Ask the State Department whether it is any safer now for Americans to travel to Iran, and the answer you’ll get will be unequivocally negative. The nuclear deal reached with Tehran, as a State Department
travel warning
makes clear, “does not alter the United States’ assessment of the risks of travel to Iran for U.S. citizens.”

But then ask Steve Kutay, a tour organizer to Iran based in Ashville, North Carolina.

“I tell them it’s one of the safest countries I’ve ever visited,” said Kutay, 75, a Jewish transplant from Brooklyn now settled deep in the South.

It’s not like Kutay hasn’t gotten this question before. “This is the first question people ask me,” he noted.

But for Kutay, and for others in the business, the events of the past few months represent an opportunity to turn Iran, currently a niche destination that few Americans visit, into a prime vacation site for lovers of history, archaeology and nature.

The recently signed nuclear deal, they hope, will help lift the veil of fear and mystery surrounding Iran, and allay some of the suspicions many Americans harbor toward the country and its treatment of U.S. nationals. If Americans’ mindset toward Iran does indeed shift, this select group of travel agents and tour providers stand ready to capitalize on the opening. Indeed, some are already launching new tours. Their promotional pitches promise to help tourists discover the “wonders of Persia.” There are even plans for a Jewish heritage tour in the works.

The New York Times began organizing
13-day trips
to the “once-forbidden land of Iran,” earlier this year. Their tours are led by former New York Times reporter Elaine Sciolino, who has experience reporting from Iran. The tours, the Times reports, are “selling fast.”

While there are several travel agencies, mainly in the Los Angeles area, that advertise trips to Iran and boast added tours this coming year, none were willing to discuss their plans with the Forward, presumably due to the uncertainty that still surrounds the future of American-Iranian relations.

But business isn’t the sole motivation for some of those involved in getting Americans to visit Iran; there’s also a sense of mission. Some want to use their position as middlemen to help dispel preconceived notions Americans may have about the Islamic Republic.

“I feel in a way that it’s a mitzvah to bring people there,” Kutay said. “I’ve been to about 80 countries, and I haven’t seen any country that Americans have more misconceptions about than Iran.”

At a stage in life when many of his contemporaries are enjoying their retirement, Kutay has turned his passion to bring tourists to Iran into a second career as a tour organizer to the country that many Jews see as a visceral enemy of both America and Israel.

The septuagenarian is not unaware of the irony, given Iran’s hostility to Israel. Kutay’s father was a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, and his mother was born in Brooklyn. The family went to synagogue on holidays only, but the neighborhood was so Jewish that observance was never a measure for Jewish identity.

Later in life, though his New York accent never left him, Kutay traveled the country, moving west to Santa Fe, New Mexico, before settling down in North Carolina. His first business, as an importer of handicrafts from Indonesia and New Guinea, sparked a taste for world cultures. Eventually, while serving on the Santa Fe Council on International Relations, he began organizing educational trips across the world, including one to Iran.

A year ago he reached out to the Iranian travel agents he had worked with on that trip and started his new business, Iran Luxury Travel, focused solely on taking American tourists to Iran.

“They love Americans,” Kutay said of his encounters with Iranians. “When Iranians hear that you’re an American, they go berserk; they want to take pictures with you, talk to you, invite you to a picnic. They’re wonderful people.” The more Americans that go to Iran, he believes, the easier it will become to change the way Americans perceive the country.

Kutay rejected concerns that one consequence of his enterprise could be more cash for a regime that has declared its wish to see the demise of Israel, home to the world’s largest Jewish population.

“The money that Americans spend there is not a great amount and most of it goes to the private entrepreneurs,” he said, noting that only a small portion goes to the Iranian government as taxes and fees. “It’s a big leap of faith to say that the government will use this money to attack Israel.”

Kutay believes that most Iranians do not hate Israel and are not actively seeking its destruction, and that the more Americans go to Iran, the better understanding Iranians will have of the west and of Israel.

