Residents, faculty and students urge Buncombe County commissioners to oppose UNC Asheville stadium plan

Dozens of residents, faculty members and students pressed the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners on July 15 to oppose a proposed development that would replace the woods adjacent to the University of North Carolina Asheville with a 5,000-seat stadium, retail and market-rate housing.

Speakers told the board the university moved the project forward without public engagement and urged county leaders to signal opposition or support alternatives such as a land swap, conservancy or public forest. "By all appearances, a decision was made about what they wanted to do no later than November," said Woody Davis, a 5 Points neighborhood resident, describing what he called an opaque process and asserting the university had been "evasive, opaque, and just plain dishonest."

The request for a resolution opposing the project was grounded in several lines of concern: environmental services provided by the urban forest, loss of an outdoor classroom used by UNCA faculty and students, neighborhood…