JOHN BOYLE | ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES | 6:00 am EDT October 12, 2020

If you have any doubt that apartment developers see an opportunity in the Asheville area, consider the Oct. 14 Buncombe County Board of Adjustment agenda.

It includes two separate applications for new apartments, one proposal to build 852 units off Sweeten Creek Road in South Asheville, and another to build 660 units at 20 South Bear Creek Road in West Asheville. More precisely, the two locations are just outside the city limits, which is why they’ll go before the county and not the city.

Kate Millar, president of the Malvern Hills Neighborhood Association, which opposes the nearby 20 South Bear Creek project, likens the spate of apartment building to the recent hotel boom and wonders if Asheville and Buncombe are becoming overbuilt. A key moving forward, she said, will be finding a balance between people, a sense of place, growth, and profit.

“I think it is a critical time to look at what it will take to grow and not lose ourselves in the process,” Millar said via email. “The city and the county really need to get on the same page. It strikes me that multi-family housing is a place that investment capital from elsewhere likes to flow right now, much like hotels were before the pause. Does this roving capital really care about places that they themselves don’t live? Or is it just an extractive arrangement?”