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GI GOALS + TARGET SETTING

 

Group 1

  • By 2030, in SW UGA, build 10% more road miles as “green streets” (which means tree canopy + traffic calming + beautifies neighborhoods and stores + infiltrates rain + active transportation) 

Group 2

  • Reduce effective impervious area within the UGA by 25%, by 2040 

  • Community outcome: reduced flooding, improved water quality, reduce demand on existing infrastructure, reduce stream erosion, increased property value 

  • Supporting actions: education, funding (possible property credit or grant), community involvement, system to track and report outcomes 

Group 3

  • Timeframe: 2050 

  • Unit: % retrofit by watershed 

  • Outcome: prioritize spending on highest benefit ratio retrofits countywide 

  • Supporting actions: provide incentives to private landowners to retrofit their facilities 

  • Goal: 50% of government facilities retrofit from gray to GI 

Group 4

  • Develop incentive program for existing development by 2025 

  • Retrofit installations 

  • Education + outreach for O&M 

  • Discount SWM commercial rates 

Group 5

  • Goal: increase tree canopy 

  • Reduce urban flooding  

  • LIDs tailored to Snohomish County geology 

  • $ for green infrastructure 

  • Urban tree coverage – X trees per acre 

  • Rural tree coverage – X trees per acre 

  • Based on air quality – GHG reductions – co ops  

  • Based on water retention 

  • Based on temperature mitigation 

  • Align with 2045 clean energy timeline – 25 year plan (2020-2045) 

  • Phase 1 – set target 

  • Phase 2 – implementation / budget 

  • Development incentives 

  • Regulatory agency (DOE) 

  • Retrofit 

  • Utilize comp plan – GPP, CPP, captures cities in plan 

Group 6

  • Timeframe: within 20 years 

  • Unit: Feet of retrofitted rural road ditch for water quality treatment 

  • Community outcomes: improved water quality, improved base flow 

  • Supporting actions/milestone: inventory, % roads retrofitted, prioritization tool 

 

GI ACTION PLANNING

Barriers

  • Ownership – making people understand what they have 

  • Limited staff capacity 

  • Cost of maintenance 

  • Infrastructure conflict / space limitations 

  • Public perception/expectation of projects 

  • Decentralization of stormwater systems 

  • Mandates don’t mesh with what’s feasible to implement locally 

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Opportunities

  • Ownership – more education and outreach to owners about what they have, their legal obligations 

  • Hiring more staff so we don’t have to limit what county pursues 

  • Workforce development 

  • Designing for low maintenance 

  • Resources to pay for maintenance 

  • Systematic tracking of maintenance costs and challenges for existing projects 

  • Asset management system (public + private) – start to integrate costs of maintenance and maintenance performed; track what’s out there 

  • Regular reporting on costs and performance of existing GI 

  • Public education on aesthetic expectations 

  • Standards that don’t stifle innovation but provide useable detail. Low design cost, low installation cost 

 

Photo Gallery from October 2019 Workshop

Do you have photos that you’d like to share? Email them to media@eartheconomics.org

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