Charlotte leaders are holding the three-day conference at an Asheville hotel, where they will establish key priorities for the upcoming year.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Members of Charlotte City Council are spending the first half of the week laying out their vision for the Queen City in 2025 during an annual strategy meeting.
The three-day conference, which kicked off Monday, is being held at an Asheville hotel. There, they will establish key priorities for the upcoming year.
Monday

The first day’s meeting began with a talk from Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, who was joined by Asheville’s mayor, Esther Manheimer.
Mayor Manheimer welcomed the Charlotte leaders and shared her account of how the Asheville leaders worked to keep the community informed during Hurricane Helene. The annual retreat is held outside of Charlotte and the council and city staff members chose Asheville to help boost its local economy.
Throughout the day, Charlotte council members worked together to share their vision for Charlotte’s future. According to the city’s memo regarding the annual retreat, the council has five strategic priority areas:
- Great Neighborhoods
- Safe Communities
- Transportation and Planning
- Well-Managed Government
- Workforce and Business Development
On the first day, much of the conversation centered around policy and procedures for city council meetings. Many of the members added they need to work on building trust and respect for one in another to be a more effective and efficient council. They also received a presentation from Charlotte organization Leading on Opportunity, which was created in response to the 2014 Chetty Study that ranked Charlotte dead last in upward mobility.
That means the Queen City wasn’t providing ample opportunity for people to get out of poverty. However, the 2024 study shows Charlotte is making improvements in inequities – now ranking 38 out of 50.
“We are right on track,” Tonya Jameson, director of civic engagement for Leading on Opportunity, said.
Jameson said one program that shows promise is the Home For All plan which aims to address homelessness. “It has all the components that researchers say are necessary to improve chronic homelessness, but the challenge is: We don’t necessarily have buy-in from key stakeholders to truly implement that in the city,” Jameson said.
Jameson noted that Charlotte has made strides in affordable housing initiatives and support for small businesses but gave several recommendations in order to improve those efforts. On Tuesday’s retreat agenda, council members are expected to discuss the city’s mobility plan and workforce development.
Tuesday

Key agenda items for Tuesday’s strategy session included a working session on mobility in the city, an assessment of how other cities and organizations are leading efforts on workforce development, how to approach goals when it comes to Minority, Women and Small Business Enterprises (MWSBEs), and connecting ongoing priorities.
The first item on the to-do list was discussing updates to the proposed Strategic Mobility Plan.
City leaders are emphasizing that the plan is not just about improving infrastructure and expanding transit — it’s a major workforce development initiative that will have wide-reaching impacts across the city.
The city is already taking steps to address mobility needs through a pilot project called Strategic Investment Areas. According to Ed McKinney, the director of strategic mobility, this initiative focuses on smaller, immediate improvements that can make a big difference in local communities.
“The context of this is about basic things: sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, we’ve got some new traffic signals,” McKinney explained.
If the Strategic Mobility Plan moves forward, these strategic investment areas will receive more than $1 billion in investment over the next 30 years. Mayor Vi Lyles emphasized the importance of seemingly minor changes, pointing to the long-standing requests for bus shelters.
“Small things make a difference because people have asked for bus shelters in so many years,” Lyles noted.
The Strategic Mobility Plan is estimated to cost about $25 billion over 30 years However, the plan’s future depends on the passage of a one-cent sales tax referendum, which city leaders hope to place on the ballot in November.
The proposed plan includes an overhaul of the city’s bus system, including improvements to over 2,000 bus stops and shelters, as well as increasing bus service frequency to 15-minute intervals for 60% of riders.
“Frequency in the bus system is freedom,” McKinney said.
Councilman Tariq Bokhari expressed concerns about moving forward without adding further details to the plan.
“You’ve made a lot of progress; let’s just not fall into the traditional Charlotte trap of marketing our way through the final headwinds we have to experience,” Bokhari cautioned. “Let’s be transparent, let’s call it what it is.”
If the referendum passes, 40% of the revenue from the sales tax increase would go to road projects, 20% would go to bus and micro-transit, and 40% would go to rail line projects.
Wednesday
For the final day of the annual strategy meeting, city council has a shorter day planned. Council will spend the first part of the morning getting reintroduced to the Strategic Project Tracker to make sure measures are being tracked, then will round out the retreat with a discussion on council priorities and a working lunch.
Contact Julia Kauffman at [email protected] and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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