WECAN board meeting minutes February 3, 2022

WECAN Board Meeting Minutes February 3, 2022 meeting on Zoom @ 6:30 pm

 Board Members present: Byron Ballard, Joe Fioccola, Rebecca Lance, Sylvia Organ, Carrie Pettler, Pattiy Torno and Suzanne Willis. 

Board Members not present: Stephanie El-Hajj, Mike Kenton, Rachel Larson, Rich Peterson, Brittany Wager and Davina Weirich.

Also Present: Swann Lander, Patrick Pearson.

 CALL TO ORDER: Rebecca called the meeting to order at 6:30 pm.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:  Byron moved and Pattiy seconded a motion to approve the minutes of the January 6 Meeting as distributed and corrected. The motion passed.

 TREASURER’S REPORT: Pattiy reported the balance is $1752.45. She is still waiting for receipts for Halloween decorations and is set to submit the annual 990 postcard report to the IRS.

 A recording of the meeting began at 6:31 pm

 APD/NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES

 BLOCK JESSIES: Joe noted that Mr Bacoate’s 92^nd birthday is next week. Pattiy shared a story about getting his first driver’s license. She also reported that JoAnne is doing well with her girls taking care of her. She also gave high marks for Haywood Appliance, who did a great job installing Jessie’s microwave. Suzanne asked how we could find out when snow will be cleared from our streets. Some streets never get plowed or salted. Neighborhood Coordinator Jeremy Lett left his job with the city for some other dream job. Joe noted that his department head, Dawa Hitch, staffed the last NAC meeting. Joe observed a lean-to tent back at the Melk property even though the new City policy of moving campers after 48 hours. A male with a bicycle has been there for two weeks. When Sanitation cleared the trash and brush in the fall they stopped part way because it was beyond what they do. Darlene in Sanitation called NCDOT and they came. There is a question about who to call since Jeremy is gone. Neighborhood Services, Parking Services, Neighborhood Community Engagement, Homeward Bound but email works best.

 HAYWOOD STREET COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT UPDATES Carrie Pettler had four things to update.

      1-Municipal process: Buncombe County voted unanimously to approve $749,000 (of the $2 million requested) to fund HSCD. Next step is a formal meeting on Feb 11 with HCD( Housing and Community Development) to get on the City Council Agenda for their February 22 meeting. At that point a 3 part vote will happen to 1 Approve/deny the conditional zoning to CBII; Approve $1.3M to purchase the land; and Approve $3M for construction costs.

      2-Scoring Matrix: Carrie asked for input for prioritizing acceptance of Section 8 vouchers to live in the development. For equity and fairness no group should be excluded.  HCSD has a great group of people involved and working on it. She asked: what does the neighborhood want? Pattiy suggested recommendation from local support system, or from someone in the neighborhood. She gave an example of Jo Anne’s granddaughter who has a voucher and takes care of her but has no place to use it.Walter Hadden’s daughter also needs a place. Single parents with children should be helped since we are close to Isaac Dickson Elementary and Aston Park. City employees, first responders or people who work close to the area was also mentioned. Length of residence in Buncombe County or western NC might also be a consideration.

      3-Naming: Brian offered for consideration the name of Laura Jo Foster as a local heroine. She was active in several organizations in the community like the ‘Y’ and ran a guest house/hotel listed in the ‘Green Book’ Negro Traveler’s Guide at ‘88 Clangman Avenue.’ Her husband was active in the Pullman Porters Union. Another name to consider is Queen Carson who was the first female principal of the Park Avenue School. It was later named for her.  Ida Jolly Crawley was a nationally known painter who left her house at 31 Park Avenue as a museum to the City of Asheville. It later became Hangar Hall.

https://mountainx.com/news/asheville-archives-ida-jolly-crawley-launches-her-magical-museum-1919/ Also mentioned for consideration was Leona Shope Bassett 1894-1992. She lived at 17 Girdwood Street and was related to several families in the West End.

