Buncombe County budget retreat: Affordable housing top priority for coming year

Buncombe County Board of Commissioners voted affordable housing as the top spending priority for the coming fiscal year during a Dec. 9 budget retreat.

The nearly five-hour meeting saw county staff and elected officials mull preliminary ideas for fiscal year 2023 -- which spans July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 -- after they discussed the accomplishments of fiscal year 2022.

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But, at the end of the meeting, commissioners shifted gears to conduct a group polling activity, using sticky notes, poster paper and markers to list priorities for the next spending year, and then anonymously vote on which ones they perceived as most important.

"Affordable housing" was ranked highest out of 11 different priorities with a vote score of 24, beating out "climate and environmental solutions" which scored 19 and "apprenticeships," which scored 13.

Affordable housing was a top commission priority last December, too.

Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder during the retreat's kick-off presentation said the government during the past year helped 4,500 people “keep their homes by distributing about 7.5 million for rent, mortgage and utility assistance.”

County spending also put more than $2 million toward affordable house subcommittee grants in FY 2022 money toward 205 new units, Pinder said.

“It was interesting to see that it shifted up from last year,” Community Development Division Manager Matt Cable said in an interview after the meeting.

Cable presented a list of affordable housing goals during the retreat, outlining a preliminary draft of numbers the county could aspire to by 2030:

• 1,500 rental units for households at or below 80% of the area median income with an average at or less than 60%

• 400 ownership units for households at or below 80% of the area median income

• 500 repair units for households at or below 80% of the area median income

• 400 ownership or rental units for households at or below between 80% and 120% of the area median income to

Other goals included units for homeless households, unit access/ownership for BIPOC (Black, indigenous, people of color) households, unit access for voucher-holding households, housing for individuals with disabilities and those who are part of the senior population.

“We have set very lofty goals,” Commissioner Amanda Edwards said. Edwards with Commissioner Parker Sloan and Chairman Brownie Newman are all on the Affordable Housing Committee.

“It speaks to the very serious need we have, and it speaks very well that all seven commissioners really understand the need,” Edwards said.

“Our community is in a tough spot with affordability, whether it’s from just general interest from the whole country in moving here and how that impacts gentrification and the cost of living or other things,” Sloan said. “One of the big ways to counter that is not only potential regulation but government funding to try and build our way out of the crisis.”

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According to Cable’s presentation, Buncombe County would need “significant” staff and funding resources to accomplish this.

It may also take redevelopment of county-owned properties.

Cable’s presentation emphasized several of these: two neighboring lots at 36 Valley St. and 205 College St.; a cluster of lots on Coxe Avenue, Aston Street, Sawyer Street and Hilliard Avenue; and one lot at 35 Woodfin St.

Feasibility studies for redevelopment on these lots could last from FY 2023 through as late as FY 2027, though Pinder noted that timeline could be quicker where possible.

Newman after the presentation handed out a memo to commission and staff titled “Proposal for a new, more effective strategy to address the affordable housing crisis in Buncombe County.”

In it, he cited data from a 2020 Bowen National Research report that found there were 7,439 renter households in Buncombe where “families are severely cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than 50% of their total income just pay rent.”

The 2030 goal of having 1,500 new, “deeply affordable” units would require Buncombe to more than double the number of new affordable apartments built each year, Newman said.

In the memo he suggested using the national Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program to meet this goal. This federal program “subsidizes the acquisition, construction and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing for low- and moderate-income tenants,” according to the Tax Policy Center.

It has a 4% and a 9% tax credit, with the latter being more competitive.

Newman in the memo pointed to the MHO Lakeshore Apartments in Arden and said the project is expected to receive $9.6 million in 4% tax credits while using the program, and he held it up as a potential model for what Buncombe could achieve.

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“By using the 4% tax credit program, a collective community investment of $52.5 million could result in 1,500 new, deeply affordable units by bringing in an additional $120 million of outside funding to our county,” Newman said in the memo, noting there could be variations on that model if applied.

He said in an interview he’s had the memo in his head for about a month following subcommittee research.

Agendas show research on the 4% credit model was presented to the Affordable Housing Committee on Oct. 5, along with other funding proposals.

“I feel like we’re really starting to lay the groundwork for how to do some sort of major structural work in the years and decades ahead,” Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara said, adding she’d like to know more about the implications of the 4% credit model.

Commissioners and staff acknowledged the need to address projects quickly, given the pressures of a growing population across the economic spectrum.

“One of the points that was mentioned was homelessness,” Commissioner Al Whitesides said. “We have got to be serious about that. We are putting Band-Aids on the problem. As I drive around Asheville now, I’m concerned, because it’s eating us alive.”

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Andrew Jones is Buncombe County government and health care reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow or reach him at @arjonesreports on Facebook and Twitter. Email him at arjones@citizentimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Buncombe commission votes affordable housing top 2023 budget priority