Council approves corridor-focused UDO changes: review thresholds, parking minima and building-size rules to encourage housing near transit

The Asheville City Council on March 11 approved three related amendments to Chapter 7 of the Unified Development Ordinance intended to promote housing along transit-supportive corridors: (1) revised development-review thresholds and incentives tied to affordable units, (2) elimination of mandatory parking minimums in selected commercial districts, and (3) district-specific changes that allow larger building floor area for projects containing residential uses.

Chris Collins, the city's assistant director for Urban Planning and Urban Design, presented the package as a coordinated set of changes designed to reduce regulatory barriers and provide by-right capacity in targeted areas. Collins said the threshold change replaces a unit-count trigger (for example, "50 units") with gross floor-area thresholds so smaller units are not inadvertently penalized. He said the proposal sets a base by-right gross-floor-area (GFA) limit of 100,000 square feet for single-use residential projects and 150,000 square feet for mixed-use projects, with higher by-right ceilings available as developers commit to deeper affordability tiers.

Collins walked council through an incentive table based on affordability commitments. Under the framework discussed in the presentation and modified by council during debate, projects that offer higher percentages of affordable units at specified area-median-income (AMI) targets become eligible for larger by-right size thresholds. Staff's analysis of recent projects showed that roughly 25 projects had previously required council review for exceeding unit-count triggers; 21 of those included some affordable units. Collins gave examples from 2022 projects: The Avery (about 149,872 square feet, 187 units, committed 10% at 80% AMI); the…