Copyright 2007   LandChoices -   All Rights Reserved	Continued from Page One Flawed Processes, Flawed Results, and a Potential Solution In the absence of sewers, another key factor is data on soil suitability for septic sewage disposal, to locate the very best soil available on the entire property. Septic systems need the deepest, best-drained soil that can be provided, and those areas must be "designed around" just as carefully -- and from the very beginning -- as any of the "Primary Conservation Areas", so they may be reserved for sewage treatment and effluent disposal and not be carelessly covered by foundations, driveways, or streets. To maximize the amount of open space, I typically locate septic drainfields (either shared or individual ones) off-lot, in easements under conservation meadows, neighborhood greens, and ballfields. If officials agree that these items are necessary and should be submitted at some point during the subdivision application process anyway, it doesn't increase the applicant's costs for them to be required up front where the important information they provide can be of the greatest use (helping to avoid wasting money on plans that do not take these features fully into account). I feel that this is the most important document in the subdivision design process, as it provides the factual foundation upon which all design decisions are based. c. Site Walk: Because it is impossible to completely understand a site only by examining a two-dimensional paper document inside a meeting room, it is essential that most Planning Board members, Conservation Commission members, and staff walk the property with the ER/SA Plan, to take the full measure of the proposed development site, and to help them determine which site features are most worthy of "designing around". I also encourage officials to invite abuttors to this advertised site meeting, where information will be collected and input solicited, but where no decisions will be taken. I have found that abuttors greatly appreciate being included from the outset, and that they are usually much less inclined to fight a process which includes them from the very beginning. Without the benefit of experiencing the property in a three-dimensional manner at a very early stage in the process, it is extremely difficult for staff and officials to offer informed suggestions as to the preferred locations of conservation areas and development areas, and to evaluate the proposed layouts. In my view, such site walks should definitely become a standard operating procedure, and part of the job description for all Planning Board members (except those with physical disabilities). Officials who choose not to attend Site Walks, and who do not have good reasons to miss them, should be offered other ways in which they might serve the community -- because (in my judgment) they cannot serve it well without walking potential development sites. In many towns this is a new concept, and it is often a hard sell among local officials who are already very busy with many other matters. However, I maintain, it is simply not possible to make an informed decision without experiencing the site in question. Local officials who take their first site walk with a detailed site analysis map in hand, meeting the applicant, his site designer, and abuttors in a casual and informal way, tell me they wouldn't think of missing this critical part of the process ever again. Regarding timing, I suggest walking the site with the applicant even before the Sketch Plan is prepared, if possible, so that the applicant may receive critical input before he/she prepares that conceptual layout. I usually end the site walk with an informal design session, where the significant natural and cultural features (from the ER/SA Plan) are identified and "designed around", with house sites being positioned in proximity to these special features to add value to all homes. d. Sketch (Master) Plan Overlay Sheet: Apart from the Existing Resources/Site Analysis Plan, the Sketch Plan is perhaps the second most important document in the entire subdivision process. This is the step where the overall concept is outlined, showing areas of proposed development and areas of proposed conservation. I recommend that the Sketch (Master) Plan be required to be prepared by a landscape architect or physical planner working with a civil engineer. Under this approach, surveyors and engineers would continue to perform all of the usual surveying and engineering tasks -- and could end up working even more hours (such as in locating significant trees and rock formations). However, the conceptual design and layout should definitely be handled by the landscape architect or physical planner as a supplemental team member called in for this special service. The Sketch (Master) Plan should be drawn to scale on white tracing paper or on a clear overlay sheet to be lain on top of the ER/SA Plan so that everyone can clearly see how well (or how poorly) the proposed layout avoids conservation lands with resources that have been ranked highly on the priority list contained in the subdivision regulations. Ideally the proposed development "footprint" on the Sketch (Master) Plan should dovetail and not intrude upon with the resources documented on the ER/SA Plan. This section of the code should also provide more criteria for staff or Board members to follow, so that everyone knows the parameters for evaluating the Sketch (Master) Plan. The review process for Sketch (Master) Plans should identify and document their shortcomings, which should then be communicated to the applicant, so that these deficiencies can be corrected prior to submitting the detailed, expensive Preliminary Plan. Under most state planning enabling acts, municipalities can pass along to the applicant the reasonable review costs of consultants including the physical planner or LA to walk the site, conduct the site analysis, and review the site plan, thereby launching the developer in the right direction. Developers with whom I have worked are often skeptical of the value of this approach until they try it once. It is essential that a conceptual step such as this occur before the applicant spends large sums on preparing the substantially-engineered drawing that typically constitutes the Preliminary Plan. After agreement is reached at this stage, the applicant moves to the Preliminary Plan, with the full benefit of the site analysis, site visit, and concept review to prepare him for the next stage where serious engineering money is spent. e. Four-Step Design Approach: I believe that the most effective methodology for producing conservation subdivision layouts that are responsive to the site and which preserve value-adding features, begins by determining the open space as the first step. If this is done, and if the regulations also require that a significant proportion of the unconstrained land be designated as open space, it is nearly impossible to produce a truly inferior or simply conventional plan, particularly if that open space is closely related to a Town-wide Map of Potential Conservation Lands in the Comprehensive Plan. The logical second step, after locating the preservation areas, is to select house locations, with homes positioned to take maximum advantage of that protected land in neighborhood squares, commons, greens, playing fields, greenways, farmland, or forest preserves. The third step involves "connecting the dots" by aligning the streets and trails to serve the new homes. Drawing in the lot lines, Step Four, is the least significant part of the process. One of the greatest weaknesses of most current "cluster" regulations is that the open space is not defined in this manner, and therefore tends to become a collection of whatever bits of land that have proven difficult to develop. The other common failing of such provisions is that they often require deep perimeter buffers around the proposed development (as if it were a gravel pit, junkyard, or leper colony), a practice that inadvertently leads to very poor layouts in which a substantial percentage of the total open space is consumed by this excessive separation (particularly needless when new single-family homes are being buffered from existing single-family homes). The combined influence of the expanded Context Map, the Existing Resources/Site Analysis Plan, the Site Walk, the Sketch (Master) Plan overlay sheet, and the four-step design approach makes a significant difference in the way that sites are approached by developers, their engineers, and local officials, and in the quality of the resulting layout of conservation areas, houselots, and streets.
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