I am a big fan of the hyper-local plan concept as I think that such a scale allows real community input and ensures a focus on more realistic outcomes.  While overarching plans on a city or regional level are excellent guiding documents, they often fall short of getting any significant segment of the population excited about potential changes.  Focusing plans on a neighborhood level allows residents to feel as if they have input in to the process and also provides a tangible scale for future efforts.  Residents are able to look at specific places within their neighborhood and communicate how their vision of the future would maintain or change those places.

As part of my keystone coursework for my Masters program I was able to help conduct some of the initial data gathering for such a plan in the Burton Street Community in Asheville, North Carolina.  The community is threatened by potential highway expansion from a nearby interstate and residents are eager to protect their neighborhood from being displaced.  In order to provide the neighborhood a voice in the political decisions regarding the proposed highway expansion (as well as a voice in other threatening situations such as gentrification) the neighborhood worked with the Asheville Design Center and the Western North Carolina Alliance to produce a neighborhood plan.  The concept was to develop a unifying set of concepts that would represent the future of the neighborhood.

The Burton Street neighborhood is comprised of approximately 200 households and is set in a historically Black community.  The community has a strong desire to preserve its heritage and to ensure that the nature of the community is left intact.  There is sentiment of self-reliance that underlies many of the community’s desires.  The plan produced by Blue Ridge Blueprints (the culminating effort of Western North Carolina Alliance and the Asheville Design Center) reflects the community’s desires and provides coherent community goals alongside visualizations of the neighborhood’s future.  The plan also reveals goals expressed by residents through charrettes and through meetings of the Burton Street Community Association.

I have posted a link to the plan below.  Having worked on the initial stages of the project I am happy to see the way in which it has developed.  I certainly hope that the community is able to progress toward these goals.  The plan that Blue Ridge Blueprints has compiled gives a strong example of what a hyper-local plan should embody.  I believe this plan will give residents something to work toward and will provide an excellent resource document as resources become available to bring this vision to reality.

Burton Street Community Plan