Green Infrastructure Grows Up

By Rebecca Leonard, AICP, LEED AP, CNU-A

Let's face it: Green infrastructure has outgrown its original definition as a stormwater management tool. As the "infrastructure" portion of its name implies, green infrastructure embraces the notion that roads, transit, and parks can operate in a way that better aligns ecosystem needs and human needs. While we're at it, let's include civil needs such as better public health, economic development, and community spirit.

Green infrastructure advances have been made at a big scale; the Copenhagen Accord in 2009 called for an additional four percent of the world's land mass to be protected by 2020. And at a small scale, there is a growing enthusiasm for rain barrels, green roofs, recycling programs, and greenways.

Given the prevalence of its use across the nation, green infrastructure feels like it is here to stay. But is that true? How can planners encourage the use of green infrastructure in areas where development comes at the expense of the ecosystem? There are some clear trends that can be credited with sending green infrastructure viral.

The power of policies

Policies can advance the use of green infrastructure across a community, state, or region. In November 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe formed a Green Infrastructure Steering Committee and Work Group, with representatives from each EPA region, to encourage and support the implementation of green infrastructure solutions. One result: a memo calling for the protection of water quality via green infrastructure in EPA water permitting and enforcement programs.

Many states and local governments have adopted green infrastructure policies such as green streets or rainwater harvesting codes. Although no comprehensive catalogue of these policies exists, a simple Google search turns up numerous compilations of case studies.

These case studies illustrate policy commitments to use green infrastructure in demonstration projects, street retrofits, and other local capital projects. In addition, since communities regulate the green treatment of stormwater (either requiring or at least allowing it) they often have policies for both stormwater fees and incentives. Finally, many policies address education and outreach.

Adopting a variety of green infrastructure policies may be an effective approach in communities where there is political support and general acceptance of the benefits of green infrastructure.

New certifications

The number of third-party validation programs that include a green infrastructure incentive has increased rapidly in recent years, as has the number of project types covered by these programs. Where LEED Building Design + Construction was once the only certification program for the limited purpose of certifying buildings, new programs certify a broader range of project types, including Greenroads for roads, SITES for site design and development, and Star Communities for cities.

These diverse programs have appeared in the last decade. Each awards points for green stormwater management, tree canopy, and other open space — and those green infrastructure points count for a lot. SITES offers 78 points for green infrastructure out of a total of 200 possible points (only 70 are needed to be certified). Greenroads offers 18 points for green infrastructure out of 32 total points needed to be certified. And LEED for Neighborhood Development offers at least 28 points for green infrastructure out of a total of 110 (with 40 points minimum for certification).

Because certification programs are intended for both public and private construction projects, encouraging or requiring a variety of certifications (or requiring the project to be built to these specifications even if the certification is not sought) may be a way for communities to persuade the private sector that green infrastructure has benefits even to them.

Tactical urbanism

Tactical urbanism or "DIY urbanism" has become a cost-effective method for making improvements to public space and addressing real or perceived shortages in outdoor space. National or international efforts such as PARK(ing) Day have generated publicity for green infrastructure across the globe. PARK(ing) Day is an annual worldwide event where artists, designers, and citizens transform metered parking spots into one-day temporary public parks.

Other programs like Guerrilla Gardening (gardening on land the grower has no legal rights to use, such as a street right-of-way or an abandoned parcel) or Open Streets (a grassroots act of closing streets for the sole use of bicycles and pedestrians) have gone a long way to building support for projects that increase wild landscapes, provide communal food sources, create opportunities for local artists, and offer outdoor recreational spaces. These programs have popped up in communities across the U.S. and the globe.

Tactical urbanism can be a game-changing approach to green infrastructure. It provides support, resources, and opportunities to help diverse communities reconnect places with their cultural and environmental contexts. The City Repair Project, a Portland-based nonprofit, claims to facilitate artistic and ecologically oriented placemaking through projects that honor the interconnection of humans and their environments. The group helped create artistic intersection improvements at Share-it Square and Sunnyside Piazza in that city.

