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• Asheville considering building massive performing arts center on The Block (updated)

• Asheville needs anti-displacement guardrails in next year’s budget (updated)
• Buncombe County needs to adopt an anti-displacement policy
• Asheville needs to adopt an anti-displacement policy

• Long-term affordable housing can ease displacement pressure in Emma neighborhood (new)

• Sardis Road rezoning example of “business as usual” in Asheville decision-making for housing (new)

Two rezoning proposals come to City Council this week, highlighting the importance of anti-displacement

This week’s City Council agenda highlights two very different sides of Asheville’s housing story. One proposal at 230 Sardis Road would allow construction of a 180-unit market-rate apartment development on a former industrial site. While the project appears to involve fewer risks of displacement than other development in the region, it also does little to address the affordability crisis that many residents face. In the balance, its impact on the anti-displacement issue seems neither positive nor negative. 

A second proposal at 383 North Louisiana Avenue offers a more hopeful example. The project would create 89 permanently affordable homes, helping ensure that lower-income residents can continue to live in Asheville. Together, these two items illustrate both the limitations and the possibilities of the city’s current housing approach, which would benefit greatly from a comprehensive anti-displacement strategy to guide future growth.

Updated item: Asheville considering building massive performing arts center on The Block

Last week we encouraged community members to speak out about the proposed downtown 2,500-seat Performing Arts Center on Eagle Street (within The Block, Asheville’s historic Black business district). Our position: before Council commits public land to this project, they should also commit that any negotiations with developers include binding anti-displacement protections for East End/Valley Street and The Block.

33 GAP subscribers have already written to City Council, and there is still time to weigh in before City Council votes on the proposal on March 24. Our template is below. There is also a community meeting on Wednesday, March 11 where local residents and allies can learn more and weigh in. You can learn more about that meeting at The People’s Place’s website.

Budget Update: Early FY27 Projections Show Revenue Pressure and New Fee Increases

At this week’s budget work session, City staff will present early projections showing that Asheville’s FY27 General Fund revenues could be $3.4 million lower than the current year, largely because several one-time revenues will disappear and sales tax growth has slowed. In response, staff are proposing modest increases to several service fees, including solid waste, stormwater, and water rates. For a typical household, the combined impact would be about $67 per year.

While some increases are tied to real cost pressures – including storm recovery and aging infrastructure – the presentation did not include any analysis of how these changes might affect lower-income residents. As the budget process continues, this underscores the need for clear anti-displacement guardrails to ensure that revenue decisions, fee structures, and spending priorities do not unintentionally increase housing instability for Asheville residents.

Ongoing items: Both Asheville and Buncombe County need to adopt anti-displacement policies

We continue to advocate for the City and County to adopt a comprehensive anti-displacement policy to proactively address and prevent displacement from projects and decisions like the items mentioned above. If you haven’t yet sent an email to the City and County with this request, we encourage you to join us in making this call to action.

For most of our history, GAPavl has focused on the full range of issues that come before City Council and County Commission, encouraging timely action on specific agenda items. We’re going to keep doing that whenever the need arises. But we also know that real political change requires a long-term perspective. It requires perseverance. It requires staying with an issue long after it stops being “new.”

As we see it, pushing Asheville and Buncombe County to commit to anti-displacement is of vital importance, which is why we’ve been emailing you about it for over a month now. We know it’s hard – for elected officials and for all of us – to maintain focus on an overarching policy change that will take time to develop and implement. We’re not entirely sure we have the perfect formula for doing that, but we are committed to trying, and encourage you to stay with us.