THE PLANNING PROCESS FOR LID - Low Impact Development and Sustainable Stormwater Management - page 86

Table 4-1 Site Design Process for LID
Step 1 . A developer/builder/applicant decides to develop.
Step 2 . Municipal, county, state, and federal requirements are incorporated into the devel-
opment concept.
Step 3 . A presubmission meeting is held as well as a site visit between applicant and
local government representatives.
Step 4 . The applicant inventories and evaluates the site and its natural systems (including
the larger watershed context), highlighting constraints, natural system opportunities,
andsoon.
Step 5 . The development concept is reviewed and revised, as necessary.
Step 6 . Nonstructural LID measures are applied to the revised design concept.
Step 7 . The applicant develops an integrated LID site plan concept or sketch plan.
Step 8 . The engineering design/structural LID selection process.
Step 9 . The stormwater calculations methodology (described in Chapter 6 and
Appendix A) is completed so that structural measures achieve the required standards.
Step 10 . An LID stormwater plan and LID site plan are developed.
developed areas, and where more highly engineered structural LID measures
(Figure 4-8) may have to dominate the comprehensive stormwater management
plan for LID.
Each municipality may want to adjust the site design process for LID to fit
its particular needs. Perhaps the most important issue is the realization that the
LID process involves total site design. Conventional stormwater management
has often been relegated to the final stages of the site design and overall land
development process, after most other building program decisions have been
made Thus, stormwater management practices are frequently relegated to what
appears to be the “leftover” areas of a site. On the contrary, the site design process
for LID pushes stormwater management to the front of the line—into the initial
stages of site planning process, when the development plan is being fitted and
tested on the site. In this way, LIDs vital objectives and a truly comprehensive
approach to stormwater management can be integrated effectively into the site
design process.
The site design process for LID can be thought of as a series of questions,
structured to facilitate and guide an assessment of site natural features, together
with stormwater management needs (nonstructural and structural) of various land
development concepts. The site design checklist for LID is intended to help
implement the site design process and provide guidance to the land development
applicant, property owner, or builder/developer in terms of the analytical process
that needs to be performed as the development proceeds—the questions that
should be asked and the answers that are needed—in order to formulate a truly
low-impact development concept for the site. An especially important part of
the site design process is the “testing” and “fitting” of preventive nonstructural