Communities protect open space because it protects streams and water quality, provides habitat for plants and animals, preserves rural character, provides recreational areas, protects home values and reduces costs of municipal services. In short, land conservation makes your community a better place to live. Four basic actions underlie the Growing Greener process:
1. Envision the Future: Performing “community assessments”
Municipalities can perform assessments to see the future before it happens, so that they are able to judge whether a mid-course correction is needed. A community assessment entails an evaluation of the land-use regulations that are currently on the books, identifying their strengths and weaknesses and offering constructive recommendations about how they can incorporate the conservation techniques described in Growing Greener: Conservation By Design.
A community assessment should also include a realistic appraisal of the extent to which private conservation efforts are likely to succeed in protecting lands from development through various nonregulatory approaches such as purchases or donations of easements or fee title interests.
2. Protect Open Space Networks Through Comprehensive Planning
Successful communities have a good understanding of their natural and cultural resources. They establish reasonable goals for conservation and development—goals that reflect their special resources, existing land use patterns and anticipated growth. Their Comprehensive Plans document these resources, goals and policies. The plan contains language about the kinds of ordinance updating and conservation programs necessary for those goals to be realized. A key part of the Comprehensive Plan is a Map of Potential Conservation Lands that is intended to guide the location of open space in each new subdivision as it is being laid out.
3. Conservation Zoning: A "Menu of Options"
Successful communities have legally defensible, well-written zoning regulations that meet their “fair share” of future growth and provide for a logical balance between community goals and private landowner interests. They incorporate resource suitability, flexibility, and incentives to require the inclusion of permanent conservation lands into new subdivisions. The zoning options described in detail in the Growing Greener manual respect the private property rights of developers without unduly impacting the remaining natural areas that make our communities such special places in which to live, work, play and invest.
4. Conservation Subdivision Design
Successful communities recognize that both design standards and the design process play an important part in conserving community resources. Such communities adopt subdivision codes which require detailed site surveys and analyses identifying the special features of each property, and introduce a simple methodology showing how to lay out new development so that the majority of those special features will be permanently protected in designated conservation areas or preserves. These form an integral part of a community-wide network of protected open space, as noted above.
