Urban Land Institute
Close

Central Park Redevelopment

 

Context

When the opening of the Denver International Airport meant the closing of the Stapleton International Airport in the mid-1990s, a coalition of business and philanthropic leaders in the city realized the unprecedented opportunity to guide the former airfield into an environmentally and socially rich “city within a city,” that could continue the legacy of Denver’s historic neighborhoods while creating an abundance of new housing built around a system of parks.

Caption: Central Park’s redevelopment features large open spaces that help restore Colorado’s high prairie ecosystem with native and naturalized plantings.

Jim Chrisman, former senior vice president with Forest City Stapleton and then Brookfield Properties, and now an independent consultant, worked on the project for 30 years and saw it transform from the “Stapleton redevelopment” into the Central Park neighborhood of today. Chrisman notes how the coalition of local civic leaders raised several million dollars to fund creation of a master plan known as the Green Book. The plan was completed in the early 1990s in anticipation of the airport closure in 1995. This plan, ahead of its time as the concept of “sustainable development” was still in its infancy, laid the foundation for and defined the ethos for the project. It also underpinned selection of family-owned company Forest City as master developers for the project in 1998, as recounted by Bill Vitek. Vitek is principal with landscape architecture firm Dig Studio, which has worked on the community’s design guidelines and a large portion of Central Park’s 1,116 acres of parks and open space.

The development’s style, master-planned by sustainability-minded firms HDR and Calthorpe & Associates, leaned more toward a “traditional, New Urbanist design concept where we had a much finer grain of housing types per block and per lot, and not the 40-acre superblocks that you see in the suburban projects” that were more popular at the time, notes Chrisman.

As Chrisman describes, “We pushed the envelope on having alley-loaded product. We went back to the old traditions of Denver, and no one was really doing that, but it really helps with the streetscape. We also pushed really hard on narrow streets.” These small design choices had a major impact on creating a pedestrian-focused public realm.

In addition to the urban design, parks were always central to this style of development. “Nearly 24 percent of the site is parks or open space,” says Vitek. “And the idea was always that if you had such a large percentage of the site being open space, you could do much smaller lots. You didn’t do one-acre lots, or half-acre lots. Even a quarter-acre lot is big out there. The overall premise was to use the community parks and open space as everyone’s backyard.”

Keeping the parks accessible was also embedded in other ways, as the parks are at the front of homes, with a public street in between. “Another decision we made was that no property would back up to the open space. There would always be public right-of-way between open space and houses, so all homes would front open space and everyone would have access to it, which is the exact opposite of the suburban model,” says Chrisman.

Finally, in equal importance to creating a nature-first community was making sure Denverites of many socioeconomic backgrounds could afford to live there. Far from creating a luxury gated community, affordable housing was a key goal from the start: “We [the Stapleton Development Corporation] wanted [affordable housing] integrated throughout the community. . . . We tried to locate it near transit and close to amenities, at modest scale and densities so it wouldn’t be just a big standalone project, and it worked very well,” says Chrisman.

To accomplish this, the master plan called for a diverse mix of housing types, from single-family to townhomes to apartment complexes, and the development also made sure to expand options in other ways: “Our product segmentation was very broad,” Chrisman explains. “We pushed for product diversity from the cheapest builders could build to the highest the market would support. We had a lot of ability for moving up and down.” Partnerships with nonprofit (and later for-profit) developers helped make this happen, as did initial donations of land and $30,000–$40,000 per home to ensure the income-restricted for-sale and for-rent units penciled out. Even today, there are income-restricted units for sale in the $200,000 range—a remarkable achievement in today’s urban housing crisis.

Amidst the impressive development of 12,000 homes and 5,000 apartments, 3.3 million square feet of existing flex/industrial space and 2.6 million square feet of retail, the themes of sustainability and climate resilience remain prominent. Landscape architects Dig Studio developed a network of open space and green infrastructure that prioritized use of native and naturalized plants, restoration of the Colorado prairie ecosystem, and natural management and conservation of water to create a more drought-, heat-, and flood-resistant community that supports wildlife and ecology, while providing a rich set of amenities for recreation, social gathering, and healthy living.

Climate Resilience Strategies

 

Green infrastructure and flood control

The open spaces at Central Park increased the park system of Denver by an impressive 25 percent. As Laurel Raines, founding principal at Dig, describes it, Central Park’s green space is “a system of parks. And what is really effective about this system is that there’s the layer of the parkways . . . [that] are extensions of Denver’s historic parkway system,” says Raines. “The parkway systems knit the new development back into the existing fabric of Denver.” But that’s not all, as there are also large regional parks like Central Park, which is what gives the redevelopment its name and forms the system’s center at 80 acres. “It’s a very large park. Then there’s all the trunk [or core] open space system, which is run by Denver Parks. The trunk open space system acts as a contiguous fabric through the entire development, and it is primarily a natural system.” Finally, there’s the system neighborhood parks, or pocket parks, which reach as small as half an acre and are meant to give each neighborhood its identity, relates Raines.

Caption: In addition to large core, or “trunk” spaces, the neighborhood features many linear parkways that extend out into the neighborhoods, expanding access to parks while creating biodiversity corridors. Homes front directly onto these parks but do not restrict public access.

This is the heart of Central Park’s resilience strategy, notes Vitek. “Twenty-five years ago we didn’t call it green infrastructure, but it really was serving the same functions. And I think that’s what’s key in any parks and open space planning today is that it has to serve multiple purposes. It has to serve stormwater management and water quality, recreation, ability for greater mobility, and habitat creation.”

In addition to the broad restoration goals, Central Park also naturalized systems for water treatment, quality, and flood control. The south side of the site was in a floodplain, and occasionally airport runways used to flood, so the entire floodplain needed opening up and redesigning. “The first major large open space, Westerly Creek, was designed to take all the pipes that used to go under the ground for the airport and bring them through in a natural waterway through the center of the park and act as a flood control as well as water quality measure. And within the first year or two, the entire calculated drainage area filled up. It was like a lake. It certainly proved the point that it was needed and served its function,” says Vitek.

Caption: This network of large parks, parkways, and neighborhood “pocket parks” offers multiple opportunities to capture and retain stormwater, reducing flood risk and helping recharge groundwater supplies.

Additionally, Chrisman describes how the development team decided to work on a larger scale of water quality management. “We also made a decision that we were going to have regional water quality measures. What you typically see is someone buys five acres and they would have their own small detention pond, and [others do the same] and you have a whole bunch of properties with little detention ponds and it doesn’t look good and I don’t think it’s efficient from a water quality standpoint. We regionalized all that and had regional detention ponds that all properties would flow into.”

When major, hundred-year storms hit Denver in 2013—in Chrisman’s words, “just ridiculous amounts of rain”—the system was tested and passed with flying colors. “That Westerly Creek corridor was able to manage it. There are photos of the water almost up to the bridge, but it managed the water successfully.”

Native plants

The natural landscapes of the Central Park natural system were primarily designed as a restoration of Colorado’s historic ecosystem. Vitek and Raines explain that design guidelines for common and private land prioritize the creation of “Colorado-scape,” an evolution of the idea of xeriscaping, which focuses on use of native and naturalized plants that are adapted to the arid climate and do not need extra irrigation, in place of imported eastern lawn grass species. These plant species also attract pollinators and support biodiversity, and studies show they help with the urban heat island effect, because their roots are so much deeper than lawn species that they help more water evaporate from the soil and cool the area. Finally, they do not spread weed seed into the National Wildlife Refuge, which is adjacent to the neighborhood.

Caption: Landscape design focused on plants suitable to Colorado’s ecosystem, which would support pollinators and the larger food chain while also helping reduce water use for irrigation and enhancing the parks’ ability to cool their surroundings.

This evolution, as Vitek describes, was a shift in philosophy from the City Beautiful movement that shaped Denver in its early days, based on eastern U.S. designers’ ideals of lush lawns, to what he calls the “City Ecological” ideal focused on the no-less-beautiful but more appropriate local aesthetic of Denver’s high prairie landscape. This focus has rewarded people and nature, providing what Vitek calls “an opportunity not only for connective recreation, but connective habitat,” as they even saw beavers move in shortly after the fences came down around the old airfield.

As Colorado has experienced greater challenges with water scarcity, the landscaping selections have become more water conscious. “The old guidelines from the south and the new guidelines from the north [of the development] are different. For instance, just the plant palette alone that is suggested is more water conserving than it used to be,” says Raines.

In addition, these native and naturalized plants also include tens of thousands of trees (nearly 40,000 officially, and Vitek and Raines suspect it may be closer to 50,000) that also help cool the area, support biodiversity, and enhance human mental wellness through their biophilic benefits.

 

Reclaimed water

Lastly, the area uses Denver’s reclaimed water system, also known as purple pipe water (sewer water that has gone through sufficient treatment for nonpotable reuse). This water now irrigates the larger parks in the system, significantly reducing water withdrawals for irrigation.

Energy efficient buildings

As a key aspect of sustainability, many buildings in Central Park have been designed to LEED standards or Energy Star requirements. By virtue of these achievements, Central Park has become the largest Energy Star community in the state.

Value Creation

Added amenity and enhanced user experience

The parks and open spaces create significant amenity value for Central Park as places for recreation, exercise, and connecting with nature, improving quality of life for residents and Denverites and attracting large numbers of users.

Avoided losses, energy savings, water savings, and reduced operational costs

The natural flood control and floodplain protection measures significantly reduce the potential for property damage from heavy storms and river flooding. Additionally, the high level of energy performance required for buildings and the drought-resistant plantings both reduce energy and water use and associated utility bills for residents and owners.

Awards and recognition and marketing advantage

As development has unfolded, Central Park has attracted numerous awards, including a 2006 ULI Award for Excellence, a U.S. EPA Environmental Achievement Award, and the prestigious Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities Award from the King of Sweden, among others. This recognition as an international model for large-scale, sustainable redevelopment creates significant competitive advantage and marketing opportunities.

Business development and enhanced property value

The high-quality design and execution of the homes and communities in Central Park have created high demand and a strong pool of occupants. From 2010–2019, Central Park appeared six times in RCLCO’s lists of the year’s top 10 best-selling master-planned communities in the United States. As Vitek notes, “study after study will show that communities that have more parks have a higher premium value for properties and sales. . . . Additionally, Central Park stood the test of time during the COVID-19 pandemic, because sales there continued, while in other places they really dropped off.”

Raines and Chrisman both highlight that resale within the neighborhood is one of the biggest sales pools, constituting 40–50 percent of sales every year and demonstrating a high level of satisfaction and desire to remain in the neighborhood. As Raines puts it, “This is a beloved neighborhood. It’s very common for people to move from one house to another, to another.”

Although in a large, master-planned community it can be hard to attribute success to a single factor such as parks, Chrisman believes it has much to do with the exceptional amount of green space created. Though he notes the location was hampered by an Air Force base to the south, an Army medical hospital to the east, and an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site to the north, the parks were able to overcome those barriers. “They really did create value in the long run, especially with the way we had the houses fronting the parks. It created immediate value for their homes as well as overall value, because it created demand for people to want to be there. And there’s no way to prove it, but if we’d had only 400 or 500 acres of parks [instead of the 1,100], I don’t think it would have done as well.”

