PART 2: The RAD's Uneven Flow | Hedy Fischer, Gail McCarthy, Stephanie Monson Dahl

This is the second half of my conversation with Hedy Fischer and Gail McCarthy, who along with their artist husbands bought buildings in the River Arts District early on and are committed to keeping those buildings open and affordable for other artists. They’re joined here by Stephanie Monson Dahl, the city’s manager of Urban Design, Place Strategies, and Long Range Planning.

If you missed Part One, dial back in your podcasting app to listen to that first before tuning in here. In today's episode, we talk through concerns of losing artists in the RAD and strategies for keeping them there. We talk about conversations city leaders are having around land equity with the Southside neighborhood and how artists could potentially migrate there. We also get into the stakes for the RAD and all of Asheville if the state takes away the city’s ability to regulate short-term rentals.

Help "The Overlook with Matt Peiken" podcast reach its very reachable goal: Just $1,000 in monthly contributions by Election Day. Membership at our Patreon campaign starts at just $5/month. 

Transcript

Matt Peiken: You just said something that was interesting to me. Stephanie, You said that there are certain incentives to keep a certain percentage of these new units affordable. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: It's not the percentage. It's if they want to add on additional units And say like by right i'm allowed to do four stories in this area, but I really would like to do something bigger. We will allow that. That's a bonus on them. And if they do that, then we're going to require that they're affordable units. So that's the incentive piece of it. In the state of North Carolina, we cannot require anyone to do a certain percentage of their units as affordable. 

Matt Peiken: You can't use that as a carrot. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: So it is a carrot. So it's a carrot to say, you know what, you want to be bigger. We'll allow you to be bigger, but it has to serve a real public purpose. 

Matt Peiken: I'm just wondering how many of these developments from the RADview, Wyre, 179 Riverside and Stoneyard, have any of those taken advantage of that offer?

Stephanie Monson Dahl: So originally most of them were taking advantage of it, but it is really difficult to develop in this area. I'm going to give you an example for the Wyre. Right underneath the Wyre was a 200 year old stormwater drainage system that had been hand built and just 200 is exaggerating over 100. And if anybody remembers the sinkholes that were happening at All Souls up the street like we all know what's going on like, The amount of money and work that developer put in to make sure that area, which had been used as an industrial facility.

And it was, it was contaminated, it was really significant, and there is a balance here of asking private developers to help with the biking, help with the parking, help with the environmental contamination, fix all of the storm water that's underneath it, and then say, and additionally, we want you to do affordable units.

I want to just put that out there that a lot of the developers are already doing things That are making this place more sustainable for the next hundred years. And that's a tradeoff, but some of these folks are I believe the new residences Which are you know 144 and 159 Riverside, I think five percent, Which doesn't sound like a lot but you know if that's If they end up doing over 200 units, then there's 

Matt Peiken: 10 to 15 units or so. I was just curious that not that it has to be an either or on infrastructure or affordable housing I was just curious.

I appreciate you giving me that context that there's a lot of work that goes into Making these new buildings habitable by current code and current standards. I understand that. You mentioned that your department was concerned First about the first word of River Arts District. That was initially, you know You We gotta think about the river and what you know potential flooding and other elements of that. The second word of this is the arts and gail and heady You're both you both got in you and your husband's got in early on the River Arts District before it became as expensive as it is now you talked about heady how you don't even pay attention to what other people are charging. I'm just curious, have developers come to you and wanted to purchase your buildings?

Hedy Fischer: Not seriously yet. I'll say yet. I get fishing. But I don't think they're serious. They're looking for a bottom feeding. 

Matt Peiken: So you said you've had some tenants since the beginning. Maybe that's perfectly fine. I'm wondering though, as you both are aware that more and more artists are getting pushed out.

Are you concerned that we, I know Katie Cornell over at ArtsAVL has been concerned that we are going to lose the arts in River Arts District. The magnetic theater is gone. I know individual artists who've had to move or shuffle their spaces. Are you concerned that we are losing the arts from the River Arts District, the way things are going?

Gail McCarthy: I would say , and I think I'm a little older than you are, I would say that the one thing that would happen would be our deaths. 

