Council votes, reluctantly, for a developer’s relocation deal and sets the stage for some upcoming conflicts over transit, elections and more
Above: Vice Mayor Gwen Wisler. File photo by Max Cooper.
One of the biggest votes of the year passed without much remark in Asheville City Council’s chambers on June 14, as the mayor and six Council members unanimously approved the annual budget with hardly a comment.
The public hearing happened weeks before, and while there was plenty of controversy there, at the time no major issue caused a similar fracture on Council, the way tax increases have in some of the previous years. The $161 million budget sets the stage for expanded policing in the core of the city, moves forward with a major overhaul of the river district, hikes fees, changes transit and more, as we detail in our breakdown of where all that money’s going.
Instead most of the meeting concerned less overall matters, but ones of key importance to the community they affected, and likely an indication of things to come for many across the city. Specifically, Atlanta-based Hathaway Development wanted Asheville’s elected officials to sign off on zoning changes so they could proceed with a 290-unit apartment complex in South Asheville. By itself that’s not particularly unusual; South Asheville’s seen plenty of similar developments in recent years.
But there was the key fact of where the complex would go, a mobile home park housing 55 families, mostly Latino, many of whom had lived there for decades. The potential mass eviction of that community led to the involvement of its residents association, a nearby church and a local nonprofit in trying to get relocation assistance for the families, as moving mobile homes is costly and many of the older homes can’t be legally moved — just demolished for scrap — at all.
That left Council reluctant, just as it did the members of the city’s planning board over a month earlier (“a really shitty situation” as Vice Chair Kristy Carter put it) to sign off on the removal of an entire community, but also not wanting to interfere with the residents receiving some kind of compensation.
That’s because Council still operates in a state (and country, for that matter) where property owners usually have the ability to just straight up evict — without compensation — entire communities if they think they can make more money from doing so. That brute fact loomed over the proceedings, and it played a key role in the eventual outcome.
Much of the rest of the meeting consisted of discussions of major upcoming issues: including the possibility that First Transit might get another three years running the city bus system despite major problems and controversies.
Detour
A major conflict in the making was delayed when Council decided to put off consideration of a new contract for operating the bus system until June 28. However, discussion about the topic indicated that it’s likely to see no shortage of fireworks then.
Asheville’s transit workers are unionized and due to a conflict between federal law (which forbids breaking up a union) and state law (which forbids local governments from dealing with a union), the city hires an outside management company to oversee operations of the system.
Since 2008, that’s been First Transit, the Cincinatti, Ohio-based subsidiary of the British transportation company FirstGroup. In recent years, both the People’s Voice for Transportation Equality and the local branch of the Amalgamated of Transit Union have criticized what they claim is a pattern of endemic mismanagement. They’ve also asserted that city staff have repeatedly ignored warnings about issues with First Transit’s management. A Blade investigation last year showed that, more than a year after complaints from rider advocates had first reached staff, issues had continued, and drivers described major problems with delays and missed routes due to what they claim was mismanagement and a lack of repairs. At several points, drivers said they had to use an aging van to ferry people because so many buses were broken down.
Last year staff the and city’s Multimodal Commission recommended extending First Transit’s contract for another year. But in the wake of the public controversy, the city manager and Council instead decided to put it up for bid to allow another company to possibly take over operations.
But after those problems came to light, after new bids were submitted and considered, city staff came back claiming they’d carefully considered all the options and asserted it was time to give First Transit three more years.
Following this, two city boards sharply diverged. The Multimodal Commission endorsed the plan, with one dissenting vote. However on the Transit Committee, technically a subcommittee of the multimodal board that includes bus riders and deals more directly with issues concerning the bus system, it got a far sharper reception. None of the nine board members present would endorse the company’s bid. Six voted to endorse the other bid — by Fort Worth, Texas-based McDonald Transit — to take over the system’s management, while three abstained.
At that meeting, city staff refused to give a side-by-side comparison of the two bids and why they’d chosen First Transit again, other than saying they assessed matters like efficiency and operations and found their bid the better one. City transit staff have attributed any issues mostly to a lack of resources rather than mismanagement, but the city does not track safety and performance complaints.
While the matter wasn’t on the agenda, several concerned about the issue spoke early in the June 14 meeting.
ATU President Diane Allen cited a letter of no confidence from 35 of the system’s 52 workers, including non-union employees as well as union members, and said they had major problems with both First Transit and the course taken by city staff.
“They are in fear of retaliation and don’t want their names publicly known, because retaliation has been active in the past,” she said. “We strongly request that City Council not award a new contract to First Transit.”
“I hope during the next two weeks each and every one of you takes into consideration the concerns we have brought to you in the past,” Allen continued, asserting that managers have also behaved in an unprofessional manner to “We have been called ‘back-stabbing flesheaters’ in safety meetings, we’ve been called bullies recently. We’re approaching another safety meeting and we feel disrespected and we’re tired of the name-calling.”
