March 2003
Ever wish you could simultaneously lower your site infrastructure costs, protect the environment, and increase your project’s marketability? Using Low Impact Development (LID) techniques you can. LID is an ecologically friendly approach to site development and storm water management that aims to mitigate development impacts to land, water, and air. The approach emphasizes the integration of site design and planning techniques that conserve natural systems and hydrologic functions on a site.
LID has a variety of benefits to Builders, Municipalities, and the Environment such as:
- The reduction of land clearing and grading costs;
- Balancing the need for growth and environmental protection;
- The protection of local land and water resources.
LID utilizes a system of source controls and small-scale, decentralized treatment practices to help maintain a hydrologically functional landscape. The conservation of open space, the reduction of impervious surfaces, and the use of small-scale storm water controls, such as bioretention, are just a few of the LID practices that can help maintain predevelopment hydrological conditions.
Featured case study
Somerset is an 80-acre development in suburban Maryland consisting of 199 homes on 10,000 square foot lots. During Somerset’s creation, the developer used LID practices to reduce its storm water management costs. By using LID, the developer:
- Eliminated the need for storm water ponds by using bioretention techniques saving approximately $300,000;
- Gained 6 additional lots and their associated revenues;
- Reduced finished lot cost by approximately $4,000.