Because someone will come to our heirs and say, I'll buy this building. We have, and I know you two have as well, Hedy. We have a personal commitment and desire, need, whatever it is to be doing what we're doing. But that could change. 

Matt Peiken: I know with land there's conservation easements, right? You can have land trusts built in. Could you do that for your properties? Or would you even do this to make it where In perpetuity, our buildings are locations for affordable workspaces. Is that something you're interested or could do? 

Hedy Fischer: I don't know if there's anything available like that. Yeah. Out there. I've never heard of it if there is. Not even if you start a foundation. 

Gail McCarthy: A non profit, a foundation, or something like that. 

Hedy Fischer: I don't know anything like that. That would enable those buildings to stay art studios in perpetuity.

But I agree 100 percent with Gail. So many of the buildings in the River Arts District are owned by People that are of retirement age already.

Stephanie Monson Dahl: This is an enormous deal. We call it the great turnover,

Hedy Fischer: the great turnover. And at least Gail and Brian have children to turn it over to. Randy and I don't. So 

Matt Peiken: do you want to adopt me? 

Hedy Fischer: Well, 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: you know, Another point of this though, and Is many of the artists that own these buildings they are growing older. And as you said, Gail there's this potentially at some point you will pass on. Also many of these people are artists and they're not, they weren't, they didn't have traditional jobs that said that you have a pension or 401k or any of these other kinds of investments.

So thinking about, this might be their only asset for their retirement. Some maybe not, but. Yes, there, there are ways to put buildings in land in trust basically to put them in trust or to start not for profits, but you also have to endow that not for profit to be able to afford to 

Matt Peiken: stay that way, 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: to stay that way.

So it's one thing you can't really, it's not going to be legally binding. You can't put on a deed necessarily and make it work like this shall stay an artist studio forever. And so that's like a taking of some sort, but there are ways that we could look at mechanisms to keep those buildings owned by artists.

I think that is one of the strategies that people have been talking about to say if we want to keep the arts in the arts district. By the way, the city absolutely wants to keep the River Arts District. We would like the river to stay and we would like the artists to stay. 

Hedy Fischer: That's encouraging. 

Gail McCarthy: So do you think that the city would be interested in, I don't know if you've even talked about it, but now that we're talking about this, trying to Come up with some new innovative plan where they could make that possible and workable. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: I think the city's main assets for mechanisms like this is to provide additional brainpower resources and to help act as a convener for different partners. So as an example, the city really spearheaded the creation of the Asheville Buncombe Community Land Trust that now exists today and that was in 2014 after the creation of a report about gentrification Especially in the south side neighborhood just adjacent to the River Arts District, which we can talk about by the way. But we said, We don't necessarily have the money.

We're not going to endow this community land trust with 5 million to just make it happen, but we can hold all the meetings, record all the minutes, bring in experts, have those conversations to think about what is a way for us to try to make it take? Yes. 

The city also has land in the River Arts District And so I see my role moving forward as being a part of the conversation about how the city stewards that land So that we continue Supporting the vibrancy of the River Arts District. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah, you mentioned we could talk about south side. I had members of the south side neighborhood association in here and they lamented how they River Arts District gets from their vantage a lot of attention and they feel neglected that River Arts District used to be part of what South Side was a previous name.

I can't remember what the name of South Side was, but anyway, it was all one district. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: South Side was just a very large area. It was the south side of our town so included everything from the east end valley street neighborhood, The entire area of what now many, people call the south slope, everything that now that the south side united neighborhood association Is a part of and yes a lot of the River Arts District, especially that section of depot street Right a lot of black businesses in the area an amazing history and legacy there.

And the city's been having conversations with leaders in the Southside United neighborhood to talk about that investment that they're looking for. What Southside United did this year that's really important is that they came together and they created the vision for the neighborhood and it's a plan on a page and it explains what they want to see and how they want to get there.

Now we can have those conversations. The difference with the River Arts District is that neighborhood, the River Arts District, there already were plans. There were plans from the 1980s, and then I mentioned the Wilma Dykeman Riverway Master Plan that was created by Riverlink, or commissioned by Riverlink and created by others as a community effort.

That's part of planning right is the you have to be able to get together and put on a piece of paper What it is you want to see, and south side has done that and now it's their time. 