 

Lessons Learned

  • Embed sustainability from the beginning. Central Park’s champions, the group of leaders in the Stapleton Redevelopment Foundation who began the master-planning and development process, were committed to environmental and social performance from the start and ensured the execution matched the original vision of the Green Book. Sustainability is best achieved when it informs every choice made throughout a development’s life cycle.
  • Find the right partners. Similarly, sustainability can be difficult to carry out unless all partners throughout the value chain are committed. The Foundation was able to find the right development partners, from Forest City and Brookfield to design consultants Dig Studio, HDR, Civitas, and Calthorpe & Associates, to the multiple builders involved, to align on aiming high for the redevelopment.
  • Design for the long term, even if ahead of one’s time. Sustainability is still not mainstream in real estate, but when the redevelopment planning began in the early 1990s, sustainability was far from reaching the levels of acceptance it has today. Nevertheless, the development team realized its potential as a strategy to create lasting value, and as modern demand for ecologically and socially oriented communities continues to rise, the development is well-positioned to capture even greater value.

Aurora Bioswales

Context

The Aurora Bridge is an essential piece of Seattle’s transportation infrastructure and carries more than 65,000 vehicles through the city per day. During the city’s frequent rainstorms, chemicals from the roadway are cast into the waters of the Lake Washington Ship Canal below. This untreated runoff—which researchers say is six times more toxic than the national standard—flows directly into local waterways, harming the health of local ecosystems, economies, and communities.   

As climate change increases the severity of Seattle’s rainstorms, the volume of stormwater runoff is expected to grow. According to research commissioned by Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), extreme rainstorms have become 30 percent stronger since 2003 and are projected to intensify over the coming decades. Heavy rainstorms are already overwhelming the sewer system’s capacity in many neighborhoods, triggering flooding and toxic overflow into local waters.  

Developers Mark Grey, Joanna Callahan, and Mike Hess of Hess Callahan Grey Group (HCG) were inspired to do their part after learning how polluted stormwater affects local wildlife. They had watched a video of baby salmon dying when put directly into water runoff from a nearby bridge. The video then showed the runoff being filtered through soil before introducing the fish, resulting in none of the fish dying. The video demonstrated the power of natural systems to mitigate the effects of toxic stormwater.  

This knowledge led HCG to partner with Salmon Safe, a local organization working to protect waterways, to integrate green infrastructure into two commercial office projects they were developing on a steep slope under Aurora Bridge. Given the unique location, the project team saw an opportunity to collect and treat the bridge’s runoff while improving the adjacent rights-of-way along Troll Avenue, directly underneath the bridge. Dark and unwelcoming, these overlooked tracts of land were mostly empty except for the streams of polluted water that were spilling out of downspouts from the bridge above. 

The team installed the bioswales in three phases. The first two phases, which line Troll Avenue, were financed and permitted as part of the two office projects’ frontage improvements. The third phase, which sits down the hill and closer to the lake, was developed thanks to a nonprofit, Clean Lake Union, formed by Mark to advocate for continued clean-up efforts around the lake. Many public and private partners also contributed to the third phase, including Salmon Safe, The Nature Conservancy, Boeing, Tableau, Adobe, Seattle Public Utilities, and the state of Washington. Together, these three phases collect and treat up to two million gallons of water annually from the entire north span of the Aurora Bridge, minimizing the risk of neighborhood flooding and improving water quality.  

HCG worked with project architect Weber Thompson and engineering firms KPFF and DCI Engineers to bring the swales to life. “The most exciting thing about this project,” says Rachael Meyer, landscape architecture principal and director of sustainability at Weber Thompson, “is that it has convinced so many people that green infrastructure is a viable solution, and it has paved the way for future projects of this kind to be developed throughout the region.”  

Climate Resilience and Sustainability Strategies

Bioswales and natural stormwater management 

The bioswales harness the power of nature to help collect, filter, and absorb stormwater before it is discharged into the lake. Six downspouts located under the Aurora Bridge carry runoff from the roadway into planted areas. The runoff flows through the swales before being returned to the municipal storm drainage system that discharges into Lake Union.  

The swales in the first two phases, located on either side of Troll Avenue North, are terraced and step down every two feet of grade. At each stage, low dams made of Corten steel hold and slow the movement of water so that sediment and contaminants can be filtered into the soil, while the clean surface water outfalls to the next retention cell. The second phase also features staggered concrete walls, which help slow runoff from the adjacent building and promote evaporation. A block downhill, phase 3 is characterized by a spillway and five low steel walls to settle and divert incoming water before it reaches the lake.  

Testing of the water entering and leaving the swales confirmed measurable filtration of a large range of contaminants.  

The design incorporates consecutive swales down the steep hillside of Troll Avenue. As water flows through the swales, sediment in the runoff settles into the soil and the cleaned water at the top of the pool flows to the next stage. Image credit: Built Work Photography

Native Plants and Biodiversity

All three phases incorporate a variety of native plants and trees that provide both an aesthetic landscape and play an important role in stormwater management. Vegetation slows down the movement of water and filters sediment and other large particles. Plants also support healthy soils, which contain microbes that digest contaminants and other tiny particles. 

The project team prioritized pollinator habitat by including flowering plants and designing flat areas within the swales where bees can find water and shady respite in the summer months. Native vine maples, which are often found in the understory of Pacific Northwest forests, add shade in the summer months and color in the fall.  

Most critically, water that has made its way through the swales is visibly cleaner, promoting the health and longevity of five different species of migrating salmon that travel through Lake Union on their way to rivers and streams for spawning. Salmon are foundational to the region’s natural environment, fishing industry, and the cultural identity of local Native American tribes. As indicator species, they provide a signal of the overall health of the Pacific Northwest marine environment.    

Native shrubs and Vine Maples serve as understory plantings to provide a robust forest floor below the overhead canopy that the bridge structure and columns simulate. Image credit: Built Work Photography

Green space and public access 

Through the addition of native plants and natural features, the swales have enhanced two rights-of-way on Troll Avenue North as well as a previously grass-covered tract of land closer to Lake Union. Prior to the swales’ development, these areas were dark and forgotten, always in the shadow of Aurora Bridge above. Today, the swales open up the streetscape and provide a new place for the community to congregate in formerly degraded areas.   

Educational signage in the first two phases engages visitors with the story of the swales and the importance of water quality on the region’s salmon species. Phase 1 also has embedded brass numbers in the sidewalk that show visitors the volume of water cleaned annually in the adjacent swale cell. The steel weirs in the third phase feature silhouette cutouts of the five species of salmon that reside in the nearby waterways.  

The swales are centrally located in the heart of the Fremont neighborhood, known for its quirky shops, unique restaurants, and the iconic Fremont Troll, an 18-foot cement art piece that has lived under the Aurora Bridge since the early 1990s. Down the hill, next to the phase 3 swale, is the Burke-Gilman Trail, which serves more than one million pedestrians and bicyclists annually. Throughout the year, thousands of people travel beside the swales on the Burke-Gilman, on the way up to the Troll, or down to the waters of Lake Union.  

Value Proposition

Added amenity

The bioswales transform previously dark, vacant areas into well-lit, landscaped destinations that people are eager to visit and enjoy. Lined with native plants, the meandering pathways, plazas, and benches invite visitors to gather, take photos, and spend time observing the natural flow of water through the swales. “People stop and appreciate the bioswales even without really knowing what the system is doing to protect the neighborhood and improve water quality,” said Meyer.  

Reduced maintenance costs

Prior to the swales, the area that is now phase 3 was covered in grass, requiring regular mowing and upkeep. Today, minimal maintenance is needed beyond an occasional weeding. In addition, nearby property owners have reported reduced instances of vandalism since the swales were installed, reducing the need for frequent repairs and upkeep.  

Awards and recognition

The bioswales have been recognized by numerous organizations for their unique design and success delivering environmental benefit through a unique public/private partnership.  

  • ULI Global Award for Excellence Winner, 2023 
  • ULI Americas Award for Excellence Winner, 2023 
  • 2022 GRAY Magazine Awards, Grand Winner: Landscape Design 
  • 2022 Gold Nugget Awards, Merit Award: Best Landscape Architecture for a Community 
  • 2022 WASLA Awards, Honor Awards: General Design, Private Ownership 
  • 2019 King County Green Globe Award: Leader in Water Quality Solutions 
  • 2018 WASLA Awards, Phase 1: Vision Award for Water 
  • A case study of this project is included in a United Nations Guide for Sustainable Practices to teach professional designers ways to include green infrastructure as a standard practice.  

Staggered concrete walls help slow runoff and promote evaporation, reducing the amount of water flowing into the swale. Image credit: Built Work Photography

 Lessons Learned

  • This project demonstrates how privately funded green infrastructure can be leveraged to improve public roadways, especially bridges, and provide community benefit. Prior to the Aurora Bridge swales, few precedents existed for private developments electing to clean roadway runoff as part of frontage improvements. This type of development was not originally allowed outright in the city’s code but has now paved the way for more streamlined permitting of future swales across the city. In addition, the success of the Aurora Bridge swales has inspired Seattle Public Utilities to establish programs to incentivize similar improvements as partnerships with private developments.  
  •  The project team has observed that the bioswales are dry most of the time, indicating that less space is needed to collect and filter the bridge’s runoff. This means that the system’s capacity can keep pace as Seattle’s rainstorms become heavier and more severe. Climate predictions for the Seattle area indicate that extreme precipitation events are likely to be more intense. For example, the magnitude of the average 25-year storm is expected to increase by 13 percent by 2050 and 12 percent by 2090.
  • The bioswales offer a replicable model for other communities looking to leverage green infrastructure to improve stormwater management and water quality in urban settings. The regulatory environment around stormwater management is complex, and the team had to navigate numerous requirements from various public agencies at the city, state, and federal level. In particular, the project had to secure special approval to divert roadway catch basins and downspouts into the right–of–way temporarily before returning the water to the storm drain system. Despite these hurdles, the success of the bioswales demonstrate the importance of collaboration among these agencies to realize significant community and environmental benefit.  

Babcock Ranch

Thank you to Alex Wilson and the Resilient Design Institute (RDI) for permitting a reprint of the article “Babcock Ranch – A Solar Town Proves Resilient During Hurricane Ian,” which was incorporated as the Context and Climate Resilience Strategies sections of this project profile.

Context

Babcock Ranch was a 91,000-acre (143 sq mi) property in southwest Florida when it was acquired by Kitson & Partners in a complex real estate transaction in which 80 percent of the land was immediately sold to the state of Florida. The property is named after Edward Vose Babcock, a past mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who purchased the land in 1914.

The private development company, Kitson & Partners, founded by the former professional football player Syd Kitson, stepped in and purchased the entire property in 2006, then immediately sold roughly 73,000 acres of the land to the state, with some of the funding from Lee County, to create the Babcock Ranch Preserve, which continues ranching operations that support the maintenance costs of the preserve. The remainder of the land is being developed in an environmentally responsible manner.

“Developers have an impact on the environment, and we need to mitigate those impacts,” Kitson told RDI. “What I set out to prove is that building a new town—a new city—can work hand-in-hand with the environment. I think we’re doing just that.”

Kitson & Partners, with input from public planning meetings held in 2006 as well as outside experts including the Rocky Mountain Institute, developed an environmentally sensitive master plan with a high-tech commercial center that would include an R&D hub for clean energy development, four villages and five hamlets that would ultimately comprise nearly 20,000 homes and 6 million square feet of commercial space—all powered by solar energy. Under the plan, roughly two-thirds of the remaining property would be permanently set aside as open space.

