Integrating Stormwater Regulation and Urban Design
Zoning Practice — November 2006
By Lisa Nisenson
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Every once in a while, groundbreaking events in land use are not heralded by headlines, but rather are contained in the tiny font the U.S. government's Federal Register. On December 9, 1999, one such final notice was issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the vernacular of water engineers under the heading "Stormwater."
The EPA regulation contained two curious clauses that are as much land use as they are water quality. First, the notice directed over 5,000 cities across the country to consider for the first time "post-construction" stormwater control. More importantly, the notice instructed that these new post-construction rules be implemented "by ordinance or other regulatory mechanism" (i.e., zoning and land development regulations).
This issue of Zoning Practice explains new federal requirements for stormwater management and offers some words of caution about the potential unintended results of merging land-use and water regulations.
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About the Author
Lisa Nisenson
<p>Lisa Nisenson is on the forefront of helping cities adopt innovation. She is Vice President of New Mobility & Connected Communities for WGI, where she leads development of next generation planning, smart city technology strategies, emerging mobility, and integrated placemaking. Her current projects include planning for autonmous shuttles in transit, a curbside management and parking study, and three mobility studies. She is a co-author of the upcoming PAS update for Complete Streets and the March 2022 Zoning Practice on Mobility Hubs. She founded the civic start-up, GreaterPlaces, is member of the American Planning Association Smart City Task Force and is a Consortium for Scenario Planning board member. Previously she has worked with Alta Planning + Design, Sarasota County Florida, and US EPA’s Smart Growth office. She is a graduate of Meredith College and Harvard University.</p>