Sponsored by:
Kelly Allen
After a decades-long career in elementary education, Kelly Allen transitioned to real estate in 2002, earning her license from Cumbie and Trull School of Real Estate, an institution she now owns. Throughout her extensive career, Kelly has excelled in various facets of the real estate industry, including residential sales, business coaching, and recruiting. Currently, she is a distinguished NCREC-certified instructor, earning numerous accolades for her contributions. Kelly's passion for her role as an educator is evident; she considers assisting students in their journey to transformative careers in real estate to be the most rewarding aspect of her career. Beyond teaching, Kelly has authored two NCREC-approved electives focused on the history of housing, which she refers to as the "history of unfair housing." Her latest course, "Crunched: Zoning and the Housing Crisis," delves into the origins of zoning laws and their ongoing impact on the contemporary housing market.
Barry Bialik
Barry Bialik is a serial entrepreneur and founder of the Thirsty Monk Pubs and Compact Cottages, which has now opened an Asheville-based PreFab House Factory. His years spent in Alaska, Seattle, and Austin fostered his love for creative class cities and good Northwest Style Pubs and Coffeehouses. Barry is a passionate proponent of Affordable Housing, and was raised in an affordable housing complex in Brooklyn, NY. He is Past Chair of the City of Asheville’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, and a builder/ developer who has built 200+ Asheville area homes and Accessory Dwelling Units. For the past few years, Barry has been tying together Beer and Affordable Housing with a series of “missing middle” subdivisions featuring streets named after Beer Hops and Styles such as Cascade Street, Porter Place, and Lager Lane. Barry has been in Asheville since 2005 and lives on a mountain in South Asheville with his wife and two kids.
Vaidila Satvika
Vaidila Satvika holds a Master's degree in Urban Planning from New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and has worked professionally in the field since 2005. He has been employed with the City of Asheville since 2015 and oversaw updates to residential zoning in 2017, the development of the Urban Centers Initiative, and is currently managing the Missing Middle Housing Initiative and the Downtown Patton Avenue Corridor & Feasibility Study. Vaidila is well versed in both land use and transportation planning and can speak to the important interrelation of the topics. Vaidila will focus his discussion on the shifting landscape and possible future changes to residential zoning that are coming to Asheville. (He tells people that his name rhymes with Gorilla or Godzilla: Veye-DIL-uh.)