Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
people will rise in opposition against the project. The alternative is to involve people in the
planning process, soliciting their ideas and incorporating those ideas into the plan. Doing
so may require a longer time to develop a plan, but local citizens will be more likely to
support it than to oppose it and will often monitor its execution.
13.2.9 Step 9: Design Explorations
To design is to give form and to arrange elements spatially. By making specific designs
based on the landscape plan, planners can help decision makers visualize the conse-
quences of their policies. Carrying policies through to arranging the physical environment
gives meaning to the process by actually conceiving change in the spatial organization
of a place. Designs represent a synthesis of all the previous planning studies. During the
design step, the short-term benefits for the land users or individual citizen have to be com-
bined with the long-term economic and ecological goals for the whole area.
Since the middle 1980s, several architects have called for a return to traditional prin-
ciples in community design. These “neotraditionals” or “new urbanists” include Peter
Calthorpe, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Andres Duany, Elizabeth Moule, and Stefanos
Polyzoides. Meanwhile, other architects and landscape architects have advocated more
ecological, more sustainable design, including John Lyle, Robert Thayer, Sim Van Der Ryn,
Carol Franklin, Colin Franklin, Leslie Jones Sauer, Rolf Sauer, and Pliny Fisk. Michael and
Judith Corbett helped merge these two strains in the Ahwahnee Principles 46 (Table 13.4).
Ecological design, according to David Orr, is “the capacity to understand the ecological
context in which humans live, to recognize limits, and to get the scale of things right.” 47
Or, as Sim Van Der Ryn and Stuart Cowan note, ecological design seeks to “make nature
v i sible.” 48 These principles provide clear guidance for ecological design,* although some
designers and some planners might object to the placement of design within the planning
process. In an ecological perspective, such placement helps to connect design with more
comprehensive social actions and policies.
13.2.10 Step 10: Plan and Design Implementation
Implementation is the employment of various strategies, tactics, and procedures to real-
ize the goals and policies adopted in the landscape plan. The Ahwahnee Principles
provide guidelines for implementation (Table 13.4). On the local level, several different
mechanisms have been developed to control the use of land and other resources. These
techniques include voluntary covenants, easements, land purchase, transfer of develop-
ment rights, zoning, utility extension policies, and performance standards. The prefer-
ence selected should be appropriate for the region. For instance, in urban areas like King
County, Washington, and Suffolk County, New York, traditional zoning has not been
effective to protect farmland. The citizens of these counties have elected to tax themselves
to purchase development easements from farmers. In more rural counties like Whitman
County, Washington, and Black Hawk County, Iowa, local leaders have found traditional
zoning effective.
One implementation technique especially well suited for ecological planning is per-
formance standards. Like many other planning implementation measures, performance
standards is a general term that has been defined and applied in several different ways.
Basically, performance standards, or criteria, are established and must be met before a
* See also Beatley and Manning. 18,19
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