My Built Environment: Good, Bad, and Really Ugly

I have been working on a small 10 unit development, where our goal has been to create a sustainable community from the ground up. This development called Midori (see the sustainable development post below) has only 10 homes on 5 acres. While this is not an aggressive density by any means, it is all that is allowed per the zoning code. One of the big goals was to reduce our impacts on stormwater management. We were able to do this somewhat, by reducing our amount of hardscaping, and having plenty of open space. However, some of my other ideas were shot down by the reviewing jurisdiction. One of my thoughts was to use permeable pavement in our private driveways. I would be allowed to do it, but would not receive any stormwater credit because of fears that it could become clogged, or that the homeowners may choose to pave over it in the future. These are reasonable concerns, but this line of thinking does not allow any kind of creativity, especially in light of todays views of trying to leave a light footprint on the planet. To add insult to injury, in turns out that when the adjacent roadway was rebuilt a couple of years ago, an outfall pipe for the property was not installed, so now we have to account for double detention on our property. As a result we have gone from a barely noticeable detention area of only a foot or two deep, to a hole in the ground that is 6 feet deep.

At least I was able to achieve one of my goals and minimized the amount of piping, with most of the stormwater being carried in open swales. Oh well, maybe we can still make up for it in the landscaping and the homebuilding.