The notion that people-to-people encounters have the power to change political realities has also been the driving force behind Jerry Dekker’s program aimed at taking Americans from all walks of life to visit Iran. Dekker, who is based in San Francisco, does not do it as a business, but rather as a not-for-profit initiative aimed at “citizen diplomacy.”

“The government’s official diplomacy hasn’t been very successful, so our philosophy is that by having Americans take these trips, the Iranians will have a better feeling toward Americans and vice versa,” he said.

He has organized trips for more than 350 Americans since 2008 and is now seeing a surge in interest. “It’s already happening,” he said, noting the spike in inquiries about Iran tours in recent months.

Dekker lived and taught in Iran for 13 years before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. After his return to California he set up a program of academic travel. The program was later opened to all those wishing to visit Iran as citizen diplomats.

Asked to outline a profile of the average American traveling to Iran, both Dekker and Kutay pointed to older, educated, savvy travelers, more likely than not to hold liberal political views. “Not the type of American traveler who goes to hang out in Cancun,” Dekker said.

And many of them are Jewish.

“At least half of our visitors are Jewish,” said Dekker. “They want to see Jewish pilgrimage sites, they want to meet the Jewish community, and they’re curious to learn more about Iran.”

Iran is home to some of the most ancient Jewish heritage sites, including the tombs of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan and the tomb of the proph- et Daniel in Khuzestan. It also has the second largest Jewish community in the Middle East — after Israel’s — with many synagogues open to visitors and tourists.

Iranian authorities make no secret of their continuing disdain for Israel even as they reach out to Jewish tourists. In September, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said
during a speech in Tehran
: “God willing, there will be no such thing as a Zionist regime in 25 years. Until then, struggling, heroic and jihadi morale will leave no moment of serenity for Zionists.”

This is part and parcel of Iran’s policy of compartmentalization when it comes to Jews and Israel: the country’s top leaders distinguish sharply between their absolute opposition to the Jewish state, and to Zionism, while professing deep respect for Jews as a “people of the book” who are cited in the Quran, and for Judaism as a kindred monotheistic religion.

Dekker said he had heard several times from Iranian officials that they’d like him to bring over more American Jews “to see for themselves that Iran does not have an anti-Jewish policy.”

Meanwhile, at least one travel agency in Iran is now putting together its own Jewish heritage tour. The local travel provider who partners with Dekker told him they are working on a Jewish heritage trip which will be led by a local Iranian rabbi and will be open to American and European Jews interested in the country’s Jewish history. In the United States, a group of Jewish veterans of a previous trip to Iran are looking into the possibility of organizing a similar heritage trip for American tourists.

Travel agents and trip organizers offer tourists in Iran five-star hotels, modern tour buses and all other amenities Americans have come to expect. But it is still not like any other trip abroad.

A regime of international sanctions still in effect against Iran, due to its nuclear development activities, makes it impossible for Americans to use credit cards, or even traveler’s checks, in the country. The sanctions also limit the ability of visitors to deal directly with local travel vendors.

Americans traveling to Iran are required to obtain a visa in advance in a lengthy though uncomplicated process. The Iranians will not grant a visa to tourists who have an Israeli stamp on their passport.

While in Iran, tourists are required to hire a guide who will take them around, translate and spend most of the day with them. “But it’s not like in the Soviet era,” said Kutay, who insisted the guides are not minders working for the Iranian government.

Tourism is still a marginal contributor to the Iranian economy, but in the past decade, as international sanctions deepened, it has become a valuable source of foreign income. In 2014, following the election of Hassan Rouhani as president one year earlier, and the widespread expectation of a relative moderation of Iranian policies, the country saw a surge in European tourism, which grew by 200%, according to Iranian officials.

American tourists have, until now, largely avoided the country. But according to Kutay, “I see it slowly building up and I hope I’m on the ground floor of this growing trend.”

