Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods
Helping Neighborhoods become Better Places for all People
CAN MEETING
2nd Monday each month, 7:00pm-9:00pm at the Oakley Community Center, 749 Fairview Rd., behind the Fire Station and below the Library. Open to the public. Bring your issues, ideas, and energy.
1. Educate and inform the community about matters that concern Asheville area neighborhoods;
2. Provide a means for Asheville area neighborhood organizations and groups to share information; and
3. Provide technical assistance to neighborhood groups and individuals that are interested in participating in community affairs
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Topic
Presenter
1
Acceptance of October 10 Meeting Minutes
Treasurer's Report.Approximately $4000.Summarized Congress expenses and revenues.
Bill Bailey
Carl Nyberg
2
Introductions - your name, neighborhood and quickly state any Issue / Success to share or to add to agenda.
Barber Melton (Haw Creek)
Grace Curry (GrovePark) Traffic calming on Kimberly Avenue has been in the news due to new unmarked berms that resulted in cars running into them.They are now marked due to the quick response of the city.
Mike Lewis (Grace) Avoiding Kimberly
Steve Hudzik (Kenilworth) Planning a studio walk in December.Eblen Foundation pumpkins on Halloween were a great success.
Marianna & Bill Bailey (Viewpoint) Enjoying visiting bears
Chris Pelly (Haw Creek) Progress Energy is putting up very large regulators installations to try to redistribute power and reduce need for power plants.One large installation was installed without neighborhood warning in Haw Creek and second is on the way.The Haw Creek Association opened communication with Progress and Progress has agreed to a $500 donation towards landscaping.
Carl Nyberg (Kenilworth) Great Halloween party.
Peter Loewer (KenilworthLake)Having difficulties with a property owner on KenilworthLake and have found that the solution for a Neighborhood Association can be expensive.Past concerns with this owner includes an “illegal” duplex (Editor’s note: unsure what made it illegal…therefore used quotes) many years ago and more recently a new playhouse which appears to break zoning and city rules.The owner got an extension for a year and then on October 21st drove a pile driver across the lake and proceeded to drive piles into the Lake.Peter’s investigation determined that Corp of Engineers does not have control.Peter notified the city which ended up giving the owner a permit.The City Attorney in conclusion reportedly told Peter that the Association should get an attorney and sue.Peter ended up contacting 38 people and got 5 people to chip in $50 which was insufficient to go forward with a lawyer.
Bettie Jackson (Beverly Hills) Big bear is getting around.
Tom Rightmyer (Crowfield) Continue to build bank buildings in area including Wachovia and WeirVillage.
Marsha Stickford (N’hood coordinator) Marsha is working on best practices for bears (had E-News letter about) and many other things.
Round the Table
3
Neighborhood Spotlight:GrovePark – SunsetMountain.See story below.
Grace Curry
4
Neighborhood Leader Meeting was coordinated the following night by the Asheville Neighborhood Coordinator (Marsha Stickford).The attendees gained a better understanding of the role of the Neighborhood Coordinator as well as sharing ideas on how the neighborhoods and the city can communicate more effectively.Plan to share ideas via email and then meet again in a few months.
Marsha Stickford
5
Affordable Housing Forum Brainstorming.Marsha, Marianna and Bill have started the groundwork to define a forum on Affordable Housing including trying to engage the affordable housing development community.The affordable housing development community has expressed the opinion that neighborhoods will always fight affordable housing and therefore they try to minimize the influence of the neighborhoods including reducing the neighborhoods opportunity for input.Marsha, Marianna and Bill are planning on attending the Asheville Affordable Housing Working Group meeting and broaching the idea of an educational forum.The forums would be designed to provide good balanced information.The hope is that they would be a vehicle for greater understanding and actual change.The model proposed currently would be a panel of speakers.Took time during the meeting to brainstorm concerns and discussion topics of interest to Affordable Housing.The outcome of the brainstorming will be used to define concerns and determine appropriate speakers to invite.
Marsha Stickford
6
Building Tool Kit for Neighborhood OrganizationJames Judd is involved in starting a Neighborhood organization in Chunns Cove and is intent on building a “tool kit” to help others navigate the journey.He shared his recent discovery of a free web service which allows groups to build their own social networking web site.Examples of current neighborhood sites using this tool are WestAsheville.Ning.com, ChunnsCove.Ning.com, and Kenilworth.Ning.com.The West Asheville site has most of the potential features turned on (groups, photos, calendar, forums, blogs, discussions, videos etc.) while the Kenilworth site is more limited.While group email messages can be sent using the Ning sites it is limited and a separate list serv is recommended.Creation of the web site was described as very easy and does not require any programming skills…just drag and drop and make choices from menus.A future CAN presentation is planned and the intent is to include instructions and tips in a Tool Kit on the CAN website.
