Greenscaping Residential Communities

What are the smart growth principles or some low impact development examples?
Why utilize these techniques? What are the benefits? 

If you have any questions or comments or would like to support WHC's outreach efforts with Greenscaping Residential Communities, please contact Whc@wildlifehc.org.

In its agreement with the USDA NRCS, WHC has been challenged with developing an outreach program that will work to emphasize both the environmental and economic benefits of implementing native landscaping. This model incorporates smart growth and low impact development (LID) ideas for the places we live.

Over the past 30 years, numerous studies have shown that residential developments, which employ the land’s natural features and implement innovative ecological technologies, have reduced construction and long term environmental costs. This development model incorporates open space or greenspace design, cluster or low impact development, and smart growth concepts. It takes advantage of the land’s contours, natural hydrology, and established environs to create a community with minimal impact during development and more permanent, natural open space at completion.

Smart Growth Principles

• Mix land uses.
• Take advantage of compact building design.
• Create a range of housing opportunities and choices.
• Create walkable neighborhoods.
• Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place.
• Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas.
• Strengthen and direct development towards existing communities.
• Provide a variety of transportation choices.
• Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective.
• Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions.

Greenspace design and low impact developments reduce infrastructure construction costs by 10 to 33% because the need to build and maintain conventional stormwater structures such as catch basins, gutters, curbs, pipes, and pavement are reduced. Open space designs utilize natural features and practices such as permeable pavement, vegetated swales, bioretention areas, shared parking lots, reduced roadways, and buffered wetlands and forested areas.

In Loudon County, Virginia, an American Farmland Trust study found that a residential density of one unit per five acres was approximately three times higher in net public costs (water, sewer, fire, police, school, etc.) when compared to a density of 4.5 units per acre.

Trees also offer shade during the hot summer months, allow warm sunlight during the cold winter months, and provide a sound barrier against noise pollution. Creating a tree windbreak, for example, can lead up to a 10 to 15% reduction in home heating and cooling costs.  

Undisturbed, natural wetlands recharge groundwater which is critical in sustaining drinking water quality.  Wetlands and plants provide water purification by filtering out pollutants. As a result, buffering waterways with forests and wetlands can greatly reduce non-point source pollution. For example, a 5.7-acre reclaimed wetland near O’Hare International Airport in Chicago was determined to reduce pollutants by up to 99% in its 410-acre watershed.

Large, uninterrupted tracts of land maintain the site’s natural diversity and encourage wildlife to inhabit the area. According to the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, 90% of the flowering plants and 33% of the human food crops are dependent upon animal pollinators. For example, domestic honeybees pollinate approximately $10 billion worth of crops annually.  

Residential housing developments will continue to emerge throughout the country in a myriad of environments. It will be the Wildlife Habitat Council’s desire to develop an outreach program and encourage the ecological sustainability and responsibility of these communities.

Low Impact Development Examples

• Residential streets can be narrowed and driveways can be shared by two or more houses.                        
• Vegetated open swales along roadways can be used to help control and manage stormwater runoff.
• The overall amount of impervious cover in parking lots can be reduced by providing compact car spaces, reducing stall sizes, and utilizing a porous material where possible.
• Using bioretention or vegetated areas in the landscaped sections of a parking lot can help control and manage stormwater runoff.
• House lots can be reduced in size to limit the amount of impervious area, decrease construction costs, and conserve natural areas.
• Native vegetation should be cleared only when necessary and removal should be limited to lot construction, equipment access, and fire protection.
• Green space, such as forests, meadows, wetlands, and riparian corridors, should be preserved to reduce soil erosion, manage runoff, and remove pollutants.

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