Planning Approaches for Heritage-Led Community Development

The Underground Built Heritage (UBH), such as natural and anthropic caves, dismissed infrastructure, and human settlements, is a valuable resource to preserve, to re-use and promote for supporting rural regeneration policies, respectfully of the inherited values and traditions of different cultural contexts. Nonetheless, this cultural resource is largely under-utilised and seen as constraint for underground development within the planning system. Starting from the UNESCO "Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL)", the paper develops a framework for place management, which seeks to integrate conservation, planning and development policies and practices, sustaining the historic significance and recognising the dynamic nature of cultural landscape. In particular, it proposes methodological advancements, by integrating different planning approaches (e.g. strategic stakeholders dialogue, transition management), with the aim of providing the planner of tools for stimulating, developing and supporting real-life experiments (Living Labs) in a goal-oriented modulation, aimed at shaping processes of co-evolution and co-creation among various local actors, such as public institutions, private stakeholders and local communities.