James Judd
7
Technical Committee Update – The Board of Adjustment will be voting on new rules at their next meeting (Nov 24).The most significant improvement is increasing the time to appeal staff decisions from 30 days to 60 days.CAN has been involved in requesting this and other changes due to CAN’s experience with citizen’s difficulty in understanding the process.
James Judd
Meetings are 2nd Monday of the Month
Check Outwww.AshevilleCAN.org
Neighborhood Spotlight
GROVE PARK-SUNSET MOUTAIN NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION:
The Grove Park-Sunset Mountain Neighborhood consists of a large area that surrounds the Gove Park Inn and includes approximately 400 homes. They are a unique neighborhood because, with the exception of the Grove Park Inn, there is no commercial zoning. The neighborhood contains several properties that are zoned as institutional - two churches which have had an impact on the neighborhood. Both churches located in the neighborhood have experienced growth in recent years and present the neighborhood with challenges related to parking.
The Grove Park-Sunset Neighborhood, while mostly residential, is diverse in terms of the types, styles and age of housing. The area is an interesting mix of historic and newer homes, having three areas (Grove Park, Sunset Terrace, Proximity Park) that are listed on the National Historical Register and also many newer homes and complexes. There are many rental properties, including rental units within single family homes and larger apartment buildings. The neighborhood has a substantial number of residences that serve as second homes and this trend impacts the neighborhood as a community.
The Grove Park-Sunset Mountain Neighborhood Association was founded in 1973 in response to issues impacting the integrity of the neighborhood, including those related to the further development of the Grove Park Inn property. Over the past several years, the major issues of focus for the Association's efforts include:
1.The ongoing development of the Grove Park Inn property. There is a ten year Master Plan for the Inn that includes more construction. The Association and the Grove Park Neighborhood Representatives, an ad hoc group that meets periodically with Inn representatives, are monitoring the negative impacts of construction on neighborhood streets and residences, but are also supportive of some projects. One of these is the building of another parking garage that will move overflow parking off neighborhood streets.
2.The increase in membership of the two churches in the neighborhood. Both churches struggle with providing adequate parking for their membership and this has often resulted in those attending church functions parking illegally on neighborhood sidewalks.
3.Construction of single family homes on the steep-sloped vacant lots on SunsetMountain. The Association feels that the steep slope ordinances (which recently have updated to include single family dwellings) have helped regulate this growth to a certain extent, but they continue to monitor the impacts from the construction on steep slopes.
4.Neighborhood traffic issues. Because of continued development in North Asheville, such as those off Beaverdam Road, some of the main streets in the neighborhood will continue to see increases of pass-through traffic. The Neighborhood Association would like to see more extensive traffic studies included in the process for approving new development. These studies need to explore the impacts of traffic from new development for a larger area.
5.Resurrect the Charlotte Street Corridor Plan: This plan was adopted by City Council in 1999 and the Association is interested in working with the City and other neighborhoods and businesses in the Charlotte Street area to begin to identify parts of the plan that can be implemented.
Because the Association represents such a large area they have had to develop strategies to encourage participation from residents in all sections of their neighborhood. One successful strategy has been to divide the neighborhood into smaller areas with each of the areas having representation on the Board. This year they are going to hold meetings in each of the smaller sub-neighborhoods in addition to regular Board meetings. The Association publishes a quarterly newsletter.
In addition to regular Board meetings, the Association holds an annual meeting in the Fall and this year held a Neighborhood Picnic. They are interested in holding more social events in the future. For more information about the Grove Park-Sunset Mountain Neighborhood Association, please contact Grace Curry at gracecurry1@charter.net.
CAN Members Serving on Boards, etc.(please forward any missing information)
Barber Melton:
·Affordable Housing Working Group
·Storm water committee
Tom Rightmyer:
·Affordable Housing Working Group
·Storm water committee
·Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness Advisory Committee.
Robert Zeiber:
§Storm water committee
Joe Minicozzi:
·AshevilleDesignCenter, Chair
·Asheville Downtown Master Plan Advisory Committee
·Asheville Downtown Association (ADA),Vice President and Issues Committee Chair
·WNC Green Building Council’s “Leed-ND for WNC”, Policy Development Team
