“Two complementary strategies can ‘green’ a community and its infrastructure: first, preserving as much as possible of the natural green infrastructure; and secondly, promoting designs that soften the footprint of development,” explains Kim Stephens.
Emphasis is on educating stakeholders regarding the benefits of a design with nature approach to community planning and land development, and facilitating adoption of this approach.
The Green Infrastructure Wiki is an open source movement. It is providing a conceptual framework that can accommodate the range of scales and functions described by the green infrastructure term.
Gaining Groiund Announcement – Dale Wall, Deputy Minister
For change to really occur, practices that until now have been viewed as the exception must become the norm moving forward.
Susan Rutherford (120p)
Susan Rutherford represented the GIP. She described the application of a Shared Responsibility Matrix as an organizing framework; and explained how Bill 27 creates statutory authority for water sustainability action.
“The program design was approached from a shared responsibility perspective; it explored how policy and legal tools can help developers, regulators and designers collaborate to ensure responsible outcomes,” stated Vincent Lalonde.
Green infrastructure is associated with the management of water that runs off the land. Green infrastructure is also associated with how water is used.
Ray Fung (120p)
The Topsoil Primer set will help local governments ensure that a healthy layer of topsoil is a priority during development and re-development. If we can show how to get the topsoil part right, then other parts of the water sustainability equation are more likely to follow.
