WEC Analysis Committee/Enhance appreciation and connections to natural resources

From Eugene Neighbors

Contents 1 Overview 2 Description 3 Key Parameters and Rules of Thumb 4 Community Design Implications 5 References 6 External Links

[edit] Overview

This is one of eight integrated design issue clusters being developed by the WEC Analysis Committee starting mid-June, 2008.

Eight draft clusters... Intensify Development, Relocate Land Uses, Increase Public Transit, Enhance Pedestrian and Bikeways, Connections to Natural Resources, Enhance Natural Resources, Natural Watershed, Transportation Network

[edit] Description

A key component of the WEC solution is the community's relationship with the natural resources in the study area. This cluster assembles all related ideas.

[edit] Key Parameters and Rules of Thumb

1. The City of Eugene's tagline is "World's Greatest City of the Arts and Outdoors," with open space in attractive riparian, wetlands, prairie, woodlands, and forest habitats and developed parks accounting for much of the "outdoors" of Eugene.
2. Without conservation planning, natural open space tends to shrink as population numbers rise. This puts increasing human pressure on the remaining open spaces.
3. Over 99% of Willamette Valley's wetland/upland prairie and oak savannah have been developed or otherwise eliminated. West Eugene contains some of the few prairie and oak savannah open spaces, making it a unique locale. [Reference in terms of valley and local contexts]
4. A regional environmental education center is being developed near West 11th and Danebo. Education Center Plan
   

   

   Environmental Education Center Site Plan
5. ...Work in piecemeal way to decentralize the process of learning and enrich it through contact with many places and people all over the city... Build new educational facilities in a way which extends and enriches this network." Pattern Language Pattern 18 - NETWORK OF LEARNING] [1]
6. People feel comfortable when they have access to the countryside, experience of open fields, and agriculture; access to wild birds and animals. For this access, cities must have boundaries with the countryside near every point... Therefore: "Keep interlocking fingers of [open space] and urban land... The urban fingers should never be more than 1 mile wide, while the [open space] fingers should never be less than 1 mile wide. [Pattern Language Pattern 3 - CITY COUNTRY FINGERS] [2]
7. When natural bodies of water occur near human settlements, treat them with great respect. Always preserve a belt of common land, immediately beside the water. And allow dense settlements to come right down to the water at only infrequent intervals along the water's edge. [Pattern Language Pattern 25 - ACCESS TO WATER] [3]
8. Give the buildings in the busy parts of town a quiet "back" behind them and away from the noise..." [Pattern Language Pattern 59 - QUIET BACKS] [4]
9. People need green open places to go to; when they are close they use them. But if the greens are more than three minutes away, the distance overwhelms the need. [Pattern Language Pattern 60 - ACCESSIBLE GREEN] [5]
10. Preserve natural ponds and streams and allow them to run through the city; make paths for people to walk along them and footbridges to cross them. Let the streams form natural barriers in the city, with traffic crossing them only infrequently on bridges." [Pattern Language Pattern 64 - POOLS AND STREAMS] [6]
11. At the Stewart Pond natural site, BLM and Army Corps are planning an interpretive site and trail system. Stewart Pond interpretive Site Map
12. Human-powered transportation tends to operate at a pace that enhances connections to surrounding nature, while creating low impacts on that nature compared to motor vehicle transportation.
13. If planned effectively as part of overall land use patterns and coordinated with design of adjacent buildings, wetland mitigation projects can help connect people's everyday lives to nature.

[edit] Community Design Implications

1. Design with positive attention to and provision for edges: e.g., the corridors at the edge of transportation and waterways, the surroundings of wetlands and oak savannah, the transition between open spaces and residential and industrial developments.
2. Design west Eugene transportation and developments with the fundamental conception of west Eugene wetlands as a unique Eugene commercial and residential amenity, the presence and functioning of which must be sustained.
3. Design industrial, residential and commercial developments to enhance appreciation of outdoors
4. Recognize the Amazon as both a NR and a focus as an economic redevelopment tool
5. Creation of beneficial land use action that coordinate the re-naturalizing of the Amazon with mixed-use re-developmental of the area of interest
6. Create community accessible to the Amazon while respecting property ownership

[edit] References

• The Environmental Protection Agency defines "open space" as "a portion of a site which is permanently set aside for public or private use and will not be developed. The space may be used for passive or active recreation, or may be reserved to protect or buffer natural areas." (emphasis added). Alternatively, a web-based real estate dictionary defines "open space" as "empty or vacant land, often parkland which is considered an amenity for surrounding residences." (emphasis added).
• The BLM has a recreation and access plan for the West Eugene Wetlands area. BLM Recreation Map
• A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander at al., Oxford University Press, 1977

[edit] External Links