Metropolitan Washington DC Green Infrastructure Mapping Assessment Forum September 14, 2005 Worksheets

Metropolitan Washington DC 

Green Infrastructure Mapping Assessment Forum

September 14, 2005

Worksheets

STRATEGIC COLLABORATION

• Getting neighborhood level information to various agencies and entities
• “Green” projects database – DC Planning
• DC energy has a LEED-oriented database, only 11-12 projects
• Challenge because it is technical
• Challenge because different agencies have different categories of green projects, or partial green projects, but there is no central definition/umbrella
• Different agencies in DC manage different slides of green – hurdle to info sharing/analysis
• Collaboration between private/nongovernmental (ex. #1, Casey Trees) and public actors.  Ex. #2: Anacostia partnership (religious)
• DC creating umbrella “green” policies to consolidate what it means and give consistency to concept for all.
• Green Infrastructure Plan is still a good way to describe the concept.  Allows regional, local groups, etc. to inform decision-makers.  Provides visual and quantitative information.  Example: Maryland conservation purchase.
• 2 problems:

• Integrating government and others – integrating all the disparate pieces
• Regional picture

• Plan gives you a structure to hang onto

• GI solves specific problems, e.g. stormwater (achieved through a plan) – stormwater justifies GI

• Technical issues (hard engineering)
• GI is a new term, but is a good umbrella
• GI is not a plan in Maryland, not a mandate.  This has contributed to its success.
• Allowed it to be sold at local level
• Not other administrative level
• GI info and guide is palatable, a plan is not
• Opens it to greater collaboration: tourism, transportation, heritage information
• Need web-based geo-database

• Access!
• Local data must be consolidated and shared and parsed before regional discussions can happen – “must be scalable”
• Collaboration opportunities – need a ‘meeting place’

• Enabled by a state mapping effort, with counties & counties working together – this can lead to a GI plan
• Needs to be a mechanism for jurisdictions to sit down and talk and unite GI vision
• Citizen driven: advocate for this mechanism
• Justify GI by highlighting services it provides.  Ex: urban forests help meet ozone attainment goals.
• What does GI do?  These services will justify it.
• Group/guide/convening GI has long been discussed.  A regional committee at COG where people share.
• But you need a regional vision.
• A plan can be prescriptive and cause friction/problems.  The information is the real deal.
• Question about the MD program: Are counties using it?  Answer: some more than others, but there are others making crazy decisions.
• It has put GI into the vernacular.
• Encourage local governments to create and be willing to disburse the data.

• Everyone needs to have shared definitions.
• But, once you articulate GI, you see a lot of spins.
• VA:

• Will wind up with prescriptive maps (product, what’s expected)
• But will also provide raw data = opportunities
• Leverage ideas into implementation
• Leads to enhanced ideas and implementation

• DC:

• Low impact development brochure gets the word out while regulatory/zoning gets up to support GI notions.
• Sharing (LID) specs across jurisdictions is enabled by a GI sharing/vocabulary forever.

• COG:

• Resources assessment vs. “A Plan”

• Let municipalities develop the “plan”
• A plan developed in the late 1990s fell on its face because no one could agree

• Fragmentation issues

• Up to individual jurisdictions, this makes it hard.

STRATEGIC COLLABORATION PRIORITIES (in no order)

• Access to data/information at various scales

• Central clearinghouse of data

• Listserve so people can communicate about who has what

• Does COG have server space to host?
• COG thought about buying data to get around licensing agreement, but they can’t share raw data and everyone has that problem.  Software.

• Basic producers, resource assessments.
• Toolbox of hints/model ordinances at smaller scales.  We all have these, but don’t share them.

• An Alliance – a collaborative mechanism for local jurisdictions to come together/interact on GI issues

• Subcommittee – COG has those for planning, but green issues are not getting its share of attention compared with transportation, for example.
• In absence of a subcommittee, cyberspace/web would be a good place to start.
• The clearinghouse would be its mechanism

• An organization running spatial clearinghouse is burdened by perceived bias
• Needs money – Land Trust Alliance is a model

• ID a vision and why we share it.

• An assessment, not a plan, available at all scales that can be shared.  For example, the Creating GI manual by the Conservation Fund.

• A way of understanding what our mutual goals are.  It’s our values & understanding that are making decisions & why.

MAPPING

• Green infrastructure protocols (data standards, what’s included, what’s not, etc.)

• How to integrate disparate datasets?
• Determine data needs by what one wants to do

• Getting to know each other
• Interact with other, similar efforts (i.e. emergency management)

• Data sharing & housing
• Common resources?
• Common gateway
• What is included?
• Metadata – very important
• Data – maps & opportunities

• Identify key datasets to share
• Information needed for:

• Identifying key locations (targeting, priority)
• What to do with key locations

• Available data for cross-jurisdictional use – coverage, scale, availability, source, technology
• Data consistency across jurisdictions
• Resolution, classification
• Base data standards

• How to deal with data gaps (geographical) across the region?
• High resolution imagery is critical

MAPPING: PRIORITIES

• Public mapping system for D.C. area

• Casey Trees (lead)

• Identify key (available & appropriate) map datasets and associated data standards for each

• COG (possible lead)

• A shared vision based on resource assessments done at varying scales

ADVOCACY

• An education/advocacy effort targeted to local decision makers, elected, appointed, and staff, including planners. 
• Find and nurture champions who may become decision makers, and/or stronger advocates.
• Agreed on the importance of building and/or continue to strengthen the economic arguments for GI. This includes determining the economic values associated with the protection of ecological services.
• Identify and partner with other interests who understand and/or benefit from the protection of GI.  This includes utilities, health groups, NGOs.
• Agreed on the importance of advocating a policy of canopy expansion regionally.
• Agreed on the need to create a greenbelt around the metropolitan area.
• Agreed on the need for an organized citizenry to advocate for regional GI protection.
• Also agreed on the power of the visual to influence how people understand the transformation of the landscape.