Scott Burroughs | www.votescottburroughs.com
Why are you running for Asheville City Council and what do you think distinguishes you as the best candidate?
Asheville is at a crossroads, but the path forward is not clear. I am running to help define and lead us in the right direction. As an architect with diverse global experience, I offer a fresh perspective. I lead with a pragmatic, professional agenda to end us vs. them gridlock, rebuild our city with care, and revitalize our community – for all of us.
Please briefly describe your experience and qualifications that will enable you to be an engaged and effective member of the Asheville City Council, including other elected or appointed offices that you’ve held:
I never planned to run for office. Until recently, I expected to stay focused on running my business, working on my home, coaching my son’s little league, and if I was lucky sneaking out for a date night with my wife. But Hurricane Helene and the proposed destruction of the UNCA woods changed that. In dealing with both crises, I saw how Asheville needs professional design help and see it as my duty to help as best I can.
With over 15 years of experience as an architect practicing in four different continents, the diversity of my professional experience make me uniquely suited to give input for the difficult rebuilding decisions ahead. I am a member of the American Institute of Architects and the Urban Land Institute, and with a life long commitment to learning I am deeply knowledgeable about the issues facing our urban environment including zoning regulations, affordable housing, and responsible infrastructure planning and maintenance. As an architect, clients put their trust in my skills and thoughtful expertise to manage their budgets, schedules, and resources wisely. Every architectural design is a legal document, a plan manifest in three dimensions. Architects anticipate problems and synthesizing solutions working together with consultants and experts of all stripes. I lead through listening, collaboration, transparency and compassion for all of us. ALL TOGETHER NOW!
What do you believe are the most pressing issue(s) for our city? What specific policy changes would you propose to address these issues?
Rebuilding, affordability, growing our economy, and bring up those that have been left out of Asheville’s growth are the most pressing issues we face as a city. They are all intertwined and require a dogged commitment from our leaders to place the welfare of all of us over the pressure of special interests.
The Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce has a policy agenda, which focuses on four key areas: housing, infrastructure, workforce development, and resources and support for businesses. Based on those key areas, how would you prioritize these and are there policies that you would move forward to address these issues?
All four priorities—housing, infrastructure, workforce development, and support for businesses—are deeply interconnected, but I would prioritize them in the order they most directly benefit the others.
Housing comes first. Without abundant, attainable housing, Asheville cannot sustain its workforce or its local businesses. Teachers, healthcare workers, service employees, and entrepreneurs are being priced out, which strains the market. I would prioritize zoning reforms that allow more housing in walkable areas, missing middle and multifamily housing near jobs and transit, adaptive reuse of underused buildings, and continued investment in below-market-rate housing.
Infrastructure is next, because housing without infrastructure fails everyone. This includes not only water, sewer, and roads, but sidewalks, transit, green space, and stormwater systems. I would focus infrastructure investment in centers and corridors where growth is planned, so we maximize return on public dollars and reduce sprawl-related costs.
Asheville needs clear pathways from education to stable, well-paid work to support workforce development. I support stronger partnerships between employers, AB Tech, UNCA, and the ACS systems. Expanded apprenticeships in the trades, healthcare, and green construction, and service-learning models can connect training directly to community needs like housing rehabilitation.
Finally, resources and support for businesses should reinforce these efforts. Small and local businesses thrive when employees can live nearby and infrastructure works. I would prioritize technical assistance, streamlined permitting, and support for locally owned and cooperative businesses, especially those that provide living-wage jobs.
The throughline is alignment: policies should reinforce one another. When housing, infrastructure, workforce development, and business support move together, Asheville becomes more resilient, competitive, and inclusive.
Specifically, how would you propose that the City of Asheville allocate its resources to grow the economy, attract workforce, and support businesses?
Diversity is our strength and with an uncertain economic horizon, we need to be prepared to meet the future with innovation and creativity. Asheville needs to jumpstart our economy.
We need to attract investments in the sectors of the future. We are missing out on the economic evolution happening in the Triangle and Charlotte. Our elected officials must be our champions of economic growth. We cannot rely on the extractive industries of the past.
We must steer Tourism Development Funds to projects that have mutual benefit to visitors and locals. The TDA should partner in our transit by helping to fund an airport shuttle. The TDA can also be our partner by investing in permanent farmers markets that bring tourist dollars into our neighborhoods and foster growth and support our agricultural, culinary, and entrepreneurial local small businesses.
We must be more efficient with our existing resources. Utilizing city owned properties, private public partnerships, and land leases we can address community needs such as more neighborhood early childhood education, affordable housing, and support for the makers and markets that foster a place based economy.
Innovation and Arts Districts like the one I proposed for UNCA’s millennial campus developments should be used to make space for the arts and craft outside of the floodplain and revitalize our city with intentional growth districts. We need more partnerships with public education institutions to build a local talent base. The city should partner with UNCA for business development and innovation and partner with AB Tech on jobs training and new manufacturing. Other universities in North Carolina and beyond can be our partners for specialized purposes.
For more on my proposal for UNCA’s Millennial Campus developments see https://www.thislandstudio.com/uncawoods
The City of Asheville is planning to update the Unified Development Ordinance, with a process anticipated to begin this year. How important is this issue? And how will you, as a member of Council, support the success of this project?
The Unified Development Ordinance is our playbook for how to build this city and currently is not informed by this century’s best practices and innovations in development and construction techniques. The conversation on how it update our codes is also quite dispersed at the moment.
