LAND AS THE RESOURCE - Low Impact Development and Sustainable Stormwater Management - page 58

hydrology and physiography (depending on the scale), each watershed is a sepa-
rate part of the larger system, and land development that has taken place in each
watershed reflects the historic patterns of human habitation.
The cultural environment of the United States in the twenty-first century pays
little if any attention to its “watershed address,” and most citizens identify their
home as living in a local place name, with only a faint understanding of what
their watershed address actually means. While the water cycle provides their
drinking water, carries away their sewage and runoff, and generally makes their
home a livable habitat, it seldom defines a location. The increased understanding
and sense of place that is an important part of the transition to sustainable land
development is yet to receive general recognition in the public mind, and the
evolution of LID should result in a new model of land use planning and site
design that recognizes the hydrologic boundaries of every community.
3.4 SMART GROWTH ISSUES
As we refocus our thinking on ways to reduce the impact of impervious sur-
faces and sprawling land development patterns, the first set of concepts center
on clustering our needed development, reducing the land area required and the
environmental impact associated with that land use change. Rethinking how and
where we build has given rise to several related concepts, with such labels as
“smart growth,” “new urbanism,” “sustainable development,” “low-impact devel-
opment,” and “green building.” The built forms of these concepts vary greatly
and by no means follow a standard formula, but the common elements of limiting
the space required, the energy needed, and the resources consumed provide a set
of basic design criteria.
One early project that illustrates the site design concepts followed by “new
urbanism” is the Celebration community in Orlando, build by the Disney Cor-
poration in 1995. As one of the first major projects to follow these concepts,
it set the standard for new land planning. In similar but smaller-scale efforts,
Figure 3-9 provides a set of illustrations showing prime examples of conserva-
tion design applied to land parcels as visual case studies of some well-known
developments that are considered representative of the smart growth approach to
site design. These projects do not necessarily reflect the best stormwater man-
agement design, but they all do an excellent job of minimizing the land required
to meet the building program.
Changes Related to Development
Each type of development, from single-family residential through large-scale
commercial, will require changes in the standard design model in order to fit
the smart growth guidance, but these changes should not deny the designer the
opportunity to apply creative concepts in their program. Therein lies the danger
in proposing “standards” for any design effort, and reinforces the concept that