CitiesGoGreen - February 2009 - (Page 29) Proposing an Ecological Level of Service • at a pace that adequately and sustainably provides these functions and keeps up with growing commuAlachua County, through its Comprenity needs into the future. hensive Growth Management processes, The water story illustrates these prinplans for and accommodates additional ciples. To meet the current demand of residents and makes sure that 10 billion gallons annually, we not only are their built-infra- It is sobering then, to realize that we may never have any need 29,200 acres of drinking structure needs met, but the water Green Infrastructure. existing residents’ needs and more nor any higher quality ecosystem services than that Our development codes requality of life are not negative- we have right now. quire developers to set aside ly affected. Concurrency with the most ecologically sensitive state and local growth manareas and the City required agement plans and maintaining Levels community, as we have seen from the protection of the wetlands and 40% of Service for the built infrastructure water story, it is not strategically planned of the ecologically significant uplands. are well-established planning concepts nor permanently protected. By adopting This resulted in 1,200 acres of additional around which requests for Land Use an ecological Level of Service we protect Green Infrastructure. Based on the rechanges and development approvals remaining extant greenspace, create the charge data, the 1,200 acres will protect are debated. Green Infrastructure and preserve the 1.1 million gallons of water recharge; Simply put, before the community ecosystem services that both human and enough land to service 2,600 households. can add the next 1,000 residents, it has wild communities find indispensible. This should be enough for the 1,900 new to make sure that the infrastructure for households (meeting the “quantity” prinroads, schools, sewage, emergency serciple) and 700 current households. One Four principles vices, and recreation is available. Just way to think of that 700-household figure Four important principles follow. Green is as “retrofitting” the Green Infrastructure as the capacity of these public support Infrastructure has to be created: systems needs to increase, the functionand correcting the deficit we identified • in sufficient quantity ality of the greenspace will also have to earlier in drinking water sources for the • at high-enough quality be protected. Just as we have adopted current population. • in the right location Levels of Service for the gray infrastrucHowever this example illustrates the problem of current planning efforts just focusing on the development envelope. While it appears that we did retrofit 700 current households worth of Green Infrastructure, remember that the 1,200 acres of greenspace that would be set aside in the development was already serving 2,600 existing households. And the 600 acres to be developed into housing and retail was serving an additional 1,300 existing households. In effect, we have traded greenspace serving 3,900 current households for Green Infrastructure serving 2,600 households, a net loss in ecosystem services and an actual increase in the deficit. To prevent this, the development should have preserved enough land for the 1,900 new households and the 3,900 current households being served by the open The interaction between development space. This indicates the need and essential resources, such as fresh water, for an eLoS that sustains new is addressed by the Ecological Level of Service approach. development and retrofits of the Green Infrastructure until ture (e.g. 5 acres of recreational space for every 1,000 residents) we need to adopt an ecological Level of Service (eLoS) that will accommodate our growing population and its demands. While greenspace may provide these critical services to a February/March 2009 29 http://growth-management.alachuacounty.us/compplanning/amendments.php http://growth-management.alachuacounty.us/compplanning/amendments.php http://www.CitiesGoGreen.com
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