Approximately 2,000 dwelling units have now been completed at Babcock Ranch, with hundreds more under construction. Most are single-family homes, but some are attached villas, townhouses, condominiums, and apartments, according to Jennifer Languell, PhD, who has served as the green building and sustainable development adviser through her company Trifecta Construction.

Climate Resilience and Sustainability Strategies

Site design and wetland engineering

Several factors contributed to Babcock Ranch’s performance during Hurricane Ian. For starters, most of the land is about 30 feet above sea level—veritable highlands for South Florida!

As promised, nearly 12,000 acres of the 18,000 that Kitson & Partners retained has been permanently protected as wetlands, uplands, greenways, and preserves. “Our water management plan is one that uses the natural flow-ways within the community versus clearcutting and forcing the water to go where it doesn’t want to go,” Kitson explained. “We went back and looked at maps a hundred years old and found the natural flow-ways.”

Wetlands and lakes are integral components of the stormwater management system at Babcock Ranch. Photo: Kitson & Partners, courtesy of Alex Wilson/Resilient Design Institute and Lisa Hall.

The wetlands were designed to mimic natural flows and provide natural stormwater management, according to civil engineer Amy Wicks, P.E., the engineer of record for Babcock Ranch Community and vice president of Kimley-Horn, which provided surface water management design, master planning, landscape architecture, roadway design, water and wastewater engineering, and permitting services for Babcock Ranch.

“The water management system is a multifaceted design that utilizes a natural systems approach, coupled with redundancy to protect infrastructure,” noted Wicks. “While the system internal to Babcock Ranch starts with a series of rain gardens that ultimately lead to lakes for stormwater attenuation (detention), these systems then utilize a series of created wetlands and natural flow-ways for storage, similar to how natural wetlands act as storage during large storm events naturally.”

During extreme events, such as hurricanes, this distributed approach is highly advantageous, because it prevents blockages of culverts from causing flooding. “By having a system that operates both in series and in parallel, the system will flow a different direction with little effort,” she explained, “allowing it to function normally, even with blockages.”

Natural landscaping requirements

For a planned community in Florida, Babcock Range mandates native landscaping and minimal chemical treatments. “In common areas, Babcock requires 90 percent native vegetation, and for the homesites, 75 percent must be native,” said Languell.

A commercial center at Babcock Ranch with native landscaping that is resilient to storms. Most commercial buildings have solar modules on the roof. Photo: Kitson & Partners, courtesy of Alex Wilson/Resilient Design Institute and Lisa Hall.

“We require native plant materials here,” said Kitson. “We decided that we were going to go for something authentic. What did Florida look like 100 or 200 years ago? There’s a reason those native plant materials do very well in hurricanes and dry seasons and wet seasons—they’re accustomed to it.” Kitson, who doesn’t have any lawn area at his own Babcock Ranch home, described the native landscaping as beautiful. “I think if you drove through Babcock Ranch, you would notice almost immediately that this area is different.”

Yards at Babcock Ranch can only be 30 percent grass. Lawns are restricted, explained Kitson, because they don’t want the chemicals—including phosphates and nitrates—contaminating their surface waters. “Our lakes are crystal clear because of the limerock, and we don’t want to do anything that disrupts that,” he said. “There are no algae blooms here.”

High-performance, hardened buildings

All buildings at Babcock Ranch must be certified by the Florida Green Building Coalition’s Green Home or Commercial standards, which Languell described as similar to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating, but specifically designed for hot-humid climates. She noted that this is “the only certification program that contains a disaster mitigation section.” Under the building code, “homes are required to be designed to 160-mph wind loads,” said Languell.

Buildings are designed to the Florida Green Building Coalition’s Green Home or Commercial standards, which can include wind-resistant concrete construction. Photo: Alex Wilson/Resilient Design Institute.

Hip roofs are used on most single-family homes to protect against high wind, because of the better performance in high wind than gable roofs. Hurricane strapping, continuous structural connections between foundation and roof framing, and other structural requirements are rigorous—as mandated by the Florida Building Code, which Kitson credits with dramatic improvements in how well newer homes perform throughout Florida. Homebuilders who build at Babcock Ranch also have to either install hurricane-rated windows or supply homeowners with removable hurricane shutters.

Buildings, mostly built of concrete masonry units, are heavily reinforced with rebar and concrete-filled cores for strength.

Many homes include strong metal roofs for wind and debris impacts, and pervious pavers for stormwater management. Photo: Alex Wilson/Resilient Design Institute.

The average Home Energy Rating Score (HERS) for homes at Babcock Ranch is 58—which Languell said is “25 percent more efficient than the Florida Energy Code, which is fairly stringent.” Electric heat pumps are used for all heating and cooling, though natural gas is used in some houses for cooking and water heating.

Both indoor and outdoor water conservation is a community focus, according to Languell. “All plumbing fixtures must be at a minimum WaterSense, but we find that most builders are doing better than the minimum WaterSense conservation levels.”

Site elevation and protection strategies

All homes at Babcock Ranch are built “1 foot above the flood elevation of a 25-year event followed by a 100-year event,” according to Wicks. This standard was adopted to address the increased flood vulnerability when soils are already saturated from prior precipitation, and it equates to about 11 inches of rain followed by 14 inches of rain (25 inches total), she told RDI.

There are no basements to flood, because all buildings are slab-on-grade (which is standard practice for much of Florida). Fill dirt from creating the lakes was used to elevate house sites on the building lots.

Specialized floodproofing measures, such as flood vents and use of wettable materials (materials that can get wet and dry out without growing mold), are not required at Babcock Ranch, according to Wicks, “because we do not anticipate any flooding events.” She explained that “because of the extra precautions taken in the design of the elevations and the stormwater management system, floodproofing of the buildings is not necessary.”

Resilience also involves protection from winds. “All utilities are underground,” said Kitson. The Babcock Ranch–owned water, wastewater, and reclaimed water pipes were colocated with conduit for electricity and data utilities. With all utilities buried, risk of damage from storms is all but eliminated.

A solar city

Babcock Ranch bills itself as “America’s first solar city.” As part of the development plan, Florida Power & Light (FPL) operates two solar farms that generate 150 megawatts on 840 acres of Babcock Ranch. The FPL arrays produce enough electricity to power 30,000 homes—more than will exist at Babcock Ranch at buildout. The rest of the power is fed into the FPL grid.

The two 75-megawatt solar fields at Babcock Ranch comprise over 700,000 modules spread over 840 acres and owned by Florida Power & Light. The field includes 10 megawatts of battery storage. Photo: Kitson & Partners, courtesy of Alex Wilson/Resilient Design Institute and Lisa Hall.

Kitson describes the relationship with FPL as extremely positive. Kitson & Partners gave FPL 440 acres for the first 75-megawatt solar plant, and the company purchased another 400 acres to build a second array. More than 700,000 solar panels have been installed on these 840 acres. In addition to the large, ground-mounted solar array, most of the commercial buildings have extensive solar arrays on their roofs.

A 10-megawatt battery system helps with power management, but this is really part of what Babcock Ranch refers to as their “Living Laboratory,” according to Languell, which will showcase new and emerging energy technologies. “As battery technology is changing rapidly, we continue to work with Florida Power and Light to research and potentially test next-generation systems,” she said.

Value Proposition

Avoided losses

Babcock Ranch performed remarkably well during Hurricane Ian. The community never lost power or water service, and in property damage, a few young trees were downed that were quickly righted and some roofs saw minor dislodging of tiles or shingles. According to Kitson, “other than that, if you drove through here a day later, you would not know that all around us . . . there was destruction or that a Category 4 hurricane basically sat over us for over eight hours.” Given that Ian was the costliest hurricane in the state’s history, emerging unharmed from it creates significant value in avoided losses for property owners.

Awards and recognition

Babcock Ranch received major national attention after its success during Hurricane Ian, being featured in multiple news outlets. The community has also received multiple awards for its design, including two Edison Awards for sustainability and resilience, and was listed as the fifth best-selling master-planned community in the United States in 2022 by RCLCO and John Burns Real Estate Consulting, up from 14th of 50 in 2021.

Extended building life

As buildings are built out of the floodplain, using durable materials resistant to wind, they should incur less damage and repair/replacement costs over their lifespan.

Energy savings

Babcock Ranch’s sizable renewable energy resources and energy efficient home designs create notable energy savings, which should translate to cost savings as well for residents.

 Lessons Learned

  • Thinking community-wide creates greater opportunity. Babcock Ranch’s resilience to extreme weather is derived from the combination of its inland site selection, innovative stormwater management system, extensive backup power, native landscaping, and building hardening approaches, none of which would be as effective in isolation. Developments that can work at multiple scales will see better outcomes against multiple hazards.
  • Careful design attracts attention. A well-deserved reputation for resilience can be as important to a project’s success as its design features. Babcock Ranch’s rapid rise to prominence after weathering Hurricane Ian demonstrates that real estate developments prepared for extreme weather will stand out from the crowd and build significant market distinction.
  • Finding the right partners enables bold steps. A major aspect of Babcock Ranch’s ability to withstand disruption is the energy resilience provided by the network of on-site renewable energy and battery storage, enabled by the strong partnership with Florida Power & Light. Partnerships among real estate, utilities, and other energy providers can be critical to ensuring buildings and sites can stay operational during climate hazards.

Promenade Park

 

Context

The location of Fort Wayne, at the confluence of three rivers, was important to the establishment of the city in the late 1700s. In the early 20th century, Fort Wayne’s rivers—the St. Marys River, the St. Joseph River, and the Maumee River—were community assets that powered mills and provided transportation before frequent flooding led the community to “wall off” the rivers with levees during the 1980s. During that period, new development largely turned its back on the rivers rather than celebrating them, and overgrown vegetation prevented residents from regularly seeing and accessing the waterfront.

A turning point was reached in 2011 when Mayor Tom Henry made riverfront development a priority for the city. To shape and guide this development, the Riverfront Fort Wayne initiative was created with strong support from the mayor and city council. After a comprehensive study of the city’s rivers, the 4.5-acre (1.8 ha) future site of Promenade Park was identified for the first phases of riverfront development.

To ensure meaningful cross-sector collaboration from the very beginning, the city of Fort Wayne worked closely with the Riverworks Design Group, a partnership of designers, architects, engineers, and storytellers. Committed to making Promenade Park a world-class destination, the partnership was formed exclusively to execute the planning and design for the park.

The creation of the park was significant not only in reducing flood risk but also in forging a connection between Fort Wayne’s urban center and the riverfront. Opened in 2019, the park is connected to the city’s Rivergreenway, which comprises 25 miles (40 km) of riverside paths, serving walkers, bikers, and hikers. Before the park’s existence, there were few access points to the river and they were difficult to reach, but now they are the cornerstone of the community. Additional amenities—such as canoes and kayaks, boat tours, an accessible playground, a splash pad, ping-pong tables, a band shell for performances, an amphitheater, and a 6,400-square-foot (595 sq m) pavilion—ensure that there is something for each of the 50,000 annual visitors to enjoy.

The park’s design also encourages connections between nature and people of all abilities. From the very beginning of the design process, project team conversations were held with community members, which led to the inclusion of universal design principles. From large bench swings to curved hillside seating that fosters conversations, Promenade Park offers a mental break for downtown workers and residents alike in a natural environment.

Resilience and Sustainability Strategies

Promenade Park demonstrates the value of revitalizing natural spaces for public benefit while prioritizing resilience and sustainability strategies to ensure the park’s longevity for generations to come.