Contact Nathan Guttman at
guttman@forward.com
or on Twitter, @nathanguttman

ASHEVILLE — Rents are soaring, people with low and modest incomes are getting priced out of the city and high housing costs are turning Asheville into a less vibrant place.

Those are the complaints of many who live in this city or who want to move to a place now recognized as one of the best spots to live. But what can an average resident do about it? Here’s one thing: Pick which city leaders will confront the affordable housing crisis, as it’s been called.

Early voting in the City Council primary is now underway and runs through Saturday. Voting will continue on the actual primary day, Oct. 6.

Voters get to pick up to three candidates. There are 15 candidates in the nonpartisan race. Sixteen actually appear on the ballot, but, one, Holly Shriner, dropped out because of health issues and said she would not serve even if she got enough votes.

The top six vote-getting candidates in the primary will advance to the Nov. 3 general election. From there, three winners will emerge and take seats on the seven-member council.

It’s that elected body that will make decisions about housing affordability in upcoming years. To help voters choose on the housing issue, the Citizen-Times has compiled this comparison.

Each candidate was asked for solutions to affordability. They were given 120 words to answer. Only one, Lavonda Nicole Payne, did not respond. The Citizen-Times on Sept. 15 compiled a similar comparison of candidates on the question of taxes and fees.

Make developers build affordably, cut taxes

Nearly every candidate talked about the need to allow denser development, loosening rules and giving incentives to encourage more units per acre.

But on a scale ranging from government mandates on the left to tax and regulation cutting on the right, there was wide divergence. In the middle, several candidates, backed ideas from different sides of the ideological spectrum.

Candidates Julie Mayfield, Joe Grady, Lindsey Simerly and Brian Haynes said they want “inclusionary zoning,” a mandate that apartment builders or subdivision developers include a certain percentage of affordable units. But legal challenges by developers in North Carolina make it uncertain that mandate would work.

Haynes and Rich Lee, meanwhile, said the city should encourage or require businesses pay a “living wage.” The city has tried such an effort with municipal contractors but was stymied by Republican lawmakers.

Other ideas were buying and reserving municipally owned land for housing. Keith Young suggested the city donate land for a development. Dee Williams wants a land trust where rents are held at affordable levels. Lee suggested tax breaks for small landlords. Several candidates, including Vice Mayor Marc Hunt, want to see Section 8 taxpayer subsidized housing for poor residents moved from project-style development and scattered among neighborhoods of different income levels.

A few suggested adding to the city’s Housing Trust Fund, a low-interest loan program to affordable housing developers. John Miall, who in other ways supported a market-based approach, backed a bigger trust fund. Simerly, chairwoman of the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, suggested a formula that could double the fund’s normal $500,000 allotment to more than $1 million.

Miall, Carl Mumpower and Ken Michalove said taxes and fees are passed on in the form of higher rents and should be cut. In general, Mumpower, a former vice mayor, said regulations were excessive.

Miall and Corey Atkins said the answer lies in recruiting businesses that offer higher wages.

While some said public transit was part of the solution, Mumpower said the bus system should no longer get parking fee revenue, which is a large chunk of the system’s funding.

Candidates are arranged by the general ideological theme of their answers, liberal to conservative, and by the order they responded.

Government should lead

Julie Mayfield: There are proven strategies we can adopt: 1) gear policies, incentives and the development process to significantly increase housing density for low- and middle-income residents downtown, within a one-mile radius of downtown and on transit corridors; 2) support the Housing Authority’s transition to increased density/mixed use developments; 3) increase funding to the affordable Housing Trust Fund and for related capital improvements; 4) build affordable housing on appropriately sited city-owned land; 5) acquire (land bank) key parcels; 6) continue partnering with nonprofit partners and look for new, private partners; 7) work with Buncombe County, especially in discussing inclusionary zoning; 8) expand the reach and frequency of our transit system; and 9) view affordable housing as inseparable from transportation.