Matt Peiken: You're saying they've done that recently. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: They've done that this year.

Matt Peiken: Yeah I'm wondering if there's talk. You mentioned depot street and that's a bridge between River Arts District and south side. Is there any talk about and with artists and building owners, hey Let's Collaborate, let's try to expand into What is now south side, which is still undervalued?

Stephanie Monson Dahl: There has been for years And I want Hedy to talk about this a little bit because she's got some background, but i'll just say There's conversation about just like in physical spaces making sure that we put more neighborhood Branding up for the south side neighborhood and maybe Pushing it up depot street a little bit. 

But years ago, I mean, a decade or more, there were folks that did they started a fund called one neighborhood and there was a fundraiser every year to support sending youth from the South side neighborhood to different arts classes in the River Arts District.

And the idea was to break down those barriers and say, let's get parents and their children into these studios and create a space for them. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah. So Hedy, what are you aware of trying to move or expand the River Arts District into what is now Southside?

Hedy Fischer: When we bought the building that became Pink Dog, we were very aware that we were the bridge, in a sense, between what has primarily been a white artists district and a black neighborhood. And we consciously have tried to program Pink Dog in such a way that it would act as a bridge and act as a safe space.

And we did that by having black artists in our studios. We have a black owned coffee shop. And if you go into The Grind, It's one of the few places in all of Asheville where you'll see black and white people in there having meetings and working on their computers and sitting and drinking coffee and interacting.

We also sponsored youth Arts empowered, which was Cleaster Cotton's project, and she would bring kids from Southside neighborhoods and do art classes and enable them to have exhibitions in our gallery. And their and their parents and their cousins and their aunties and their neighbors would all come to Pink Dog and, see their children's art up on the walls and it created a hope, a safe space for people that wanted to be in there.

Matt Peiken: That building existed before you bought it though, right? It did. So one of the things I'm wondering Stephanie, is, it seems like, What's happened, Gail and Brian and Hedy and Randy and other developers took buildings that already existed and did something with them. Is Southside equipped? Are there already buildings there that could be refurbished, reused, or would it have to be new development? I look at the new community center. What's the name of that community center? 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: The Grant. Dr. Wesley Grant. It's fantastic. Sure. 

Matt Peiken: It's a fantastic new building. A community center there. You talked about Riverside being a catalyst for development. I'm wondering could that community center and the There seems to be land near, kind of in the area. Am I naive about this? Could that be a catalyst? 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: That is for the neighborhood to decide, first of all, in the south side neighborhood. I don't think the south side neighborhood has gotten into granular level detail about the kind of new development They want to see and whether or not they want to have a focus on Commercial development that would support their own economic development.

That would be really important. What they're focusing on honestly on right now some of it is Anti gentrification, so displacement is a massive issue for us throughout the city, but especially in our legacy neighborhoods. And then they're also focusing on reclaiming their public spaces and making sure that they tell Their narrative through their own words and not through like white people's words or the city's words or whomever, and so that looks like taking the historic walton street park and the former pool area And doing storytelling and narratives in that and figuring out how that can best serve the community. The same thing along with partnership on either the nasty branch historic interpretation or the black cultural heritage trail that Buncombe County TDA finished last year. There's a lot in the news right now about the south side community garden And whether or not that is going to stay, And that's at the Eddington Center right now. So they're really looking at public and community spaces and less at that private development at this moment. 

Matt Peiken: And there's also blue note junction, which is what Dewayne Barton in Burton Street.

Stephanie Monson Dahl: Yeah, it's a fantastic. Emerging project 

Matt Peiken: How important is it do you think stephanie or any of you? I know this is something the city can't control is whether the legislature mandates that we can't control airbnbs, that if people want to Turn their residences into short term vacation rentals, right now Asheville doesn't allow that within Asheville city proper unless you live in the unit itself and you can rent out A bedroom or an apartment within it as long as it's your main residence.

Are you worried that the legislature could make it where the city doesn't have that power and if that does happen does that forever change what happens in the RAD and Not to mention other neighborhoods in this city? 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: From a policy perspective, I think it would be extraordinarily detrimental if the state changed the legislation so that the city and the county and others could not dictate more rules for short term rentals.

