One of the major recommendations of Goody Clancy, the consulting group hired to prepare Asheville’s Downtown Master Plan, was that the review process for new development adhere to the rule of law. Too many developers were complaining about having sunk thousands of dollars into giving the various review boards what they wanted, only to find in the eleventh hour that city council wanted to subject the project to new flights of fancy and reversals of opinion. So far, so good, but Goody Clancy’s recommendation was to make sponsors (developers, according to my English-Communist dictionary) pay set amounts of public benefits (extortions, according to my . . . ).
The Downtown Commission was the group that lobbied for the plan. Now that city staff is working on changing the Unified Development Ordinance to conform to its recommendations, some members of the Downtown Commission aren’t remembering this key recommendation. Could it be the overwhelming Progressive majority elected to council is grounds to cancel attempts to take away council’s whimsical powers?
