SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE

SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE
Prepared for the 2000 APA National Planning Conference Panel on Green Infrastructure by Glenn Eugster, Assistant Regional Director, National Park Service, National Capital Region, Washington, DC April 19, 2000

Background: A workgroup of state and federal government and private sector representatives has formed to help the U.S. Forest Service and Environmental Protection Agency to implement the 1999 National Town Meeting for Sustainable America commitment on green infrastructure. The group has been meeting to develop a green infrastructure training program for local governments and communities to use in their sustainability work.

The following is a working definition and principles of green infrastructure. These principles are intended to provide design, planning, acquisition and other decision-making guidance for community-based sustainable development. They are designed to be used by planners, developers, landowners, State and local officals, and others as benchmarks to suggest how a green infrastructure approach could be incorporated into existing plans, ordinances and development and conservation projects. Examples of public and private sector green infrastructure projects and guidance documents are included as a reference for more information. A list of additional green infrastructure case studies is also being developed by the workgroup.

The draft principles are not intended to be national design standards.

Definition: Green infrastructure is our Nation's natural life support system-an interconnected network of waterways, wetlands, woodlands, wildlife habitats, and other natural areas; greenways, parks and other conservation lands; working farms, ranches and forests; and wilderness and other open spaces that support native species, maintain natural ecological processes, sustain air and water resources and contribute to the health and quality of life for America's communities and people.

Principles:

1. Recognize the social and natural ecosystem/ watershed context

* Describes and defines the natural resource values and functions of interconnected networks of open space in a holistic, "whole-system," place-based context that lets communities visualize and understand important ecological, cultural and economic linkages and relationships.
(i.e. Woodlands New Community, Texas incorporates these values and functions:
* Reduce flooding
* Minimize erosion and siltation
* Contribute no increase in off-site discharge during the Design Storm
* Retard runoff and maximize recharge to even base flow of streams
* Protect wildlife habitats)

* Links green space systems and actions across multiple scales:
--at the project scale, involving individual parcels and occurring within single real estate developments (i.e. Fields of St. Croix, St. Elmo, MN);
--At the community scale, supporting resource conservation and restoration efforts and including park, recreation and other open space projects (i.e. Northern Illinois Regional Greenway Plan involves six counties in and around the Chicago metropolitan region); and
--at the landscape scale, encompassing statewide and national conservation and open space resources as well as smart growth and sustainable communities initiatives (i.e. Florida Statewide Greenway Plan for water quality, recreation and wildlife habitat).

2. Provide a multi-functional framework for development, protection, conservation, restoration and recreation

* Provides a hierarchy of green spaces at a variety of scales
(i.e. Greening the Portlands of Toronto, Canada applies the approach at a variety of scales:
--Major Parks
--Minor Parks
--Wide Corridors
--Narrow corridors
--Development parcel landscapes)

* Provides development certainty by clearly designating areas that the community agrees cannot or will not be developed - as well as those areas that can .
(i.e. City of Boulder, CO. Greenbelt uses this approach to limit urban sprawl, protect natural areas and provide recreational access).

* Provides conservation certainty, increasing the community's ability to protect its resources and quality of life and to prosper
(i.e. City of West Eugene, OR Wetlands Plan identifies riprarian areas off-limits to development).

3. Protect and regenerate health and biodiversity

* Recognizes that environmental and natural resource features provide public benefits and values, goods and services essential to achieving a community's overall quality of life objectives and to providing for the health, safety and well-being of its people.

* Is essential for the conservation of biological diversity and the maintenance of natural, ecological processes over space and time.
(i.e. the publication the Ecology of Greenways: Design and Function of Linear Conservation Areas includes information on ways to maintain or achieve: ecological integrity--natural levels of plant productivity; high levels of native biological diversity; natural rates of soil erosion and nutrient loss; clean water and healthy living resources).

4. Create natural, social and economic linkage

* Strives for and depends upon connectivity - between the resources, features, and processes essential for functional natural ecosystems; between the tools and programs that support community action; and between the people and organizations that make it a reality.

* Represents a new approach to addressing the interrelationships and interactions between humans and the natural world. (i.e. the Forest Service Keep America Growing effort is designed to create partnerships and balance the demands for growth and development with the protection of vital lands).

* Emphasizes that it is just as important to carefully protect, plan for and invest in our nation's natural resource features and processes, as it is to plan for and invest in our capital infrastructure-roads, bridges and waterlines-and our human infrastructure - education, health and social services (i.e. MD Governor Glendening's goal is to have a green infrastructure annual budget similar to budgets for roads, sewers and other public services).

5. Improve the visual quality and sense of place of communities and landscapes

* Defining green infrastructure boundaries uses green space to define growth areas
(i.e. The New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve Management Plan uses green space to create an infrastructure for existing and future development).

* Creating and implementing site design and management schemes
(i.e. Amelia Island Development Corporation's Plan for used green infrastructure to design residential and recreation development along a barrier island system in Florida.)

6. Involve and engage the community in planning, implementation, management and monitoring

* Is best developed and managed at the community level, to ensure recognition of (and respect for) natural characteristics of earth systems, while providing public and private uses, with the least adverse impact on economic, community and environmental assets and objectives.
(i.e. the West Eugene Wetlands Plan: Involving the Citizens from Beginning to End used a variety of techniques to design and implement its plan including:
--Direct mailings to landowners
--Marketing Posters
--News Releases
--Newspaper stories
--Public surveys
--Bean jar surveys
--Public hearings)

7. Provide a multi-functional framework for funding for acquistion, restoration, management and development

* Benefits from the involvement of state and federal agencies that can provide programs and financial resources for planning and management activities as well as protected lands that can serve as ecological, cultural and historic building blocks for community action.

* Uses a spectrum of approaches, including voluntary methods and incentives wherever possible, which are sensitive to the economic value of land, to private property rights and responsibilities, and to local home rule – rather than depending solely on mandatory regulatory means.

* Depends on non-traditional and broad-based alliances for planning, funding, management and monitoring (i.e. the Cooper River Wildlife Corridor Initiative, SC uses an agreement for common land management practices with DuPont, AMOCO, Medway Plantations, Cypress Gardens and the Francis Marion National Forest to benefit wildlife).

* Is recognized and supported in annual government infrastructure budgets.


For Further Information:
For more information about the Green Infrastructure Workgroup, case study examples or the national Town Meeting for Sustainable America commitments contact:

Peggy Harwood, U.S.D.A. Forest Service, Cooperative Forestry Staff, 201 14th Street, SW-4th floor SE, Washington, DC 20250. Phone (202)205-0877. E-mail: pharwood@fs.fed.us

J. Glenn Eugster, National Park Service, National Capital Region, 1100 Ohio Drive, SW, Washington, DC 20242. Phone (202)619-7492. E-mail: glenn_eugster@nps.gov