Some of the park’s notable resilience and sustainability strategies include the following:

  • Supporting local ecology: The construction of the park was carefully executed in order not to disrupt the existing environment. The strategic placement of local, native plants supported the existing vegetation while providing habitat for local species. Certain plantings in the park can withstand being underwater for extended periods of time, such as during flood events. In addition, structural supports for the Tree Canopy Trail, a nearly 600-foot-long (183 m) canopy walk through the trees, were placed to keep wetlands intact and weave the trail around the trees—any trees removed for the trail were replaced at a higher ratio.
  • Addressing flood risk: The park’s large stairs leading to the riverfront can safely store water during flood events, lessening the effects of extreme weather on the surrounding community. Even the children’s playground doubles as a resilient design feature with its grade change providing climbing and sliding play opportunities while being able to withstand high water levels during floods. The park’s construction was responsible for the creation of more than 3,000 cubic yards (2,294 cubic m) of additional storage for water from storms and floods, protecting surrounding businesses and neighborhoods that were once susceptible to flooding.
  • Community engagement: Over the course of five years leading up to the park’s construction, the collective of local firms behind the park’s development—the Riverworks Design Group—held numerous public meetings to ensure that the park was developed to reflect the history and culture of the city. Through a mix of community engagement activities including focus groups, surveys, and boat tours along the river, over 8,000 community members contributed their thoughts and ideas to help shape the park.
  • Accessible design: It was vital to the community and creators of the park for everyone to be able to use the space freely and easily. Turnstone, a community organization that provides programs to empower people with disabilities, helped organize focus groups with blind athletes and people with sensory disorders and Parkinson’s disease. Input from these focus groups informed many design decisions. Notable features of the park include gradual sloping walking paths with five-foot (1.5 m) turn radii to accommodate wheelchairs, accessible play features, wheelchair seating at tables, patterns in the pavilion floor to accommodate challenges associated with Parkinson’s disease, and a tactile ribbon running along the park’s path that is paired with a 3D-printed map providing easy wayfinding to those with visual impairments.

Value Proposition

Avoided losses. Fort Wayne has long grappled with flooding due to heavy precipitation, storms, and its fluctuating rivers. In 1982, the city experienced one of its worst floods and estimated damage costs totaled around $57 million. The team behind Promenade Park took the park’s design and construction as an opportunity to enhance flood resilience by implementing a variety of protection and mitigation strategies. Given the surrounding neighborhoods’ and businesses’ susceptibility to flooding, the park’s ability to safely store stormwater and floodwater may help businesses remain open, avoid losses, and minimize the need for post-disaster building repairs.

Business development. High-quality parks and green spaces raise surrounding property values by 8 to 10 percent, so it is not a surprise that the park’s proximity to downtown has supported Fort Wayne’s economic development opportunities like the creation of new businesses, jobs, and the attraction of future real estate development. In response to the success of Promenade Park as a waterfront gathering space for large and diverse crowds, the city is planning for future phases of Riverfront Fort Wayne, including new recreation areas, trails, and mixed-use developments along the river on both sides of the park.

 Lessons Learned

  • Embracing and revitalizing natural assets: By embracing a historically significant natural asset that was previously walled off and difficult to access, the Riverworks Design Group physically reconnected the community with its rivers while creating new opportunities for recreation, social connection, and future real estate and riverfront development. The park is now a model for climate resilience, protecting the surrounding neighborhood from extreme weather effects and creating opportunities for environmental stewardship and education.
  • Meaningful community engagement for inclusive spaces: The welcoming design and inclusive atmosphere of Promenade Park are largely attributable to the extensive community engagement process that culminated in its construction. Engaging Turnstone and over 8,000 community members ensured that the park would reflect local values and be a space where people with disabilities could enjoy activities that are traditionally afforded to able-bodied and neurotypical people.
  • The power of partnerships: Collaboration among public agencies, private organizations, and the community created buy-in at scale and has made the park a beloved gathering space. It attests to the power of incorporating the voices of a diverse population to be able to create a park that is simultaneously climate-ready and inclusive. Even from a financing perspective, funding sources from private and public entities, as well as the creative use of legacy funds, from the sale of the city’s electric utility assets, which totaled $10 million, made the park’s design and construction possible. In Mayor Henry’s own words, “The public and private sectors came together to build a tremendous park that provides our community and region with a unique gathering place that also serves as the launch for future riverfront development efforts and additional quality of place opportunities.”

The Waller Creek District and Tunnel

 

Context

Austin’s Waller Creek Tunnel, completed in 2017, captures floodwater and releases it into Lady Bird Lake, reducing the size of the floodplain along lower Waller Creek and helping revitalize the eastern part of downtown Austin, called the Waller Creek District. The tunnel is about 5,600 feet long, lies 70 feet below the surface, and ranges in diameter from 22 to 26 feet.

Construction of the tunnel has enabled businesses, governments, and nonprofits to invest in the Waller Creek District. The City of Austin, the Waterloo Greenway Conservancy, and the Waller Creek Local Government Corporation created a vision for the district to guide that investment. A mix of private and public projects is in the works for the district, including 35 acres of parks and open space.

The Waller Creek Tunnel was funded through tax increment financing (TIF). The Waller Creek TIF only uses funds generated by the increased property values and property taxes in the Waller Creek District. The TIF not only paid for the tunnel, but also helped fund the redevelopment of Waterloo Park. The Waterloo Greenway Conservancy, the TIF, and the City of Austin are also funding a chain of parks and trails along the creek, called Waterloo Greenway.

Since opening in August 2021, Waterloo Park has welcomed tens of thousands of visitors to explore nature, gather with friends and family, and immerse themselves in musical, cultural, and performing arts experiences. The park includes the new Moody Amphitheater, a 5,000-person outdoor concert venue; an 11-acre green space with a native plant garden; a constructed wetland and terrace next to Waller Creek; walking and biking trails with a skywalk, traditional and nature playscapes; and dedicated space for local food trucks. Waterloo Greenway Conservancy offers free weekly community programs and year-round special events at the park, providing an accessible space where Austinites can relax, have fun, and connect with one another.

Reinvestment along Waterloo Greenway is focused on transforming lower Waller Creek from the site of eroded, polluted, and flood-prone channelized infrastructure into a natural oasis for both humans and habitats. With the addition of the tunnel, the creek conveys less stormwater, allowing it to look and feel more like a natural stream system and take on a new role in downtown Austin. The Waller Creek project invests in public open space, trails, and ecosystem rehabilitation, enhancing access to nature and health in downtown Austin and enabling future resilient development.

Resilience Strategies

  • Stormwater management. The addition of the Waller Creek Tunnel removed more than 28 acres of downtown Austin from the floodplain, providing opportunities for redevelopment in the Waller Creek District. The tunnel also reduces Waller Creek bank erosion during periods of flooding and gently pumps lake water back into the creek to keep it flowing during dry times.
  • Green infrastructure. Investment in green space and ecosystem restoration along the Waterloo Greenway helps manage stormwater and flooding, rebuild ecosystems, and enhance access to nature and health for Austinites. The addition of green infrastructure also helps mitigate the urban heat island effect and improve air and water quality.
  • Native plants. To create an ecologically robust riparian corridor, the Waterloo Greenway Conservancy has focused on saving and adding native plants to the greenway. In Waterloo Park alone, 95 percent of the 90,500 plants and trees are native and 5 percent are adaptive. In the next phase of redevelopment, the conservancy plans to add about 200,000 native plants and 1,500 trees along the greenway from Fourth Street to Lady Bird Lake. The focus on native plants supports local habitats and pollinators, ecological diversity, ecosystem restoration, and resilience to heat, drought, and flooding.
  • Water reuse. Waterloo Park uses Austin’s reclaimed water instead of potable water for subsurface drip irrigation and toilet flushing, allowing water and energy conservation and drought resilience. The park also has a 50,000-gallon cistern to capture rainwater for reuse.

Value Proposition

  • Added amenities. The addition of the Waller Creek Tunnel and redevelopment of the 1.5-mile Waterloo Greenway, including Waterloo Park, have added significant value to downtown Austin. Waterloo Park’s new amenities—Moody Amphitheater, an 11-acre green space, walking and biking trails, playscapes, and programming—provide an accessible space for Austinites to relax and have fun.
  • Avoided losses. The Waller Creek Tunnel significantly reduces flood risk between 12th Street and Lady Bird Lake. Previously, flooding and erosion along Waller Creek were regular occurrences.
  • Reduced insurance premiums and improved insurance ratings. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) floodplain map of the area was updated in 2022 to reflect the improvements. With reduced flood risk, properties in the Waller Creek District are expected to see reduced insurance premiums and improved insurance ratings. Lenders may still require flood insurance, however, and businesses and residents may also choose to keep their flood insurance for financial protection.
  • Increased developable land. The Waller Creek Tunnel removed more than 28 acres of downtown Austin from the floodplain, providing opportunities for redevelopment in the Waller Creek District.
  • Capital attraction. Because of the tunnel, businesses, governments, and nonprofits are now able to invest in the Waller Creek District. A mix of private and public projects is in the works for the district, including billions of dollars in private development.
  • Enhanced property value. Reduced flood risk and high-quality amenities will lead to enhanced property values in and around the Waller Creek District. The investments in the area are expected to increase downtown tax revenue.
  • Water savings. Waterloo Park’s use of reclaimed water and rainwater instead of potable water for subsurface drip irrigation of the 11-acre green space will result in significant water, energy, and cost savings.
  • Awards and recognition. Waterloo Park received the ULI Austin Impact Award for Best Public Place in 2022 and the Waterloo Greenway received the ULI Austin Impact Award for Next Big Idea in 2019. Moody Amphitheater achieved four stars in the Austin Energy Green Building rating system in 2021.

Lessons Learned

Vision and planning

The City of Austin and Waterloo Greenway Conservancy staff note that having an exciting and engaging vision upfront was vital to get people on board with the long-term project. “You really have to think about the full life cycle upfront when you’re starting a project like this,” said Kristin Pipkin, project management supervisor for the Waller Creek District Program in Austin’s Watershed Protection department.

This project started with a framework plan that served as a proof of concept for the Austin City Council. Once that plan was approved, the city held a national design competition in 2012, which led to the selection of a design plan that was amended in 2018 and is now referenced in the city’s comprehensive plan.

Within the partnership, planning was essential to figure out the phases of construction, budget timelines, scopes of work, and how to work together across organizations and departments.

Public/private partnership

“It takes a village to make a project of this size and complexity happen,” Pipkin said. While the city was responsible for the tunnel project, partnering with a separate organization responsible for the Waterloo Greenway over time as well as fundraising for capital improvements proved important for the success of the multi-tiered project.

Waterloo Greenway Conservancy was created for this purpose in 2010 to respond to citizens advocating for park and trail redevelopment along Waller Creek. In 2014, the partnership was formalized by a joint development agreement. The convervancy and city recommend engaging in a partnership agreement upfront so that each organization knows what it is responsible for and how best to work together. They also recommend allowing for adaptability, flexibility, and contingencies.

In the case of this partnership, the city is responsible for the Waller Creek Tunnel and owns the land, watershed, and public improvements. The Waterloo Greenway Conservancy is an independent nonprofit responsible for fundraising, design, construction, programming, operations, and maintenance for the Waterloo Greenway. The Waller Creek Local Government Corporation is the approval body for contracts, budgets, financing, design, construction, operations, and maintenance, and is given authority for oversight of the district by the city council.

