology and surveillance systems, it is also weighing cuts to community infrastructure like recreation center hours. Our report asks whether Asheville is investing in the systems that most effectively prevent violence before it happens.
Drawing on our longer special report Preventing Violence Before it Happens: Why Asheville Should Rebalance Public Safety Priorities in FY2027, we argue that prevention-oriented strategies — including youth outreach, mentorship, trauma-informed services, and community stability investments — can produce stronger long-term safety outcomes at lower cost than continued expansion of reactive policing infrastructure. Our research highlights programs like Chicago’s BAM initiative, where mentorship and behavioral intervention programs yielded major reductions in violent crime involvement among participating youth.
Report Back: Buncombe County’s Anti-Displacement Debate
Last week, we raised concerns about the lack of a broader anti-displacement framework in the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners’ decision-making. In the meeting discussion, county leaders acknowledged affordability concerns, but did not substantially engage with the broader structural displacement issues raised in the report.
The discussion reinforced a growing concern that Buncombe County continues approaching housing instability on a project-by-project basis rather than through a coordinated long-term anti-displacement strategy.
Because the County continues to ignore our written communication on this issue, we invite you to join us in making a public comment at their next formal meeting on June 2. Public comment is one of the first items on the County agenda for each meeting, so it takes place shortly after 5 pm. If you can join us at 200 College Street next Tuesday, please sign up below and we’ll follow up with you.
Templates and Links to More Information
Take action with us:
Here are all active email templates and action steps:
- Email the Asheville City Council about revising their budget to emphasize violence prevention.
- Sign up to join us next Tuesday, June 2, at 5 pm to make a public comment urging the Buncombe County Commission to develop an overarching anti-displacement strategy.
Resources:
Asheville should shift public safety funding toward prevention and community stability instead of expanding expensive reactive policing systems
PROBLEMATIC
Summary: Asheville’s proposed FY2027 budget continues expanding policing and surveillance infrastructure while considering reductions to community resources like recreation center hours, despite growing evidence that prevention-oriented strategies may reduce violence more effectively and at a significantly lower cost.
The Facts: The City of Asheville is currently considering a FY2027 budget that includes continued allocation of resources toward policing technology, surveillance infrastructure, and staffing growth tied to the City’s developing Real-Time Intelligence Center (RTIC). At the same time, the City is considering reductions to community center operating hours amid broader budget pressures.
You can read the latest City budget draft here.
Our Assessment: The current budget approach places greater emphasis on reactive systems — surveillance, technology expansion, and long-term policing obligations — than on the community conditions that may help prevent violence in the first place.
The proposed reduction in community center hours is especially concerning because these facilities provide more than recreation. They create safe gathering spaces, youth engagement opportunities, and neighborhood stability. Research demonstrates that these are conditions that actually contribute to public safety. Meanwhile, evidence that surveillance expansion and increased police staffing substantially reduce violence remains mixed at best. If our budget resources are truly limited, we literally can’t afford to keep pouring money into an approach that won’t be certain to substantially improve public safety, while ignoring an approach to public safety that could prevent more harm and crime at a fraction of the cost.
You can learn more about the evidence supporting community violence prevention and our policy arguments in our special report: Preventing Violence Before it Happens: Why Asheville Should Rebalance Public Safety Priorities in FY2027.
Our Proposal: Asheville should use the final weeks of the budget process to rebalance public safety priorities toward prevention and community stability.
- The City should slow further surveillance expansion, which means pausing or limiting additional investment in new camera systems, license plate readers, software integrations, and long-term surveillance contracts until the City can demonstrate clear evidence that these systems meaningfully improve public safety relative to their long-term cost.
- The City should also carefully manage future policing growth through attrition. This doesn’t mean eliminating Asheville’s existing public safety capacity. Instead, it suggests that we stop adding new sworn officers – the current budget draft calls for 24 additions – so that the City can balance enforcement needs with greater investment in prevention-oriented public safety approaches.
- With the resources liberated by this approach, the City can preserve community center operations, and create a modest Community Violence Intervention pilot focused on youth outreach, mentorship, conflict mediation, and trauma-informed support. This could strengthen communities and reduce the strain on our existing public safety systems (that may be leading the City to believe we need more restrictive and reactive strategies).
For readers who want more detail, our full recommendations are outlined in the “Proposed FY2027 Budget Adjustments” section of our special report here.
Things to do: We invite you to use our email template to contact Asheville City Council and urge the City to prioritize prevention-oriented public safety investments and preservation of community infrastructure.
Email Template: You can send an email to the Asheville City Council by filling out the form below. Our email tool will send an individually addressed email to the recipients, and enable us to track how many emails were sent overall in the campaign. If you prefer to write your own email, you can copy and paste (and adapt) our template text – please cc: or bcc: info@gapavl.org on your individualized email, so we can better track how many emails were sent.
