In 2019, the Water Environment Federation (WEF) was awarded a grant by the Chesapeake Bay Trust through the Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns Grant Program. The project, entitled “Support for Innovative Approaches and Clean Water Technologies for Resilient Redevelopment”, aimed to engage communities to participate in stormwater decision making and encourage innovative runoff management while ensuring these practices still function as intended.

The wide adoption of green infrastructure – one innovative practice – is critical to meet water quality goals in watersheds throughout the nation. This project addresses a gap in the use of green infrastructure on private lands by providing steps to broaden who is engaged in pollution control measures and where they are located.

WEF and the Resilient Redevelopment project partners – Designgreen, Mary Gattis, and EcoLucid – hosted two charrette workshops in December 2019, the first in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and the second in Washington, DC. The workshops challenged participants to rethink traditional approaches to stormwater management in sites with spatial or land-use constraints.

After an open call for project site submissions, two sites were then selected as case studies for the project – Joe’s Movement Emporium in Maryland and Reservoir Park in the City of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. WEF’s project partners provided conceptual design services through the grant to rethink the redevelopment of these two sites in a more resilient way.

In August 2020, WEF published the Resilient Redevelopment for Everyone digest that summarizes the principles of resilient design, outcomes of the design charrette workshops, and overviews of the selected case studies. The digest is available for anyone to download and can be used as a model process to overcome risk and unlock redevelopment potential.

Read more about the digest and case studies in the Stormwater Report.

As an additional tool, a Site Catalog of redevelopment projects is also available as a searchable compilation. Use the Site Catalog to consider the impact of site conditions on optimal green value engineering designs. All stages, from concept to completion, as well as an expansive approach to redevelopment constraints and challenges are considered.

This project has been funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency under assistance agreement CB96336601 to Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The contents of this document do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Environmental Protection Agency, nor does the EPA endorse trade names or recommend the use of commercial products mentioned in this document.