Asheville Wants to Stop Paving Downtown for Parking, and It Could Reshape the City

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 16, 2026

Surface parking covers more than a third of downtown Asheville, and the city is finally asking whether that is the best use of its most valuable land. A new push to reconsider parking minimums, the rules that force developers to build a set number of spaces for every project, could change how the heart of Buncombe County looks for decades to come.

Asheville sits where I-26 and I-240 meet, about a 60-mile drive east of Franklin and roughly an hour from most of the smaller mountain towns that orbit it. For a city center boxed in by ridgelines and the French Broad River, land is not something Asheville has to spare. Yet a large share of downtown sits paved over for cars that often are not there.

Why is Asheville rethinking its parking rules?

The numbers are what got people's attention. When more than a third of a downtown is given over to surface parking, it means block after block of asphalt that pays little in taxes and draws no foot traffic. Those lots are quiet most of the day and dead most of the night.

Parking minimums were written decades ago with good intentions. Cities wanted to make sure new development would not clog the streets. The unintended result was a rule that treats parking as more important than people, forcing a small shop or a new apartment building to devote enormous space and cost to spaces that may never fill up.

Asheville is not alone in questioning that math. Raleigh and Charlotte have already loosened or removed their minimums, and dozens of cities nationwide have done the same. The shift recognizes a simple point. Developers know how much parking their tenants want, and they tend to build it without being told to.

What would actually change downtown?

Dropping the minimums does not outlaw parking. It just stops requiring a fixed amount tied to a building's size. A developer who wants to convert a surface lot into apartments could do so without first being forced to wrap the project around a parking deck that blows up the budget.

That flexibility is where the real opportunity lies. Each downtown lot that becomes housing, a storefront, or a mixed-use building is a parcel that starts earning its keep. It adds residents who support nearby restaurants and tax base that helps fund city services.

For a place known for its walkability and its breweries and galleries, replacing dead asphalt with active buildings makes sense. The version of Asheville that visitors love is the dense, historic one, not the parking lot one.

How does this connect to Western NC housing?

Here is where it matters beyond downtown Asheville. Housing costs across the region have climbed hard in recent years, and Asheville sits at the center of that pressure. When a developer is forced to build structured parking at tens of thousands of dollars per space, that cost lands in rents and sale prices.

Free builders from overbuilding parking and you generally get more units, built for less, on land that already has water, sewer, and roads in place. That is a far cheaper way to add homes than pushing development out onto the mountainsides.

The ripple reaches the smaller towns too. When Asheville is short on housing, demand spills into Weaverville, Black Mountain, Hendersonville, and farther west toward Sylva and Waynesville. Anything that adds supply in the region's largest job center takes a little heat off everywhere else.

None of this happens overnight. Reforming parking rules is a slow, debated process, and the lots will not turn into apartments the day a vote passes. But the conversation itself is a sign that Asheville is thinking seriously about how to grow up rather than out, which is the only direction the geography really allows.

If watching how Asheville and the rest of Western NC handle growth has you curious about what living here could look like, Jon Tharp is always glad to talk it through.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What are parking minimums and why is Asheville changing them?

Parking minimums are city rules that force developers to build a set number of parking spaces for every new building, based on its size or use. A restaurant might be required to add dozens of spaces, a apartment building one or two per unit. Asheville is reconsidering these rules because data shows surface parking now covers more than a third of downtown land, much of it sitting empty most of the time. Removing or loosening the minimums would let builders decide how much parking they actually need, freeing valuable acreage for housing, retail, and other uses that generate more activity and tax revenue.

How much of downtown Asheville is taken up by parking?

Recent analysis found that surface parking lots eat up over a third of downtown Asheville's real estate. That figure does not even count parking decks or on-street spaces. For a city center hemmed in by mountains and known for its walkable, historic core, that is an enormous amount of prime land devoted to storing cars. Each surface lot represents a parcel that is not housing residents, hosting a business, or contributing much to the street life that draws visitors to Asheville in the first place. That imbalance is a big part of why the city is rethinking its approach.

Will dropping parking minimums mean less parking in Asheville?

Not necessarily. Removing minimums does not ban parking, it simply stops requiring a fixed amount. Developers still build parking when the market demands it, because buyers and tenants want it. Cities across the country that have eliminated minimums, including Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina, have generally kept plenty of parking while allowing more flexible, denser development. The likely outcome in Asheville is fewer mandatory half-empty lots and more buildings that include only the parking they can justify, often paired with transit, biking, and walkable design.

How could this affect Asheville real estate and housing?

Parking reform tends to make housing cheaper to build. Structured parking can cost tens of thousands of dollars per space, a cost passed on to renters and buyers. When developers are not forced to overbuild parking, they can put more units on the same lot and price them lower. In a market like Asheville, where home prices and rents have climbed faster than wages, that matters. Converting underused surface lots into apartments or mixed-use buildings could add downtown housing supply over time, easing some pressure in one of Western North Carolina's tightest markets.