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City of Asheville Food Policy Action Plan

City of Asheville adopts Food Policy Action Plan!

On November 28, 2017, Asheville’s City Council adopted the recommended revised Food Policy Action Plan. This document was developed in collaboration with community members and food system stakeholders through a one year process.  HERE is a report that ABFPC prepared for the Office of Sustainability and the City Manager’s office after a year long process to develop recommendations for a revised plan. The report and included draft plan was incorporated into a revised resolution and recommended priority action steps. The city’s Sustainability Advisory Committee on Energy and the Environment (SACEE) and the Planning and Economic Development Committees reviewed and commented on drafts of the plan and resolution before final adoption in November, 2017.

See the full plan with City Council priority areas of growing more food (orange) and developing metrics (green) highlighted HERE.

2013 Municipal Food Policy Goals and Action Plan

See the 2013 Signed Asheville City Food Action Plan here


City of Asheville Long Term Food Policy Goals

The City of Asheville commits to participating in the Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council efforts and supports the following shared goals:

1. Improve the quality of life for those in need by increasing access to food for people who
experience food insecurity.
2. Continue growing a robust regional food economy by increasing production and
consumption of regional food and food products.
3. Strive to meet all nutritional needs of the community with regionally produced foods.
4. Work to prepare for short-term food emergencies and long-term food security.
5. Collaborate with regional partners to achieve all food policy goals.

City of Asheville Food Policy Action Plan

  1. Utilize the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) as a tool to support food policy goals by amending the UDO as needed to remove barriers to local food production and distribution. For example, but not limited to, priorities such as community gardens, urban agriculture, and use of mobile markets in residentially zoned districts under certain circumstances such as farmers markets.
  2. Optimize permitting and regulatory services for farmers markets.
  3. Prioritize partnering to find a long term permanent location for the Asheville City Market.
  4. Pursue establishing local food purchasing policies for the City of Asheville through clarity on existing state legislation as well as state enabling legislation where needed.
  5. Seek partnerships to incorporate regional food and beverage options into the U.S. Cellular Center concessions, as well as city-run events.
  6. Create a public private partnership for implementing a citywide curbside composting program that complements trash and recycling services. A successful partnership would improve regional economic development and provide compost regionally to support healthy ecological soil systems.
  7. Include use of edible landscaping as a priority for public property such as parks, greenways and/or right of ways. In support of this, foster relationships with strong community partners who wish to access edible landscaping and/or use underutilized public land for food production.
  8. Encourage partnerships for food production that supports organic and permaculture principles by identifying arable underutilized city-owned land for lease or sale. Pursue methods to make information about such land available to the public.
  9. Update the city recommended plant list for developers to include edible plants and remove exotic and invasive species.
  10. Include safe and convenient pedestrian, bicycle, and transit connections between residential neighborhoods and community gardens, food banks, grocery stores and farmers markets as a priority when evaluating transportation projects.
  1. Include achieving food policy goals as a priority when allocating Community Development Block Grants.
  2. Support Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council efforts to set baselines and metrics for achieving food policy goals.  Play an active role in providing access to existing city data when needed.
  3. Encourage food distribution by engaging underserved communities who live in food deserts. Support community efforts by co-designing incentives that establish neighborhood based markets that provide healthy food.
  4. Incorporate food policy goals into education programs for city staff and the general public.

 

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