“I think given the history of retaliation it’s entirely reasonable to keep those signatures confidential, there’s no use enabling more of the same,” Council member Cecil Bothwell said. “I really share your concerns about this, it seems to me that the number of routes that are missed, the number of people left standing when buses don’t show up, the number of vehicles that are off the road all points to serious concerns about the management.”
Kim Roney, a bus rider and member of both the multimodal commission (where she cast the sole dissenting vote) and the transit board (where she voted for McDonald’s bid), said she had major concerns about the process pushed by city staff and the level of mismanagement from First Transit.
“I’m asking Council to be especially diligent in reviewing the evaluation process, the pressed timing and lack of information resulted in conflicting endorsements,” Roney said. “The bus is a necessity for working class people in Asheville, for our elders, and for poor people, she continued, and if finding the right one meant delaying a new contract further until a better option than First Transit emerged, she said Council needed to do so.
Transit rider advocate Sabrah n’haRaven was even harsher in her condemnation.
“Proposals are sales documents, as such I expect them to exaggerate the product’s strengths, gloss over its weaknesses, to misdirect when necessary, possibly even to mislead. I don’t expect them to lie,” n’haRaven said. “According to the bid submitted by First Transit their proposed management team has ‘a good relationship with union leadership’ and has ‘promoted good relations between the union and management.’ I think you’ve all just seen that was false.”
“Not only did they lie, they didn’t even put in the effort to come up with good lies,” she continued. “They have blatant lies in their proposal that were easily disproved. Apparently they just took it for granted they could tell whatever whoppers they want and the city would just swallow them without question. It seems to me that’s what city staff have been doing for years. If that’s the attitude First Transit takes towards their proposal how can you expect them to take the contract any more seriously?”
Dividing lines
Also front and center in Council’s discussion was a conflict introduced from the state level. While the North Carolina General Assembly is about to wrap up its session for the year Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Henderson County Republican, is moving forward with a bill to throw out the city’s current election system and replace it with six Council members elected by district (with the mayor still elected by the whole city).
The idea isn’t a new one, though this is the farthest it’s advanced in the legislature before. Over the past two decades most of Asheville’s local elected officials have come from North Asheville, though that’s included conservatives as well as liberals. Those neighborhoods, historically, have been where a lot of the wealth is, and that typically helps when it comes to running for office.
The notion last came up in 2013 when then-Rep. Tim Moffitt drafted a bill to split Asheville up into five districts for local elections, with the mayor and a Council member elected at large. While the idea caused considerable controversy, the bill was never filed and Moffitt lost his seat in the next election. During that particular controversy, the idea attracted the most support from local conservatives, who’ve generally fared poorly in the last few rounds of local elections.
Council, as one might expect, weren’t particularly happy with Apodaca’s idea. As currently proposed, it would put most of them in the same district as other members, so effectively forcing them to run against each other if they want to remain on Council in next year’s election. It’s also not clear if it would be put to local voters in a referendum. When the state legislature passed district elections for the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners in 2011, it specifically forbade holding a referendum on the issue.
The other state legislators for local districts are against the idea and, Manheimer noted, would try to significantly amend it if it came forward.
Bothwell noted that the effort mirrored those by Republicans across the country to gerrymander federal, state and now local elections.
“They propose including Sunset with Haw Creek on opposite sides of the mountain, with very different issues so they’re not looking for common interests among a neighborhood or community,” “They’re looking for ways to get whatever voters into this district and the voters they want into another. They cut the central business district in half, though it seems to me like the central business district would have some common interests.”
“That’s something so wrong about redistricting across the country: where elected officials choose their voters rather than voters choosing they’re elected officials,” Bothwell continued. “It’s anti-democratic.”
“It’s yet another example of the general assembly telling Asheville to go pick its switch,” Smith said. “It’s against the very values the elected officials in Raleigh claim, of small government and local control.”
“This is another unfortunate tradition we’re following here,” Mayor Esther Manheimer said, of Council’s repeated objections to legislation targeting the city in particular.
Clearances
The fight over the fate of the mobile home park started when Miami Made (despite the name, based in Asheville), the current owner of the 11 acres in South Asheville, cut a deal with Hathaway for the site. Hathaway is one of a slew of companies seeking to put housing — a hot commodity in a city with a dire shortage — in the southern part of the city.
But that meant that the park’s 256 residents, some of whom have lived there for decades, even born there, would be gone. St. Barnabas church, were many of them are parishioners, intervened, as did the housing and homelessness nonprofit Homeward Bound. Initially, Miami Made initially offered $1,000 in relocation assistance, but as resident representatives pointed out in discussion at May’s planning meeting, it costs about five to 10 times that to move a mobile home, and a grand doesn’t exactly go a long way in a deposit in Asheville’s overheated market.