To: AshevilleNCCouncil@ashevillenc.gov
CC: or BCC: info@gapavl.org
Subject: Please prioritize prevention and community stability in Asheville’s budget
Dear Mayor and City Council Members,
I am writing because I am deeply concerned about the direction of Asheville’s FY2027 public safety budget.
The current draft budget reflects a simultaneous reduction of community center hours alongside expansion of expensive policing technology, surveillance infrastructure, and staffing. I believe this reflects the wrong set of priorities.
Research increasingly shows that violence is often driven by instability, trauma, chronic stress, isolation, and conflict escalation — conditions that cannot be solved through surveillance cameras or reactive enforcement alone. Prevention-oriented strategies like youth outreach, mentorship, conflict mediation, trauma-informed services, and Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs are often more effective at reducing violence before it happens, while also costing far less over time.
Community centers and neighborhood programs are not separate from public safety. They are part of what creates public safety. They provide young people with safe spaces, trusted relationships, recreation opportunities, mentorship, and community connection. Cutting resources from these systems while expanding long-term surveillance infrastructure could weaken some of the very conditions that help prevent violence in the first place.
I urge the City to:
- Reconsider further surveillance expansion and long-term technology commitments
- Pause hiring of sworn officers in the Asheville Police Department, or hire fewer than the 24 additional officers proposed in the budget
- Use the considerable funding this will free up to preserve community center hours as a resource for prevention-oriented public safety approaches, including a modest Community Violence Intervention pilot program
Asheville has an opportunity to pursue a public safety strategy rooted not only in responding after harm occurs, but in preventing violence before lives are permanently altered.
Thank you for your consideration.
REPORT BACK STATUS
Unresolved
Report Back
Coming Soon.
Buncombe County’s proposed revitalization initiatives and FY2027 budget lack meaningful anti-displacement safeguards
PROBLEMATIC
Summary (updated 5/25/26): At their meeting on May 19th, members of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners acknowledged ongoing affordability concerns but did not meaningfully consider a broader anti-displacement framework, as we have repeatedly called for. As a result, major revitalization and infrastructure investments continue moving forward without comprehensive safeguards designed to protect vulnerable residents from long-term displacement pressures.
Because the County continues to ignore our written communication on this issue, we invite you to join us in making a public comment at their next formal meeting on June 2. Public comment is one of the first items on the County agenda for each meeting, so it takes place shortly after 5 pm. If you can join us at 200 College Street next Tuesday, please sign up below and we’ll follow up with you.
Original Summary: As Buncombe County considers both its proposed FY2027 budget and a major Commercial District Revitalization initiative, the County continues to advance recovery, redevelopment, and infrastructure investments without a clear anti-displacement framework; we believe County leaders should immediately begin incorporating displacement-impact analysis and community protections into these decisions before final approval.
The Facts: Buncombe County is currently considering and advancing several major initiatives connected to post-Helene recovery, infrastructure investment, and economic revitalization. These include:
- A proposed Commercial District Revitalization initiative — separate from but closely connected to the County’s broader recovery agenda — that would support corridor revitalization and infrastructure improvements in Swannanoa and other storm-impacted areas;
- A proposed FY2027 budget that includes major investments in recovery, transportation partnerships, public facilities, economic development, and other capital and infrastructure projects during a period of rapidly rising property values following a countywide reappraisal that increased assessed values by approximately 43%.
The Commercial District Revitalization proposal includes projects related to sidewalk construction, pedestrian connectivity, commercial corridor improvements, remediation of storm-damaged properties, and activation of properties acquired through the federally funded Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which supports the acquisition and redevelopment of disaster-impacted properties to reduce future flood and hazard risks. The FY2027 budget includes funding for public safety facilities, transportation-related partnerships, greenway and recreation projects, facility renovations, economic development incentives, conservation easements, and affordable housing services.
You can see the County’s commercial district revitalization presentation slides here and the budget presentation slides here. You can read the County’s proposed budget in brief here.
Our Assessment: Many of the investments currently being discussed by Buncombe County may provide real public benefits. Recovery investments, transportation improvements, and commercial revitalization efforts can help communities recover from Hurricane Helene and improve long-term quality of life.
But public investment can also increase land values, accelerate speculation, raise rents, and increase displacement pressure — especially in communities already facing affordability challenges. Sidewalk improvements, corridor revitalization, infrastructure upgrades, and economic development initiatives often make neighborhoods more attractive to outside investment while providing few protections for existing residents and small businesses.
