Hotel Development Study

Happening Now

In September 2019, the Asheville City Council approved a temporary moratorium on the approval of new hotels, which means that no hotel development applications will be approved for a year. The purpose of the moratorium is to allow the City time to further study the issues surrounding tourism and assess the impacts of hotel development, both real and perceived.

The city contracted with the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in order to study the issues surrounding hotel development. Utilizing a Technical Assistance Program Panel (TAP) process, ULI evaluated the issues associated with tourism and hotel development with the goal to quantify the impacts of new hotel development and obtain a better understanding of all the concerns, both real and perceived, before presenting their findings on best practices tools and strategies to deal with the issues.

The TAP process was kicked off with a visit from the ULI panel who toured Asheville before holding a series of listening sessions with the public and stakeholder groups on January 9, 2020.

City staff prepared the following briefing book to familiarize the panel with the issues.

The panel returned on January 30, 2020 to present their findings and recommendations. Below is a recording of the presentation:

City Council held a work session on February 25, 2020 to discuss the ULI recommendations and provide staff with direction on the next steps. Below is a recording of the work session:

Over the next few months staff will work be working on the following items.

Revenue generating:

Require license agreement for city right-of-way during hotel construction.

Regulatory:

Re-establish hotels as a permitted use in select zoning districts and areas, including criteria and standards.
Incentivize public benefits.
Identify design improvements.
Evaluate traffic impact analysis threshold.
Develop valet parking standards.

Additional Public Engagement:

The city will be conducting additional public engagement on these items later this spring and will post information regarding public engagement opportunities on this website, as it becomes available.

Background

Asheville has experienced an influx of new hotel development over the past few years and community concern has been mounting over the impacts resulting from this influx, represented by projects that are currently both under construction and in the pipeline. Concerns include the geographic clustering of development downtown, the quality and design of the construction, the effects on the land use mix, the impacts to City infrastructure and services and a general concern about the impacts of tourism on the Asheville community.

The city currently lacks concrete policies, strategies and tools to effectively manage or regulate hotels. The lack of clear direction in the Asheville City Code and the Living Asheville Comprehensive Plan has resulted in uncertainty for developers, staff and community members. Consequently, on September 24, 2019, the Asheville City Council passed a temporary moratorium on the approval of new hotel development, including “Hotel, extended stay”, “Hotel, large” and “Hotel, small” as defined in Section 7-2-5 of the city’s Unified Development Ordinance within the City of Asheville, which will expire no later than September 24, 2020.

The moratorium will allow the city time to undertake a professional planning analysis with the help of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) with the purpose of developing recommendations for enhanced land use policies and improved tools and strategies to better plan for and regulate hotel development, and to provide clearer direction to the development community.