Taking the LEED

In the latest effort to encourage construction of high-density, environmentally sustainable, affordable rental housing, the Asheville City Council approved a new “transformation development” incentives policy March 8 on a 6-1 vote.

The policy implements a points system: 10 points exempts the developer from a year’s worth of property taxes and grants a 10 percent reduction in permit and fee charges. One way to score points is via Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification: LEED Bronze would be good for 10 points, each higher level would score an additional 10 points, with a maximum of 40 for Platinum. (The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program rates buildings based on specific performance criteria.)

Developers can also score 10 points for every 10 percent of a project’s units whose rents are considered affordable for someone earning up to 80 percent of the median household income for the area, with a maximum of 40 points for 40 percent affordable housing.

And creating work-force rental housing (affordable to someone earning up to 120 percent of the median household income) can be worth as much as 15 points (for a project featuring 75 percent work-force units).

Council members approved a similar policy back in November but delayed implementation while staff sought information from the Sustainability Advisory Committee on Energy and the Environment and presented the plan to groups including the Council of Independent Business Owners, the Downtown Commission and the Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods. According to staff, both CIBO and the Downtown Commission urged a less restrictive policy, while CAN wanted it to be more restrictive and more attuned to Council’s goal of promoting environmentally sustainable, affordable housing.

Making a motion to approve the measure, Vice Mayor Brownie Newman said it would clarify the kind of development Council members would like to see, calling the language in the November ordinance “pretty subjective and sort of hard to measure.”

Council member Bill Russell cast the lone opposing vote, declaring, “There is no transformational new aspect” to the policy. Council, he asserted, was simply responding to environmental interests. Council member Jan Davis voiced a similar concern, observing, “There’s some tail wagging the dog here.” Davis ultimately supported the motion, however, on the condition that Council revisit the policy in a year to assess its effectiveness.

Pawns in their game

Also on the agenda was an ordinance that would require pawnbrokers and other dealers in secondhand goods to electronically report all purchases from customers to local law enforcement within 48 hours of the transaction. Currently, pawnbrokers must submit such information daily, and law enforcement picks up the paper records each workday. The new ordinance would also apply to businesses such as antique stores and used-record shops. Garage sales, flea markets and nonprofit thrift stores that accept donations would not be affected.

Some local business owners expressed various concerns. Many said they don’t have a computer or Internet access, which would be required to submit the information electronically. A number of antique dealers said they rarely buy anything from people coming into the store, acquiring most of their goods from estate and garage sales. Others wondered how consignments would be handled.

Several pawnbrokers spoke in favor of the measure, however, saying it would close a loophole that enables criminals to unload stolen property by selling it to secondhand stores, which the current ordinance doesn’t regulate.

Council members postponed a vote until April 26 to allow time for gathering more feedback from business owners and fine-tuning the ordinance.

Do the right-of-way thing

Council also delayed action (until its April 12 meeting) on a proposed right-of-way closure related to the Montford Commons development after Dana Parker expressed concern about losing access to her 0.15 acre parcel. The city can’t legally remove access to a property without ensuring that other access is available. Staff said there is another right of way, but several Council members worried that it might be inferior to the access Parker has now and, lacking that information, were reluctant to proceed.

No fiber for Asheville

In other business, City Council:
• Approved a resolution opposing proposed state legislation that would prohibit local governments from providing subsidies for broadband Internet access. The bill would rule out any public/private partnerships involving broadband — taking Asheville out of the running for the Google Fiber experimental broadband project. Cities nationwide are competing to be chosen as Google’s partner in bringing residents Internet access exceeding 1 gigabit per second — about 100 times as fast as most Americans’ broadband connections.
• Postponed a decision on the number of early voting sites for this year’s city elections. A motion by Russell to reduce the number of early voting sites from five to one was defeated 3-4, with Mayor Terry Bellamy and Davis joining Russell on the short end. Council will revisit the measure April 12 after determining the cost of such sites.
• Received its second-quarter budget update. The city’s tax base grew by only 0.7 percent, the slowest growth rate in a decade. For this fiscal year, revenues are projected to fall short by $1.2 million, due mostly to poor performance by the city’s investment portfolio.
• Heard an update from James Baudoin, executive director/project manager for the Asheville Area Center for the Performing Arts, on the facility proposed for The Block, the historically African-American business district adjacent to City/County Plaza. Tentative plans call for a 2,000-seat theater, a multipurpose rehearsal room and a 200-seat black-box theater. The target date for starting construction is sometime in 2013.

Source

City Power and Gas