In September, 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.
To move the process forward, the City will host a community conversation on Jan. 9 titled “Impacts of Hotels: A Community Discussion.” The conversation will be facilitated by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) of Charlotte. ULI will utilize a Technical Assistance Program Panel (TAP) process in order to study the issues surrounding hotel development. The panel will be comprised of experts from across the southeast who, with the help of city staff, will quantify the impacts of new hotel development and obtain a better understanding of all the concerns and then evaluate best planning practices to address those concerns.
This is the first of a swift two-step process, which will bring the ULI panel back on Jan. 30 to present their findings to the community. At that time they will provide recommendations on best land use practices and other tools and strategies the City might consider to better plan for and regulate hotel development.
Meeting 1:
5:30 to 7 p.m. Jan. 9
The Collider, 1 Haywood St., Fourth Floor
Meeting 2:
5:30 to 7 p.m. Jan. 30
Harrah’s Cherokee Center Asheville, 87 Haywood St.
Council’s ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium on new hotel development states that “the City finds that it presently lacks a clear development strategy regarding hotels, and needs to develop a set of review criteria that allows the City to account for the negative impacts of proposed hotel developments.”
Following the public process and analysis, City staff will come back to Council with recommendations for development and approval of appropriate land use policies, strategies, tools and regulations. The public can anticipate these recommendations in the summer of 2020.