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Topic

Presenter

1

No December minutes because no meeting.

Treasurer's Report. $4998.84 as of 12/31/08.

Bill Bailey

Carl Nyberg

2

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

Marianna and Bill Bailey (ViewPoint)

Robert Zeiber (Biltmore Park) Town Square is latest development with fantastic movie theater.

Ed Gutman (Redwood Forest)

Steve Hudzik (Kenilworth) Artist Walk and Holiday Party in December with 200+ attending.

Christine Longoria (Norwood Park) Recently received its historic designation.

Mike Lewis (Grace)

Jake Quinn (Grove Park / Sunset Mountain) Had annual meeting. Marsha Stickford attended.

Judy Williamson (Shiloh) Had great neighborhood party. Police and n’hood are trying to help with safety issues by dividing up n’hood into targeted areas (Meeting 6:30 Monday the 26^th)

Peter Loewer (Kenilworth Lake) Case of dock being built on Kenilworth Lake with pile driver against wishes / rules of Lake Association…Patsy Brison will be representing.

Joe Minicozzi (BruceMont Circle) Organizing n’hood is gaining ground. Helping with Burton Street n’hood deal with potential impact of I-26. 40-60 people came to an organizing meeting the night before the county commission meeting and then came to the meeting the next night to get on the record.

James Judd (Chunns Cove) starting to organize n’hood.

Carl Nyberg (Kenilworth) Someone took out the traffic calming sign by driving straight over it.

Barber Melton (Haw Creek) Annual meeting and celebration of money raised for new park.

Tom Rightmyer (Crowfields) Have a party every first Friday. Working on trying to revitalize the Henderson Road Corridor. Preparing to present to City Council at end of June.

Norma Baynes (Shiloh) Shelter built by architects has appeared in a new book as well as some national magazines.

Marsha Stickford (N’hood coordinator) explained role of coordinator in getting neighborhood’s help, so give her a call.

Jennifer Murphy (Falconhurst area) had an association in mid 90’s and trying to resuscitate it. One great ongoing project is a community garden. Also encouraged other neighborhoods with community gardens to contact Bountiful Cities which is attempting to organize garden groups across the city.

Claudia Nix (Kenilworth) facilitator for bike and pedestrian task force. Will be speaking tonight.

Neil Barrett (South Oaks) Community is between Ramble and what is to be Weir Bridge village. Still have nice trees around. Unfortunate part is what is happening with residential portion of Weir Bridge village due to debris left behind from commercial part.

Round the Table

3

CAN Planning Retreat: Semi-annual retreat last Saturday looked at goals for the next 6 months. The title of the goals are as follows:

· Neighborhood organizing by sectors (i.e. N,S,E,W).

· Neighborhood Toolkit

· Review of Operating Structures and Voting Structures.

· Form finance committee for recommendations to support education.

· CAN Congress (Affordable Housing) [Needs name to lead]

Passed around list for people to sign onto group effort. Groups to get together soon and by the week before the February meeting they should have prepared a report for the executive committee.

Baileys

4

Bike / Pedestrian Task Force. Task force completed update in October for bicycle transportation map which was last updated 10 years ago.

Provided information and pamphlet about “Downtown On The Move” which gives people a sense of distances downtown and help you find easy-to-walk-to locations like the post office, drug store or dry cleaner. Group is encouraging / helping city get education about the programs out beforehand. For more information on Downtown on the Move and other tips got to www.healthybuncombe.org.

In answering questions, she provided education on sharrows (looks like chevron >>) which are markings in the street to indicate where cyclists should ride and also indicate to cars to expect bicyclists. Gave tips about wearing lights at night and how to trigger traffic lights on a bike (put bottom bracket over top of V section of cutout in street). Discussed problems with utility poles in the middle of sidewalk blocking access including handicap access.

Neighborhoods can help pedestrians by alerting people of the need to keep their sidewalk clear of obstructions and alerting city of problems.