Political and financial champions

It was clear from the beginning that to develop a project of this scale, it was necessary to have champions with standing and respect in the community who could pull political weight. Leadership from the city was important for the cross-department collaborations, but champions from the community were needed to justify the time and costs of the project. Having a grand vision and plan was helpful for getting community buy-in and sustained interest.

The redevelopment intersected with various interrelated issues, such as infrastructure, private development, utilities, building codes, transportation, affordability, growth, resilience, history, accessibility, and safety. These issues attracted more interested parties and required upfront, transparent communication about what was happening with the project. As an example, the city is working with developers on voluntary design guidelines within Waller Creek District that support Waller Creek. Ongoing communication efforts include public relations, partnerships, signage, programming, and public art.

Sustainable funding sources

With a project of this magnitude, significant and sustained funding mechanisms are required. The Waller Creek Tunnel was a $163 million TIF investment. Redevelopment of the 1.5-mile Waterloo Greenway, including Waterloo Park, is estimated to cost around $265 million over three phases and will be covered by TIF, funds from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, park bonds, drainage utility fees, development fees, city budgets, and private partner fundraising. Once the greenway is redeveloped, Waterloo Greenway Conservancy will be responsible for operations and maintenance, which will be covered by programming and concert revenue, philanthropy, and a partnership with the Austin Downtown Alliance business improvement district.

The project partners recommend determining upfront the financial mechanisms—such as TIF, improvement districts, taxes, fees, and/or community partnerships—and building them into the project from the beginning. So far, the selected financial tools are working for the Waterloo Greenway.

 

ULI is grateful for the support of The JPB Foundation.

Cook Park

Context

In its heyday, Vine City was a center for activism and leadership during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. However, the neighborhood declined after decades of disinvestment, poverty, crime, and racist land use policies. By the early 2000s, the neighborhood was one of Atlanta’s most distressed communities. Topography also is a major challenge for Vine City, which lies on low ground within the Proctor Creek watershed and is therefore prone to flooding during heavy rains. In September 2002, flash flooding from Tropical Storm Hanna overwhelmed the neighborhood’s sewer system, inundating dozens of homes, and displacing hundreds of residents. With most houses damaged beyond repair, city leaders decided that both the cost to rebuild and the risk of future flooding were too great. The city of Atlanta purchased 60 properties and relocated residents, but the land was undeveloped for more than a decade.  

In the years following the flood, a coordinated partnership among Vine City residents, the city of Atlanta, and Trust for Public Land created a vision for the site that would address flood risk and provide much-needed green space and community amenities. In 2010, the city of Atlanta developed a park master plan for the Vine City and English Avenue neighborhood. The resulting community engagement process included dozens of meetings, events, and in-depth conversations with residents to identify the neighborhood’s needs and priorities over the course of the multiyear planning process. The final design of the park integrated innovative stormwater retention facilities alongside a playground, splash pad, sport courts, and walking paths.  

The park pays homage to the neighborhood’s important history with statues of notable peacemakers including the late United States Representative John Lewis, D-Atlanta, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who was a resident of Vine City in the 1960s. In 2018, a dedicated effort to engage neighborhood youth in the park’s redevelopment resulted in two custom climbing boulder installations, made possible by a partnership with The North Face outdoor apparel and gear company. Also, the VF Foundation funded two murals designed by local public artists in concert with the neighborhood to honor the rich musical roots and neighborhood leaders that made Vine City what it is today. Trust for Public Land and city officials worked hard to center residents’ voices in the planning process to ensure that the park met community needs and honored its history. 

After more than eleven years in the making, Rodney Cook Sr. Peace Park opened to the public in July 2021 and has quickly become an essential piece of the community. 

“Rodney Cook Park is located at the low point of Vine City, so all water flows to where the park is,” said George Dusenbury, Georgia state director for the Trust for Public Land. “We have worked with the city to repurpose this land into a park that floods so that the surrounding communities do not.” 

 Climate Resilience Strategies 

The centerpiece detention pond and water features can capture and store up to 10 million gallons of stormwater during intense rainstorms. Surrounding the pond are constructed wetlands, native stormwater plantings, and rain gardens that further absorb and filter water to minimize flood risk to Vine City residents and improve water quality.  

The engineering team also created a stormwater strategy that extends beyond the park to the full 150-acre Proctor Creek / North Avenue watershed, representing thousands of westside residents who benefit from a better stormwater management system. Now the park’s green infrastructure captures water from the broader drainage area to reduce peak loads that would normally strain the sewer system.  

In addition to mitigating the negative impacts of stormwater, the park provides relief from the urban heat island effect with green space, native plants, and shady trees. Cook Park’s stormwater infrastructure and recreational amenities combine to create a unique place that contributes to a healthier and more resilient community. 

Value Proposition

  • Added amenity: The dual-purpose park has helped the city of Atlanta achieve key goals for stormwater management and new green space development. Within days of the park’s opening, neighborhood residents were taking full advantage of the new walking paths, splash pad, amphitheater, basketball court, and great lawn. No longer a vacant parcel, the park today hums with activity and offers a scenic destination to be enjoyed by all.  
  • Avoided losses: Although at the time of this writing there have not been any significant flooding events to test the park’s green infrastructure to its full capacity, the neighborhood is well prepared for future heavy rainstorms. Rainstorms have been increasing in their number and severity due to climate change, with trends expected to continue over the coming decades. The last time the city saw significant flooding was in 2009 and resulted in $500 million in property damage with more than 20,000 homes, businesses and other buildings significantly impacted. The city’s sizable investment in Cook Park and the neighborhood’s stormwater infrastructure will easily pay for itself in avoided property damage after only a few intense storms.  
  • Enhanced property value: The park is also contributing to the revival of Vine City, which has for many years experienced higher rates of unemployment and crime compared with other Atlanta neighborhoods. The average price for a single-family home in Vine City rose from around $14,000 in 2011 to $255,000 in 2021. In comparison, the average price of a home in other Atlanta neighborhoods increased from $307,000 to $580,000. Given the sizable public investment in the park, the city and neighborhood groups acknowledge that displacement and gentrification could occur in Vine City. Nonprofits and affordable housing developers are acquiring property as quickly as possible to mitigate displacement and preserve the affordability of the area. Other organizations, like the Westside Future Fund, are helping homeowners pay their property tax increases through mortgage assistance programs so that longtime residents can stay in the neighborhood. 

Lessons Learned

  • An innovative partnership between the city of Atlanta and Trust for Public Land allowed the project to meet multiple community needs. Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management provided funding for Cook Park’s network of green infrastructure designed to reduce flooding in the historic neighborhood. Trust for Public Land provided philanthropic support that funded the project’s community engagement, design, and construction of multiuse sports courts, a splash pad, a playground, walking trails, and a collection of other park amenities. The combined effort resulted in a destination that delivers a host of environmental and community benefits to the neighborhood. 
  • Stormwater management inspired local community engagement and conservation. During the planning phase, the number-one desire from the community was to have a park that reduced the risk of future flooding. The design team developed educational signage about the park’s stormwater management functions, helping the community better understand the purpose of each of the design elements and the role they play in mitigating flood risk.  
  • The most important aspect of Cook Park’s realization was community involvement throughout all stages of planning, design, and construction. The community engagement process began with participatory design at the outset of the project when residents shared and shaped what they wanted to see in the new community open space. Feedback provided by neighborhood residents in surveys and at dozens of public meetings informed the design team about the park amenities most desired by residents. Even after construction started, unexpected opportunities like climbing boulders and murals allowed for community stakeholders to further refine unique elements of the park. In addition, the project contractor employed neighborhood residents trained in basic construction skills to build Cook Park, further creating a sense of pride and ownership by the community long after construction was complete. Intentional community engagement throughout planning and construction generated anticipation toward the park’s eventual ribbon cutting and created a groundswell of support, ownership, and stewardship of the dynamic public green space. By building relationships early on, community members became invested in the park’s success and excited to protect the park for future generations. 

ULI is grateful for the support of The JPB Foundation.

District House

 

Context

From the outset of project planning, Chicago-based development firms Campbell Coyle and Ranquist Development Group knew they wanted District House to be a catalyst for resilient and environmentally responsible design in the village of Oak Park. They teamed up with Omni Ecosystems, a Chicago-based firm specializing in living infrastructure nationwide, to incorporate private lawn terraces for select units on the second floor and a rooftop space featuring a native wildflower meadow to enhance stormwater management, reduce the urban heat island effect, and increase biodiversity.

Located in the Hemingway District of Oak Park on the commercial corridor of Lake Street, District House is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold–certified, 75,000-square-foot mixed-use building with 28 three-bedroom condominium units. It is situated in a walkable and transit-rich neighborhood that connects the surrounding area with the urban fabric of Chicago.

Oak Park is home to Prairie School–style design that is intended to reflect and celebrate the surrounding environment. The project team paid close attention to this rich history and sought to uphold the area’s architectural heritage with the development of District House. “We saw an opportunity to connect modern design with the important lineage of this place,” says Chris Dillion, president of Campbell Coyle. Studying the demographic trends of the broader metropolitan region, the team identified the building’s location as a prime opportunity to bring multifamily housing to a neighborhood well positioned for empty nesters looking to downsize and families hoping to move to the suburbs while not compromising on access to amenities like public parks and transportation.

In Greater Chicago, heavy precipitation and inland storms can lead to urban flooding and combined sewer overflow. In response to this growing issue, which is compounded by climate change, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD), within which Oak Park is located, has taken measures to revamp outdated sewage systems and implement gray infrastructure to help their communities better adapt to more frequent and intense precipitation events.

District House’s project team saw this as an area where they could exemplify their commitment to minimizing environmental impacts while strengthening sustainable design. While the MWRD did not require a certain threshold of stormwater management because the site is under a half-acre, the project team felt that it was important to go beyond and comply with the village of Oak Park’s requirement to serve 100 percent of stormwater on site. In Dillion’s words, “We saw partnering with Omni Ecosystems on their Green Roof product not just as a functional move from a resilience standpoint, but also to turn it into an amenity that would enhance the value of the residential units.” According to stormwater management tracking conducted by Omni Ecosystems, the lawned terrace spaces on the building’s second floor totaling 4,326 square feet have a retention capacity of 8,251 gallons of stormwater.

Omni Ecosystems was involved early on to provide technical support on how their green roof system could fit into the landscape architect and ownership team’s broader vision for the project. Above all, they wanted to make sure their efforts would align with the project’s overall design and budget goals, as well as being able to meet LEED requirements. Molly Meyer, founder and CEO of Omni Ecosystems, explains, “We sought to improve the nature of someone’s new home and to extend the usable outdoor space,” recognizing the important co-benefits offered by green spaces when it comes to human health, well-being, and stormwater management.

Climate Resilience Strategies

  • Green infrastructure – The private lawn terraces on select second-floor units and the shared rooftop space, which includes a native wildflower meadow ecosystem, help manage stormwater on site and create a cooling effect that reduces the urban heat island effect. The rooftop space totaling 11,083 square feet has a stormwater retention capacity of 21,140 gallons.
  • Extending the building’s life cycle – District House’s green roof helps add a layer of protection since roofs tend to degrade over time because of ultraviolet radiation and exposure to extreme temperatures.
  • Passive design – Deep floor overhangs provide weather protection for the building’s floor-to-ceiling window walls, and green infrastructure offers additional thermal insulation, both of which help reduce solar heat gain during the summer months.

