Rural/Urban Design Assistance Teams (R/UDATs)
To assist communities in determining their needs for redevelopment and what initial steps should be taken, the American Institute of Architects has sponsored Regional/Urban Design Assistance Teams. Teams include 8-10 volunteer professionals from outside the local community who come for a limited period of time (4-5 days) and work intensively with residents, local officials and decision-makers to define the scope of a long-term revitalization project. Not all the team members are architects; they may also include experts from planning, transportation, zoning, economic development, public administration, and real estate.
To benefit from a R/UDAT team, a local community must apply to the AIA. The application should show broad support for the effort. The average cost for travel, lodging and production of a final report is $30,000, which must be raised locally. This local financial support, if based on smaller contributions, allows the community to "buy in" to the effort.
Howell, Michigan is an example of a smaller community that hosted a R/UDAT team. This process was initiated because local leaders realized the city had generated a number of studies in the years previous, and "In each instance, the efforts went largely unnoticed by the general populace."1 The process involves input from a large number of local people, with recommendations coming directly from their ideas and from priorities which they establish in a series of intense planning meetings over the course of a few days. This is perhaps best described from the booklet,
R/UDAT is not a comprehensive planning process. It is, instead, an outline of strategies. It gives direction to community initiatives. Its success is completely determined by the community's interest and commitment. In formulating our recommendation, the team has been completely dependent upon input from citizens and we have all been most impressed by the participation of these citizens in the R/UDAT process.2
Three recommendations were given in the final report:
- Concentrate local employment in the downtown area, especially the many jobs with county agencies;
- As a financial tool, establish a low interest loan program for facade restoration funded through an Industrial Revenue Bond;
- Initiate a comprehensive Main Street Manager program, with the downtown's retail core being managed as professionally as a shopping center.
1 Change with Continuity: A Recommendation by the American Institute of Architects R/UDAT Team for Howell, Michigan. 1984. published by the R/UDAT team. p. 2.
2 Ibid. p. 6.
