Recommendation: Improve natural resources through the redevelopment process

Each redevelopment site represents an opportunity to enhance the environmental performance of a property and contribute to local and regional natural resource enhancement. Many aspects of development proposals, such as building design, landscape choices, and site planning, can improve climate resilience, water conservation, stormwater management, and water quality. Expansion of site-scale greening — particularly with native and drought- and flood-tolerant landscape materials and trees — can help to mitigate the urban heat island effect, retain stormwater, promote carbon sequestration, and improve public health. Avoiding redevelopment in flood-prone areas interrupts the cycle of escalating and recurring damages. Local governments can be proactive about addressing flooding challenges by going beyond county requirements to require stormwater best management practices on smaller parcels. Encouraging green infrastructure practices as the first design option and enabling rainwater harvesting and reuse can help address concerns from neighbors that redevelopment could exacerbate existing stormwater problems.

Despite these real benefits, integration of sustainable practices in redevelopment is often perceived as more difficult or expensive. The most common example is with stormwater, where small sites may be severely constrained from meeting detention requirements. Yet the application of green infrastructure designs like permeable paving or bioswales can be incorporated in a variety of settings. For property owners with space or other site constraints, credits and trading programs can provide flexibility and increase implementation. In the stormwater example, trading programs allow eligible properties to meet a portion of their stormwater requirements by buying “credits” from other property owners. These programs could lead to dramatic improvements, especially if off-site installations are located within the same water- or sewer-shed and the infill site does not create downstream impacts. Municipalities can also take advantage of larger-scale redevelopment efforts to either make adjacent infrastructure improvements that relate to climate resilience, such as burying overhead utility lines, installing street trees, or building sewer capacity or shared stormwater solutions, or require developers to do so.

As documented by the environmental justice movement, environmental issues tend to have disproportionate impacts on specific populations, including people who are low income, of color, or have limited English proficiency. For instance, the health and well-being of these residents are frequently affected by the environmental hazards arising from the disproportionate location of brownfields, landfills, and freight and industrial facilities within their communities. Similarly, research suggests that those who might be at increased exposure to heat waves include people of color, residents with limited English proficiency, those with family income below the poverty line, the elderly, children, and those with existing health conditions.^{{{The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provides research related to climate vulnerability, see https://www.epa.gov/heat-islands/heat-island-impacts.}}}

Other challenges, ranging from repetitive flooding to lead exposure in drinking water lines, could also be due to a lack of investment and maintenance that are particularly acute in disinvested( A persistent, long-term lack of market investment, measured by a long term loss of jobs, low levels…
Read more) areas. As infrastructure managers work to balance budgets or address the backlog of deferred maintenance, higher service fees can be particularly difficult for low-income residents to absorb. In general, more research is needed to determine the impacts of environmental issues on different population groups and meaningful strategies to address them. Any such effort must deeply engage the affected communities to ensure that solutions reflect local needs.

Community greening involves increasing the amount of green coverage, including recreational or passive park space, community gardens, landscaping and tree canopy,^{{{The Chicago Regional Trees Initiative hosts an interactive map to explore the urban tree canopy, see http://chicagorti.org/interactivemap.}}} and green infrastructure. This can be particularly valuable in walkable downtowns, along major commercial corridors, and in other areas with an extensive impervious surface. Community greening efforts can achieve numerous benefits, including greater climate resilience, stormwater management, habitat, reduced heat island effect, community and economic development, and improved physical and mental health. GO TO 2040 recommended retrofitting developed areas with green infrastructure, which contributes to overall community greening, and these practices were explored in greater detail in the ON TO 2050 Integrating Green Infrastructure strategy paper.^{{{Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, “Integrating Green Infrastructure,” 2016,} Strategy papers and other reports^.}}