Value Proposition

To understand the value created by implementing green infrastructure on select second-floor units, Campbell Coyle and Omni Ecosystems conducted an analysis comparing units on the second floor with lawn terraces to those on the third floor without. Despite a cost allocation of $20,000 for the green roof areas attributable to units with terraces, these units sold for an average of $95,030 more per unit. This analysis also does not account for the conventional wisdom that units typically increase in value on higher floors. The unique attributes of these terrace units became a prominent feature in the building’s marketing, “contributing to sales velocity that resulted in the project selling out as construction was completed,” Dillion says.

The tangibility of Omni Ecosystems’ living infrastructure resonated deeply with the project team. “When you are walking down Lake Street, you can see the meadow plantings which can be several feet tall. It is remarkable what it can do not only to address runoff, but it’s also beautiful and it contributes to the environmental expression of the building,” says Brian Court, partner with Miller Hull. This defining characteristic provided the building with an edge, especially for prospective buyers seeking amenities that generate aesthetic value and can be used and enjoyed at the same time.

Choosing to integrate green infrastructure into District House extends beyond providing a financial ROI to the development and ownership teams. The aforementioned wildflower meadow on the rooftop also boosts the ecological biodiversity of the area. In addition, a portion of the rooftop serves as a communal space for District House residents. “The focus on the rooftop system was on biodiversity, with a very lush wildflower meadow that has native plants and a lot of flowering perennials and annuals,” says Meyer, thereby creating a habitat for local species, some of which were thought to be long gone from the region.

Lessons Learned

Maintaining these spaces can prove challenging. Meyer describes an opportunity to continually improve upon practices for ongoing use and care. While Omni Ecosystems serves projects throughout the United States, some locally based projects like District House serve as a learning lab because Omni Ecosystems is requested to help provide guidance and physical maintenance knowledge. “We have a small but mighty in-house stewardship team who works locally, which is incredibly helpful because having boots on the ground informs the educational tools we create for the contractors who are certified to build and maintain Omni green roofs across the country,” she says. This component cannot be neglected because long-term stewardship of these systems requires careful attention to help maintain their ecological integrity.

The team’s intentional decision to connect the building’s green infrastructural elements to user experience meant “spending marginally a bit more while leveraging an innovative team to create an incredible amenity,” Dillion remarks. From District House’s clear show of leadership, Campbell Coyle and Ranquist Development Group incorporate similar goals and the same green roof system at other projects in the Chicago area. Simply put, Dillion emphasizes that the project process and development behind District House affirm that “there is an ROI on good design.”

Cedar Rapids River Corridor Redevelopment Plan

At the core of the redevelopment plan is a long-term vision for waterfront resilience that aims to simultaneously protect the community from future floods and leverage the waterfront for economic development and the social vitality of the region. To achieve these goals, intergovernmental and private partnerships were initiated, and local, state, and federal funds were leveraged to allow acquisition of 1,400 properties through floodplain buyouts.

Cultivating Community Engagement

Phase one of the redevelopment plan, the Flood Management Strategy, began in June 2008, four days after the river crested. Cedar Rapids contracted with a consultant team led by Sasaki Associates, an urban design consulting firm, which provided planning, landscape architecture, and community engagement services on both phases of the project. The city held three series of open houses, which were attended by more than 2,500 community members.

Together, the city and the Sasaki team focused on working with the community to create a road map for redeveloping the 10-square-mile Cedar Rapids River Corridor. The flood-control system was developed during this phase and served as the critical foundation of the long-term vision for the project. Rigorous community engagement practices were carried out to incorporate resident feedback on how to maximize both future flood preparedness and public green space for recreation.

Eight workshops hosted by Sasaki over the months following the flood were attended by over 1,500 community members who dedicated more than 6,000 hours to collaborating on a redevelopment strategy. “Our main goal was to make sure everyone’s voice was heard,” says Jason Hellendrung, the Sasaki team lead on the project. “We wanted to hear from everyone—to use that and shape the plan.”

The workshops employed visual preference theory, providing residents with renderings so they could visualize the future, and used benchmarking by presenting options, such as flood walls versus wide greenways that allowed wetlands and open space to absorb water. This approach led to broad support among the neighborhoods for incorporating ample recreation space into the design. “It gave them hope about the future,” says Jennifer Pratt, Cedar Rapids director of community development. “We’re not just building; we’re building back better than before.”

The city and consultant team took the initiative to learn from other communities that were recovering from natural disasters, such as New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and Grand Forks, North Dakota, following the 1997 Red River flood, which provided lessons for effective communication. The time spent working with the community built trust, Hellendrung says, and ultimately led to the inspiration for the 130-acre urban greenway along the river. The river is further activated by the McGrath Amphitheater, built into the levee, which is a significant cultural anchor for the community.

“A lot of area in the neighborhood plan was not redeveloped and will be intentionally kept as open space. Letting the river breathe is a big component of resiliency for the flood-control system.”—Jennifer Pratt, director of community development, city of Cedar Rapids

Leveraging Federal Funding Mechanisms for Floodplain Buyouts

In May 2009, work on phase two, the Framework for Neighborhood Reinvestment, began as the city established a voluntary property acquisition program, leveraging U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program funds.

The city offered to pay owners of the 1,356 damaged houses 107 percent of the pre-flood home value to acquire their homes. The buyouts are supported by CDBG funding after it is demonstrated that the homeowner’s pre-flood home value has decreased while the need for shelter has increased following a disaster. The city program also pledged that property taxes would not increase during the 10 years following the flood; this was done in anticipation of raising the levy later to provide revenue for the local contribution to the flood-control system.

The city also worked with the state and HUD to create an interim mortgage assistance program to subsidize the mortgage payments of homeowners affected by the flood. This program responded to the need to complement buyout programs with programs that provide relocation assistance, combat displacement, and provide affordable housing. Without relocation support, buyout programs can perpetuate segregation by facilitating the departure of lower-income homeowners from their communities because they lack the capability to buy a new house if home values have increased or are otherwise unaffordable.

The buyouts process was initiated in 2008 and completed in 2014, and in the interim, support was made available through the ROOTs Homeownership Initiative, funded by the CDBG single-family new construction program. The ROOTS initiative provided a downpayment incentive of 25 percent to qualified buyers who purchased a new home in a core neighborhood of the city, as identified in the Framework for Neighborhood Reinvestment.

The ROOTs Homeownership initiative provided a downpayment incentive of 25 percent to qualified buyers who purchased a new home in a core city neighborhood, as identified in the Framework for Neighborhood Reinvestment. (City of Cedar Rapids)

Also, soon after the flood, the city constructed multifamily rental units designed to appeal to tenants with a mix of incomes. One thing learned from the experience of Grand Rapids was that new housing construction must be spread across a city to avoid a stigma of “flood housing” that may linger, Pratt says. The city formed the Replacement Housing Task Force to scout new construction in core neighborhoods outside the floodplain identified as ripe for development in phase two of the plan.

Beyond the riverfront, the city worked with neighborhood groups and developers to convert properties into replacement housing for residents displaced by the flood. New infill construction in surrounding neighborhoods leveraged state and federal low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC) to build replacement affordable housing. In one neighborhood, the city worked with a church-based nonprofit entity to deliver the replacement housing.

Mobilizing Local and State Economic Development Initiatives

In all, funding was leveraged at the local, state, and federal levels to fund the flood-control system. The state committed over $250 million over 20 years, and $78 million was committed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for an area east of the river deemed eligible for funding. For flood control on the west side of the river, local property taxes were raised for 10 years. The city understood that it was critical for Cedar Rapids to have a plan in place and show progress on its implementation in order to encourage rebuilding and attract investment by the private sector.

The flood-control system will include the buildout of flood walls and levees intended to further protect the community from flooding. Quaker Oats Company has committed to entering a public/private partnership with the city by 2022 to build a segment of the flood wall to 100-year-flood elevation. The wall was built in accordance with city standards so it could be extended when the city builds the remaining portions. Similarly, the freight company CRST relocated its headquarters to downtown Cedar Rapids from the suburbs, built its new site along the river, elevated the property, and integrated a flood wall and river walk into the site. In this way, Quaker Oats and CRST shared with the Army Corps of Engineers part of the costs of the flood-control system and helped manage the overall budget and moderate the expense of the project for the city.

“To attract private investment, we knew we needed to have a long-term plan to protect investment,” Pratt says.

Church Creek Flood Storage and Resiliency Project

The Church Creek Basin drains nearly 5,000 acres along the Ashley River and is home to dense residential neighborhoods. In 2015, a 1,000-year flood drenched the area, and the city of Charleston initiated a FEMA-funded buyout of almost 50 homeowners in Bridge Pointe neighborhood, within the Church Creek Basin, which has repeatedly flooded since development of the area boomed in the mid-1970s.  

Because of settlement patterns, land use, and discharge needs in the area, the city of Charleston embarked on the Church Creek Flood Storage and Resiliency Project “to lower flood risk and enhance post-event resiliency while ensuring the vitality and viability of the area.”   

The project is the product of a larger planning initiative, called the Dutch Dialogues, that started in 2017 to arm the city with innovative strategies and tools to combat rising waters and flooding in the Lowcountry. City government leaders obtained support for this project, which would harness insight from thought leaders from the Netherlands and other international experts, through an initiative started by the Dutch Embassy and funded by the Historic Charleston Foundation, the city of Charleston, and other local partners. Through this collaborative effort with the city and these global experts in planning, stormwater management, and climate resilience, the initiative established a city vision based on a new approach to thinking about the interconnectedness of water, land, and people, and their benefits to one another.  

Matt Fountain, the director of stormwater management for Charleston, called this collaborative process the “Dutch approach.” Fountain supervises a large part of the floodplain buyouts in the Bridge Pointe neighborhood, which includes 32 condominiums and nine townhouses that are all contiguous.  

Five-and-a-half years after the receipt of the FEMA Flood Mitigation grant, Fountain is overseeing the construction of public space on the bought-out sites, whose impact may ripple through property values throughout the Church Creek Basin. The new five-acre, $1 million public space will include recreational and water management features and is being funded by the city’s drainage fund and two National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) grants.   

The project team, including conservation planning, ecological restoration, and design firm Biohabitats, engineers Weston & Sampson, landscape architects Surculus, wetlands habitat conservation and mitigation firm Wildlands, and public benefit conservation corporation Resilient Land Matters, are working on establishing a forest and wetland restoration projects on a total 20 acres of the basin. Construction is likely to begin by 2022. The Church Creek Basin resilience project will also include an ecological park for residents and tourists.   

The project embodies the design approach that came from the Dutch Dialogues, in that the city is using the water to its advantage. “We’re trying to convert this into some kind of passive recreation space, with water storage and space for native habitat including bald eagles,” Fountain said.  

With additional NFWF grants for design and management of the park site totaling $1.625 million, city leaders have been trying to upend traditional thinking about development. Rather than seeking an “ever-bigger pipe” to discharge inescapable floods, Fountain’s team aims to create parks and drainage sites that fortify the waterfront city’s natural appeal. As a result of this focus on waterlines and topography, Fountain says, “what would be a secondary benefit for someone else’s project is a primary benefit for us.” The grant is being used to construct rain gardens, protected wetlands, and other green infrastructure improvements on the lots where the homes were bought out and demolished in 2019. 

