Developers’ clustering distorts definition of ‘green space’
The ongoing battle of developers against the environment has accelerated these last three or four years. It’s an unfair battle as the developers are all paid handsomely if they build and fired if they don’t. Municipal planners and elected officials, with their jobs or votes on the line, can’t compete effectively in serving the best interests of the citizens. City or town residents only get involved when the traffic overwhelms their daily lives which, by this time, is way too late to effect change. Tax revenues never keep up with deteriorating roads or levels of service.
Over time, developers took a great residential planning idea and corrupted it by creating tiny-lot developments sitting on landforms that look more like reclaimed coal mines, deplete of healthy soil. Developers crow about the amenities inside the gates and municipal officials get to proclaim the benefits of environmentally friendly landscaping ... also inside the gates. Outside, these manmade terrains aren’t just ugly, they’re harmful to us and our environment. The great residential idea proposed 60 years ago called “clustering” gained traction in the early 2000s as developers turned their attention to dozens of 1,500-acre burned-out orange grove parcels in Florida. The cluster concept was targeted against uniform positioning of houses across a traditional neighborhood landscape which resulted in tiny bits of mostly useless open spaces we used to call our backyards.
For example, rather than each house having its own quarter or fifth acre, clustering would push houses into near-zero lot lines leaving the rest of the property undisturbed. So, for 100 acres, old-school neighborhood style, at four houses on each acre, equaled 400 houses. Clustering puts those 400 houses on 50 acres, leaving the remaining 50 acres as open natural green space. How did this clustering idea become corrupted? It was probably a combination of sleight of hand and strong memories of the great drought of 1998-2002. During this drought, even the wetland medians along I-95 and I-4 caught fire and burned for days. Folks became fearful about the pending demise of the Floridan aquifer, our drinking water supply. Suddenly, rooftops and driveways were viewed as the salvation of the aquifer and proposed as replacements for trees that would otherwise just suck up precious water. Pretty amazing that anyone would agree that trees are anti-environmental. Yet, the idea caught on. Developers, sensing massive additional profits from increased housing densities, played sleight of hand with municipal officials by maximizing clusters while both minimizing acres of and drastically changing the definition of green space. I can hear the well-practiced pitch by the developer, “Here you can see the mandated acres of green space but let’s focus on our innovative landscaping within our product areas.” Inside the gates, environmentally friendly landscaping is irrigated with reclaimed wastewater. Outside of the gates, green spaces became lands that were not buildable and unwanted costs — such as retention ponds or wetlands or hillsides too steep to build. Taken out of context, removing trees and replacing them with shingles and asphalt inside the gates while adding tens or hundreds of acres of sod outside the gates made sense.
Unfortunately, all these newly defined green spaces, even with the disconnected wetlands, are worse than useless. They harm humans, wildlife, and our communities in several ways. While the developers may tout “Florida friendly” and “water friendly” landscaping within the clustered walls, they mock mother nature with token specimen trees in the green spaces. These “pretty” plantings can’t compete with a canopy of trees as wildlife corridors, sound barriers, carbon sequestering, earth cooling and (yes) groundwater saving.
Hundreds of acres of long-run, sodded hillsides (reclaimed strip-mine landform) don’t absorb water. Rather, these unused acres increase water runoff, require ongoing mowing, sometimes create massive gullies and instead of shading the houses, cause drastic heat increases. Wildlife and people do not or cannot use these areas.
The good news in Lake County is that County Commissioners are trying again to utilize the real definition of clustering for development in more rural areas. This time, the green spaces should be protected by code. Is it too late to modify the strip-mine landforms being built today? Maybe not ... if there are enough scouts looking for Eagle Scout quality projects planting 100,000 seedlings.
On the other hand, it is a perfect time to recover and adhere to the true definition of green space before new plans are finalized. That is, space usable by people, wildlife, or farming.