Another Portland organization called Depave promotes the removal of unnecessary pavement from urban areas to create community green spaces, mitigate stormwater runoff, and "overcome the social and environmental impacts of pavement." Action-oriented educational events, community stewardship, and advocacy also help to reconnect people with nature and inspire others.

A series of smartphone apps allow average citizens to use social media to make changes in the world. Neighborland lets users express what they would like to see in their neighborhoods, then aggregates input and ideas from public installations, SMS, Twitter, and its own application onto a project page that can be viewed in a variety of reports.

There are many augmented reality applications that allow people to visualize changes to the built environment, whether it be animated street art (4D street ARt) or zombies (Zombies Everywhere!). These imagination tools can help citizens to reimagine their communities in ways that fulfill their social and environmental needs. They also put real-time information at the fingertips of the users to ensure that they are making decisions with the timeliest information, the theory being that if people understood all of the impacts of their actions, they would choose green infrastructure.

Even some agencies are riding the tactical urbanism wave. "Pavement to Parks" is a collaborative effort between the San Francisco Planning Department, the Department of Public Works, and the Municipal Transportation Agency. This program seeks to test the potential of some of the more underused portions of streets by converting them quickly and cheaply into new pedestrian spaces.

Tactical urbanism efforts have led to more permanent installations of green infrastructure as well, making them a great choice for communities that want to employ greener infrastructure or for planners who must prove the efficacy of small projects before a larger policy can be put in place.

Prototypes and pilots

Many communities have implemented prototypes so that they can prove the benefits of a particular green infrastructure method before allowing, requiring, or funding it throughout a community.

An interesting partnership has emerged in support of the Sustainable DC initiative, which calls for Washington, D.C., to use 75 percent of its landscape to capture and filter stormwater by 2032. That initiative includes the city's moves toward implementing stronger stormwater management regulations and DC Water's attempts to pilot green infrastructure techniques as part of its agreement with the EPA. Also in the mix is the American Society of Landscape Architects, which has enlisted its members to create a national model for future development in Washington, D.C. and throughout the U.S.

Most notable is ASLA's green streets pilot project at its headquarters in Chinatown, in the heart of Washington, D.C. Funding for the project came from the EPA's Greening America's Capitals program. The demonstration project, which kicked off in June 2014, will include the design and installation of innovative stormwater management technologies and the beautification of the public right-of-way in the Chinatown neighborhood. The master plan will be complete by the end of the year with the hopes that the first phase of construction will occur in summer 2016.

Green infrastructure became a good choice in New Orleans as well. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the city decided to rebuild in a more sustainable and resilient manner. The Make It Right Foundation's Lower Ninth Ward Sustainable Infrastructure Project is a toolkit for sustainable green infrastructure. It has been used over the last five years to develop a playground and community gardens, as well as to repair a street.

The Make It Right Foundation had a section of pervious concrete road poured in the Ninth Ward neighborhood to test the feasibility of using it more widely. After the road held up well to both regular traffic and the reconstruction traffic in the neighborhood, the city of New Orleans began pouring pervious roads throughout the neighborhood. (Another major effort that forwards green infrastructure, the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, recently received a National Planning Excellence Award for Environmental Planning from APA.)

On a much larger scale, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is planning infrastructure improvements as pilot projects in each of the city's eight distinct watersheds. This effort is part of the city's Sewer System Improvement Program, a 20-year, multibillion dollar project. In phase one, SFPUC will construct, monitor, and evaluate eight green infrastructure projects to manage stormwater before it enters the combined sewer system in each of San Francisco's urban watersheds. The pilots include new or improved plazas, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, rain gardens, permeable pavement, green alleys, green bulb-outs, and stream restoration.

A pilot implementation and monitoring program is a key element of New York City's adaptive management approach to implementing green infrastructure. Lessons learned are used to guide future planning, design, and construction efforts. Since 2010, more than 30 green infrastructure installations have been constructed and monitored as part of this pilot program. These include right-of-way green infrastructure features like enhanced tree pits, rooftop practices like blue roofs — which store water — and green roofs, subsurface detention systems with open bottoms for infiltration, porous pavements, and bioretention.