His team also aims to increase resident knowledge about how to manage water on site. A group called the Ashley-Cooper Consortium has joined the city in running workshops to help residents perform their own “green infrastructure” maintenance with cisterns and other fixes. Faith leaders have also done much outreach on this initiative to homeowners associations, Fountain said. “We talk a lot at the city about trying to make this one project that does lots and lots of things.” Using this program of work to educate the community on green infrastructure benefits and maintenance is a co-benefit to the city.  

The Church Creek Flood Storage and Resiliency Project plan hinges on recalculating the site’s value—not just for salability, but for floodwater storage. In taking land off the market, though, the team also recognizes the risk of upward pressure on prices in neighborhoods and on traffic throughout the city. “Development pressure is intense, and affordability is fragile,” says Fountain. He estimates the city will spend between $12 million and $15 million on property buyouts and the retrofits of these properties in flood storage. This includes the acquisition of between 50 and 60 moderate-income housing units in a city of 150,000 people. With those economics, storage value needs to translate to more traditional forms of value while offering multiple benefits.  

Exploring the frontier means new collaboration across communities and government agencies. The collaboration plays out in new policy, like the city’s Stormwater Design Standards Manual, which reflects debate among homeowners associations, engineers, scientists, and others who treasure Charleston for its kinship with the coast.  

“We see projects that emphasize rebuilding with resiliency,” Fountain says, “as a leveraged opportunity to send people back out into the market.”   

The Charleston Stormwater Design Standards Manual, updated in 2020, has key principles that include mimicking natural systems, designing for larger precipitation rates and future sea-level rise projections, incentivizing green infrastructure, and adding special rules for flood-prone areas. The manual translates stormwater design strategies into criteria required for permitting. For the city’s own projects, they must also score adequately on cost/benefit analysis, biodiversity, operations, and physical safety in a new stormwater project prioritization system the city developed with infrastructure consulting firm AECOM.  

Takeaways: 

Think beyond typical jurisdictions and borders for creating funding sources and innovative collaboration opportunities. The city of Charleston found a key funding partner in NFWF, which typically focuses on national parks but also offers grant programs with an urban/suburban environmental focus. City planners also gained tremendous value from Dutch Dialogues, a program which offered international insight and expertise and brought together a number of local stakeholders in the process. 

Take a “living with water” approach. Unlike other cities explored during research, Charleston did not solely predicate its Church Creek Basin buyouts on the impetus to stop repeated flood-damage claims. The Church Creek resilience project aimed to recharacterize a neighborhood in harm’s way as something harmonious with rising seas by changing land use patterns and investing in green infrastructure that would manage future flooding.  

Derive value from design. The Dutch Dialogues and stormwater guidelines have found their way into city contracts, documents, and formal policy. The Stormwater Design Standards Manual is used on all new private and public development and redevelopment projects in the city, while the design principles created the metrics for the city’s new quadruple-bottom-line stormwater project prioritization system.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Floodplain Buyout Program

Historically, Charlotte developed significantly before floodplains were mapped. Therefore, some building took place in zones where flooding along creeks was more likely, said Tim Trautman, the flood mitigation program manager for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services (CMSWS).

“We considered various structural approaches to reduce flood damage, but we came to the realization that because of where our floodplains are, it was time to start un-developing.” —Tim Trautman, flood mitigation program manager, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services

Since 1999, Storm Water Services has purchased more than 450 flood-prone homes, apartment buildings, and businesses throughout the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region. The website touts their success: “Over 700 families and businesses have moved to less vulnerable locations outside of local floodplains. 185 acres of public open space has been ‘undeveloped’ to allow the floodplain to function during heavy rain and provide a long-term community asset. Storm Water Services also estimates these buyouts have avoided $25 million in losses and will ultimately avoid over $300 million in future losses.”

The utility’s authority, says Trautman, comes wrapped in compassion, and the decisions his team encourages appeal to long-term health, safety, and quality of life. Successful buyouts, backed with the county’s available cash from stormwater fees, can save property owners from physical and emotional loss. They also save the county from water rescues, overtime hours, shelter opening, temporary housing, and nail-biting unknowns that come from heavy storms. “Charlotte-Mecklenburg floodplains have a lot of urban flash flooding,” Trautman explained. “They require quick action and emergency response.”

In that context, Trautman nonetheless stresses the value of planning buyouts holistically, in accord with other public interests and benefits, such as local parks which usually maintain the purchased properties and planning staff who stitch them into the city’s fabric. Their buyouts do not end with the demolition of buildings. The property is put to greater public use, so the benefits extend beyond flood mitigation. “Even if floods come without much warning,” he adds, “flood buyout programs benefit from steady funding and consistent vision. The most successful programs are really ongoing as programs, backed by a long-term risk reduction plan.” Trautman said his team makes comprehensive plans for coordinating buyouts and flood-prevention projects in a few neighborhoods per year.

Growth brings more capital to the stormwater fee pool but also puts strain on stormwater systems even through Charlotte-Mecklenburg ordinances require substantial stormwater detention and treatment. Assessments of a property’s impervious area is the basis of collection of stormwater fees, which grow into a pool that Trautman’s team can dip into for buyouts. He notes, “Many communities solely rely on federal disaster money, and they sometimes wait one to two years after the event to apply.” Trautman points to CMSWS’s funding stream and specifically a “rainy day fund” as a way to speed up the process. “By contrast, we’ve closed on flood-damaged homes within a couple months of a flood and recently were able to buy a bank-owned distressed property about five weeks after bidding on it.”

That mix of quick turnaround closing and long-range focus matters, because Trautman says prices have climbed with flood risk caused by climate change in just the past five years. Trautman says the footprint of properties that the team can target has grown even though local prices for buildings, flood-prone or otherwise, have tended to climb even through the COVID-19 shutdown. “It’s a seller’s market, for sure,” he says. With ample capital, the utility can think about long-term benefits for the community as well as fair prices for each owner with whom the team negotiates.

Not every owner perceives the future flood risk in the same way. Trautman says roughly 75 percent of sellers respond positively to the idea of escaping flood risk, but every owner has a different perception of a fair price. “Balancing our need to increase community resilience with the need to keep the program voluntary is our number-one challenge,” he reflected. One response to the challenge comes from making sure that planning and buyouts occur in sync, so that relocated homeowners and other neighbors get to enjoy the new open space along the creeks.

Because of the voluntary nature of buyouts, coming up with plans that create public amenities and meet homeowners’ needs on relatively short notice is challenging. “It’s not like planning a highway, which takes years, and the land acquisition is a certainty.” So the team focuses on purchasing parcels over time and as opportunities arise that can add up to corridors—“one was pictured as a future greenway”—that attract stormwater and attract neighbors on the preponderance of days when most people need not think about floods.

The evolution from susceptible house to sustainable open space/park offers many opportunities for the county, Trautman added. His team and staff from partner agencies may also look at how a post-COVID city uses purchased land. Various master planning groups on which Trautman serves may reassess how the county values bike lanes, public space, and wider sidewalks, given the need for and use of these public spaces during the pandemic. With the real estate market “squeezed,” in his words, water-related disasters can stray from owners’ minds. However, his team continues to advance this work. Focusing on developing relationships with flood-prone property owners and strategizing about long-term uses of the properties could create amenities that also manage flooding. “The biggest thing is developing that relationship and trust with people,” says Trautman. “That leads to having them feel good about what government is doing.”

For example, the Doral apartment complex, which included 260 apartments on 19 acres, flooded six times since 1995, with damages topping $8 million. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services purchased the complex for $4.7 million, leveraging a FEMA grant for 75 percent of the project cost and CMSWS fees for the remaining 25 percent. By October 2010, all the units were purchased, and eligible residents were given relocation assistance. Across Briar Creek, CMSWS also purchased all 196 units in the Cavalier Apartments (13 acres) using the same FEMA grant/stormwater fee funding approach. With a combined 28 acres of land along the creek, CMSWS worked with the parks department and other government agencies to restore a large green space, now known as the Chantilly Ecological Sanctuary.

As a result of these buyouts, more than 700 residents have been relocated out of hazardous areas with high flood risk, and much of the land has been restored in various forms of open space, some parks and trails, that also mitigates future flood damage to the area.

Takeaways

Include each parcel in a plan. Successful flood buyouts not only offer a market price but also offer a vision of a more enjoyable city with hardier and easier-to-reach green space. CMSWS collaborates with city agencies on a comprehensive plan every five years, which details linear parks that can emerge from purchased vulnerable properties.

Bring the backing of your jurisdiction. As a county utility, CMSWS carries the value of the assets it purchases. It also brings consistent capital to buyout negotiations each year on the strength of its annual assessments. (If impervious surface decreases and brings assessed valuation down with it, the county would still draw on a dedicated funding source rather than relying on protracted FEMA payments.)

Connect with other agencies whose mission serves the resilient city. While each place evolves its own flood maps, Trautman ascribes some of his agency’s appeal to its coherence with the city’s neighborhoods. Focusing on creating parks, corridors, and—potentially—inclusive public life, the agency can present itself less as a collector of parcels and more as a creator of places.

New Jersey Blue Acres Buyout Program

The Blue Acres Buyout Program, as it is formally known, seeks to improve the slow approval times that keep homeowners from collecting disaster relief and the tortuous process of finding replacement homes. The program has impressive metrics that show its success. Since Superstorm Sandy, the program has secured federal funding for nearly 1,200 properties and made offers on 1,115 of them. To date, about 700 homes in 20 municipalities and 10 counties have been demolished, creating open space to provide a buffer against future floods, and an asset for recreation and environmental rehabilitation.

The floodplain buyout program was amplified after Superstorm Sandy, in which dozens lost their lives, 365,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and $30 billion in economic loss was wrought across the state, said Fawn McGee, director of the Blue Acres Program and bureau chief for the Green Acres State Land Acquisition Program, at a ULI 2020 Fall Meeting concurrent session. Before Sandy, local governments struggled to process more than $100 million in pre-Sandy flood insurance claims so the state stepped in to help the municipalities with buyout projects that could mitigate future risk and losses, and most importantly help their residents move to safer ground.

Blue Acres, McGee laid out, focuses on “getting families out of harm’s way.” The buyout process is voluntary, and homeowners must apply for a buyout to be considered. Flood-prone areas with clusters of interested homeowners, in areas with local municipal support for buyouts, may be eligible for a possible buyout project. The program is funded by federal sources like FEMA and HUD. However, through a constitutional amendment by the New Jersey State Legislature in 2019, a portion of the state’s corporate business tax is also used to fund the program to ensure a more sustainable and predictable funding approach.

“One of the hardest parts of the buyout process is convincing the governing body of a community,” McGee said. “These communities are looking at every dollar associated with every home that we remove, and the biggest hurdle is getting that community and its government to realize that [what we are proposing] is the best solution.” McGee’s team must complete benefit/cost analyses for each home appraised over roughly $275,000 to qualify for FEMA grants. The team must also caucus with homeowners who need those grants and need a stable place to live. McGee emphasizes providing respect, continuity, and clarity to those homeowners.

She says the process comes in two steps: bringing local governing bodies on board and then working with residents. Evaluating possible buyouts with local governments flows from maps, photos, and discussions about their unique current and future challenges and goals. “When you look at the cycle of recovery in that one low, wet corner of the community, the governing body eventually realizes that those tax dollars could be going to enhance a healthier community for all residents. Almost immediately, I’ve had mayors say: this is great! We’re going to break even almost as soon as we close out, because of the emergency costs.”

