Black Mountain orders fence at damaged Blue Ridge Road property amid dispute

Black Mountain has ordered the owner of a badly damaged Blue Ridge Road property to fence off the structure within 60 days, a move officials said is meant to protect neighbors, limit blight and push the long-running code case toward a fix short of demolition.

The Town Council’s order followed an April 9 evidentiary hearing on 850 Blue Ridge Road, where town staff and a representative for owner Hongqin Wei presented competing views of what should happen next. Wei, who lives in California, was represented by her brother, Kevin Wei. Town staff presented a record of communication about the site through March 20, underscoring how long the dispute had been unfolding before the council acted.

Under the order, the fence must be attached to the building and extend to the top of all openings. If the work is not completed, the town said demolition could follow, though the owner may still ask for an extension. Officials said they want to avoid tearing down the structure if another remedy can make the property safe first.

Town staff, including senior building official Charles “Rick” Burton and senior administrator Jennifer Tipton, described the building as severely damaged and said it posed health and safety risks. They also called it a blight on the community, a visible reminder of storm damage along one of the town’s most sensitive corridors. For nearby residents and businesses, the case carries immediate consequences: a hazardous structure left open to trespass, a damaged property on a major road, and the cost of ongoing enforcement if the town has to keep pressing the issue.

The owner argued the building sits in the path of the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s planned Interstate 40 interchange project, making major repairs financially wasteful if the state later acquires the property. Town officials said the right-of-way acquisition has not happened yet, and the family said it had not been contacted by NCDOT. That left Black Mountain in the middle of an unusual overlap between local code enforcement and a future state transportation project.

NCDOT has proposed converting the I-40/Blue Ridge Road grade separation into an interchange, widening Blue Ridge Road from just south of the new interchange to U.S. 70, and building a roundabout at Blue Ridge Road and N.C. 9. The agency says the work is intended to reduce downtown congestion and truck traffic and improve safety and operations at the nearby I-40/N.C. 9 interchange. A March 2025 report said the project had already been affected by Tropical Storm Helene.

That storm swept away the bridge crossing the Swannanoa River on Blue Ridge Road and left Black Mountain with some of the worst flooding in the region, after the town received an estimated 13-plus inches of rain over two days. NOAA’s National Hurricane Center says Helene brought catastrophic inland flooding, extreme winds, deadly storm surge and numerous tornadoes, and it became the deadliest hurricane in the contiguous United States since Katrina. Against that backdrop, the 850 Blue Ridge Road case has become about more than one property: it is a test of how Black Mountain handles dangerous, storm-damaged sites and the precedent it sets for the rest of town.