Asheville council continues debate on UDO changes to promote housing along transit corridors

City planning staff presented proposed Unified Development Ordinance text-and-map amendments on Feb. 6 designed to increase by-right housing capacity along transit-supportive corridors and mixed-use centers, and Council members agreed to continue the public hearing to March 11 to allow more outreach and mapping.

The amendments, presented by Chris Collins of the City of Asheville Planning and Urban Design team, would raise development-review thresholds so larger attached-residential projects could be approved administratively rather than through conditional zoning, eliminate minimum automobile parking requirements along targeted corridors, and relax some district-specific building-size limits while keeping existing height caps. Collins said the baseline change would allow a single-use residential project up to 100,000 square feet to proceed as a level-2 (staff-level) review, and a mixed-use residential project up to 150,000 square feet, with larger allowances available in exchange for affordability commitments.

The proposal is framed as the city’s first “batch” of regulatory changes to reduce development barriers on commercial corridors and to incentivize affordable and attainable housing. Collins and Stephanie Dahl, director of Planning and Urban Design, told council the package is intended to align with goals in the September 2024 Affordable Housing Plan and the city’s missing-middle housing work.

Council members and neighborhood representatives pressed staff on engagement and geographic scope. Vice Mayor Antoinette Mosley and others said legacy neighborhoods—including Shiloh and Emma—feel they were not engaged early enough and are concerned that corridor-targeted changes could increase development pressure adjacent to vulnerable residential areas. Planning staff said applying the amendments to baseline zoning districts (for example, Highway Business/HB) means carving out only some portions is difficult; staff said removing those zoning districts would remove roughly 60% of the corridor land area that the proposal covers.

Council members requested more concrete examples tying the proposed square-foot thresholds to typical local projects and asked staff to report how many recent projects would have been processed differently under the new thresholds. Collins said staff’s preliminary review shows about 52% of residential projects designated level 3 since 2021 would no longer require conditional rezoning under the proposed baseline or the affordability tiers. Several council members asked for sample project comparisons (square footage and units), a GIS layer that shows the corridor map against legacy neighborhood boundaries, and an analysis of whether the tiered affordability incentives would actually generate affordable units rather than purely larger market projects.

City Manager Deborah Campbell and staff proposed next steps: post an interactive GIS layer for council and the public, continue the public hearing to allow additional engagement with legacy neighborhoods, and return with additional detail and examples. Mayor Esther Manheimer closed the item by saying the amendment will be set for Tuesday’s meeting with a motion to continue to March 11; staff confirmed the item would be calendared with a continuance to that date.

Council members did not take a final vote; the continued hearing will give staff time to provide the requested maps, example project analyses, and additional outreach documentation. If council advances the amendments after further review, changes to thresholds, parking, and district standards would alter how many housing projects require conditional rezoning versus administrative review and would change development review timelines for larger residential and mixed-use projects.