Strategic Plan To-Do List: The Natural Environment
Decatur Metro | March 11, 2011Lights AND dogs. They both pollute. Decatur’s 2010 Strategic Plan Goal 13 addresses both…
Goal 13: Protect and restore natural resources, support environmental health, and increase ecological awareness
Task 13A: Create an urban forest management plan to assess Decatur’s existing tree canopy, recommend strategies for protection, maintenance, and new tree plantings, and revise the city’s tree ordinance.
Task 13B: Create an updated storm water management plan and continue to upgrade the storm water system.
Task 13C: Support educational programs to encourage individual support of environmental sustainability programs such as the Kilowatt Crackdown.
Task 13D: Adopt a long-range maintenance schedule for parks and greenspace to assure that facilities and fields are maintained and repaired, and that greenspace areas and trails are well managed.
Task 13E: Conduct stream bank restoration and naturalization of stream channels. Install signs along each creek to increase public awareness.
Task 13F: Expand the existing single-family residential recycling program to multifamily buildings and local businesses.
Task 13G: Remove all invasive plant species from city property and ban the sale of invasive species on city property.
Task 13H: Adopt light pollution guidelines to lessen the impact of new development and public light sources on the night sky.
Task 13I: Install additional dog waste bag stations in public places and along streets to reduce the amount of dog waste that pollutes streams.
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Yeah, I am loving 13A and 13G!!!! Decatur rocks. 13A in particular will save the City money over the long haul.
Maybe add – mitigate/minimize/reduce “impervious surfaces” (e.g. paved lots)
Wish 13A had been addressed before the city took down two hundred year or better trees out of our street canopy–this was in preparation for resurfacing one narrow block? Is the repaving equipment like the big highway machines that we couldn’t re-think the tree cutting? I’m still grieving the loss. Hope 13A prevents this as any kind of on-going practice.
I’m all for removing invasive (I finally think I have this right) plants in city parks, as long as it doesn’t cost the taxpayers any more money. I question the wisdom of requiring the removal of all English ivy or Chinese privet from city properties when right next-door, throughout Decatur, private property is full of these plants (maybe the hidden agenda here is to require ALL properties to eventually remove invasive plants but I don’t want to get carried away with my bad, tea-party side). I fear that a new tree ordinance, like the one proposed two years ago, will break the back of homeowners whose property contain too many old and dying trees.
Forest management, stream bank restoration, and light pollution regulation? When you only see four or five elements of the total plan, it may not seem so bad but when you look at everything, it reads like a massive government takeover or private property rights and individual responsibility. Mr. Decatur Metro Guy will do us all a favor by posting the ENTIRE proposal.
To those of you who are part of Decatur’s nouveau rich, who vote for huge tax increases and laugh at people like me who worry about the increasing tax burden and government regulation in this town, my post will bring another smile to your face. But to those who are struggling to make the mortgage, credit card, and car payment, take care. Things could get a lot worse in our town. Now is the time to support tight budgets, smaller government, and more individual responsibility, not bigger government. Oppose the strategic plan!
I can get behind an ordinance that prohibits growing invasive plants on one’s property. …because they never stay on ones property but move into mine. That’s why they’re called “invasive”.
I attended every phase of the strategic planning process and the only one of these issues to come up was 13B. It was discussed in reference to helping protect the property of residents living in areas subject to flooding. I’m not certain it belongs in this particular goal.
If you remove that portion and put it in a more proper place (infrastructure — for example), I feel, the remainder of this goal could be scrapped all together (well, except 13G — maybe). It seems like unnecessary busy work. The tree ordinance is fine as is, people should clean up after their own dogs, and adopting light pollution guidelines (?) would be a waste of the valuable time of city employees. Multifamily units and businesses can adopt their own recycling programs and I wonder what “support” educational programs means.
Of the issues facing the city, these are extremely minimal.
Park maintenance has recently been a topic of discussion at my local dog park. I’m glad the city is looking at a long-range plan. Several of us had been thinking of approaching the city about including volunteer workers in any plan to keep up the park. We have plenty of willing hands, but we need an overall erosion mitigation / landscaping plan to follow rather than charging in on our own to try to maintain the park.
I’m for all of it, especially the invasive species removal and light pollution guidelines. I think they should ban street and “security’ lights.