Rural Heritage Development Initiative Design Guidelines

The Rural Heritage Development Initiative (RHDI) is a preservation, planning, and economic development effort involving eight counties in central Kentucky. The Initiative's objective is to help this region maintain the character of its rural landscapes and historic small communities by developing strategies for preservation, economic development, and design. The RHDI was conceived by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and funded by the Kellogg Foundation. It is being implemented in Kentucky by Preservation Kentucky, Inc., Kentucky's statewide preservation non-profit organization, the Kentucky Heritage Council/State Historic Preservation Office, and by a steering committee that is representative 0 f a II counties and communities in the eight county region. The R HDI includes nine P reserve America communities. The design guidelines to be developed by this project will assist property owners and communities to appropriately rehabilitate rural structures for new economically productive functions, develop additional land areas for community growth that provide alternatives to fragmentation of rural cultural landscapes, and build new buildings compatible with the historic character 0 f their regions. This work is especially important tot he nine P reserve America communities in the region because they are seeking to maintain their quality of life and to diversify their economies with heritage tourism and a strong regional identity. Their efforts depend on planning, preservation, and design approaches that can guide change in the communities and surrounding rural areas in ways that support their goals. The process for developing the guidelines will use case studies for which design solutions will be proposed to address specific actual building or landscape design issues. Design parameters will be based on description and evaluation of design characteristics of regional examples of each building or landscape type. A public involvement process will be used to identify sites that exemplify regional character for different functional types of buildings and landscapes and to characterize good existing practice for new construction or rehabilitation. Review of the proposed case study solutions will also be part of the public involvement process. Design guidelines will be written based on assessment of the existing design character and the case study design process. The resulting document will review regional design characteristics, case study examples, and prescriptive recommendations. The guidelines will be a cooperative effort of the existing RHDI organization and the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Kentucky. At the University, the project will be directed by Ned Crankshaw, Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture. Students in Historic Preservation and landscape architecture will work with him as a project team. The majority of the project funding that is requested w ill be used to pay student stipends, for mileage and materials expenses, and to obtain release time for Professor Crankshaw to work on the project. The fiscal agent for the project will be the City of Bardstown, which is in the RHDI area and will represent the other communities and counties involved. The University of Kentucky Research Foundation will contract with Bardstown as contractual and fiscal agent for the Department of Landscape Architecture.