If you take a look at that list of residential projects that have popped up in the last four years or so, you start to see that some of those are right on VRBO or Airbnb. Some of them were permitted earlier and they are Technically legal and some of these they're advertising them as 30 day rentals, which is That gets around the it gets around it.

I'm not sure, we have enforcement, Y'all were not the str That's not what we get up every day to do. It's a big issue But we don't have a group of 30 people out there doing it. But yeah, the ability to make money off of short term rentals is very attractive apparently.

Matt Peiken: And also I've talked to people who own some of them, there are so many in the marketplace that they're not seeing the returns on them that they used to see. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: Yeah. Yes. I've heard that. I've also heard our residential market is softening. I know several real estate brokers who pretty much the past six months their business has just dropped off, you know, so the market is always going to change, but Asheville is never going to be unattractive to people. 

We all know that we are in a global market, but we're certainly in a national market for housing, and that locals here are just going to get consistently beat out as far as making an offer when someone can come in From a different market and they've sold their home. And now I think we're seeing people here do the same. This ties back to Having a conversation about who owns the buildings in the River Arts District and are they going to be in a position where they would feel comfortable transferring that wealth and that asset for artists to continue Being a great part of the district or are they going to be in a position where someone comes in and says I'll give you six million dollars for your building.

Hedy Fischer: It's hard to turn something.

It is hard. Yeah, I'm just being realistic your retirement year age. You have no yeah 

Matt Peiken: that's why I asked you if Hedy if people had Offered had given you offers. 'cause I would imagine you and Randy at certain point like look at each other okay, you don't have kids. And maybe it's our time to say yes, step aside and do that.

I'm just wondering, given your vantage points, you both Gail and Hedy you both bought, you both stamped your place in the River Arts District when there wasn't a River Arts District, there wasn't such a demand for land and real estate there. Now, it's through your own ethos that you're keeping it affordable.

I'm wondering, what are your outlooks for the RAD? What do you think is the future 5, 10 years from now? Is it a place that's still going to be a home for vibrant local arts? What do you both think? Just from your vantage of being there for decades.

Gail McCarthy: I would say that what we have, we've made a commitment to that. And There is no control over that. Now, perhaps we're on the cusp of having an opportunity to partner. I don't know what the city or with, I have no idea what, and if we've decided as a community that this is something worth an endurance to go down in history somehow or other maybe we're on the cusp of it almost being too late to explore.

Matt Peiken: You know there are buildings that are designated historical landmarks that can't be changed or developed. I wonder if anything if there's designation that could be I don't know.

Stephanie Monson Dahl: there are some wonderful things that you can do to preserve the architecture, but if we're talking about preserving people and the ability for artists to enjoy that architecture, that is a whole different Preserving usage.

It's a very it's very different And so yeah the Riverside Industrial District is part of that and there are buildings that are contributing buildings. What's different about the River Arts District and downtown is that downtown has This national landmark district, people thrived using historic tax credits in order to renovate buildings downtown.

None of that happened in the RAD. And that's because artists do not want to be told by the department of interior that they can't put up an awning that looks like this, that they have to do it like that is not going to fly. 

Matt Peiken: but yet artists were key in bringing downtown back.

Stephanie Monson Dahl: Oh, absolutely. But I would say it was very different who actually renovated those buildings and did that preservation and use the tax credit than The artists that were creating the programming and the excitement and the vitality and acting as the entrepreneurs in downtown. 

Matt Peiken: I've kept you here for an hour. I don't want to keep you too much longer. Is there anything we haven't talked about or talked about enough? Things you wanted to say. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: I want to talk about something to see how you guys feel about this. When Matt's asking about the outlook for the River Arts District and how we keep the artists there.

One of the things that I think is exciting is that Yes, it might be too expensive for people to just use a lot of those ground forest places for their studios. But what brings in revenue is classes, right? So yes You want to have a mix of gallery and classes and studio and what have you, but There is this model at Odyssey that I think people should look into, which is if you have classes, the artists are still there.

If you don't have classes and if you don't have studios, so maybe that could be something that we could look forward to. Chair caning. 

