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Smart growth is a buzzword circulating in the planning community for some time now, but green streets are a relatively new concept.
Managing stormwater with the use of green streets technology is a model county planners and developers should consider as growth continues to spiral in Sussex County, said Jim Falk, director of the University of Delaware Sea Grant Marine Advisory Service.
Kevin Perry, a landscape architect with Nevue Ngan Associates, is on the cutting edge of the green streets stormwater management process. He was among the first in the nation to design and implement green streets in Portland, Ore. Perry brought his ideas to Sussex County during a three-day seminar hosted by the university Monday-Wednesday, Aug. 6-8.
Perry said the green streets concept is best defined by going back to the basics of managing stormwater – by allowing it to filter into the ground as it has for millions of years.
He starts with low-impact design of streets and parking lots using landscaped areas, pervious paving and boardwalks to allow water to soak into grassy areas – away from the traditional curbing and storm sewer method of collecting stormwater.
Other methods include parking lot swales, rain gardens, landscaped medians between sidewalks and streets and stormwater planters to collect runoff.
Perry said incorporating the green streets concept into new projects is not an additional cost, but retrofitting a street costs about $25 a square foot. But, within a municipal setting there is a hidden cost savings. With less water going to the wastewater treatment plant for treatment, costs are reduced.
To illustrate what he was talking about, on paper Perry transformed La Rosa Negra Restaurant’s parking lot into a green street parking lot - complete with stormwater management components built into the landscaping – without losing any parking spots. “There is even room for a small patio,” he said. “Not only does this help the environment, but it helps the restaurant.”
Smart growth with an emphasis on water quality through more efficient stormwater management practices was the main goal of a three-day Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Smart Growth office site visit hosted by the Sea Grant program at the University of Delaware’s College of Marine and Earth Studies in Lewes.
Under the leadership of Falk, a team of national experts from the EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as nationally known consultants, met with county and state officials and the public to learn more about the area.
“We know development is coming and we are looking at ways to minimize the impact on the environment,” Falk said.
He said the end result of the sessions would be a set of stormwater management designs county officials could consider as they implement the new comprehensive plan for growth. “These options could be applied elsewhere in the state as well,” Falk said. The state is in the process of updating its stormwater regulations.
In addition, he hopes to be able to coordinate a stormwater management demonstration project to give people a firsthand look at the green streets concept. “When people see it working in a local area, it tends to get legs,” he said.
“We want people to realize there are other alternatives out there,” Falk said. “With all of the developments in Sussex County, either under way or on the books, we are hoping we can get a couple to adopt these new ideas.”
James Charlier, president of Charlier Associates in Boulder, Colo., said people throughout the country are wrestling with smart-growth issues. Those issues, which include affordable housing, mobility, jobs, development benefiting the entire community, unnecessary taxes, protection of local businesses and protection of the environment, are surfacing in the Cape Region.
The population of Sussex County is projected to increase more than 60 percent from 1990 – from 113,000 to more than 200,000, with most of that concentrated in the eastern part of the county.
Charlier said he sees some troubling trends occurring in Sussex County including an inordinate amount of growth occurring around the coastal area when it should be spread across the county; a loss of the sense of neighborhoods with disconnected developments; rapid loss of open space and using major roads as local roads – specifically congestion on Route 1.
“Nobody wanted this. No planning leads to this outcome,” he said. He said there is no doubt that many of the current county regulations and ordinances need to be updated.
He was impressed with mixed-used developments such as Paynter’s Mill and the Villages at Five Points as good examples of smart growth designs other developers should emulate. “These kinds of projects pay off in a big way,” he said. “They are very desirable developments in a community.”
Contact Ron MacArthur at ronm@capegazette.com
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