Northampton’s Planning Board will hold a meeting/working session to discuss how to implement the Sustainable Northampton Plan. The meeting will take place on March 6, 6-8pm in the City Hall Hearing Room, 210 Main Street, 2nd Floor (enter via the rear door). The agenda includes: Review of Sustainable Northampton Implementation Process Review of Sustainable Northampton […]
Infill
Vancouver Sun: “Call it EcoDensity or EcoCity –either way it’s a hard sell”
In Vancouver, residents are concerned that ‘densification’ will harm cherished neighborhoods of single-family homes… Call it EcoDensity or EcoCity –either way it’s a hard sell (2/19/08)There have been more than a few rhododendrons come down in Vancouver in the last 30 years — literally and figuratively — and in their place have sprouted monster homes, […]
Downtown house on “dead end street” in “rural setting” flies off market
The Gazette reports that residential real estate sales in Northampton are slow, but you wouldn’t know it if you were the seller of a certain single-family house on Bradford Street. According to the Multiple Listing Service, this home went on sale on February 8 and is now under agreement, just 12 days later. What makes it […]
Scientists Assist Efforts to Build Urban Tree Canopy
Scientists at the University of Vermont are helping cities measure and increase their tree canopies, AP reports today: “The benefits [of urban trees] are many. First, there’s the environmental. Trees cool things. They remove particulates in the air. They’re linked to mitigating storm water flows, which is an enormous problem in all urban areas because […]
Paved Surfaces, Salt and Water Bodies: A Bad Mix
This news item from the February 17 Republican underscores why it’s a bad idea to locate paved surfaces near bodies of water… Road salt taints 9 home wellsTests of private home wells along Route 10 have shown that three in Westfield and six in Southampton are contaminated by road salt, officials said yesterday…All of the homes […]
Snow and Slush Expose Limits of Storm Drains
If infill is to mean adding more impervious surface to the already built-up areas of Northampton, this will increase pressure on our man-made stormwater drainage system. The limits of this system were on display this week, as snow, sleet and nearly 3 inches of rain came to Pioneer Valley. Today’s Gazette reports: Water, water everywhere […]
Massachusetts Audubon: The Value of Floodplain Forests
“Floodplain forest—a woodland that is regularly inundated with water that moves into the lowlands bordering a river—is a disappearing ecological treasure,” writes Gayle Goddard-Taylor for Mass Audubon’s Sanctuary magazine (March 2006). While some may quibble that the North Street woods are not a forest and Millyard Brook is not a river but an intermittent stream, […]
Terrain.org: “Cultivating Natural and Cultural Landscapes through Conservation Subdivision Design”
Terrain.org is an online journal devoted to smart growth that’s integrated with the natural environment. It won a 1999 Media Award for Sustainable Development, and has an entire category devoted to UnSprawl. Randall Arendt’s article, “Cultivating Natural and Cultural Landscapes through Conservation Subdivision Design”, is a good example of increasing sensitivity among Smart Growth advocates for […]
Northampton Planning Board to Meet on Implementing Sustainable Northampton Plan
Northampton’s Planning Board will meet on Thursday, February 7 and Thursday, March 6 to discuss and plan for the implementation of the Sustainable Northampton Comprehensive Plan. These meetings begin at 6pm and may last for two hours each. We urge concerned citizens to attend at City Hall, 210 Main Street, 2nd Floor, Room 10 (enter via the rear […]
MA Secy of Energy and Environmental Affairs: Urban Parks Deserve Protection as do Habitat Reserves and Working Landscapes
In a January 16 guest column for South Coast Today, Ian Bowles, secretary of energy and environmental affairs for Massachusetts, argues that Smart Growth needs to provide for urban parks as well as habitat reserves and working landscapes (agricultural and forest lands). It’s not sufficient to presume that compact growth and the preservation of open […]