The Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, a non-profit community foundation based in downtown Hazard, coordinated a series of town hall events in Perry County in 2013. They wanted to build momentum toward change and economic renewal in the community, and the town halls culminated with participants forming a downtown revitalization group, InVision Hazard.
This created a locus for community development and downtown revitalization, and became central to local success. In 2018, the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky purchased an anchor building downtown and moved its offices. The Mountain Association and other community partners followed, where we have been located since.
InVision is made up of dedicated citizens, and its goal is to foster a vibrant community downtown and harness local goodwill and energy to create change. After participating in the town halls, Mountain Association’s Hazard staff member, Les Roll, saw an opportunity to provide support and capacity to InVision Hazard as a way to build lasting systems to support change and economic renewal. The Mountain Association partnered with the Foundation and dedicated staff time and support to InVision Hazard’s work.
The meetings were open to anyone, and decisions were made by all attendees voting. The leaders recognized that people would have different levels of interest in projects and activities, and this democratized approach was an attempt to address that. Les worked with the Foundation’s AmeriCorps VISTA to draft bylaws, establish a steering committee, and facilitate a working meeting to create an action plan for the next two years.
Les served on the steering committee over those two years, and was de facto staff for InVision. Projects were proposed by community members of all ages and backgrounds, and the meetings empowered younger community members to make change happen. The role of the steering committee, with Les’s help, was to advance projects between meetings.
The creation of InVision coincided with a local election in which Hazard elected its second new mayor in 40 years and offered nine candidates for four city commission seats. One of InVision’s first community activities was coordinating a candidate forum wherein local candidates were invited to a live stage to answer questions about local issues. This forum demonstrated a shift in local governance because it was clear the community wanted concrete action to reverse the abandonment of downtown Hazard, and a status quo platform that let vacant properties continue to decline wouldn’t be well-received. This focus from InVision and the community at large led to a long-time downtown business owner joining InVision’s steering committee and also running for – and winning – a city commission seat.
In addition to the Candidate Forum, InVision embarked on a number of activities to bring the community back to downtown and draw attention to revitalization. Downtown Hazard became a home for local art, inspiring public art projects, holiday art walks, and even a welding rodeo for sculpture artists. InVision also coordinated the first Founders’ Day party on the top deck of our local parking garage.
After three years of work, the City of Hazard re-instituted its Code Enforcement Board, and hired a local architect as a permitting and zoning officer. Two InVision steering committee members were named to the board immediately, and the board began recommending revisions to local ordinances. In 2017, Hazard implemented a property tax penalty on vacant and blighted buildings, which created a registry and enforcement protocols to address abandoned buildings for the first time.
Bailey Richards was hired as Downtown Coordinator in 2019. InVision Hazard developed the idea for the new position, writing the job description and working with the City of Hazard and the Hazard-Perry County Tourism Commission to make it happen. Bailey’s day-to-day routine is varied, from working on signage for downtown and public bathrooms, to figuring out systems for regular pressure washing, river cleanup, and much needed code enforcement for blighted buildings. Much of her work is centered on building relationships with building and business owners to entice them to fill vacant buildings in downtown. Bailey is primarily working from a building inventory collected by InVision Hazard in which they prioritized a list of approximately 20 buildings in need of occupancy.
Because much of downtown is in a floodplain, there are more restrictions about renovations, and flood insurance rates can increase when a building changes ownership. Bailey works with building owners to design rental agreements, and with the City to give incentives to businesses so they will locate or relocate downtown. Those incentives could include discounted water payments for a certain time period, or technical assistance for their business.
The Mountain Association’s leadership and staff support for InVision continued through late 2018, when InVision became entirely community-led.
