MRA lodge: Timeline of events leading to its rejection in court. What's next?

After nearly 50 hours of hearings over multiple sessions from October 2021 to January 2022, the Montreat Board of Adjustment granted a special use permit for the Mountain Retreat Association to build a new lodge.

More than a year later, in May 2023, a Buncombe County Superior Court judge overturned the permit. In September, Judge Peter Knight handed down a written decision pinpointing financial donations from board members to the MRA and a “not competent” traffic engineer testimony as major reasons for the reversal.

The process had cost the town of Montreat $101,000 — $87,138 in attorney fees and $14,792 in staff fees — through the end of 2022, Mayor Tim Helms told the Montreat Board of Commissioners in February.

MRA President Richard DuBose said while the MRA will not comment on the specifics of the decision, he is disappointed.

“The board granted the MRA a permit to build a lodge on property that has been the location of lodges for decades,” DuBose said. “We weren’t asking for anything unprecedented, and in fact presented a plan that by its very nature would help strengthen and sustain the Montreat that we have. The board understood this. Montreat residents understand this.”

Priscilla Hayner, part of the group opposing the lodge, said the scope of the project was the main objection.

“There’s nothing inherently wrong with constructing new lodges in Montreat,” Hayner told Black Mountain News. “It was the size and the nature of this one that made people sort of extremely uncomfortable and unhappy.”

Origins of the MRA lodge

The first ideas for the lodge emerged in 2018 when the MRA began a study looking at its existing 13 lodges, according to the MRA website. The study would look at revenue of the lodges as well as the conditions of the lodges and guest satisfaction.

In 2019, the MRA began working toward the findings of the study, including redeveloping property the MRA already owned. After looking at other properties, the MRA decided to start work on a parcel of land situated between Assembly Drive and Georgia Terrace that already housed three structures: Galax House, Chestnut Lodge and Lord Apartments.

The MRA contracted Samsel Architects to start work on a new concept. DuBose told Black Mountain News in an emailed statement that it was around this time he contacted the Hayner family asking if they would sell their property, which sits adjacent to the new proposed lodge site. DuBose said the family declined, and the conversation ended amicably. Priscilla Hayner said the conversation ended amicably as well, but that DuBose did not mention plans for a lodge, and no one in the Hayner family asked more.

“While we made no public announcement during this period of preparation, we were not proceeding in secrecy, either,” DuBose said.

By November 2020, a new single, larger lodge to replace the three existing was proposed with conceptual designs. DuBose said initial estimates for the lodge totaled more than $12 million, which the MRA expected to grow. He said with legal fees and inflation the cost of the lodge has “undoubtedly increased,” but the MRA will not know a final number until the end of the process.

Hayner said she and her family found out about the new lodge in February of 2021.

According to previous Black Mountain News reporting, the Hayner family, along with the Jones family who also own property near the proposed lodge, started a petition against the lodge. By May 2021, this petition had 680 signatures.

In October 2021, a quasi-judicial hearing began with the Montreat Board of Adjustment to either grant or deny the MRA a permit to build the proposed lodge on the site.

Throughout sessions in October, November, December and January of the next year, experts took the stand for hours at a time. They were questioned by lawyers from both the MRA and the opposition.

After nearly 50 hours of hearings and less than two hours of deliberation from the board, the MRA was granted a permit for the lodge with a vote of 5-2 in January 2022. Hayner said it was “frustrating” and “shocking” that a decision was come to so quickly.

The appeal

Later that month, the opponents for the lodge filed an appeal with the town to overturn testimony from the zoning administrator. In March 2022, the Board of Adjustment dismissed the appeal.

The next month, the Hayner and Jones families announced their intent to appeal the decision to Buncombe County Superior Court.

In January 2023, the opposition families filed their brief, arguing that the decision was “arbitrary and capricious” and that due process rights were violated.

The brief revealed that five of seven board members had made financial donations to the MRA before and while on the Board of Adjustment. According to the brief, three board members, identified as Board Members 1, 2 and 3 contributed more than $355,000 between 2005 and 2022.

Two other board members, Board Members 4 and 5, who were appointed after the hearing but voted to approve the lodge, made $1,625 in donations from 2007 to 2022 and $700 in donations from 1997 to 2006, respectively.

In March 2023, both the MRA and the town filed briefs of their own arguing due process rights were not violated and the financial contributions were not made directly in support of the lodge and no member had a financial interest in the outcome.

On May 3, a Buncombe County courtroom was packed with Montreat residents as both sides argued their cases. By the end of the month, Knight had informed all parties that he would be overturning the Board of Adjustment’s decision to grant the permit.

On Sept. 18, Knight signed his written decision and handed it down.

“The BOA erred as a matter of law by violating petitioners’ constitutional due process rights to an impartial decision maker when at least four of the seven members who participated in the quasi-judicial hearing were financial contributors to the applicant and did not disclose this information prior to participating in the hearing,” Knight wrote.

He wrote the contributions were evidence of a “close associational relationship” and were in violation of North Carolina general statue 160D-109(d).

Knight’s decision also said the board made an error in using the testimony of the MRA’s traffic engineer because the testimony was “not competent” and “not sufficiently trustworthy.”

The traffic engineer relied solely on evidence provided to him by DuBose and did not verify it.

What's next?

The judge's order does not prevent the MRA from submitting “further or future application or petition.”

DuBose said the MRA is meeting with its board and attorneys to decide on next steps for the property and has “several” options to consider.

“Our property, because it is at the geographic center of our campus, in the center of town, and because it is one of the most underutilized, will be developed,” DuBose said. “We still believe that our planned use is the best and most missional use of that space.”

Hayner said she and the other members of the opposition remain open to working with the MRA to find a “win-win” solution.

“We’re not against construction,” Hayner said. “We think there’s a way for the MRA to achieve what it feels like is necessary to achieve for its own programming ends, which is more accommodation in Montreat and maybe a different kind of accommodation in Montreat. We’re not against that.”

Hayner also said there is a lot of “good will” in Montreat toward the MRA and she wants to continue to support that.

She said she does not believe the legal proceedings are helping Montreat or the MRA and that “there is a better way to get to a positive place.”

“I think we’re all ready to find a positive process forward,” Hayner said. “There’s no intention to have bad will. We are first in line to support the MRA and I hope we’re able to come together to find the right path forward.”

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: MRA lodge: How did we get to this point? What's next for the project?