Downtown Master Plan - An Overview

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by Scrutiny Hooligans
on Thursday, May 14, 2009

{Picture from this site, where you can read the entire 1922 Asheville City Plan. Take a look at the planned park structure here!}

The Final Draft of the Downtown Master Plan is a creation of consensus and compromise. Dedicated people from every cranny of our community devoted 5,000 hours of their time to hammer this thing out. Public input sessions were frequent and very well attended. So no matter where you land in assessing the DTMP, you can respect the process that went into creating it. At the end of this post is a list from the DTMP's acknowledgements page (ii). It's a list of all the folks whose input was key to coming up with solutions.

The plan is broken down into seven sections folded into three broader categories:

EXPERIENCING DOWNTOWN

Strategy 1: Enhance the Downtown Asheville experience by cultivating its creative, cultural, and historic character. (43)
Strategy 2: Expand convenient choices for Downtown access and mobility. (55)

SHAPING DOWNTOWN

Strategy 3: Inaugurate an urban design framework to extend Downtown's sense of place and community. (65)
Strategy 4: Shape building form to promote quality of place. (79)
Strategy 5: Update Downtown design guidelines to be current, to be clear, and to promote sustainable development. (89)
Strategy 6: Make Downtown project review transparent, predictable, and inclusive of community input. (95)

MANAGING DOWNTOWN

Strategy 7: Nurture a sustainable and resilient economy through active management of Downtown. (101)

Each of these seven sections represents an important aspect in Asheville's downtown development strategy, and all seven must be taken into consideration if we hope to have an integrated, efficient strategy going forward.

The DTMP was presented to Council last night. In two weeks Council will hold a public hearing on the Plan. Staff suggests they spend part of June getting more info before deciding whether to accept the Plan and in what form. So when will we see a decision? I'll guess that by the end of June, City Council will decide to adopt this plan. The devil will then be in the implementation and prioritization details.

Among other things, the plan calls for creation and/or changes regarding: Artists' Resource Center, Pack Square Cultural District, Civic Center, park and ride, the 2008 Bicycle Plan, formation of five downtown districts, revision of design ordinances, creating a "concise official checklist that consolidates the UDO, Downtown Asheville Design Guidelines, and new design criteria", green incentives, fundamentally change the role of City Council in decision making, and create a "Community Improvement District" Authority to manage downtown needs.

So much to do. So little time.

Stay tuned for an examination of Section One.

What are your initial thoughts about the DTMP?

Content Source: scrutinyhooligans.us/2009/05/13/downtown-master-plan-an-overview/