Christ School seeks approval to expand faculty housing, academic space

Christ School asked Buncombe County to approve 12 new faculty housing units and a new academic building on its Arden campus, putting housing, traffic and campus growth squarely into the county’s land-use pipeline. The special hearing was set for 9 a.m. June 10 in the Commissioners Chambers at 200 College Street in Asheville.

The request mattered because it was not just a school construction plan. By going before the Buncombe County Board of Adjustment, the project entered a quasi-judicial review in which the board could hear zoning variances, subdivision variances, special use permits and appeals, and members could consider only sworn testimony and evidence presented at the hearing.

That process gave nearby residents and county officials a formal chance to test whether the proposal fit surrounding development patterns. Buncombe County’s development projects portal says cases reviewed by the Board of Adjustment are part of the county’s formal land-use review process, and the county’s Planning & Development Department handles zoning, subdivisions, affordable housing, transportation, sustainability, stormwater and erosion-control programs.

For Christ School, the housing request also pointed to a larger staffing and retention issue. The school said 75% of its employees live on campus, making residential capacity a core part of how the private Episcopal boarding and day school operates. Adding faculty housing could ease pressure on staff recruitment in a county where housing costs remain a concern, while also expanding the school’s footprint in the community.

Founded in 1900, Christ School said it serves 308 boys in grades 8 through 12 on a 500-acre campus in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The school said it employs 88 faculty, administrators and staff, including 43 teaching faculty, and offers 24 honors courses and 20 Advanced Placement courses. That scale means any expansion could affect a substantial residential and academic operation, not a small peripheral annex.

The new academic building would also signal continued campus growth. Christ School’s capital campaign materials list prior projects that included three new faculty homes, the Kennedy-Herterich Art Center, a Wellness Center, Gardner House dormitory and the Close|Krieger Athletic Center, underscoring a long record of building on campus. The latest request extends that pattern, but now it moves through county review, where the board’s decision will turn on land-use standards, testimony and evidence, not the school’s internal plans.