Joe Grady: If we want Asheville to remain a place in which all people can afford to live, we must remove all obstacles and barriers to adding housing in the city by: 1) Making it easier to actually build buildings that conform to rules, we’ve decided on, like increasing density, lowering square footage, etc.; 2) Building units quickly that are affordable by design; 3) Creating new designs using less space, fewer amenities; 4) Unlocking land that is available in the city; 5) Requiring permanent inclusionary planning on all future developments; 6) Focusing on energy efficiency, driving down the cost of maintaining and operating homes, condos, and apartments once occupied; 7) Forging public, nonprofit and private partnerships now.

Lindsey Simerly: I serve as the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee’s chair and am running for council because I believe that we must create more opportunities for working people to live here. I was once homeless and worked service and labor jobs for years, and, like many in Asheville, I often found myself unable to meet my basic needs. Strategies: Increase funding to our affordable Housing Trust Fund to 0.01 of every $100 of property tax value; Increase housing density citywide; Mandate all new housing developments include truly affordable housing; Improve density bonus policies, especially on our major transportation corridors; Waive fees and offer rebates for high levels of affordability; Increase the amount of land available for affordable housing through land banking.

Grant Millin: Affordable housing is an anti-poverty matter for those Asheville citizens at greatest risk. As a matter of fact, when I requested City Hall produce its anti-poverty strategy as soon as possible this summer, what I got was a lot of affordable housing and homelessness policy documents. There are tens of thousands of our citizens in poverty or hovering near poverty according to the 2015 COA Bowen housing assessment. Lack of affordable housing is a central poverty driver here in Asheville, just like rising rents and poor opportunities for income growth are poverty drivers across North Carolina and the nation. The following federal and state actions need to be resolved while we do what we can inside city limits…(Provided more detail)

Keith Young: The city would need to build affordable workforce housing units similar to what the county did for teachers on a scale that would increase supply enough to lower rent prices. A project this large would probably be best handled by a bond referendum so that it would be in the hands of the voters. I would support such a referendum. Working with the county on these issues are key. Also let’s explore the use of land banks/trust.

Brian Haynes: Affordable housing is a problem shared by almost every city in the country and Asheville is no exception. As a tourist destination, low-wage jobs predominate, creating enormous wealth gaps. Asheville needs to continue to insist and advocate that a living wage be paid whenever the city has the authority. Living wages are an essential remedy. When zoning variances for apartment complexes are approved, a larger percentage must be dedicated to affordable housing and developers must be required to keep them affordable for longer periods if not indefinitely. Landlords should be encouraged to rent properties at affordable prices, with tax relief or incentives. Section 8 housing should be increased and landlords need to be actively encouraged to participate.

Hybrid approach

Dee Williams: Community land trusts need to be set up for perpetual housing affordability for both rentals and home ownership opportunities. To achieve scale and to address the shortage to meet demand, Social Impact Bonds are a ” Pay for Success” model where private investors manage and invest in capital projects which build affordable housing. The Asheville Housing Authority must be re-tooled to become more customer focused with an emphasis on building low income/workforce affordable housing: 1. Develop a nonprofit arm which holds title to the properties and maintains them in perpetuity as affordable; 2. Develop a for-profit arm that develops scattered site Section 8 housing; 3. Develop a nonprofit arm which has metrics which measure customers’ self-sufficiency.

Marc Hunt: The current council has elevated affordable housing as a very high priority and has laid out very focused aims and goals, and I am fully supportive. We are doing more than ever to address what has become a deep crisis — one that threatens community character and our economic growth. We must continue to increase our funding for affordable housing initiatives, update our regulations to allow for greater density especially along transportation corridors, provide incentives to partners for affordable housing development and improve collaborations with other levels of government and the private sector. I want us to embark on a multidecade initiative in partnership with the Housing Authority to smoothly transition all public housing into mixed-income neighborhoods.

