Update on Air Rights

Update: Air Rights (Asheville PARC has placed an upset bid on downtown air rights to draw attention to the issues that City Council is ignoring in selling off air rights to developers).

"Several times recently, Asheville City Council has agreed to sell our air space to developers for next to nothing . . .. This is essentially the privatization of our public space, without regard to the loss of existing trees, the inability to plant more, the blocking of our light and view and the fact that the taxpayers are subsidizing private development." -Julie Brandt

 

 

The developers of 21 Battery Park created a building that is out of scale with the neighborhood (above). The city's sale of air rights over the public sidewalks and alleyways allowed this to happen. If the developers had built the balconies over their own land, this oversized building would be in scale with the other buildings on the block.

Click here to read PARC spokeswoman Julie Brandt's commentary on air rights, published in today's Asheville Citizen-Times.