That night, an offer came back for $250,000 in assistance, to be divided among the 55 households (amounting to $4,545 each)
By the time former mayor and attorney Louis Bissette, representing Hathaway, came up to the Council podium on June 14, that had increased again, with the developers proposing to put another $40,000 they’d also offered to the city’s housing fund instead directly to the residents, putting the amount per household up to $5,272.
Eviction notices, staff noted, had already been issued, though developer representatives later added that it would be 90 to 120 days after Council approval before they were gone. They would receive $2,272 30 days after Council approval, and the rest of the money when the deal closed.
The new apartments will rent for around $850 to $1350 a month, with 10 percent guaranteed at the city’s “affordable” rate (about $760 to $895 for a bedroom unit) for 15 years. While city staff pressed for Hathaway to increase that to 20 percent of the units, they declined. Right now, residents at the mobile home park pay $225 in rent, plus utilities.
Bissette said the developer’s representatives had met extensively with the residents, the church and the nonprofits involved to negotiate the deal, and the funds would be distributed through St. Barnabas and Homeward Bound.
“I think it’s been a good process,” Bissette said. “It’s involved all the residents, it’s involved the church, it’s involved a number of community organizations including the city of Asheville.”
He claimed the relocation funds took the place of the city’s request to make 29 more units available at an “affordable” rate for the next 15 years. Residents would need to be fully paid up on their rent and utilities to be eligible for the funds.
Vice Mayor Gwen Wisler broached the idea that the developer could also waive the last month’s rent. They declined.
“In some small way we’re playing a part in ensuring no one ends up homeless as a result of this development,” Homeward Bound Director Jim Lowder said, noting they’d been asked by the city to help broker a deal between the parties involved. “We’re grateful for the financial offer from the developer. Because none of the families currently qualify as homeless they wouldn’t normally qualify for the assistance we provide.”
Deacon Rudy Triana of St. Barnabas called the developer’s acceptance of the deal “gracious” and said the church had sought to help give a voice to the voiceless.
“It’s been a long time, and we didn’t get everything we wanted, but what has come together is sufficient for them,” he said, just asking the city to ensure that Miami Made and Hathaway kept their end of the deal. “It’s been a very hard journey.”
Bissette claimed the offer was the limit of what the developer could do and “as generous as any offer I’ve seen.”
The specifics of making sure the residents received their cash proved a bit complicated, however, as City Attorney Robin Currin noted that the city would find it “difficult if not impossible” to enforce an agreement between third parties. Usually when it enforces zoning conditions, it’s matters like the physical nature of a site (which can be enforced through zoning fines) or affordable units (which can be enforced through written deed restrictions). Triana said that while he and the residents had seen a bullet point summary of the agreement, they hadn’t seen the document itself yet.
So Council wanted a specific agreement ready before it signed off. Mayor Esther Manheimer called an intermission to the meeting, sending Bissette and the residents representatives into the hall for about a half hour to hash out a deal.
When they returned, Bissette read the “bullet points,” in Manheimer’s words, of the deal aloud, committing the developer to the relocation help and the timeline described earlier.
Maria Escobedo, the president of the neighborhood association, thanked Council and the city for helping to arrange the deal.
Smith quizzed Bissette and Escobedo about some of the the stats, and she noted that about 60 children, many of whom could walk to the nearby school, lived in the mobile home park.
“So this community isn’t just about these houses, it isn’t just about a dollar symbol, it’s about neighbors knowing neighbors, a community who help take care of each others’ children, kids who can currently walk to school, none of whom are paying as much as the minimum rents in this proposed development.”
“Exactly,” Escobedo said. “It’s one big family, even though we have different cultures we all see each other as siblings.”
“And what will happen now?” Smith continued.
“That’s the question: we don’t know,” Escobedo replied. “Now everybody’s going to be everywhere. We don’t know how it’s going to work.”
“So people are going in all different directions, landing where they can. This is the end of this neighborhood.”
“Yes, it is really sad to see people just pull out, in the empty spot where they used to live, your neighbor used to live there,” Escobedo continued. “It’s hard.”
That, Smith claimed, was the crux of his problem with what was going on with Hathaway’s new development.
“This whole issue has occupied my thoughts,” “I appreciate by the collaboration around the agreement you just reached, but I’m really troubled by the precedent that it sets. Tonight we are being asked to sanction the annihilation of a neighborhood, to sanction the destruction of a community. It’ll never come back; the history of this community will end.”
On that front, Smith claimed, he had a problem with much of the discussion around the issue.
