Impact evaluation of rural development plans for renovating and retrofitting of rural settlements

During the past two decades rural development plans (RDPs) have been prepared for a significant number of villages, especially in densely populated villages, or in some cases, previous RDPs have been reviewed, modified and implemented. A RDP is one of the intervention tools for organizing construction activities and structural development in an Iranian village. In the present situation, the aim of these plans is to offer a series of public services including facilitating communication and organizing development and construction activities in villages. The most important part of the RDP clarifies the structural organization of the village, presents optimization strategies for rural structures and provides accurate principles for building implementation in rural settlements. The direct results of the RDPs are the increase in construction, reconstruction or renovation of residential units in rural areas. Since most rural areas in Iran deal with issues such as earthquake, other natural disasters, incorrect use of construction materials or simply the old age of buildings, the reconstruction of villages has risen to be a very critical issue. This article shows examples of RDPs in order to review the problems of rural construction, and then the issue of optimum performance is discussed. Samples of this study include villages located in Tafresh County in Markazi Province. In this study, the findings of field studies are analyzed and assessed, and guidelines are proposed for improving intervention patterns of the RDPs for villages.