With urbanization and sprawl threatening open space, and undeveloped land growing scarcer by the day, there is little room for the creation of one-dimensional projects. As both suburban and urban populations continue to grow, the development of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), stormwater facilities, landfill caps, and the like should not exist in isolation.
Now planners and public officials have the opportunity to incorporate open space and other amenities with municipal facilities, improving residents' quality of life and increasing surrounding property values.
The landscape architect's role in this process is not simply to provide a planting plan at a project's completion, but to lead the strategic assessment of a site's potential to meet a variety of community needs. By collaborating from the outset, the engineer, landscape architect, client, and community can together solve a municipal problem while incorporating parks, playing fields, public art, and golf courses.
In many instances project funding is dependent on a town or city-wide vote - the added value that these amenities offer can encourage people to embrace an idea. Such innovative redevelopment plans can also potentially win state and federal grants, encouraging towns to get the most out of every acre.
In the past municipalities often would construct a WWTP, for instance, in an area that was inaccessible to the community it served. Now engineers and landscape architects can mitigate nuisances like round-the-clock lighting, noise and odor with creative designs like earth-mounding and covered tanks. Today, a plant's obtrusive nature is manageable, enabling a family to play catch just yards away from where their wastewater is being treated. At completion these sites will often include an education center the public can visit, raising residents' awareness of issues like resource management, environmental protection, and sustainability.
Though security remains a top concern to municipal leaders, today's advances can ensure building safety without fencing in and isolating these properties. Since undeveloped land is in incredibly short supply in urban areas, security and land value need to be carefully balanced at the beginning of each project.
Environmental engineering feats have the potential to be much more than simply an eyesore or community liability. By considering the residents' concerns and the landscape architect's sensibilities, no facility needs to blight a neighborhood and can, in fact, become a community asset.