Workshop Description
Workshop DescriptionConservation Subdivision Design as a Tool for Building Community-wide Open Space Networks
This workshop session presents a practical, easy-to-use technique that enables developers and local officials to work together to accomplish their different objectives, namely the construction of full-density residential subdivisions (developers' goal) in such a way that helps to build a community-wide network of permanent conservation land (officials' goal).
This program is extensively illustrated with numerous financially successful examples of "conservation subdivision design", together with a straight-forward four-step methodology of laying out residential developments around the central organizing principle of open space conservation. Developments of this nature are "twice green" simultaneously achieving both economic and environmental goals.
Together with the varied examples of conservation subdivisions that have been designed, proposed, reviewed, approved, financed, built, sold, and lived in, this program describes a simple four-step design process through which this kind of development can be easily laid out. In addition to illustrating several case studies in which this four-step process has been successfully followed, the program describes some additional design enhancements that improve marketability and bottom-line profitability (through lot premiums and faster absorption).
Lastly, the program describes how this design process can fit into the local regulatory framework through specific provisions in comprehensive plans, zoning ordinances, and subdivision regulations. As each conservation subdivision is completed, another link I the community-wide network of open lands is expanded, until ultimately a interconnected network of conservation areas is preserved.
This workshop also contains a segment describing how these principles can be applied to higher-density infill projects in serviced locations, and in situations involving incremental growth around the community's outer edges. This part of the program showcases the design insights provided by the New Urbanist movement, which takes a more formal, mixed-use approach to creating compact development in areas with utility connections -- complementing conservation design which is typically applied in more outlying areas.
Examples of communities that have preserved hundreds (sometimes thousands) of acres of open space within a five-year period without spending a dollar of public money will be cited, all involving situations where developers have achieved their full density objectives at a lower production cost, and where the original equity of landowners has not been disturbed. For instance, the planing approach advocated in Growing Greener has conserved more than 500 acres of prime farmland in a single township (Lower Makefield, Bucks, County, PA) in just five years, and that figure continuers to rise as new conservation subdivisions are propose and approve. At an average land value of $7,000 per acre, this represents approximately $3.5 millon worth of conservation, achieved without spending public funds, without controversial down-zoning, and without complicated density transfers (TDRs). A similar per-acre saving has also occurred in Hamburg Township, Livingston County, Michigan, where approximately 2,000 acres of land have been protected through conservation subdivision design over the last ten years. And 2,500 acres have also been saved through this same technique in Calvert County, Maryland during the first two years of the new land-use techniques.The combined value of those lands is in the neighborhood of $40 million,which makes this technique probably one of the most cost-effective planning tools available to growing communities on the metro edge.
Optional Workshop: Hands-On Design Exercise
As a follow-up to the slide lecture, a participatory workshop is offered to provide conference attendees with an opportunity to learn first-hand how to design a subdivision around the special features of any given property. This workshop gives everyone the chance to internalize what they have seen and heard during the previous slide lecture by applying the four-step design process to a real parcel of land, selecting house sites in relation to the pre-identified conservation areas, aligning streets and trails, and finally drawing in the lot lines. Participants typically say that this exercise really helps them understand exactly how the conservation design principles illustrated in the slides actually work on a piece of ground, and makes the lecture even more meaningful. It is especially recommended for those without a background in creative design, such as local officials, engineers, surveyors, and most land-use planners.