In general, the purpose of the monitoring effort is to evaluate the effectiveness of various green infrastructure practices at managing a one-inch rainfall event, and provide data that will allow the city to extrapolate the runoff reduction benefits on a broad scale. Additional background information on the specific design and monitoring plans for these installations can be found in New York City's Green Infrastructure Plan 2011 Update.

Financial proof

Data is building on the economic and community benefits of green infrastructure. As more proof of its effectiveness is distilled from existing green infrastructure, the case for its future development is easier to make.

Houston offers an example. In 2012, voters there approved a referendum to fund $160 million in new green space and trails. The Bayou Greenway Initiative will complete the century-old vision of transforming 10 of greater Houston's major bayous to greenways of natural beauty, connectivity, recreation, habitat preservation, and increased functionality and cleanliness — all while addressing the deficit in equitably distributed green spaces. The total estimated cost to acquire the needed land and to thread a trail through those greenways is $480 million.

A study conducted by the Houston Parks Board leading up to the 2012 referendum concluded that the completed Bayou Greenway Initiative will make a highly visible and tangible contribution to Houston's economic health, environmental health, and the physical and mental health of its residents equal to about $117 million annually. These benefits come in the form of recreational use value, health cost savings, air quality enhancements, flood buyout reductions, reduced water treatment costs, reduced ecosystem services costs, increased business development, increased appeal to retirees with discretionary incomes looking to relocate, and enhanced property tax base.

Houston is also testing the possibility of transferring water quality credits from rain gardens installed along Bagby Street, a Greenroads-certified stretch of road running 0.6 miles through the city's Midtown neighborhood. (For more on this project, see "Really Complete Streets," October 2014.) By allowing adjacent development to claim credit for water quality measures completed within the right-of-way, more land is made available for development and development costs are minimized. This will allow the Midtown Redevelopment Authority to provide another tool for attracting redevelopment in this district.

Using the pilot projects mentioned above, New York City is currently conducting a Green Infrastructure Co-Benefits Study — assessing the costs and benefits of different types of green infrastructure. By monitoring the projects as well as using data from literature reviews, the city aims to quantify benefits beyond stormwater management, such as carbon sequestration, urban heat island mitigation, reduced energy demand in buildings, improved habitat and ecosystem services, improved air quality, community revitalization, flood mitigation, improved urban agriculture opportunities, and green jobs.

The study will also identify and quantify the projects' life-cycle environmental and economic costs. These benefits and costs will be added to a database to support comparisons and evaluations of green infrastructure used throughout the city.

There is a general lesson in all of this: When comparing the costs of green infrastructure to single-purpose gray infrastructure, both the capital costs and the maintenance costs should be considered.

Not quite a done deal

As with other environmental trends that became conventional, there are still numerous challenges to advancing the state of the art in green infrastructure and to increasing its usage.

Claims of environmental and economic benefits should be backed up by peer-reviewed research. Cities should closely examine their own policies to see what is impeding green infrastructure (requiring concrete or asphalt driveways, disallowing permeable pavement). Although tactical urbanism and pilot projects are a worthy place to begin a green infrastructure movement, planners should keep pressing for a system-wide approach.

At the same time, overcomplicating or analyzing a green infrastructure program can have drastic results — letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. A slow and deliberate evolution will often lead to a more accepted and effective green infrastructure program. Finally, there needs to be an understanding of required maintenance of green infrastructure so that ongoing costs can be estimated accurately. Finding ways of reducing the perceived risk may accelerate broader acceptance.

Rebecca Leonard is the president of Design Workshop.

Resources

Images: Top — Water-filtering bioswales and other features of Bagby Street in Houston take green infrastructure to a whole new level. Courtesy Design Workshop. Middle — The City Repair Project adds beauty, opens up public space, and builds connections in Portland. The Village Building Convergence: villagebuildingconvergence.com/hands-on-projects. Source: City Repair Project. Bottom — Tactical urbanism as a smashing success in Annie Street Plaza in San Francisco, where TINY, a story about small houses, was screened. Source: Pavement to Parks project, SF Planning Department. Photo Courtesy SF Planning Department.

Cost-benefit resources from the EPA: http://tinyurl.com/ljuvke7

Greenroads: www.greenroads.org