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Smart Growth and Growth Readiness :
Green Developments
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Balsam Mountain Preserve
Sustainable development that clusters development so as to protect 3,300 acres of mountain forests via conservation easements and minimizes the footprint of each house as well as engaging in stream restoration, education on the environment and sustainable development, and facilitating the conduct of natural science for inventory and monitoring.
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Conservation Subdivisions in Georgia
Traditional subdivisions consist of large tracts of land that are subdivided in a grid maximizing the number of plots according to density allowed under the zoning ordinance. This design ignores important geographical and ecological features of the landscape that may be critical to the protection of water quality and devours green space. Conservation subdivision design, on the other hand, preserves a certain percentage of the land as green space while maintaining the same density of houses (neutral density). This is accomplished by clustering homes in pleasant neighborhoods that are surrounded by aesthetically and ecologically important preserved areas. The design process examines and sets aside conservation areas before selecting roads and house sites. These conservation areas are protected in perpetuity by a conservation easement.
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Georgia Eco-Community Thrives Amid Housing Crisis
The idea of investing in new home construction and high-end restaurant businesses would send most entrepreneurs running these days, but developers in a small community in rural Georgia say they're still growing.
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Greyfields to Goldfields
This article discusses the redevelopment of underutilized strip mall sites into vibrant multi use communities.
Principles for creating new urbanist neighborhoods:
- Reorient activity on the site to face the street
- Reestablish a street pattern that connects with streets of the surrounding community
- Use site planning and architectural elements to make the redeveloped site a fully integrated part of the community
- Integrate multiple uses on site
- Emphasize public space for shared activity
- Provide a range of housing types
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Heron’s Forest
Heron’s Forest is a residential development on the west side of Escambia County in Pensacola, Florida, which was established in June 1998. Because of the natural beauty of the site, the developer decided to preserve as much of the natural environment as possible. The site includes an ancient burial ground for an Indian Chief, now part of a designated wetlands conservation area. It is isolated, protected, and contains healthy forest, including live oaks, sand pines, hickory, and magnolia. The development’s topography varies from 6 to 31 feet above sea level and includes some rolling hills on each side of a small creek, which is unusual for this area. The property is surrounded on three sides by the US Navy Trout Point Watchable Wildlife Area that includes 6,000 feet of white sandy beach, to which residents have access. The residents of the community formed an active Property Owners Association that participates in the protection, restoration,management of their surrounding natural environment.
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Institute for Sustainable Development
Their mission is to facilitate change for a sustainable future by partnering with others to create a practice of sustainable community development and a network supporting communities thus engaged. This site offers a great overview of tools used in community design and decision-making among other resources in their toolkit.
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Lenox Village
Lenox Village, Nashville’s first full-scale traditional neighborhood development, is nestled among wooded hills south of Nashville, Tennessee. The 208-acre development patterns itself after the traditional small Tennessee town, with a village commons, a variety of housing types in a predominantly Southern vernacular (ranging from apartments and condominiums to custom homes), and a mixed-use commercial area bridging the primarily residential portion of the neighborhood with the commercial corridor along Nolensville Road
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Middle Tennesseeans: Submit Your Business for Sustainable Building Directory
If you are involved in the sustainable building business - please help complete the Middle Tennessee Sustainable Building Directory.
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Mixson Development (SC) - Presentation
Presentation from the Southeast Watershed Forum's Conference, Building Sustianable Communities for the 21st Century, held August 12-14, 2008 in Charleston, SC.
Case Study in Sustainable Community Development - Mixon, SC.
Alyssondra Campaigne, I’On Group
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Montgomery County, MD Green Infrastructure Plan
This website displays the Green Infrastructure Functional Master Plan with the following goals: Provide a policy guide for development and zoning decisions; help guide master plans; provide a planning tool to help improve water quality; realize forest protection goals; increase the potential for state funding of open space preservation; and support the desired development pattern identified in the county's General Plan and facilitate smart growth.
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Nashville, TN - "Homebuilders have earth in mind"
While some homebuilders concentrate on creating domiciles with the latest materials for countertops and the newest lighting fixtures, others look to develop a market for environmentally sensitive homes that appeal to mainstream buyers.
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New "Building Green" from NRDC
Online resource created by leading environmental group guides building professionals through green building process, from putting together a business case to design, construction and marketing.
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New American City
Presentation at the Southeast Watershed Forum's conference, Building Sustainable Communities for the 21st Century, held August 12-14, 2008, in Charleston, SC.
Next American City - John Knott, Noisette
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4
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Quality Growth Strategies in the Southeast
 April 2009 - As pressure from development, drought and climate change threaten our natural resources, water availability and quality of life here in the Southeast, many communities and organizations have found solutions for managing growth while conserving their green infrastructure. To showcase some of these most innovative case studies, the Southeast Watershed Forum is proud to announce the release of it's newest special report, Building Sustainable Communities: Quality Growth Strategies in the Southeast. Click here to read more or to download the report (pdf).
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Smart Growth Network
The SGN is rapidly becoming a 'brain trust' of knowledge about best practices, approaches, and tools for smart growth. An historic composite of interrelated interests is reflected in its partners representing diverse organizations, agencies and associations. The SGN was created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1996 and its membership services are directed by the International City/County Management Association.
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Smart Growth Score Cards
The purpose of a smart growth scorecard is to assist elected local officials, developers, investors, neighborhood groups and designers make better project level decisions that achieve the Smart Growth objectives. The SPS is a tool that can help evaluate where a particular project is advancing the long term viability of a community or creating more impacts with little overall benefit to existing and new citizens.
By Will Fleissig and Vikie Jacobsen
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The Noisette Company - Charleston, SC
Noisette is a 3,000-acre, sustainable urban redevelopment effort in North Charleston, South Carolina, one of the state’s largest and fastest growing cities. It includes about 380 acres that were part of the Charleston Naval Complex, a mainstay of national defense until its closure in 1996. Noisette is the product of a unique public-private partnership between the Noisette Company, the City of North Charleston, and the 13,000 residents who live inside the Noisette footprint.
Working with community groups, city representatives, and leading architecture and land-planning firms, the company created a redevelopment master plan detailing environmental restoration, infrastructure improvements, expansion of parks and recreation areas, improvements to retail and mixed use areas, school improvements, integration of arts and culture, and other facets of a truly sustainable community.
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Turning Around Downtown: Twelve Steps to Revitalization
Though every downtown is different there are still common revitalization lessons that can be applied anywhere. While any approach must be customized based on unique physical conditions, institutional assets, consumer demand, history, and civic intent, this paper lays out the fundamentals of a downtown turnaround plan and the unique "private/public" partnership required to succeed. Beginning with visioning and strategic planning to the reemergence of an office market at the end stages, these 12 steps form a template for returning "walkable urbanity" downtown.
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