Rich Lee: Half the rental units in Asheville are single houses, basements or small apartments with low margins. When taxes and fees go up, they raise their rents. That’s an avenue we haven’t explored yet as a city. A program helping small-time landlords, maybe with a tax discount, reduced fees, or assistance in building backyard and basement apartments, has a twofold effect: It helps the landlord afford to live here as well as the tenant. But costs are only half the equation, the other half’s our low local wages. Asheville has the ability to grow jobs in a wide range of fields and insist they pay a living wage. A bigger push on real, sustainable job creation needs to come first.

‘Intentional communities’

Richard Liston: The world’s population has more than doubled in 50 years. We are multiplying faster than we can handle it. So we’re going to have to cozy up a little closer. My responsibility on Council will be to allow a diverse range of solutions to emerge that are sensitive to the needs and desires of our current residents. These may include allowing property owners to place micro-homes on their properties to rent cheaply (as long as they demonstrate that their neighbors will not be unreasonably inconvenienced), and ensuring, through simplified legislation, an environment in which intentional communities can support themselves financially by producing food, clothing and other goods — creating more enjoyable jobs than the typical service industry job.

Free market with a twist

John Miall: In short, vote out the current council. One candidate claims to be chair of the Affordable Housing Committee since 2011. If the current people and plan were working, Asheville would have made more progress. I propose to strengthen funding for, and re-define the Housing Trust Fund. I propose to aggressively recruit business/industry paying above tourism wages in order to raise incomes to afford housing. And, I propose to stop the drain on owners/developers with ever higher taxes and fees which merely add to the cost of housing.  “Affordable Housing” is largely a myth created by politicians pandering for votes. We need results. We need affordable living.

Corey Atkins: While I support density bonuses and incentives for new developments to include portions for low income housing, the city cannot single-handedly solve the affordable housing crisis. It will take public-private partnerships and community coalition-building. The affordability issue in Asheville is also a symptom of the broader cause of lack of diverse, high-wage jobs. The city will be better suited to put resources towards active recruitment of good paying jobs in a wide spectrum of industry. We cannot rely solely on tourism and service industry jobs and expect people to be able to maintain a decent standard of living. This approach better serves the community long term when dealing what is mainly a free market issue.

Taxes, fees hurt renters

Carl Mumpower: Expanding taxes, fees, regulations and gentrification policies while simultaneously supporting housing affordability is like taking a bath without getting wet. Real world solutions will find us reaching out with two hands — one to stop government overreach and the other to nudge private developers. The opportunity in the misery is found in three words — incentives, density and micro — providing incentives for entrepreneurs to build apartments that maximize density potentials while reducing apartment size. Micro apartments — around 250 square feet — have sustainable affordability less likely to be eaten by the gentrification bug. While we’re at it, supporting secondary apartments in residential neighborhoods and returning to our historical model of using parking revenue to build parking resources will further aid housing affordability.

Ken Michalove: Stop council from adopting unnecessary taxes, rate and fee increases (their actions the last two out of three years); and, they gave themselves a raise every year. These council decisions become pass-throughs that go from landlords to tenants, thus higher rents. This council, Marc Hunt, is part of the problem. Support the initiative by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, deal with affordable housing through a public/private initiative. The city appropriated several million dollars and there are at least 12 organizations working this issue. The city needs its emphasis on providing basic services and infrastructure improvements. The chamber group recognized affordable housing doesn’t stop at the city limits and only nonprofit and government support. I applaud their initiative.

Important voting info:

Early voting: Asheville residents can register and vote 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays through Friday and 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday.

Where: Buncombe County Election Services, 77 McDowell St. (Northwest of Mission Hospital, enter on Choctaw Street)

What to bring: If you’re registering, bring a document with your name and address, such as a utility bill, apartment lease, driver’s license or other government document. Registering voters must have lived in Buncombe County 30 days prior to the primary. NOTE: Voters already registered are not required to bring documents.

Primary day: Asheville residents who are already registered can vote Oct. 6 at their neighborhood polling site.