About the Neighborhood
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About Chicken Hill and Urvana
Chicken Hill is a mill village in Asheville, North Carolina, that dates back to the 1880s. Imbued with rich history and excellent location, this hip and funky neighborhood is a charming place to live. A short walk to downtown, to the River Arts District, and to the French Broad River makes Chicken Hill an ideal place to live, work and play.
Specializing in urban streetscape development, Urvana LLC, is committed to the rebirth of Chicken Hill as a vibrant downtown neighborhood implementing the best principles of Historic Preservation, New Urbanism and Green Building. We have completed numerous renovations of existing homes, currently own over twenty building sites on the hill and have recently completed our first new home there, "Oliver’s House," a model home for the five- unit Chicken Hill Co-Operative on Roberts Street.
We now have architectural guidelines designed by Jaime Correa and Associates for new construction and renovation of older homes in this community. We choose to treat the traditional architecture of Chicken Hill as a living style, reinventing it with modern whimsical embellishments. It is our desire to treat the Victorian movement with respect; not just to embrace it, but have it embrace us and our time.
Design principles for the new neighborhood focus on intelligently maximizing usable space while creating a friendly environment that includes green building concepts, front porches, edible landscaping and community gardens. See the site plans for the Chicken Hill Co-Operative for examples.
Visit Riverlink for more information about the economic revitalization of the French Broad River including interactive maps of the area and an artist's sketches of the proposed river park and public space at www.riverlink.org/karennewshow_files/frame.htm (frames 20 and 21).
Chicken Hill and the New Urbanism
Now, more than ever, the theory of New Urbanism is of great relevance to community planning efforts. Its ideals address many of the ills of current suburban sprawl patterns while returning to the cherished concept of a compact, close-knit community. It is becoming increasingly evident that the suburban paradigm, which has dominated since the 1940s and 1950s, will not sustain another generation of growth.
The costs of suburban sprawl are rising quickly. Once proud neighborhoods are now neglected and deteriorating. Widespread environmental degradation is growing exponentially due to automobile and petroleum interests, the greed of many developers and the shortsightedness of civic officials.
One way to address this challenge is by proposing several forms of housing that have been systematically eliminated since the baby-boom generation. This includes high-density housing and mixed-use neighborhood commercial buildings that fit the needs of a diverse society. Also important is the aesthetic quality of the architecture and neighborhood design. The whimsical home designs, front porches and landscaping of the Chicken Hill Co-Operative, for example, encourage pedestrian traffic and create a pleasant sense of community.
Traditional city planning concepts from around 1900 through the 1920s are coming to be regarded as a watershed era in the history of urban design. Chicken Hill offers our growing city of Asheville a unique opportunity to embrace its rich history and move into a progressive healthy future, "Toward an Architecture of Community*."
*For more information on New Urbanism, see The New Urbanism by Peter Katz and The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kuntsler.
Much of the historical information in the site was adapted from the National Register of Historic Places Application Form prepared by
Sybil Argintar Bowers, Preservation Planning Consultant.