      4-Color choice: several siding colors were shown from jameshardie.com. No decision needed yet.

The next HSCD Board meeting will be February 21.

.DEVELOPMENT UPDATES: Pattiy gave updates on 4 projects:

1- The River Arts Apartments at 146 Roberts Street (the old Dave Steel site) will begin construction March 1. There was an issue with their request to close Roberts Street for twelve months from the Carolina Glass south to the Depot traffic circle. This brought up the related issues of parking on Clingman Avenue Extension near the Odyssey Studio and one-way traffic on Roberts and Clingman Extension. There are historic problems with one way streets for businesses, bicyclists and tourists.

2-The Radical Hotel: 95-97 Roberts Street already approved clearing the lost across the street has already begun.

3-The Artful Way above the Grey eagle goes to TRC on Monday. It is also designed by-right with public comment only @ Design Review Committee and no need for approval from P&Z or City Council.                      

4-Not Named yet 159 Riverside Drive has been approved and should start construction this year.

Pattiy shared that a RADBA group called the RadPack has been involved and has seen presentations of these proposals.

 5- The Avery at Clingman and Hilliard was approved and P+Z and added entrances like brownstone on the Clingman side. Also 5% of this project will be affordable (9 units) and 5 of those units will accept housing vouchers, out of the 196. Suzanne asked if the city could require affordable units on developments. Rebecca suggested asking at HCD. This also brought up a discussion of the fact the Asheville is subject to Dillon’s Rule which means that municipalities exist at the pleasure of the state legislature which can revoke any or all city powers any time they choose.

 GARDEN GRANTS: Pattiy reported that Tom Downing is now keeping up with the process. Last month she asked for help in renewing our expired agreements with the City for maintaining Owens-Bell Park(Suzanne Horton  at Parks and Rec) and the WECAN Queen Carson Community Garden (?). Swann volunteered to take on that task and adventure into city government. Pattiy is still trying to get all our agreements in one place so that personnel turnovers and retirements don’t cancel them. She is keeping up with Ken Putnam on the NCDOT agreements.

     The Community Garden (at Jefferson and West Haywood) Joe noted that Lynn Player has ideas for improving the raised beds, the rain barrel bases and more effective compost area.  She asked for help on repairing/replacing the rotting fencing.

     The Sign Garden (at Clingman and Hilliard) needs sign fence repair and replanting in front of the hedge and removal of the overgrown Japanese hollies. Pattiy recommended lantanas (a low floral shrub) and colorful, lively and more welcoming flowers.

     Owens-Bell Park Sunny Cultural Garden (next to the bus stop) since 2006 has become a shady garden. She suggested moving the cannas and rose to sunnier locations and replacing them with azaleas, rhododendrons and hellebores, and think about enhancing the photo signs and dogwood.

     Clingman Edible Triangle (at the Grey Eagle) since only 8 of the 18 blueberries survived need to infil also mulch and possibly other edibles.

     Kudzu Hill needs clearing to the trail in phases and will have a carefully marked test patch to control or eliminate the kudzu but keep nettles.

     Melk wall (across from ART on W Haywood) the contract here is current. Pattiy is asking McCrae about clearing the site so we can plant or a put a playground or an orchard there.

     Other areas of concern are ivy removal at Owens-Bell and Short Hilliard, clearing Rector triangle, maybe something at the traffic circle.

OTHER BUSINESS:
      Swann said she reached out to several WECAN members and hasn’t heard how she can help. She requested direction for information to help get projects going.

       Joe observed that on February 1 1997, twenty five years ago, was the first meeting at Riverlink of the West End Clingman Neighborhood.

     Pattiy needs to make a plant order soon and asked for help in selecting plants. Native plants and bird and pollinator-friendly and  a persimmon were suggested.

 ADJOURN: Meeting adjourned at 8:05 p.m.            

 Next WECAN Board meeting March 3, 2022 @ 6:30 pm

Minutes submitted by Joe Fioccola       

Email pattiytorno@gmail.com for a link to the recording of the zoom meeting.