"Shake it Up" Council Candidate Says Brevard is too Slow to Act on Urgent Needs
Aaron Baker, a graduate of Brevard College, says the Brevard City Council should work harder and faster to encourage affordable housing, build trails and upgrade infrastructure.
Editor’s note: This story is one in a series of profiles of candidates for City of Brevard Mayor and City Council that will appear before the November election.
BREVARD — A native of Sarasota, Fla., Aaron Baker transferred from big-school University of Florida to small-school Brevard College and liked what he saw in small-town Brevard.
Despite its spectacular natural surroundings, he said, it was an unassuming city where he ran into neighbors at supermarkets and bakeries. Two years after his 2008 graduation, with a steady job at the Transylvania County Library, he was able to buy a house in a working-class neighborhood west of downtown.
But now, he said, due to skyrocketing housing costs, “I don’t think that path is open any more.”
Workers are increasingly likely to be commuters from Arden or Asheville, and more and more shoppers are tourists and part-time residents.
“If working families and working people aren’t living in downtown Brevard and the surrounding areas, we have fundamentally changed what Brevard was,” he said.
Considering that Baker, 35, has long been a vocal advocate for affordable housing, it’s no surprise that this is a major issue in his campaign for one of two open seats on the Brevard City Council.
But it may be a surprise how he is campaigning, considering his history of writing scathing letters to the Transylvania Times and the slogan on his campaign website: “Shake it Up.”
He doesn’t call people out, not even Mayor Pro Tem Mac Morrow, the one incumbent among his three opponents. And in an interview outside Oskar Blues Brewery, where he works as senior marketing manager, Baker said that current elected officials and staffers have “done some good things,” such as building parks and starting work on the Mary C. Jenkins Community Center.
But the departure of longtime Mayor Jimmy Harris, who has announced he will not seek reelection, should mark the beginning of an era of new leadership, Baker said, a time when the city takes a more urgent approach to upgrading infrastructure, building the multi-use Estatoe and Ecusta trails, increasing openness in city government and pushing for more affordable and workforce housing.
He sees the dire need for this housing, he said, in the results of the 2020 U.S. Census, which showed Brevard’s population barely grew over the previous decade and that Transylvania County’s declined slightly despite robust residential development. This, he said, suggests more homes are owned by part-time residents and/or rented out to visitors.
He sees it at Oskar Blues, where fewer than half of the employees live in Transylvania. He hears it in conversations with established residents who say they are one rent hike away from being forced to leave town.
The city’s 2020, bargain-priced sale of 2.5 acres of land on Cashiers Valley Road for six “sweat-equity” affordable houses is both an example of the city’s recent awakening to the importance of this problem — and that it is still thinking too small.
The project was foiled by the presence of an electric-line easement, but Baker said the city should have long ago targeted this land for dense, multi-unit development (which the city is now exploring, said Planning Director Paul Ray.)
“I would argue that six single-family homes is not the highest and best use if we're really going to make a dent in affordable housing,” Baker said.
If packing more units into such parcels requires a zoning change, he said, all the better. Council needs to rethink its zoning and set aside neighborhoods for dense development with affordable and workforce components, as well as including provisions that forbid new short-term rental properties, he said.
The city should also be more aggressive in seeking potential sites for affordable housing projects, including the federally owned 4.2-acre site of the U.S. Army Reserve Center on East French Broad Avenue.
And it should explore more sources of funding, including the Pisgah Health Foundation.
The same is true of its approach to securing money for trails, which he sees as less geared to attracting visitors than to binding together residents. Immediately building sections of the Estatoe where the city owns right-of-way, for example, would create walking and cycling paths in neighborhoods and allow better access to stores and schools.
It’s fine that the city recently applied for a $21-million federal grant that would help pay for a range of projects, including the portion of the two-county Ecusta Trail in Transylvania and components of the city’s newly adopted Downtown Master Plan.
But “the city should not rely solely on long-shot grants for implementing this (downtown) plan,” he wrote in an emailed response to questions from NewsBeat. “Hope is not a strategy.”
He also favors tapping a funding source he is well aware of because of his previous service on the boards of the Brevard/Transylvania Chamber of Commerce and, especially, Transylvania County Tourism.
He is still chair of Tourism’s Transylvania Always committee, which was formed with the recognition that visitors place wear and tear on trails and other recreational facilities. A portion of these tourists’ bed taxes — which now totals more than $1.8 million annually — has therefore been devoted to restoring and upgrading these assets, and the same general principle should apply to affordable housing, he said.
Visitor demand has created growth in the number of short-term rentals, limiting the housing stock available for local workers, Baker said. The city should push Transylvania County Commissioners to apply the maximum 6-percent occupancy tax allowed by the state, he said, and Tourism should devote some of that money to supporting affordable and workforce housing.
State law requires that two-thirds of bed-tax revenue be spent on marketing and that the remainder must also go to “tourism-related expenditures.” But Baker thinks he can make a strong argument for the plan he has in mind.
“Look, we're a tourism-based economy but it’s obviously having a negative impact on our housing,” he said. “So shouldn’t we utilize the tax structure we have to solve some of those problems?”
The city has also relied heavily on grants and low-interest loans to steadily upgrade its ancient sewer lines. But this is another need that should be addressed as quickly as possible, Baker said, considering that runoff from the system contributes to spiking E. coli levels in the French Broad River and routinely floods his neighborhood.
“When there is used toilet paper in a public street, that should be a motivating event,” he said.
Solving all these problems, he said, requires public voices the city has not always been willing to hear. And residents need to be engaged, he said, to preserve the neighborly feel that attracted Baker here in the first place.
“I think we’re closer to losing that than people fully realize,” he said.
The Candidate:
Aaron Baker, 35
Website: bakerforbrevard.com
Education: bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and history from Brevard College, masters in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University.
Career: Venue Coordinator, Transylvania County Library, Senior Marking Manager, Oskar Blues Brewery
Public Service: Previously served on the boards of the Brevard/Transylvania Chamber of Commerce and Transylvania County Tourism. Current Chair, Tourism’s Transylvania Always Committee.
Personal: Single, son Henry, 9
Brevard Connection: Brevard College graduate, 2008, property owner since 2010.
The Job:
Brevard City Council members are elected to four-year terms and receive an annual salary of $6,700.