Hedy Fischer: Okay. Ukrainian egg decorating marbling, silver smithing, 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: and NC Glass Center, right? They're, the reason they're able to stay there is because they're open to the public and they're able to have those classes. And that also brings in revenue because you can't just survive on selling coffee mugs.

Matt Peiken: Heck, this theater that we're in, the Bebe Theater, gets by because of classes. They have tons of classes. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: So when people say like, how do we keep the artists there, I just want to posit or put out there that might be one of the strategies that people move more towards is those classes and people already doing it.

I'm not making this up. People are doing it. And it just needs to be brought to light. And maybe we can encourage some of our local folks. If you want to keep the River Arts District full of artists, Hey, Buy someone a gift certificate to go to Odyssey and to take a class or what have you. 

Matt Peiken: I know there are artist co ops.

Have there been artist co op building purchases in this region or in the RAD ? 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: They're not artist co ops, but the wedge was purchased by a group of local people who really care about keeping artists in the district and It's not the exact same group, but a different group of people Purchased what is now Foundy or the foundation studios and similarly curated the heck out of that area and said, We want artists to be here.

So some of those people were artists like Brent Stark was an artist. Some of them were not. They were lawyers, local developers, architects. Yeah, the creative types that really fit Asheville's mold and people, and this is key to it, is like the more that we can have people who understand the district and like the actual DNA of the district, the more We have a shot at it sticking that way.

So those people collectively own those buildings. It's not just one person. 

Matt Peiken: I come from cities where at least some buildings were artist live work studios. They bought the building themselves when they could afford it. And they had the presence of mind to do that. I was just curious if there was any effort like that or talk around that here. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: There was a place on depot street that was for sale I think last year or the year before I can't remember the address or what we call it, but still yellow building, right? That was one that I know there was a bunch of artists in the River Arts District who looked at it.

And one of the challenges again is Some of these buildings are a hundred years old and they need considerable Investment to rehab them and to make them safe. And so they people can look at that building and say what can I pool, right? You're an artist, maybe not a lot, But you also have another additional cost of maybe a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars just to 

Matt Peiken: minimally 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: yeah minimally to just keep things the way they really are.

Matt Peiken: Yeah 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: That's something for us to think about as a, again, I think this is all about community and partnerships. We have a lot of talented people here who do adaptive reuse and historic preservation and who support affordability. And, if you put all those things together in a soup and make it an actual strategic effort instead of just waiting for something to fall from the sky to save us all that, that would be productive. But to just talk, like, if you go to a RADA meeting, like people are concerned about it and all of those things, but it takes work. 

Matt Peiken: And it takes money. And there are only so many people who are fortunate enough to have the resources to do something like that, and they can't do it alone. You did it alone 40 years ago, 40, 50 years ago. It's hard to come in to do it alone now with the kind of costs with everything. 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: Absolutely. It needs to be like an organization that not for profits. There are, that's something for people to think about too. We are such a little community, but there are Big national not for profits that have billions of dollars that really care about artists And we're not necessarily plugging into those as a community very well right now. 

haven't had to. 

Hedy Fischer: I mean other than the already established like the museums and absolutely for craft and that sort of thing. They have people who can research granting organizations and write grants.

Build relationships with. Whereas, a group of artists, that's not what they do. That's right. 

Matt Peiken: Hedy and Gail, anything you want to close with that we haven't talked about or haven't talked about enough? 

Gail McCarthy: I see the possibility of an opportunity to, I'm not sure where to take it or how to Make it work or how to get it started.

But it seems to me that there is a time and a place and an opportunity before it becomes too late for the city, the artists, the building owners, the interested supporters, riverlink 

to do or to start something that Probably doesn't even exist today, but except a thought in the little light that's Flickering. 

Matt Peiken: To do what are you talking about? 

Gail McCarthy: Preserve the river arts district. Yeah, check out 

Stephanie Monson Dahl: like what is it the torpedo factory outside of washington dc. Check that out. That's a model right of a collective ownership That has maintained our 

Hedy Fischer: If our artists wanted to come to us and say we'd like To buy the building from you, we would definitely be open to discussing that with them.

Matt Peiken: No question I hope that happens at some point.

Hedy Fischer: I hope it does too.