Reasserting the Place of Nature in Seattle’s Urban Creeks - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 144

ultimately required the design team to include a traditional catch basin
and conveyance network as well as a large detention pond as a backup
stormwater network. Project team members predict that the conventional
network will likely turn out to be unnecessary and that the large detention
pond area will eventually be redeveloped as a park or additional housing.
The overall increase in cost for the drainage upgrades was $3 million, and
the new network is expected to reduce runoff from a one-inch storm by 80
percent when compared with a conventional network. 79 In other words,
the majority of rainfall from a typical storm will be infi ltrated rather than
discharged to Longfellow Creek.
The master planning process included design of not only the rights-of-
way but also the private properties in the development, giving the design
team the opportunity to extend the NDS approach beyond publicly owned
land. Some of the single-family houses have rain chains that provide a
visible fl ow of water as it goes from the roof to the lawn where it is infi l-
trated, a form of technological transparency or ecorevelatory design (see
fi gure 6.6). Other residences have downspouts that are connected to buried
Figure 6.6
Drainage details at the High Point Redevelopment include curb cuts and bioswales (top left
and right) and signage describing NDS strategies (bottom left).