Report Back

Updated 8/3/26: City Council voted 6–0 to adopt the anti-displacement resolution, with Councilmember Maggie Ullman absent. Before the vote, Council amended the motion to require the City’s forthcoming strategic plan to include measurable milestones, expected outcomes, and a reporting structure. That change responds meaningfully to GAPavl supporters’ requests for accountability, but Council did not adopt the requested 90-day implementation deadline. Despite that, this result is an important policy milestone: the City has formally committed to assessing displacement risk and integrating protections across its work. However, the pace and substance of implementation will still require monitoring.

Total GAP Supporter Actions Taken: 14

Recipients and Responses:

Asheville City Council

• Mayor Esther Manheimer: No response
• Vice Mayor Antanette Mosley: No response
• City Council Member Bo Hess: No response
• City Council Member Kim Roney: No response
• City Council Member Maggie Ullman:  No response
• City Council Member Sage Turner: No response
• City Council Member Sheneika Smith: No response

Summary: Asheville City Council will consider a resolution acknowledging the harm caused by redlining, urban renewal, zoning decisions, and development pressures, and committing the City to a comprehensive anti-displacement strategy. We appreciate both the depth of the resolution’s historical analysis and the direction it gives the City Manager. But the resolution provides no timeline for developing or implementing the promised protections. Before adopting the resolution, Council should amend it to direct the City Manager to return within 90 days with a step-by-step implementation plan, measurable milestones, meaningful community participation, and a schedule for public progress reports.

The Facts: The resolution would:

• Commit the City to neighborhood stability and helping residents remain in their homes.
• Acknowledge harms caused by redlining, urban renewal, zoning actions, inadequate protections, and development pressure.
• Direct the City to use data to identify neighborhoods particularly vulnerable to displacement and loss of neighborhood identity.
• Call for anti-displacement measures to be integrated into planning, zoning, development review, and housing programs.
• Direct staff to incorporate anti-displacement analysis into the comprehensive rewrite of Asheville’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), so that displacement risks are considered as the City revises its zoning and development rules.
• Prioritize engagement with renters, low-income residents, homeowners on fixed incomes, and other people vulnerable to displacement.
• Direct the City Manager to assess existing tools, identify additional protections, and develop operational improvements that balance additional housing with protection of communities at greatest risk.

City staff recommends adoption. You can read the staff report and proposed resolution here, and see the presentation slides here.

Our Assessment: We are marking this resolution “questionable” not because we disagree with its direction, but because its promises currently have no timetable or accountability mechanism.

GAPavl has been involved in conversations with the City about this policy direction, and we appreciate that the resolution does more than use the word “displacement.” It expressly connects present housing pressures with governmental decisions and historic racial harms. It also recognizes that increasing housing supply and protecting existing communities must occur together.

The steps it outlines are sound, are a meaningful statement of purpose, and are consistent with the recommendations we’ve been making to the City (both publicly and in our direct work alongside staff) for many months. But the resolution does not yet say when the City Manager must present an implementation plan, when the displacement-risk framework will be completed, how residents will shape the work, or how Council and the public will measure progress.

To its credit, Asheville has studied displacement extensively. But without concrete plans and timelines, meaningful action could be delayed indefinitely. Council should adopt the resolution once it has added a requirement that the City Manager return within 90 days with:

• A step-by-step implementation plan
• A list of responsible departments and staff
• Initial deadlines and measurable milestones
• A funded community-engagement process both during the development of the policy and also for regular evaluation of its impact
• A defined role for residents of historically harmed and displacement-vulnerable neighborhoods
• A schedule for regular public progress reports
  

The plan need not solve displacement within 90 days. It should tell Council and the public what will happen next, who is responsible, and when results can be expected.

Things to do: No further action needed. Last week, we invited you to email City Council and ask members to adopt the anti-displacement resolution, require a concrete implementation plan within 90 days, and approve the Home Repair Policy with transparent and equitable rules for selecting households (see next issue report below).