Fletcher journalist Byron Belzac asks the panel about Asheville’s building-height regulations.

By JOHN NORTH

Following presentations by three panelists, a question-and-answer session was held in which numerous questions were fielded for 30 minutes during a  public meeting organized by the city last Thursday night at the city Public Works Building.

The program, titled “History of Downtown Asheville: Understanding the Context,” featured panelists Harry Weiss, Jim Samsel and Leslie Anderson. Sasha Vrtunski served as moderator.
A woman opened the Q&A by asking Anderson to elaborate on a reference in her talk about “the danger of things we need to look out for.”

Anderson said one of her concerns is the historic-landmark write-down on taxes, which, she emphasized, “I don’t say do away with,” but needs further review.

Also, “I see the city backing away from its support of arts and festivals. When you look at great cities, they take their celebrations very seriously ...Whether you like Bele Chere or not,” she said she likes to cite a oft-repeated saying of Doug Bean’s — “when you can bring me a deal where we can spend $300,000 and make $6 million, call me.”

Finally, Anderson said she remains concerned about the mandatory review process on downtown projects, noting “I think it’s very important.”

Another questioner asked what happened to Anderson since the revitalization.

“I left the city in 1995, after a very diffictult period with the city and, in 1996, started a consulting firm in another city,” Anderson replied.

In response to another question about her concerns about the downtown project today, Anderson listed a lack of consensus on moving forward with The Block project, attention to detail and a lack of honoring strategic plans and follow-up on details of problems downtown — and “for many years, no money in the city budget for the Urban Trail, which was a travesty. There is now money in the budget.”

As for suggestions to take downtown forward, Weiss said, “We need to embrace a new vision, and what should that vision be? In Savannah, it took a very long time to get people out of the frame of mind” against change.

“A lot of people think ‘Asheville’s done. It’s great. Let’s keep it the way it is.’ But we’re talking about sustainability. We’ve got so much potential to be a really great city with our core values.”

He added, “There’s a tremendous amount of compromises required to achieve balance ... The past is not necessarily a vision of the future — it’s part of the vision of the future, but it’s not the complete vision.”

The third panelist, Samsel, said, “The notion of America as a global community is different from what it was ... We need to change to bring it into conformity with” changed notions of today.

Byron Belzac, a Fletcher journalist, asked the panelists to comment on the building-height controversy.
Historically, “there are a half-dozen buildings proposed that were tall and never built,” Samsel said. “How tall is too tall? In the 1980s, we never could reach agreement.”

On the same question, Weiss said, “On the issue of height, one of the things peculiar about Asheville is we have no guidelines on (building) height ... The lack of predictability by the city on whether to approve a project doesn’t really serve anyone’s interest ... This height uncertainty also contributes to uncertainty about land values.”

Weiss added that during a recent trip to Vancouver, British Columbia, “I was struck by the number of skyscrapers” that were compressed together — “and the look was good.”

A woman lamented that none of the panelists talked much about the East End, but the lack of affordable housing “brings up issues of the historical nature of that neighborhood being black and low income now. What’s the panel think about the need for affordable housing downtown?”

“We need it,” Anderson replied. “I think the city’s going to need to put incentives out there” to achieve it.
Samsel asserted, “I think this I-26 project in West Asheville” will result in splitting up the neighborhood.
Further, he said, “A lot of collaboration could go on within a mile of downtown for development” of condominiums and other projects.

Conversely, Weiss said, “With the housing that’s been added (in recent years), downtown has more affordable housing than any other sector of the city ... So this recent blip in the last five or six years of high-end condominium development downtown” has been misinterpreted.

“Downtown has to accommodate anything that the community doesn’t want anywhere else,” Weiss contended. “Affordable housing is something many Asheville neighborhoods don’t want.”