Asheville City Manager and Police Chief propose establishing a police academy downtown

Last week, the Asheville City Council reviewed a comprehensive facilities study, with particular attention to the future of the downtown Municipal Building on Court Plaza. (You can read about this meeting in this Citizen-Times article.) Currently, this building is the headquarters for both the Asheville Police and Fire Departments, but the latter is expected to move elsewhere. City Manager Debra Campbell presented the possibility of the building being used exclusively by the Police Department, with an in-house police academy being set up in the space freed up by the Fire Department. Police Chief David Zack, in an earlier statement, said that such an academy could help “process people faster and more efficiently.”

We have several questions and concerns about this proposal. City Council recently unanimously approved a Pack Square Vision Plan that suggested that the Municipal Building “be converted to a cultural use, such as a museum and incubator and/or co-working spaces.” We wonder: Have those plans, validated by City Council just two months ago, now been discarded?

The vision identified the current use of the Municipal Building, built by Black master builder James Vester Miller in the early twentieth century, as a key challenge in connecting Pack Square and The Block. “South Market Street, bordering the eastern side of the Plaza, serves as a direct route to The Block, but it does not feel inviting or well-connected. The street is dominated by police and fire vehicle parking and has no ground floor activation on either side. The entire street corridor visually reads as a restricted area that should not be entered.” A prominent goal of the vision plan was “to address past harm and be a place for healing, unity and joy” by creating a cultural corridor along South Market Street, filled with “vendors and public art.” We wonder: how does turning this building into a massive police department with an in-house academy serve the goal of improving connectivity between Pack Square and The Block and addressing historical harms?

Update: Asheville City Council Delays Vote on rezoning of 2 Butler Road. (staff memo)

We reported on this project in our October 9th and November 13th GAP Reports. Developers are asking for a zoning change in order to build a total of 279 units in five 4- to 5-story multi-family buildings. They plan for 10% of the units to be “affordable at 80% Area Median Income (AMI) for a minimum of 20 years.” The developers say “up to half” of those “affordable” units will accept Housing Choice Vouchers. On November 14th, City Council voted unanimously to postpone their vote on this matter until their December 12th meeting.

This project is a perfect illustration of how so-called “affordable” housing is actually playing a pivotal role in driving Black and Latine people out of this region. A recent analysis by Thrive Asheville (which you can read in its entirety here and which was reported on this week in this Citizen-Times article) addresses this reality squarely: So-called “affordable housing” for those earning 80% Area Median Income (AMI) “actually (increases) the disparity of available homes to those most in need and households with children.”

Black and Latine families in our region have a median income that is below 50% of AMI. Projects like this one, with a small number of slightly reduced units, will not address their need for more deeply affordable housing. If approved, this development will instead continue the trend of making the City increasingly unaffordable for Black and Latine folks. The Asheville City Council should push back against the developers’ proposal and demand that more truly affordable housing be included in this development.