Blue Ridge Blueprints Program

Over the last 20 years, Western North Carolina has experienced rapid and unplanned development. While this growth is beneficial in many ways, it can also have negative impacts on the mountain landscape, farmland, water resources, and traditional mountain communities. Many Western North Carolina communities want to plan for their futures, but often do not have the resources to engage professional design and planning services. Blue Ridge Blueprints is a partnership between the Western North Carolina Alliance (WNCA), a 27-year-old regional grassroots environmental advocacy organization, and the Asheville Design Center (ADC), which offers communities an interdisciplinary team of volunteer professionals that includes architects, planners, landscape architects, urban designers, and developers. By providing citizens with an understanding of good design, planning principles, and the importance of their natural resources, we will help the communities of Western North Carolina envision their future and better prepare for development pressures that will surely return with economic recovery.


Current Blueprints projects include the Burton Street and Big Ivy communities.

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Photography by Melinda Stuart

 
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The Blueprints Program...

bullet_bluee Engages communities and brings professional facilitation and design expertise as well as education about planning and design to enable communities to plan for and manage their future growth.

bullet_bluee Focuses on filling a void in unincorporated rural communities and urban neighborhoods whose planning needs are not served by their governing body.

bullet_bluee Addresses issues including development, open space preservation, transportation, economic development, community character, and community facilities.

bullet_bluee Provides meeting facilitation services and overall project management then leads the community through a visioning and goal-setting process.

bullet_bluee Supplies design and planning expertise to give shape and definition to that vision.

bullet_bluee Delivers assistance to communities in implementing the plans they develop, particularly if the plan requires policy change at the county or city level.