Topic

Presenter

1

Approve February minutes.

Treasurer's Report.

Bill Bailey

Carl Nyberg

2

Introductions - your name, neighborhood and quickly state any Issue / Success to share or to add to agenda.

Bill and Marianna Bailey (Viewpoint) Organizing neighborhood watch.

James Judd (Chunns Cove)

Chris Pelly (Haw Creek) Starting planning community gardens. Passed out monthly newsletter.

Barber Melton (Haw Creek)

Robert Zeeber ( ) Problems with leaves.

Ned Gutman ( )

Dan Marsh (North Asheville) Planting flowers

Carl Nyberg (Kenilworth)

Mike Lewis (Grace) Issue with traffic islands

Steve Hudzik (Kenilworth)

Debbie Applewhite ( Beverly Hills) Having annual meeting this week. Working on oral history of things that have transpired. Also have a new website.

Byron Ballard (West End Clingman) Excited about Aston Park reopening on the last Saturday of this month. Working on Community Garden project

Grant (Oteen) speaking about noise later in the program

Josh OConnor (Oakley) First time at meeting.

Stephanie Decker (Oakley)

Marsha Stickford (City N’hood Coordinator) Having last meeting of French Broad N’hood visioning process. Has been great success.

Judy Williamson (Shiloh) Great celebration with Shiloh Community Center and Parks and Rec for celebration of black history month. The four groups who are focusing on improvements in the n’hood are starting to get activated. Have started picking up trash. UNC interns are doing good work in neighborhood.

Barb Verni-Lau Is glad to be back. The Logan weed and seed program has picked up with the leadership that Barb left in place as she was gone.

Judy Daniel Planning Director

Lauren Bradley (South Asheville) City Communications

Shannon Tuch (Downtown) Assistant Planning Director

Kendra Turner (Parkway Forest)

Barbara Buchannan (Parkway Forest)

Adam Pittman

Jake Quinn (Grove Park Sunset Mountain) New traffic calming has been installed and the n’hood is pulling together a large crew to do some planting. The Grove Park Inn may be donating some greenery. Planning on submitting lessons learned document through CAN to City.

Cecil Bothwell (5 points / Montclair) Organizing the democratic precinct in his n’hood and is running for City Council.

Round the Table

3

Neighborhood Spotlight – Parkway Forest see story at bottom

4

Asheville Planning Department:

Judy Daniel has been the Planning Director for 8 months. She came from the Washington DC area. She was ready for something smaller than 1 million people and enjoys being able to run into community members she recognizes more frequently. She arrived during “busy times” last summer but since then it has slowed down due to the economy. Amongst other things the Planning department is looking for ways to give the developers more time to start projects. When the Planning Dept. first saw concerns last fall about the slowing economy they started to develop some proposals to allow for longer extensions for projects in process or that have been giving permission. Most examples are larger project like the Ellington and the Deal Buick. Developers have had problems getting letter of credit for a bond. Trying to keep permits in place while requiring safety issues to be addressed.

Question from audience revealed that development above Walmart has found a new owner.

Judy is hoping to be able to devote more time for outreach in the community now that a new Community Development Director has been hired (the former director resigned).

Have been taking opportunities to do housekeeping on UDO.

Downtown Master Plan is moving forward including height limits, view corridors, and proposes adaptation of approval process.

Regarding the approval process Judy is used to seeing less staff approval and less council approval while the planning body (e.g. P&Z) has more approval authority.\

Working on a new structure for planning department. Planning to divide city into five different districts with lead planner in each area. These planner would be in an educational role and would not be doing permits in their area but acting as a relationship builder and resource. The planner may even call the n’hoods to inform them of new developments etceteras. Would like to get this up and going during the downturn.

Trying to create a one stop shop for permits. Hope to start work by middle of summer to Public Works building to create one stop shop. Office of Economic Development (OED) will be moving into Planning new space and Police substation will move into OED offices on Haywood Street.

Discussed whether Neighborhood coordinator should be in the Public Relations department or closer to the Planners.

Discussed level III (large projects like Walmart) and whether staff approval should be allowed without public hearings.

Discussed Conditional Zoning which gives Council a great deal of flexibility and others believe is spot zoning.

Discussed the affordable housing legislation that has been taken to the Housing and Development Committee (sub committee council). Considering point system with rewards being added density. A draft copy should be posted in a few weeks.

We all enjoyed the lively and diverse interaction and want to thank Judy and her Staff for joining our CAN meeting.

Judy Daniel

Shannon Tuch

5

Noise Control Issues Concerned with noisy vehicles, monster trucks, motorcycles etc when they are modified to increase their noise level. Published commentary about health effects of loud noise in Asheville Citizen Times. Mitigating tool is the federal noise control act. Enforcement can be at factory end. Custom shops for example change mufflers on motorcycles etc.

Grant Millin