ASHEVILLE — A downtown business improvement district was overwhelmingly approved by the Asheville City Council in June. But what shape the district will take and which entity will ultimately manage it will only be determined when a request for proposals is issued in September.
Despite assurances of good intentions, a resolution passed by the council to ease skepticism and essentially creating guidelines for a request for proposals, a presentation given to the local homeless commission on Aug. 15 prompted a barrage of questions and some anxiety.
Karen Hayes Roberts, a board member for Continuum of Care and a person with homeless experience, said she felt the BID would not be beneficial to the downtown homeless population, echoing concerns heard before the City Council vote, including worries about displacing the city’s homeless population and sending in people who aren’t properly trained to respond to mental health crises.
“Of course, if you’re homeless, you get harassed. Because we’re homeless, business owners don’t want us on their property,” she said, echoing roars of agreement around the banquet hall at Harrah’s Cherokee Center downtown.
Hayes Roberts is a trauma and resilience educator for Umoja, an Asheville health, wellness and justice organization, and a peer support specialist for Community Paramedics.
“How are you going to build trust with the homeless community when you have past trauma with downtown business owners? When you have past trauma with police? When you have past trauma with the sheriff’s department? When you have past trauma with people in uniform?” she said.
“This is to clean up the downtown area, but from whom are they going to clean it up? From us?”
Why BIDs?
Defined by state law, a BID (municipal service district) is a mechanism for providing complementary city services within a given area. Initial services for Asheville’s Downtown BID will include “safety and hospitality,” enhanced cleaning, and special projects.
A map of the district is linked on the project page: https://publicinput.com/t0864.
North Carolina has 66 “place-making focused” BIDs, and some cities, such as Raleigh, have had municipal districts since the 1990s.
The BID utilizes an 8-cent tax (per $100 of assessed value) levied on downtown property owners to fund additional services in the city’s central business district. The BID is estimated to generate a budget of $1.25 million and is approved annually by City Council.
This isn’t the first time a BID effort has been launched in Asheville, but this time the proposal was put forward by the Asheville Downtown Association and Chamber of Commerce under the slogan “Clean and Safe.”
Calls for a BID intensified and a feasibility study was funded in spring 2023, a time of growing protests from downtown business owners over what many felt was an increase in crime downtown. According to data reported by the Asheville Police Department, citywide crime decreased from 2022 to 2023, with violent crime down 18% and property crime down 13%.
Was the CoC consulted?
The CoC is a community-led collaborative planning agency responsible for overseeing a coordinated response to homelessness in Asheville and Buncombe County. The CoC’s board of directors has 16 members, including two non-voting liaisons from the City Council and Buncombe County Commission. Members range from health care workers and shelter directors to public safety representatives.
The board met for the first time in May after a major reorganization.
The CoC would have a seat on the steering committee, which must be established after a BID service provider is selected through an RFP process. Either way, for some at the Aug. 15 meeting, it appeared to be the first time they had heard about the proposal.
When asked if the CoC was consulted prior to approving the BID, Deputy Mayor Ben Woody, who provided an update in August, said city staff had not led public engagement through the CoC or in any other way, as the BID effort was initiated by the Chamber of Commerce.
The second of two votes needed to approve the BID passed 6-1 on June 11. The first meeting of the CoC members was held on February 29th, when they voted to adopt a new governance charter, and the first meeting of the board was held on May 23rd.
After the BID was approved, staff began their own engagement process, which included a public survey conducted throughout July and August, as well as several focus group meetings, including one with individuals experiencing homelessness. Results of the public survey are also available on the project page.
Dana Frankel, the city’s downtown project manager, said she has spoken with Homeless Strategy Division Manager Emily Ball about including a representative from the CoC on the steering committee.
CoC members respond to BID
Some questions remained about the proposed “community stewards,” sometimes called ambassadors. They would be intended to “actively engage with the public and provide directions, assistance and safe escorts when requested,” according to Woody’s presentation. They could connect homeless people to resources such as Community Responders, a program led by the Asheville Fire Department, and Buncombe County’s Community Paramedics.
Woody said community stewards would ideally be people who have “experienced poverty” and are trained in anti-racism, mental health first aid, harm reduction and de-escalation. Those in these positions would be unarmed and not additional law enforcement or security personnel, Woody said.
Buncombe County Commissioner Parker Sloan, who sits on the CoC board as a non-voting liaison, said he’s been “shocked and disillusioned” by the chamber’s pitch to the managers since he first heard about it.
Sloan said he supports BIDs in general and isn’t necessarily opposed to them in Asheville, and envisions the funds being used for festivals, decorations and enhancing downtown infrastructure, but he balks on the issue of a community caretaker.
“Their presence implies that downtown is not a place for the people who live here,” he said, likening them to “mall security guards” catering to visitors.
Sloan said if taxes were to increase, he would like to do so to hire local rescue and emergency personnel.
Woody said services provided using BID funds will be limited to within the district boundaries.
Elvia Diaz, a CoC member with experience of homelessness, was among those who asked whether BID funding could be used to improve access to restrooms. As another member pointed out, there are no places to use restrooms downtown after 11 p.m., except in bars. In public surveys, restrooms were listed as one of the most important items of needed cleanliness services.
Another commissioner asked whether the city had looked at data from other BIDs to see if they had seen an increase in arrests of people experiencing homelessness downtown.
Woody said he hasn’t looked at that kind of data, but that reports would likely be provided to council on a quarterly basis to understand the impact on the district.
Others were more optimistic about the BID, like Safe Shelter Director Christian Chambers, who was part of the city’s focus group and helped organize the participants. Chambers said concerns shared at the CoC meeting were also addressed then.
“I know there’s a lot of negativity around this subject, but like everything else I’ve talked about, if you think outside the box and do the right thing for the right people, the right place, and humanity, this can actually be a great thing,” he said.
What next?
A request for proposals for management organizations/service providers will be made public Sept. 20, Frankel said. The Asheville City Council could consider approving a service contract as early as November.
“Do I think it’s going to be perfect from the get-go? Probably not,” Frankel told the Citizen-Times after the meeting, “but we’re building in different measures of engagement and accountability, and touchpoints, and I think working together we can strive for success.”
“We’re not afraid to make changes if something isn’t working the way we intended it to,” Woody said.
More: Asheville City Council votes 6-1 to create downtown business improvement district
More: Split bid vote at Asheville Downtown Commission sends mixed message to council: What’s next?
Sarah Honosky is a city affairs reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Have a news tip? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message her on X (formerly Twitter) @slhonosky. Support local daily journalism by subscribing to the Citizen Times.
