Why come together?
Smart Growth Coalition members share a desire for Asheville and Buncombe County to be livable, vibrant, affordable, and sustainable, and we believe that the community can most fully achieve these goals if its growth is consistent with “smart growth” principles:
- Design compact, pedestrian-friendly communities.
- Provide transportation and housing choices.
- Encourage mixed-use development.
- Preserve and enhance downtowns and other urban centers.
- Build vibrant public spaces.
- Protect environmental resources.
- Conserve open space and working lands.
- Design matters
Being home to an already vibrant city, a rich rural heritage, productive farmland, and a diverse population, we want to enhance the existing quality of life in a way that draws on proven principles but also respects our region’s uniqueness.
We come together as diverse interests – bike/pedestrian, transit, greenways, health, aging, open space, housing, farmland preservation, downtown revitalization, sustainable development, and others – to create a vehicle for action that can compound the effect of our individual efforts.
What we want to do
Through leadership, advocacy, and education, ensure that transportation and land use policies and plans in Buncombe County, Asheville, and other municipalities accommodate growth while also revitalizing communities, improving housing and travel choices, and conserving the natural environment and working landscapes.
Issues we will tackle
- Revise the Asheville UDO to simplify it, better implement the 2025 plan, include new planning tools, and help promote neighborhood level education and planning
- Engage in and develop benchmarks for the GroWNC effort at the Land of Sky Regional Council
- Revisit the County land use plan and ordinances to strengthen the conservation subdivision ordinance and explore the use of new planning tools to preserve farmland
- Engage deeply in regional transportation planning
- We will also support others’ efforts around smart growth, including greenway planning; fighting rollbacks in good growth policies at the state and federal levels; and funding for parks, greenways, sidewalks, bikes, and transit.
Who is the Coalition?
– Asheville Greenworks
– Asheville on Bikes
– Children First
– Flying Cloud Farm
– Hickory Nut Gap Farm
– Jack of the Wood/Joe Eckert
– Liberty Bikes
– Mountain Housing Opportunities
– Mosaic Realty
– Public Interest Projects
– Transition Asheville
– WaysSouth
– WNCA
– WNOCA Chapter of Sierra Club
– YMCA
If you want to get involved in the coalition, please contact Julie Mayfield at 828-258-8737 or Julie@wnca.org.