Hotel Development Study

Happening Now

Planning and Zoning to Hold Public Hearing on Proposed Hotel Development Regulations

Following two council work sessions, the City of Asheville Department of Planning and Urban Design has further analyzed the proposed hotel development regulations and will be holding a public hearing at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on February 3, 2021 to present the revised regulations.

This proposal includes three primary components, outlined below:

- - New hotel development requirements, restricting hotels to appropriate areas with zoning standards designed to offset impacts and meet key community goals;
  - A strong incentive to incorporate high priority public benefits, such as affordable housing, living wages and green building elements into a hotel project; and,
  - A design review process that promotes (or preserves) quality architecture and building design, and enhances place making.

For more information follow this link: Planning and Zoning Commission
To review the revised map follow this link: Hotel Districts Map
To review the revised Public Benefits Table follow this link: Public Benefits Table

Timeline

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 approved a hotel moratorium, pausing hotel development in the city. 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.

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 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 also prepared the following briefing book to familiarize the panel with the issues.