Asheville for All

Here’s what we found to be the most important housing-related items at Asheville’s City Council meeting of Tuesday, May 12, 2026.

A Tale of Two Conditional Zonings

Caribou Commons

Outcome: Denied

Votes:
In favor (of denial): S. Antanette Mosley, Kim Roney, Maggie Ullman, Sheneika Smith, Bo Hess, Sage Turner, Esther E. Manheimer

1116 Sweeten Creek Road Apartments

Outcome: Approved

Votes:
In favor: S. Antanette Mosley, Kim Roney, Maggie Ullman, Sheneika Smith, Bo Hess, Sage Turner, Esther E. Manheimer

One developer brought two conditional zoning requests to Asheville City Council, both of them to be located in South Asheville.

Both of these projects were set to receive subsidy from the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. As we discussed recently, this means that the homes are guaranteed to accept housing vouchers, and to serve people with incomes at or below 80% of the area median income (AMI). And as we also discussed, to meet the criteria for LIHTC, the homes are set across a spread of income-restriction levels, though the details of this spread typically need to be worked out closer to the project’s completion date.

One of the projects survived the night, and one did not.

Caribou Commons

Caribou Commons didn’t make it. After a lengthy hearing with several neighbors presenting their opposition, the council voted to deny the project, seven to zero.

Caribou Commons was designed to have one hundred homes, all below market rates as discussed above. Notably, the Shiloh neighborhood association came out strongly against it from the beginning, and increased its messaging as the hearing grew closer. Concerns largely centered around traffic worries, and fears that the new apartments would be “out of character.” Residents also argued that Caribou Commons did not meet the goals of the 2025 Shiloh Community Plan, a document that the neighborhood produced in collaboration with the city.

For what it’s worth, following the Asheville Planning and Zoning Commission where the commissioners chose not to recommend the project, Asheville For All decided not to stake an official position on the Caribou Commons. To borrow a slogan from our friends at Strong Towns, we believe that no neighborhood should be exempt from change, and no neighborhood should have to bear dramatic change either. We don’t believe that multifamily housing is necessarily dramatic, whether it’s “middle housing” or something bigger. Nor are we certain that project was dramatic. But we also understand that as Shiloh is a legacy neighborhood (meaning that it currently or in the past consisted of a majority-minority population), there is a history of mistrust between it and the city, and emotions were running quite high this month. So we didn’t believe that a strong position from us would necessarily be helpful.