SILVER SPRING, MD – As interest mounts in cutting-edge techniques to build with minimal impact on the environment, the Montgomery County Planning Board has scheduled a local expert to join its 2009 Growing Smarter Speaker Series on Thursday, October 8.
Neil Weinstein, executive director of the Low Impact Development Center in Beltsville, Md., will highlight emerging technologies to plan and design environmentally sensitive infrastructure. The techniques, from slowing – or even eliminating – stormwater runoff to reducing building footprints in new development, are part of Low Impact Development, or LID. Planners consider LID to be a valuable toolbox of strategies to lessen the impact of growth so it won’t adversely affect environmentally sensitive watersheds and other areas.
In keeping with the mission of his nonprofit Low Impact Development Center, Weinstein will describe the LID approach – a comprehensive series of engineering and design recommendations to maintain and enhance the hydrology of urban and developing watersheds.
Weinstein’s presentation, “21st Century Urban Green Infrastructure,” will focus on great design, green highways and streets, and how new or retrofitted development can fit into an overall plan for community and economic development. With case studies depicting how communities and designers developed business- and performance-based approaches to planning and designing environmentally sensitive infrastructure, Weinstein will highlight state-of-the-art approaches, lessons learned, and future directions for the use of innovative approaches for land use planning and site design.
Weinstein is the latest of a series of monthly speakers to present before the Board this year. Continuing education credits have been approved for AICP members.
Who:
Montgomery County Planning Board
What:
Neil Weinstein presenting “21st Century Urban Green Infrastructure”
When:
7:30 p.m. Thursday, October 8
Where:
Park and Planning Headquarters auditorium
8787 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring
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