“The tone of our conversation tonight is as though all of this is inevitable, that if there’s a low-income community of largely marginalized people that they can expect this to happen,” he said. “What’s happening here is not a matter of inevitability, it’s a matter of choices. The choice to evict 55 households, to move 60 school kids out of their schools and communities, to break up a decades-long community, this is a matter of choice.”
So while he liked the agreement, he added that the community targeted by the evictions “didn’t have a lot of leverage,” that $8-11,000 per unit would have been more in line with what they needed, though that still didn’t cover the loss of the community.
“Exactly,” Escobedo replied. “We thought about all of that perspective, but the law says we’re not entitled to much,” so they worked with the city, the developer and the non-profits to get what they could.
Smith said that he’d worked with developers that had the community’s wellbeing at the forefront of what they do and that because of that he’d argued with some of his own voters who inveighed against “greedy developers that don’t care about us.”
“It gets a lot harder to make that argument when we’re annihilating neighborhoods,” Smith said and while he’d normally oppose a proposal like Hathaway’s on its face just for the displacement, if Council refused the deal “you guys aren’t guaranteed a thing and they can build anyway.”
“This city has a long legacy of the unjust displacement of people within its borders and its not something that I’ll support, but here tonight we’re going to bear witness to it happening again,” he continued, calling Bissette’s assertion that the relocation help added to the city’s affordable housing “patently absurd.”
“We appreciate the payoff, we don’t appreciate the displacement,” Smith concluded. “This is instant gentrification.”
Council members Keith Young and Julie Mayfield agreed.
“This is a frustrating topic: it’s something cities deal with and we’re not the start of the issue,” Manheimer said. “We have to deal with problems that are a result of other bodies’ policy decisions. We don’t have a state law that provides for the protection of residents in this type of situation and we don’t have state authorization to local governments to take care of it ourselves other than through the somewhat clumsy tools of the zoning process.”
It would be much better, she said, if there were statewide or federal protections that mandated some kind or compensation or protection for the residents.
“I am very pleased with how organized this community has been,” Manheimer said. “I appreciate your willingness to constructively engage in what is, ultimately, the demise of your community. You seem to understand the ramifications of this and are actively participating in trying to get the best possible result. I feel like our vote tonight is in support of what you’ve done. It’s unfortunate they’re aren’t better ways to address this.”
Manheimer added she wanted to see if the city had more options to deal with issues like this, but admitted its possibilities are pretty limited.
But Bothwell said that while he was “deeply sympathetic” to the eviction of the neighborhood, he saw a bright side in the construction of more housing on the site.
“We’ve heard over and over again about the housing shortage here, and we’re getting six times as many units on the property, so it’s addressing the housing shortage,” he said. “It isn’t wholly bad, it also fits in with some of our goals. It’s a sad shame to break up a community, but we’ve been doing that since we sold land in the first place. It’s a fact of growth in cities.”
The new apartments then passed unanimously. Smith then said he wanted to “head off” the problem coming up again in the future, by trying to change the city’s laws to ensure relocation assistance, because “there are a lot of mobile home parks like this in the city.”
Another look at the boards
As it does at many of its meetings, Council also discussed appointments to its boards and commissions. While they don’t always get a huge amount of notice, these groups of appointed citizens make key decisions on everything from police to air quality to hotel development.
They’re also overwhelmingly whiter, wealthier and more male than the city they represent, as recently highlighted in a joint project by the Blade and the Asheville Citizen-Times delving into the boards’ composition and powers that came out two days before Council’s meeting.
In two cases, Council agreed to re-advertise for committees to try and get a more diverse composition. Wisler specifically emphasized that the task force on whether to allow Airbnb-style rentals in accessory dwelling units (i.e. garage and basement apartments) needed more long-term renters, a population directly affected if units formerly rented to locals end up rented to more tourists.
“We are missing renters,” Wisler said. “I urge the public to find people that are renters within the city that are interested in this issue, it’s a very important voice that will be missing on this commission.”
There was more. Council did the same sort of delay for spots on the African-American Heritage Commission, the Citizens Police Advisory Committee, the Neighborhood Advisory Committee, and the committee that’s overseeing the overhaul of the city’s zoning laws (in order to get more South Asheville representation).
“We’re trying to get the applicant pool, in some cases, a little more diverse,” Wisler said. Council also delayed a new appointment to the Multimodal Commission so they could deal with some “open questions.” Mayfield noted that she was concerned about the lack of women on the committee. Indeed, Wisler responded, the next meeting of Council’s boards and commissions committee will be entirely devoted to the topic of the commissions’ make-up.
We’re going to discuss how we can get more diversity on our boards and commissions,” Wisler said. “I know we’ve done some work on it, but we acknowledge that it could be better, so we look forward to discussing those ideas. So if the public has ideas about that, I think Council would be really open to hearing those.”
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