Sustainable Land Development Today - June 2008 - (Page 22)

The project features one of the largest installations of pervious pavements for parking in the Portland area, with 46,500 square feet, or over an acre of SF-Rima pavers. Hadley said he strongly favored this paver system because of its distinct spaces between each block, which he saw as the best option for the area. “There are numerous types of pervious pavements to keep stormwater on the pavement, but we felt this product was going to be the most effective,” he said. “It has the best ability to resist siltation over time; others over time will plug up and no longer work. SF-Rima has fairly wide spaces between each paver block so they have best chance of functioning over a long period with the least problems of being silted up,” Hadley said. There was also visual reasoning for Hadley’s choice. With the clearly evident spaces between pavers in the SF-Rima layout, Hadley said it would be hard for patrons to miss the environmental effort. “It’s a visually understandable system,” he said. And although the care of the pavement isn’t significantly different than for traditional asphalt, Hadley said techniques do vary. “Initially, the maintenance staff will have to gear up with different equipment than in the past, but over the long term, it shouldn’t be any more costly to maintain than standard pavements, and it will last longer“ he said. Keck said the maintenance staff has adjusted well to working with the new pavers and the district sees the project as an opportunity for an overall education effort on environmental maintenance. “They’ve been really good about getting on board and asking good questions,” Keck said. The permeable pavers are the first the district has used, according to Keck, who said they held up well in the recent wet winter season. Hadley believes so strongly in the product, in fact, that it seems feasible to him that it will become a staple in projects throughout the area. “This is where it is headed,” Hadley said. “I think we’ll see it more and more with the environmental stewardship and stormwater issues here in Oregon. Water quality is a much heightened issue in our development.” drilling some wells on site for irrigation water, but the hydrogeologists on WHPacific’s team could not identify a productive aquifer. “The ground water resources are just not available in this area,” Hadley said. Lights, turf and watching water The growth and urbanization of Western Oregon has increased the awareness of water quality issues, perhaps more so than in other areas of the country, according to Hadley. “An appropriate goal for larger developments (in the area) is to keep most of the stormwater on site,” he said, adding that the Park District project did manage to come close to this goal. Of the sustainable features on the project, the pervious pavement was the biggest investment. But the effort also involved landscape infiltration and bioswales throughout the parking lot that treat stormwater runoff from the site. The Park District originally considered To cut down on water use, the area’s two soccer fields are made entirely of synthetic turf. “It doesn’t need any irrigation or any fertilizer, and therefore no nitrates or phosphates are going into the watershed,” Hadley said. The fields are designed to be multiuse as well as sustainable, so district officials can lay out soccer and lacrosse fields and even baseball fields; fitting in as many activities in the area as possible. Portable mounds are used for the baseball fields, providing the most flexibility to adjust the field size for different age classes. This allows the district to continue serving a variety of athletic interests, said Keck, who added that the development features the largest continuous synthetic turf surface in the Northwest. 22 June 2008 Sustainable Land Development Today

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Sustainable Land Development Today - June 2008 Contents Our Voice Editorial Board SLDT Resources Where Rubber Meets the Road Integrated Planning: The Key To Developing Sustainable Planned Communities Win-Win For College and Community Industry Spotlight: Transoft Unique Organization, Unique Opportunity New Preferred Provider Comments from the Austin Conference Welcome New Members New Knowledge Project Articles Books Going Green Business Management Risk Management Surveying and Mapping Industry News Products/Services Showcase Advertiser Index Classifieds The Last Word

Sustainable Land Development Today - June 2008

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