Email Asheville City Council and tell them you support sustainable and attainable housing in all our neighborhoods.
On January 9, 2024, Asheville City Council will receive the Missing Middle Housing Study & Displacement Risk Assessment, which details our city’s severe housing supply shortage and offers strategies to protect vulnerable neighborhoods from displacement while encouraging more attainable and environmentally-friendly missing middle housing, such as duplexes, fourplexes, and cottage courts.
Asheville desperately needs more housing, and where and how that housing is built is incredibly important. By embracing missing-middle housing and building closer to public amenities and where infrastructure already exists, we can meet our housing needs in a way that is more climate-friendly and energy-efficient, minimizes vehicle miles traveled, and reduces sprawling development that encroaches on our forests, farms, and green spaces.
Join MountainTrue in encouraging Asheville City Council and staff to vigorously pursue a missing middle housing strategy that unlocks housing opportunities and attainability in every neighborhood across the city while also working alongside our Legacy Neighborhoods and vulnerable communities to adopt anti-displacement strategies that will protect existing residents and preserve affordable housing.
We also believe that implementing Missing Middle Housing fairly, equitably, and effectively requires legalizing a greater variety of housing options in every neighborhood. As the study points out, Missing Middle Housing is more walkable, attainable, and better for the environment, but selective implementation that prioritizes development first in neighborhoods that are already economically vulnerable can aggravate displacement and gentrification in those very same neighborhoods. We can do better. Call on Asheville City Council to pair the broader legalization housing options with policies that prevent displacement for people who live in our vulnerable and Legacy Neighborhoods.
Learn more about Asheville’s Missing Middle Housing Study.
Click here to visit the webpage for the City of Asheville’s Missing Middle Housing Study, where you can download a PDF for the full report.
