The Farmington River Enhancement Grants: A tale of two towns and the path to Low Impact Development

摘要

This paper will describe the process the towns of Harwinton and Plainville, Connecticut used to adopt Low Impact Development strategies into their existing land use regulations under the Farmington River Enhancement Grants, which were administered by the CT DEP. The CT DEP offered grants to communities located within the Farmington River Watershed to retain qualified consultants to review existing land use regulations in order to encourage the implementation of the LID. This paper will discuss and contrast the approach of the two communities. The Town of Harwinton, CT is a predominately rural community in northwest Connecticut having an approximate population of 5,000 residents. Most of the development in town consists of single family residential units on the typical two-acre building lot. The focus of stormwater management in the community is on the reduction of the peak rate for the twenty-five storm event to pre-development levels. There are several public drinking water supply reservoirs in Harwinton, which are owned by the City of Bristol. While Harwinton does not obtain potable water from these reservoirs, they want to preserve the quality of water which goes to the reservoirs. The Town of Plainville is predominately an urban environment, located near the southwest corner of the Farmington River watershed. Over 90% of the community has been developed as either medium/high density residential and/or commercial/industrial. This has lead to large, interconnected impervious areas in many areas, with the resultant flooding and adverse water quality impacts. The paper will describe the land use issues in each community which drove the process to consider LID. It will also show how LID development strategies were presented for consideration and adopted to address these issues. Lastly, the paper will show how public outreach was conducted to facilitate the adoption of LID.