ASHEVILLE, N.C. — There’s been a ban on building new hotels in Asheville for more than a year. City leaders extended the moratorium into 2021, and it will be up to the new city council to figure out the rules.
Mayor Esther Manheimer said figuring out rules for new hotels is really about balancing the demands of tourism in the city, while also preserving Asheville’s unique character.
The new regulations will say where hotels can be built in the city. The proposal pushes developers to build green buildings, contribute to the city’s affordable housing fund or public art fun, and public parking.
“What we’re really struggling with here in Asheville is how to balance the fact that tourism is one of the pillars of our economy and Asheville is obviously an attractive place for hoteliers to come and build hotels,” Manheimer said in an interview with Spectrum News 1.
“With the struggle to try to preserve what makes Asheville special and the concerns of folks that live here who feel that tourism at times can sort of dominate the culture of the city,” she said.
Asheville holds a special place for many who live there and the tourists who visit. It’s North Carolina’s mountain town with funky local shops and buskers playing music along the broad downtown sidewalks.
“We’re a unique kind of town. We have a lot of unique people who live here and make it special. We don’t think of ourselves as Anywhere, U.S.A. and we don’t think of ourselves as just another tourist town,” Manheimer said.
“That’s not what we want to become,” she said.
But that’s harder when a city attracts the attention of national chains, the mayor said.
The coronavirus pandemic slowed down the process, she said. City council extended the ban on new hotel development for another five months in September. It’ll be up to the city’s new seven-member council to take up the new hotel rules.
The change will require amending the city’s zoning codes, so the rules have to go back through the Asheville Planning and Zoning Commission before the city council can approve them.
The proposal includes a system of points for new hotel projects to get approval and sets aside parts of the city where they can be built.
The zones are grouped around downtown, near the Biltmore, along the French Broad River and other areas around the city.
In order to build a new hotel, a developer will have to get a certain amount of points depending on the location. Hoteliers can get those points by reusing historic structures or developing green buildings.
Developers can also get enough points by contributing to the city’s Housing Trust Fund, which goes to developing affordable housing in the city. But it’s not cheap.
A big hotel needs 180 points to build in an urban district. If a developer went with contributing to the housing fund, that would cost $6,000 per room. A LEED Platinum building, the highest rating for a green building, would be 160 points.
Developers can also get points by adding a public art plaza to the design or adding a parking deck with public parking. Promising to pay a living wage and use inclusive hiring is worth 60 points.
Small hotels, with under 35 rooms, need 100 points to get approval around downtown Asheville or in the Biltmore district under the plan. Up to 80 rooms needs 160 points, and hotels over 80 rooms would need 180 points.
Hotels don’t need as many points if they want to build in suburban areas in the city.
The mayor said the new rules would add certainty to the process for developers who want to build hotels. The new points system and hotel districts mean developers could avoid going in front of the full city council to get approval for a project.
“What if we see a hotel proposal that we hadn’t quite contemplated and it’s quite objectionable but yet meets the criteria,” the mayor said. “There’s concern that you don’t want to give away the opportunity for review because there are times when there can be an unpredicted situation.”
Asheville’s city leaders will start taking up the new rules in 2021. The moratorium on new hotels is scheduled to expire in February.