Asheville for All

We sent the letter below to Asheville City Council on February 9th.

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Asheville is at a historic turning point.

After commissioning a study on the city’s housing shortage, there is now no question that Asheville’s land use policies and multi-family permitting processes are a significant contributor to a severe lack of affordability and housing options.

The city is now committed to changing such policies to allow for more “missing middle” housing in its residential neighborhoods. (Not sure what “missing middle” is? Check out our explainer page.)

But the devil will be in the details. For real change that’s going to count in the battle against housing scarcity, the city will need to swing for the fences.

So Asheville For All is calling for “missing middle” reform that is broad, ambitious, and swift. We believe it’s the only way to ease costs for renters and first-time homebuyers, bring back socio-economic diversity to our core neighborhoods and make them more walkable and vibrant, and reduce displacement pressures and opportunities for speculation.

Please read and sign the letter below if you agree.

Open Letter to Asheville City Council

Dear Asheville City Councilors:

Thank you for your continuing foresight and leadership in initiating and ushering through to completion Asheville’s Missing Middle Housing Study.

We are excited about the potential for middle housing in Asheville.

The now-completed study makes absolutely clear that Asheville is suffering a deep housing shortage; that existing zoning and permitting policies discourage the development of a variety of housing types in our most high-demand, high-opportunity neighborhoods; and that the displacement and burdensome housing costs that residents are experiencing every day can be mitigated in part by reforms that promote a greater variety of housing types in our core residential neighborhoods.1

We regret that Asheville residents lacked an opportunity to comment when the study was presented to the council in the first week of January, and so we ask that you consider the following comments as you continue to work with city staff and communicate with the public.

We believe the reforms that the city may initiate in light of the study will be most effective if they meet three criteria: that they are broad, ambitious, and swift.

Missing middle reforms should be broad

The evidence is clear that while small, “hyper-local” attempts at upzoning can increase housing supply somewhat in housing markets that suffer scarcity, the most dramatic and beneficial results come from pro-housing land-use reforms that are geographically broad.