Planning, innovation and creativity are core to building a city that serves its people. We need to replace envelope restrictions with Floor to Area Ratio planning to provide development and design flexibility for our widely varied lots. The revised UDO needs to include density bonuses for the developments we want to see including microgrids, renewable energy, affordable housing, mixed uses, and transit oriented development
The community needs to be fore front in our revisions. I strongly believe in Community First Design. The city needs to make a simple community benefits agreement standard for any project seeking a variance. Missing middle housing reforms allowing for duplexes, ADUs and small neighborhood scale apartment buildings need to be applied broadly. No carve outs. Implementation of Missing Middle Housing needs to go hand in hand with facilitation of local non profit providing homeowners supportive services including, design, permitting, alternative funding, and labor to help upgrade their properties to meet zoning for growth.
Asheville needs to start planning now for the city we deserve.
It’s been 16 months since Hurricane Helene devastated our region. What are the most important issues/priorities for Asheville when it comes to recovery? How do you plan to address those issues/priorities?
Professional experience and clear plans are needed to make sure no one is left out of our rebuilding. Asheville needs builders with heart.
We must spend federal CDBG-DR and other federal funds efficiently and make sure investments return affordability and growth to our community. Economic funding needs to go to local small businesses. We need to assure multifamily funding goes to projects that fit within the existing fabric and make sure funding is dispersed equitable throughout the city, not just the areas in the news.
Our elected official need to lobby for more federal and state funds to meet the need. They must be our champions on the federal, state and county levels. The need is greater than the funds will ever be. Instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul, let’s find the funding we deserve
We must build community resilience as we rebuild. What we build back should be better than what was. New public buildings should strive for net zero and living building certification. Rebuilding needs to incorporate micro grids, and renewable energy sources for the future crises. Along with this process we need to address willfully abandoned buildings with preservation and conservatorship rather than demolition and destruction.
Willfully abandoned buildings should be turned back to productive use through partnership with neighbors, nonprofits, and local organizations.
Rebuilding our riverside parks offers myriad opportunities for our culture and our diverse mountain communities. Design and planning needs to make space to host temporary activations, events and festivals. Permanent space for the arts and craft, outside of the floodplain, should be make through intentional districts throughout our city.
While there are always competing priorities, the safety of our community is always top-of-mind. How will you prioritize investments in and policies that promote and enhance public safety?
We all go through hard times. It’s our connections and our communities that get us through those rough patches. Asheville’s law enforcement and emergency responders were there for us through our Helene recovery. We need to be there for them and provide the resources to demonstrate compassion for all.
I support Housing First Solutions to Homelessness. Vulnerable communities like veterans, former foster care families, and the recently incarcerated need supportive housing to avoid homelessness and addiction. We need to bolster the work of the continuum of care.
I support our local law enforcement. Defunding the police was a mistake that we are still paying for. Council should fund the additional police officers needed to fully patrol our streets and maintain police presence in the center of West Asheville.
I support our firefighters. We need to provide adequate salaries so our firefighters can live in the community they serve. They didn’t take this job to get rich, but even recruits should be paid living wages. We also need to allow local 332 a place at the negotiation table for all policies that affect their ability to keep our neighbors safe.
What is your vision for Asheville in the next 5-10 years?
My vision for Asheville over the next 5–10 years is a city that has grown more inclusive, resilient, and self-reliant—without losing the character that makes it special.
I want Asheville to be a place where people who work here can also afford to live here: teachers, healthcare workers, artists, service workers, and young families, alongside retirees and longtime residents. That means more housing of many types, thoughtfully integrated into neighborhoods and corridors, so growth strengthens community rather than displacing it.
I envision a city that grows inward, not outward—investing in walkability, strong transit connections, and repurposed buildings instead of sprawl. Our infrastructure should be reliable, climate-ready, and focused where people already live and work. Streets should be safer for walking and biking, and transit should be a real option, not an afterthought.
Economically, Asheville should be a place where small businesses and local entrepreneurs can thrive, supported by a workforce that has access to training, apprenticeships, and living-wage jobs. We should be known not just as a destination, but as a place that produces—craft, culture, ideas, and solutions.
Most importantly, I want Asheville to be a city that plans with its people, not just for them. A city that values incremental, place-based change, preserves its historic fabric, and measures success not only by growth, but by stability, opportunity, and compassion. In 15 years, my two little boys will be thinking about where they want to build families of their own. Asheville should be a city that they can confidently call home—for the long term.
If elected, how would you engage with the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce?
I’ve often attended Chamber events. I hope to be more involve in chamber policies and events should the people of Asheville elect me to office. I’ve already organized events to bring all aspect of the community together for dialog such as last year’s Community Visioning Workshop.
It’s my belief that we are not that different and the more connections we make throughout our diverse mountain communities, the more we can do away with scarcity mentality and us vs. them thinking. When recognize commonalities and mutual benefit, we can move towards abundant growth and thrive as a city and as Western North Carolina. All together now. Let’s get to work!
Is there anything else that you’d like to share with our members that would help them to evaluate you as a candidate? Thank you for reading through this survey. I hope it gave you a good perspective on my plans for growth and my civic motivation. Things in our country are topsy turvy right now and it can create hopelessness and cynicism. I’ve decided against that. I’ve chosen to get busy living and effect change where I can. If you’d like to learn more, please visit www.votescottburroughs.com and consider volunteering to help build the city we deserve.