Land use in the U.S. is largely governed at the local level. Since infrastructure is on everyone's lips right now, it's a great opportunity to talk locally about green infrastructure, and the interdisciplinary, integrated approaches to sustainable and resilient site development.
A great way to begin local discussion is by proposing landscape guidelines to be adopted by local town councils.
ASLA Sustainable Design and Development PPN Co-Chair, Joshua Sloan (who is also the Vice President and Director of Planning and Landscape Architecture at VIKA Maryland) has begun drafting a model Sustainable SITES Landscape Ordinance to get the ball rolling. And he’s looking for your assistance.
The goals are to:
- Provide a framework for holistic landscape design guidelines to integrate into or augment existing landscape guidelines and ordinances
- Encourage sustainable and resilient landscape design
- Establish performance-based landscape design standards
- Foster an awareness of the Sustainable SITES Initiative and the elements that go into sustainable, resilient landscape design
- Allow SITES certification to substitute local landscape guidelines as a professionally-vetted, nationally adopted framework for sustainable site design
Take a look at the outline of the Model Sustainable SITES Landscape Ordinance and let Josh know your thoughts on the language and how you might use this in your community.