Business

Planning board endorses rezoning for affordable housing

A large builder of affordable housing developments is seeking city zoning approval to construct a 77-unit apartment building on Mitchelle Drive next to Shroader’s Honda. [CITY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT]

By Bill Moss, Published: March 18, 2026

The city could make a dent in the area’s affordable housing deficit if the Hendersonville City Council authorizes a rezoning on Mitchelle Drive near Four Seasons Boulevard.

A large developer of affordable housing projects won the city planning board’s endorsement last week of its plan to construct a four-story 77-unit building on a 3.32-acre tract of commercial property on a hill overlooking I-26.

Ohio-based Woda Cooper Companies Inc. petitioned the city to rezone 238 Mitchelle Drive from C-3 Highway Business to Urban Residential Conditional Zoning District. The developer is seeking federal low income housing tax credits through the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency to fund the project, called Laurel Meadows.

The proposed four-story apartment building would include 13 one-bedroom, 48 two-bedroom and 16 three-bedroom units — all reserved for households earning at or below 80 percent of the area median income. The 110,000-square-foot structure, next to Shroader’s Honda and near the Outback Steakhouse, would rise to nearly 48 feet at its peak.

The area’s total housing need has been estimated at 7,086 new units by 2030;  1,855 are under construction and 4,219 have been approved, leaving a gap of 2,867 total units, Matthew Manley, the city’s long-range planning manager, told the planning board. Of the projected need for 2,648 affordable dwellings, just 60 are in place. Those are the Hawkins Pointe senior housing apartments, a Woda Cooper project on U.S. 64 West across from UNC Health Pardee. Ninety-five affordable units are under construction and 551 have been approved, leaving a gap of 2,097 affordable dwellings.

Tommy Lowmon, Woda Cooper’s senior vice president for land acquisition and development, told the planning board that the corporation, founded in 1990, has developed 400 affordable or senior housing complexes and has more than 18,000 units under management.

“We develop, we construct, we manage, and we do not sell our properties,” Lowmon said. “We own them in perpetuity. There are a lot of developers that come in and build, and in three to five years, they sell, or they third-party manage. The people you’re dealing with today are the people you’d be dealing with from here on out. … If you guys approve this and we’re allowed to build this development, we want to make sure we’re good neighbors.”

Although it recommended the rezoning in a unanimous vote, the planning board added 10 conditions — only some of which had the consent of the developer — involving stormwater runoff, traffic and landscaping. A member of the city Tree Board told the planning board the construction would remove too much tree canopy.

Two neighboring business owners also expressed concern about the development.

Jack Levine, whose family has owned and operated Camp Pinewood since 1967, was concerned that the develop could compromise the quality and volume of water that feeds the camp’s lake.

“We’ve had development on that property many, many years ago, and it did affect the water volume through the springhead and onto our lake,” Levine said. “We have no idea what will happen if this construction continues, but we do know that they’re going to be disturbing the land once again and there’s going to be asphalt.”

Crystal Schroader, the granddaughter of Schroader’s Honda founders Catherine and Leonard Schroader, feared the traffic safety consequences 77 residential units would bring to the narrow road that winds up a hill.

“Mitchelle Drive is basically a one-lane road,” she said. “We have motorcycle customers come in and out, and that’s a blind curve there, and so it’s already difficult for our customers and motorcycles and side-by-sides. And if you’re adding 100 plus vehicles a day to basically a one-lane road, that’s pretty dangerous. They’ve tried to purchase some of our land because they know that they don’t have enough room for parking.”

The rezoning request would go next to the Hendersonville City Council for a final up-or-down vote.