This draft of Asheville’s Downtown Master Plan will be officially unveiled at a Jan. 12, 2009, meeting of the Downtown Master Plan Advisory Committee.
Drawn up by Massachusetts-based consulting firm Goody Clancy at a cost of $170,000 in taxpayers’ money, the plan and the process of developing it have at times been controversial. The roll-out date for the final plan was pushed back four months in September 2008, and rifts in the advisory committee compelled the city to bring in a mediator. In late July 2008, a series of public meetings held by Goody Clancy revealed many divisions within the community about the plan.
Click here to download pages 1 through 44 of the Downtown Master Plan. Click here to download pages 45 through 88 of the plan.
Click here to download the first 19 pages of the Downtown Master Plan appendices. Click here to download pages 20 through 40 of the plan’s appendices. Click here to download the final section of appendices.
• In this January 2009 response to development activist Steve Rasmussen‘s criticisms of the Downtown Master Plan, the Goody Clancy team of consultants—who developed the $170,000 plan—released this rebuttal, asserting that the plan promotes smarter, greener growth, requires more public input in development and has plenty of “teeth” to enforce design guidelines. Click here to download a PDF of the rebuttal.
• This is a report prepared by Asheville city staff and Goody Clancy applying several existing buildings and proposals, such as the BB&T and the Ellington, to the design guidelines of the draft downtown master plan. It was presented to the Downtown Commission and Downtown Master Plan Advisory Committee on Feb. 5, 2009. Click here to see the report.
• These proposed revisions to the draft Downtown Master Plan were sent to the planning team on Feb. 12. Click here to view the document.
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