Foundations of Sustainable Development Law, Regulation, and Planning

Saving money. Using resources wisely. Building more durable projects that require less maintenance and upkeep. Protecting water supplies, trees, and farmland. These are all noble goals--but what if they could be pursued in one project? How do communities and private developers work collaboratively, to meet public and private interests and to create spaces where people want to live and work? Sustainable development is intended to prevent the permanent damage or loss of resources as well as incorporating methods that reduce the rate of consumption of resources.

In its many forms, sustainable development and environmentalism are increasingly important for commercial, governmental, and social issues. Helping meet the need for current, accessible information on this growing area of law and practice, Foundations of Sustainable Development provides a hands-on guide to understanding sustainable development concepts and projects.

Written for both public and private entities embarking upon sustainable projects, this book explores specific sustainable development techniques and concepts. Author Dean Frieders shows you how to identify and explain some of the many tools, both legal and nonlegal, available for employing sustainable development within a community or project. Avoiding complicated technological terminology, this clearly written book provides easily understandable descriptions of the techniques available to encourage sustainable development. It also identifies some of the common pitfalls, and explores methods of addressing those issues using the most readily available tools that either a developer, a public body, or a regulatory agency has available: laws and regulations, contracts, and design requirements. To make green ideas come to life, the author explains how to build a development team and define a development goal at the very start of the project.

This practical guide covers the logical steps towards creating a successful sustainable project, the book, explaining the history, tools, and tips to move a sustainable project forward.

Topics include:

• Zoning codes, ordinances, annexation agreements, and transects
• Planned unit developments
• Utilizing form-based codes to create a cohesive visual style to community-wide zoning
• Methods for engineering a sustainable community
• Adopting effective and thoughtful regulations to encourage sustainability through permitting and property code enforcement

Making this pertinent information accessible, Foundations of Sustainable Development references recent examples and describes "real world" concerns, from incentivizing green building projects by giving unique permissions, as in several California cities, to cost-benefit analysis and objective building performance. It also details some of the range of issues, often more complex than expected, to consider in a sustainable development project, such as issues raised in safe implementation of storm water injection and the LEED certification and continuing recertification process.