Claudia Nix

5

Affordable Housing Trust Fund: Will it survive budget cuts? How can we help? Tom and Barber represent CAN on Affordable Housing Committee. The City Council had recommendations giving at their retreat to not fund the Trust Fund which puts aside money to help builder of Affordable Housing. Cindy Weeks is encouraging neighborhoods to write a letter to City Council members to encourage funding of the Affordable Housing Trust.

Barber Melton

6

Technical Committee Update

BOA will attempt to vote this month on extending staff appeal deadline from 30 to 60 days.

Joe Minicozzi asked Marsha Stickford about developments in the Planning department and received the following updates: New Planning Director has divided city into 5 areas with one planner for each area acting to oversee patterns although they will not be overseeing projects in their areas. Planning Director starting to move on retooling UDO. The City / County One Stop idea of getting permits all at one time is currently on hold due to budget issues.

Discussed having Judy Williams to visit CAN for focused discussions.

James Judd

Joe Minicozzi

7

Southside/South French Broad Neighborhood Visioning Project Update.

With the support and involvement of community volunteers, the City of Asheville is initiating a Neighborhood Visioning project with the Southside/ South French Broad neighborhood. The visioning process will involve 4 sessions and result in the creation of a vision plan to guide future directions for the neighborhood and give it a more unified and stronger voice in the community. In addition, the vision plan will be used by the City to provide guidelines for future growth and development-related decisions by city department and other entities.

An additional goal of the project is to develop a more efficient, cost effective process that will build our communities capacity to create this type of planning for all neighborhoods. If your neighborhood would be interested in participating in a similar process, please contact Marsha Stickford, City of Asheville Neighborhood Coordinator at 259-5506 or mstickford@ashevillenc.gov.

Marsha Stickford

8

Storm water Committee and Flood Reduction Task Force Update Committee has worked together since 2006 and Barber believes that it is one of the best she has served on. Currently rewriting flood ordinances. Shooting for March 13 to take a bus seating 55 people including a representative from governor, state legislator, city and county, etc. to take a 5 hour bus tour from Biltmore Village up Swannanoa River Road etc. City has built many properties along Swannanoa River (in location of Spirit on the River) to let it flood naturally. County has bought property along river in Swannanoa and Black Mountain to turn it into a Greenway Corridor. Purpose of bus tour is to show currently owned property and potential property to buy. City and Army Corp of Engineers have done an emergency flood action plan which should be presented to City in February. On the topic of future build out of city is being studied for entire watershed. Will be a tool to determine what effects of building something new will impact over the future. This ordinance ties in well with steep slope and storm water issues.

Barber Melton

9

Mystic Mountain Crewe is forming crews for Mardi Gras (Starting Sunday Feb 22, 4:37 pm by Green Curtain (Old Jolly Rogers) ending up at Pritchard Park and then on to the Grey Eagle? for Zydeco dancing and eating. Parade Info Link

Carl Nyberg

Pack Square Park “Park-Raising” Peter Loewer, former Tree Commissioner and plant expert, spoke passionately about what he saw as faults with the development of Pack Square Park. He requested that CAN become more involved. Discussion around the table hit on the following points:

§ why in this day and age does a non-profit volunteer citizens group need to organize to do the City and County’s job of redoing their front lawn.

§ One suggestion was to organize a forum to educate citizens about the difficulties currently being faced and the possible options.

§ A relative of the owner of Windows on the Park understand that an ongoing dialog between downtown business owners, conservancy board, and park department employees occurs weekly.

§ Suggested that CAN’s Goal #3 is applicable and that may should consider organizing a community barn-raising which could end up being both a work opportunity and a demonstration of community building.

Motion Offered and Passed Unanimously: “CAN offers to coordinate, facilitate or initiate a “park-raising” effort to volunteer professional, labor, local expertise and material assistance to the Pack Square Conservancy for finish the Pack Square Project.”

Next Actions: Joe Minicozzi will bring idea forward to Downtown Board Association and Contact Quality Forward. Marsha Stickford will advise city of CAN’s resolution. Tom Rightmyer will contact downtown businesses to get on their next meeting agenda.

Peter Loewer

and Board

Meeting ended at 8:50.