Once mayors (who are especially numerous in this home-rule state) agree, McGee says, the Blue Acres professionals act as “advocates” for families. They use prestorm market valuations and require the appraisers to meet with the homeowners and consider the property owner’s prestorm photos of their homes, such as photos of their home “after a celebration,” to ensure the appraisers get a sense of the prestorm condition of the home. There is no transfer fee, real estate tax, or realtor fee for property sellers.

“As soon as we have the grant approval, we have a private meeting [between the Blue Acres team and participating homeowners], and we have police at the door [of the facility to help manage attendance],” McGee told the ULI group. “Staff are ready within days of the evening kickoff meeting to get out on the property, so the people can see that their government works.”

“I will meet with someone at their kitchen table or in a diner, and my appraiser will show them the comps so they can walk around the neighborhood and see how their value was determined. Our staff is always on call, and once the families are ready to accept our offer, we go to contract.”

McGee says the program has consistently earned public funding. “As the most densely populated state, we’ll hit carrying capacity around 2050,” McGee said. “Voters want to have a park that they can walk to with their families, and they want clean air and clean water.” The Blue Acres program is a part of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program (60th anniversary this year!) and is designed to work in concert with the initiatives and procedures set forth through the Green Acres Program’s Bureau of State Land Acquisitions, where McGee also serves as bureau chief. The Blue Acres program acquires flood-prone properties that will, similar to the Green Acres Program’s acquisitions, then become preserved open green space, expanded passive recreation areas, and enhanced flood hazard mitigation, in perpetuity.

One example of the Blue Acres Buyout Program’s success came after Hurricane Sandy in the city of Linden. The Blue Acres program purchased 22 flood-prone properties within the waterfront Tremley Point neighborhood and partnered with the city, nearby university, local businesses, engineering and construction firms, as well as other government agencies to preserve the area as open space for recreation and floodplain restoration. The project was recognized for its success through the New Jersey American Water Resources Association Excellence in Water Resources Protection and Planning Award and a Bowman’s Hill Wildlife Preserve 2021 Land Ethics Award.

The Blue Acres program is also noteworthy because of its role supporting tenant relocation. A requirement under HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program is to help relocate tenants affected by the buyout of their rental property and pay for a comparable living arrangement. In order to support renters and landlords more quickly, a tenant relocation program with a dedicated team was added to the Blue Acres purview in 2017. Since then, over $1.2 million in relocation assistance has been distributed and 51 households have been assisted, two of which became homeowners.

McGee attributes success to compassionate staff and “being good listeners.” It is important that team members understand that this is emotional and traumatic—the flood events, the history in their homes, putting their faith in a government program, and moving: “Nobody wants to leave their home and folks don’t necessarily trust the government.” In addition to the one-on-one attention provided to each family, McGee continued, GIS mapping of flooded areas can often help the homeowners see the storm’s effect on the home and neighborhood. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Anticipation and preparedness are part of the plan McGee sets for her team. The team tries to stay ahead of the seller’s schedule, so that when the seller has a need or a question, or is ready to move forward, the team is able to step in and help. Hurrying potential sellers, however, does harm. “I had a family who wanted to wait to move until June because their son was the quarterback of the football team.” she said. “And the answer was, like, of course!”

Takeaways:

Staff up to earn trust and to deliver services and support. “My folks all have phones and access to cars,” McGee said, stressing that homeowners must be able to expect a near-concierge level of service. That includes driving to meetings on evenings and Saturdays. Critically, it includes due diligence that creates a longer-than-forecast list of properties to purchase, in case sellers drop out of the program.

Consider buyout areas that consist of clusters or contiguous parcels to maintain the fabric of the community and leave the potential for the community to use these areas for future passive recreation and conservation amenities. The Blue Acres program considers the properties acquired through the buyout program as an opportunity to create a buffer that protects upland areas from future flooding, as well as land that can continue to provide value by creating passive recreation and conservation spaces for the public. McGee says mayors and taxpayers who get the math of replacing a ratable with a townwide attraction become cooperative quickly and for the long term.

Finch Cambridge

Homeowner’s Rehab Inc. (HRI), a nonprofit, community-based affordable housing developer, saw Finch Cambridge as an opportunity to expand its commitment to healthy and sustainable housing. The area around Finch Cambridge has historically been dominated by commercial and light industrial uses. However, rapidly increasing market-rate residential development in the neighborhood inspired HRI and city staff to pursue development of an affordable rental project, meeting the area’s urgent need for more affordable housing options.

The development team was committed from the beginning to climate resilience and minimal environmental impact. The Finch Cambridge site was previously occupied by a gas station, then was vacant or underused for several years. Though the site is not in a current flood zone, potential flood risk exists because of the large amount of impervious surface as the neighborhood develops, as well as nearby freshwater sources.

The development team also assessed the local risks of extreme heat and the potential for associated power outages and loss of air conditioning. “There’s a high need for cooling as well as heating, and the cooling need has been increasing in New England,” says project architect Michelle Apigian, associate at ICON Architecture. Cambridge’s Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment report documents that the frequency and duration of heat waves are projected to increase, with as many as 68 days per year registering temperatures over 90oF by 2070.

“Passive House design is great for urban resilience because residents can stay in the building if there’s power loss and no air conditioning.”—Jane Carbone, Director of Development, HRI

HRI originally planned to develop Finch Cambridge “to meet the more energy-efficient and robust stretch code,” says Jane Carbone, director of development for HRI. Cambridge also has sustainability guidelines requiring Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) Gold for new construction. However, HRI secured a waiver to pursue Enterprise Green Community (EGC) recognition instead because the EGC’s focus on multifamily and resident health better aligned with the project and the organization’s mission.

The city of Cambridge, MassHousing, TD Bank, and the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation (MHIC) are the project funders. The early sustainability focus allowed HRI to secure an additional $147,000 in grant funding from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) and MassSave by expanding the project goals to include Passive Building certification as part of a state pilot program. Certified Passive Buildings are recognized for achieving quantifiable and rigorous standards for energy efficiency and indoor comfort.

Climate Resilience Strategies

The lobby at Finch Cambridge provides at-grade accessible entry while also limiting flood risk, sitting nearly 18 inches above the projected 2070 floodplain. In addition, no residential units are located on the ground floor, thereby minimizing the exposure of residents to floodwaters in the event of a major storm. In fact, the residential portion of the building is another five-and-and-a-half feet higher in elevation above the floodplain. The building’s mechanical equipment is also raised: some is located on the roof and some on the second floor. For the ground floor, the development team also chose materials such as durable ceramic tile flooring, dry wall, and metal accents that are unlikely to sustain significant water or mold damage if there is significant flooding.

Finch Cambridge has significant engineering elements to address stormwater, including an 8,000-gallon on-site tank (a requirement by Cambridge) to collect stormwater runoff. In addition, a CULTEC system collects stormwater from the roof and directs it to pipes on the perimeter of the property where it is held until it can dissipate as groundwater after a storm.

The strong stormwater infrastructure is “another deterrent to stop potential flood issues at the building” if there is a major storm, says Carbone. The system also allows Finch Cambridge to manage stormwater on site and not add to the city system during times when demand increases.

The six-story steel-and-wood-frame structure has an airtight building envelope composed of a three-layer air barrier, with additional air sealing at each opening such as windows, doors, and duct penetrations. Finch Cambridge also has fiberglass insulation in the wall cavities as well as a two-inch layer of continuous exterior mineral wool, made in part from recycled materials, to limit thermal bridging.

To address extreme heat risk, triple-glazed windows bring in ample light and cross-ventilation, and shades on the southern face of the building reduce overheating from solar heat gain in the warmer months. A 105-kilowatt solar photovoltaic array on the roof provides about 20 percent of the building’s electricity. Finch Cambridge also has a community space on the sixth floor that is linked to a generator capable of powering air conditioning, giving residents a place to comfortably shelter in the event of a power outage. The roofline, evocative of the wings of a bird in flight, provides important shade and a creative cue that inspired the team to rename the development “Finch.”

“We’re seeing a huge push for Passive building design in the market for affordable housing and for housing in general. . . . It just makes sense. We’ve all seen the advantages of it . . . and the state rebates are giving it traction, too.”—Matthew Smyka, Project Executive, NEI General Construction

Around the building, a portion of the hardscape is porous pavement that helps manage stormwater and works with drought-tolerant vegetation. Large trees also provide shade to residents.

Finch Cambridge is adjacent to a fresh-pond reservoir and has an on-site pocket park with a walking path for wellness, an outdoor patio at the building entrance, an outdoor dog run, covered and secure bike storage, and a free weekly farmers market. Another health and sustainability measure was eliminating carpeting, removing a source of allergens for residents and ultimately reducing landfill waste.

Business Outcomes and Lessons Learned

Finch Cambridge has been successful in terms of project cost, resilience paybacks, high tenant demand, and industry recognition. The building has earned Passive House, Enterprise Green Community, and FitWel certifications. Demand at Finch Cambridge has been very strong: the development attracted 2,600 applicants to a lottery for the 98 available units. The building is fully affordable at low-, moderate-, and middle-income levels.

“The costs of achieving all of the Passive House requirements were below 3 percent of total project cost,” says Carbone, and the additional grant money from MassCEC offset the extra expense. Much of the price premium over baseline code requirements was related to the high-performance building envelope, including air-tight and thermal continuity and thermally broken and gasketed windows, says Apigian.

The team managed costs and performance by keeping some spaces, such as the large lobby, outside the pressurized boundary, whereas all residential units remain inside it. Careful modeling of energy use and right-sizing of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning choices, including efficient electric heat pumps, give the building a projected energy use intensity (EUI) of 23, which is about 70 percent less than average and contributes to making Finch Cambridge one of the most operationally energy-efficient buildings in Massachusetts.

Though a small additional cost is involved in bringing fresh air to every room, that engineering decision has health benefits that are especially important because of the COVID-19 pandemic that was active at the time of resident move-in. The continuous, balanced ventilation and careful compartmentalization of space, as required by the Passive House standard, will help reduce the spread of germs between residential units, Apigian says.

Regarding the resilience measures, “there are some initial costs in terms of infrastructure, but the benefits far outweigh the issues,” Carbone says. “If you have an incident, the cost to remediate the building and just get it back to the way it was can be significant with insurance claims, bringing in subcontractors to demolish damaged materials, and reinstallations. There’s also the potential for time lost and resident impacts if families have to relocate. The benefits of making the building more resilient just far outweigh the costs.”

HRI estimates that the airtight building envelope and passive cooling systems will allow residents to remain comfortably in their units for several days in the event of a power outage during a heat wave.

The project partners agree that buy-in, close coordination, and thorough understanding of the project’s resilience and energy efficiency goals were key to implementing the details necessary to achieve the Passive House certification. “Passive House is all about being proactive with the architect during design and construction, and working through details,” says Matthew Smyka, project executive at NEI General Construction.

In addition to weekly owner/architect/contractor (OAC) meetings, NEI and the subcontractors held regular preconstruction coordination meetings and separate Passive House meetings to review the plans and specifications that were part of the upcoming phase, says Smyka. The extra coordination paid off: the construction team provided solutions to minimize thermal bridging along the edges of the building slab and on the steel components of the building and underground garage.

In terms of next steps, HRI plans to learn from Finch Cambridge by tracking a wealth of energy, water, and wellness data, especially on indoor air quality; the data will also be shared with residents and other stakeholders. HRI looks forward to sharing Passive House and Enterprise Green Community lessons learned with the affordable housing development community.