Center for Land Use Education

The Land Use Tracker
Volume 2, Issue 2
Fall 2002

IN THIS ISSUE:

	SITING RURAL DEVELOPMENT - TO PROTECT LAKES AND STREAMS AND DECREASE ROAD COSTS
	Wildlife and Habitat in a Comprehensive Plan
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The first two articles in this series discussed how impervious surfaces such as roads and rooftops increase stormwater and pollutant runoff and decrease water quality and wildlife habitat, and then provided a list of actions to minimize those impacts. This article explores how to site rural development and its associated impervious surfaces in a way that will achieve the goals of protecting lakes and streams AND decreasing costs for roads.

Rural areas by definition have more undeveloped space than urban areas. Consequently, planners, developers and local officials have more choices when they are deciding where to locate new development.

Water highways to roadways

Historically, people located their homes and businesses near lakes and streams for a number of practical reasons including transportation of people, furs, logs and other products; drinking water for people and animals; power for mills and industry; fishing; and recreation. As times have changed so have the requirements for homes and businesses to be located near lakes and streams. For instance, logs are now hauled by truck or rail, water is delivered to cows in free stall barns, and businesses are generally powered by coal or gas-fired power plants.

Public costs of transportation

Transportation has also seen large changes in Wisconsin from the days when river corridors were the main transportation routes to today with 112,362 miles of highways, roads, and streets in the state, all impervious surfaces. These roads are necessary for many people to travel to work, school, or recreational areas. In 2000, vehicles traveled 57 billion miles in Wisconsin, which works out to 10,261 vehicle miles per person; 105% of the national average.

Roads and transportation constitute a significant portion of municipal spending. As a percentage of total expenditures in 1999, this spending in Wisconsin amounted to:

• 41% for towns,

• 18% for villages,

• 16% for cities, and

• 9% for counties.

Figure 1 illustrates the dollars spent for roads and transportation per person in Wisconsin. Based on this information, governments in our state pay an average of $316 per person annually for roads and transportation (Average expenditures per person = average expenditure per person for city, town and county + average expenditure per person for county).

An example will be presented later in this article that decreases road costs and protects lakes and streams.

The path water takes from the time it hits the ground to when it enters a lake or stream determines what pollutants are transported to the waterway. For instance, if water runs across a road it may carry oil or antifreeze and if it seeps through the ground near a septic field it will carry nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus.

Three ways to minimize the negative effects of impervious surfaces are to:

• Locate impervious surfaces farther from waterways & sensitive areas
• Minimize the amount of impervious surfaces
• Filter and absorb runoff from impervious surfaces

These approaches are most effective when applied on a watershed scale and on a site design scale.

Next comes an example of rural development that decreases road costs AND protects water quality.

The design of a rural subdivision can do much more to reduce runoff and nutrient loads than best management practices (BMPs; in this case stormwater sewers and a sediment pond), as shown in Table 1. Utilizing BMPs reduced nutrient loading by less than 5% in this study, whereas switching from a conventional subdivision design to an open space subdivision decreased nutrient loading by 40-50% by locating impervious surfaces farther from waterways and minimizing the amount of impervious surfaces.

In the open space subdivision significant cost savings were achieved by reducing impervious surfaces by 20% by:

• reducing road widths,
• reducing driveway lengths & widths, and using a road loop rather than a cul-de-sac.

In addition to open space subdivisions, other useful tools for protecting the water quality in lakes and streams include:

• Incentive programs � to protect or restore shoreline buffers, to allow greater development density in open space design, etc.
• Technical assistance � to design open space subdivisions and buffer areas, calculate fertilizer needs, develop markets for water quality friendly crops, etc.
• Conservation easements � to protect sensitive areas like wetlands, high quality habitat areas, bluffs and steep slopes.
• Impact fees � for treatment of stormwater runoff, creating wetlands when natural wetlands are filled, etc.
• Regulations � to limit land uses and intensities in sensitive areas, limit impervious surfaces, require erosion control and stormwater plans, provide setbacks from shorelines and wetlands, etc.
• Educational programs � to identify sensitive areas, promote open space design and best management practices, explain effects of impervious surfaces, etc.

Using these tools during community planning throughout the watershed and during the design of development sites can help achieve the following water protection objectives.

Minimize pollutant sources

• Encourage land uses that deliver less phosphorus and other pollutants like forested lands, and discourage expansion of land uses that deliver more pollutants.
• Maintain native, long-lived, soil-stabilizing vegetation wherever possible to limit erosion. See Figure 4.
• Minimize the amount of land disturbing activity by following natural land contours when planning for roads and buildings.

• Locate development with groundwater pollutant inputs like septic tanks or fertilizers on soils that can effectively treat pollutants. On sandy soils locate the development where groundwater is flowing away from nearby lakes and streams.

• Protect and restore large, natural shoreline buffers along waterways to filter pollutants from runoff. See Figure 5.

• Protect and create infiltration areas to minimize runoff.
• Minimize the extent and connection of impervious surfaces and compacted areas to the water by:
  • Locating new development adjacent to existing developed areas to minimize road expansion.
  • Constructing multiple story buildings to minimize building footprint.
  • Decreasing road and driveway widths and lengths.
  • Increasing building setbacks from the water.
  • Using shared driveways and parking areas.
• Minimize soil compaction by:
  • Limiting heavy equipment to specified areas.
  • Incorporating compost in soils to reverse compaction
• Encourage land uses like forested lands, which deliver less phosphorus close to waterways, and land uses that deliver more phosphorus or other pollutants farther from waterways. See Figure 6.

Michael Dresen, Glenn Bowles, Carmen Wagner, Steve Deller and John Panuska have reviewed this article for form and content. Any errors, mistakes and omissions remain the responsibility of the author.

Center for Watershed Protection. Nutrient Loading from Conventional and Innovative Site Development, July 1998. pp. 26-29.

Desbonnet, Alan et al. Development of Coastal Vegetated Buffer Programs. Coastal Management, V23, pp. 91-109, 1995. The buffer widths cited are based on inland riparian buffers because Desbonnet found meager research for coastal buffers. (p.92)

Highway Statistics 2000. Office of Highway Policy Information, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/hs00/xls/ps1.xls.

Lindorff, Dave; Mechenich, Christine and Chuck Warzecha. Residential development and Groundwater Resources. July 2002. Available from the Central WisconsinGroundwater Center at 715-346-4270 or at http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/dwg/gw/SmartGrowth3.pdf.

Panuska, John C. and Richard A. Lillie. Phosphorus Loadings from Wisconsin Watersheds: Recommended Phosphorus Export Coefficients for Agricultural and Forested Watersheds. Research Management Findings, Number 38, April 1995, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, p.7.

Personal communication 8/6/02 from Paul Garrison, Limnologist with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Shaw, Byron, Christine Mechenich and Lowell Klessig. Understanding Lake Data, 1996, UW-Extension Publication G3582, http://www1.uwex.edu/ces/pubs/pdf/G3582.PDF.

Schueler, Tom. Watershed Protection Techniques. 1(4): 666-669. Available at http://www.stormwatercenter.net/Practice/37-Can%20Urban%20Soil%20Compaction%20 Be%20Reversed.pdf.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources memo from John Panuska 11/6/94. Graphic by Wisconsin Lakes Partnership.

Wisconsin Department of Revenue; University of Wisconsin, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics and UWEX Local Government Center.

Wisconsin Department of Transportation; http://www.dot.state.wi.us/opa/glance.html.