Last night’s Asheville City Council meeting was actually fun. It started as usual, and I was daydreaming about writing an article about “what didn’t happen” at the meeting. On the agenda were two proposed apartment complexes adorned with strategic-goal accouterments to woo council members, of course. Community Development Director Jeff Staudinger had just briefed council on a local housing study. It said there was a housing shortage in all income categories.

But during the public hearing, folks who swore they were not NIMBY’s were once again out in force concerned about safety for children. Some complained that the first project was not designed for community participation. Excuse me? We have altogether lost the concept of private property in this town. Sure, you want to go play in this part of your community, but what if the new neighbors want to congregate on your porch when you’re trying to sleep? We embrace diversity and welcome community, but both concepts are so one-way.

With a few miraculous exceptions who I hold near and dear to my heart – like the rock star I only see at concerts – personal interactions involve getting on each others’ nerves. Tolerance and compromise are essential. So, how does the community get off telling the diverse new kid on the block that they’re all wrong. Not only do they need to buy more on public amenities for folks who got there first, it’s my way or the highway for the folks who weren’t really that much of a community before the project came along.

Then, there was just plain supply-and-demand economics. One councilman, whose name I will suppress in the hope he does some homework before the city council retreat, spoke against adding any housing; he wanted additions to the affordable housing stock. In his presentation, Staudinger had repeated some contorted euphemism that I interpreted to mean, “You guys are regulating the &#)@ out of the housing market.” I flashed back to a photo of David Boaz at the Cato Institute. I tried to find it without success. Some disaster or another that the conservative think tanks had been warning about came to fruition. (There have been too many to recall.) Anyway, Boaz was pictured making stacks of papers fly off his desk. It expressed the frustration of the “I told you so” moment. Fortunately for us, Councilman Marc Hunt understood how adding any housing stock would increase landlord competition, thus incentivizing lower rents. And he wasn’t afraid to speak up.

Adding to the victories, former mayor Lou Bissette, representing the first developer, challenged some of the claims made by Patsy Brison, who was representing neighborhood protesters. He said the charges were serious, and he demanded a word with the city attorney. That is, if the bombs that were being dropped were true, then city staff had obviously misled Bissette during the expensive and torturous development review process. As it turned out, city staff decided in favor of Bissette on four counts. And so, after the developer threw in an additional $150,000 for sidewalks, the project was approved. Representing the developer for the next project, Bissette said, “I hope I don’t fall over here.”

I like to use compliments sparingly so they will mean something, and these three people have earned three cheers:

  • Councilman Marc Hunt for understanding and defending basic economic theory. Scarcity thereof has rendered it priceless.
  • Lou Bissette for challenging affronts to reason. May it be an example that encourages others to do the same.
  • City Attorney Robin Currin, who through thorough questioning and other actions is probably sparing the city a lot of lawsuits.