For the past five months, the County has been hearing concerns from residents, advocates, and community organizations about displacement and affordability pressures. Yet the current Commercial District Revitalization proposal and the proposed FY2027 budget still do not appear to include any measures to protect existing residents and businesses from displacement pressures (i.e. a broader anti-displacement framework, displacement-impact review process, or targeted protections for communities facing heightened displacement risk during post-disaster recovery and redevelopment).
This is especially concerning because the County is making these decisions during a period of post-disaster rebuilding and rapid increases in assessed property values. The absence of an anti-displacement framework is no longer simply an oversight — it is becoming a pattern of governance that leaves vulnerable communities exposed to the unintended harmful consequences of public investment.
Our Proposal: We have repeatedly called on Buncombe County to adopt a comprehensive anti-displacement strategy that incorporates housing stability, community preservation, equitable development, and displacement-risk analysis into public decision-making. (You can read our full proposal here.) The County still has an opportunity to begin moving in that direction before final adoption of the FY2027 budget and approval of related recovery and revitalization initiatives.
At a minimum, the County could take several immediate steps over the next two weeks:
- Direct staff to identify communities and corridors at elevated risk of displacement connected to recovery and infrastructure investment;
- Require basic displacement impact analysis for major revitalization and capital projects;
- Prioritize affordable housing preservation and anti-displacement protections in areas targeted for public investment;
- Commit to developing a formal County anti-displacement framework during the upcoming fiscal year.
These would not solve the problem overnight. But they would represent a meaningful acknowledgment that public investment decisions can have unintended consequences — and that protecting vulnerable communities should be part of responsible recovery and budgeting.
A basic displacement-impact review process could provide County leaders with data about which communities are most vulnerable to rising rents, redevelopment pressure, speculative investment, and commercial displacement connected to public investment decisions. That information could help shape final budget priorities, including where to direct affordable housing resources, small business support, preservation funding, infrastructure phasing, and community stabilization efforts.
We have been warning Buncombe County for many months that growth and redevelopment pressures could displace longtime residents and small businesses. The County still has an opportunity to show that it is willing to plan for those impacts instead of reacting after displacement has already occurred.
Things to do (Updated 5/25/26): We invite you to join us in making a public comment at the next formal meeting of the Buncombe County Commission on June 2. Public comment is one of the first items on the County agenda for each meeting, so takes place shortly after 5 pm. If you can join us at 200 College Street next Tuesday, please sign up below and we’ll follow up with you.
Original Things to Do: We invited you to use the email template we had provided (removed, no longer active) to urge the Buncombe County Commission to incorporate anti-displacement protections and displacement-impact analysis into both the proposed Commercial District Revitalization initiative and the FY2027 budget before final approval.
REPORT BACK STATUS
Unresolved
Report Back
At last week’s meeting, County Commissioners largely approached affordability and redevelopment concerns through the lens of individual projects and funding decisions rather than through a broader structural discussion about displacement prevention. The absence of a comprehensive anti-displacement framework remains a significant gap in how the County evaluates revitalization and infrastructure investments.
Total GAP Supporter Actions Taken: 8
Recipients and Responses:
Buncombe County Commission
- County Commission Chair Amanda Edwards: No response
- County Commissioner Al Whitesides: No response
- County Commissioner Drew Ball: No response
- County Commissioner Jennifer Horton: No response
- County Commissioner Martin Moore: No response
- County Commissioner Parker Sloane: No response
- County Commissioner Terri Wells: No response
PREVIOUS REPORTS
GAP Report for 5/18/26
0 Items Buncombe County’s proposed revitalization initiatives and FY2027 budget lack meaningful anti-displacement safeguards (new) 0 Items 0 Items Asheville should reject or substantially revise the Caribou Road and Sweeten Creek developments in response to community...
GAP Report for 5/11/26
Asheville should reject or substantially revise the Caribou Road and Sweeten Creek developments in response to community concerns from Shiloh (new) Asheville should reject the proposed RTIC/Axon surveillance expansion until real oversight and accountability exist...
GAP Report for 5/4/26
0 Items Buncombe County is advancing budget, land use, and investment decisions without any anti-displacement analysis (new) Appeal deadline for property tax reappraisals is too early (resolved) The 50 Coxe Avenue affordable housing development should do more to...
GAP Report for 4/27/26
0 Items Buncombe County is advancing major decisions that impact displacement without clear analysis or a coordinated policy response (updated) Appeal deadline for property tax reappraisals is too early (updated) The 50 Coxe Avenue affordable housing development...
GAP Report for 4/20/26
0 Items Buncombe County is advancing major decisions that impact displacement without clear analysis or a coordinated policy response (new) Appeal deadline for property tax reappraisals is too early (updated) 0 Items 0 Items Buncombe County still not taking action on...