Board of Adjustment approves Oak Moss Mobile Home Park special-use permit with conditions

The Buncombe County Board of Adjustment on Wednesday approved a special-use permit for the Oak Moss Mobile Home Park, a proposed 13-unit manufactured-home cooperative along North Louisiana Avenue in the Emma neighborhood, subject to conditions including a North Carolina Department of Transportation driveway permit, recombination of parcels, and retaining-wall design limits.

The decision followed presentations from the applicant and expert witnesses and a period of board questioning. Applicant representative Andrea Golden, director of neighborhood group Boler EMA, described a limited-equity cooperative model intended to create permanently affordable, resident-owned housing and said the project would be targeted to the Emma community’s median income. “We look at median income for the Emma community and then ensure that the total housing cost cannot exceed 30% of that median income,” Golden said.

Engineer Mike Anderson, who said he has practiced civil engineering in North Carolina for 27 years, described site design and infrastructure plans including recombining seven parcels, an access road off North Louisiana Avenue (subject to an NCDOT driveway permit), a 30-foot buffer along an existing stream, on-site detention and first-flush water-quality measures, and two off-street parking spaces for each unit. On locating one unit over an underground detention/water-quality system, Anderson said the system is highway-loaded and structurally safe and that units could be temporarily relocated for maintenance if needed.

Appraiser Laura Gourlay testified that comparable sales and resale trends within a one-mile radius did not show an injurious impact from similar mobile-home park developments; “My conclusion was that it had no impact,” she said, summarizing her analysis.

Board members probed several technical and policy issues before voting. The panel asked the applicant about community outreach, density, setbacks and unit spacing; staff confirmed the plan meets the mobile-home ordinance’s minimum spacing (20 feet) and a 15-foot rear setback is exceeded. The applicant agreed to a condition requiring either retaining walls under 10 feet or, if walls exceed 10 feet, compliance with the county ordinance on design for walls over 10 feet. The board also required parcel recombination before master-site-plan review and specified that master-site-plan approval would not replace required separate site-plan permits for individual buildings.

During deliberations some members expressed support for the project’s cooperative approach to permanently affordable housing. One member noted the community’s existing concentration of mobile homes and said the proposal “builds on that and then does it through a product that also allows homeownership.” Another member questioned the need for an explicit recreational-space restriction, noting the site contains existing open space.

The board moved to adopt the findings of fact, incorporating the staff report, exhibits and testimony, and voted to approve the special-use permit. The order adopted by the board recites that the use will conform to Buncombe County zoning standards and lists required permits and conditions, including confirmation of applicable approvals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality where applicable. The written order also requires the applicant to accept the conditions in writing before land disturbance and construction.

The approval is subject to the conditions recorded in the board’s order; the board’s decision was taken by voice vote after motion and second. The applicant and staff were instructed to proceed with the master-site-plan review consistent with the conditions the board adopted.

Votes at a glance • ZPH 2025-00034, Oak Moss Mobile Home Park — approved by the Board of Adjustment; conditions include recombination of parcels, NCDOT driveway permit, and retaining-wall design limits (order adopted).