Low-impact development buzz generates conference

The roughly $50,000 conference is funded with part of a $400,000 federal appropriations grant secured by U.S. Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond and former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, said Holly Neill, executive director of the James River Basin Partnership. The grant was awarded to JRBP and the Upper White River Basin Foundation for a joint water quality improvement project aimed at promoting low-impact development and storm-water reduction practices in southwest Missouri, Neill said.

The JRBP organized the Ripple Effect Conference, which will feature local developers, architects and engineers as well as experts from Arkansas, Illinois and Wisconsin, said Project Assistant Tiffany Frey. Presentations and workshops will be held May 7–8 at the Oasis Inn and Convention Center, 2550 N. Glenstone Ave.

Wisconsin-based consulting firm Applied Ecological Services Inc. will play a significant role in the conference, with senior landscape architect Jacob Blue delivering the keynote address about low-impact development. AES also will lead a hands-on design charrette May 6–7 that will compare hydrological issues and costs of a low-impact design to a traditional development plan at an actual site south of Springfield in Greene County.

“There’s an awful lot of buzz about these kind of techniques in our community right now, and I think people are just really hungry for more information,” Frey said.

Local businesspeople also will present at the conference. They include Eric Dove, Olsson Associates; Matt O’Reilly, Green Circle Shopping Center; Eric McCune, Sapp Design Associates Architects PC; Springfield City Councilman Dan Chiles, Watts Radiant; and Stuart Murr, Smart Designs LLC.

Sapp Design’s McCune is scheduled to talk about his firm’s work on the $17 million Ozark Community Recreation Center – namely a gravity-based system designed to collect rainwater and irrigate native plantings near the facility. The water will be stored in three above-ground cisterns, he said. The rainwater system will cost $56,500, offset by a $20,000 grant from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, McCune added.

Energy-efficiency advocate George Van Hoesen is one person familiar with many of the low-impact development practices on the conference docket. Van Hoesen, who owns consulting firm Green Building LLC, aspires to build a “net-zero carbon footprint community” along the Finley River south of Nixa.

The low-impact development – known informally as Riverdale – calls for 351 homes on 262 sloping acres, more than half of which would be preserved as open space, two small lakes and constructed wetlands. Van Hoesen, who is negotiating with potential investors to finance the project, said the Ripple Effect Conference suggests there’s growing interest in low-impact development.

“People like Matt O’Reilly with the Green Circle project have really sparked an interest,” Van Hoesen said. “What has ended up happening is low-impact development is the way we really have to go, but now because it’s being seen as profitable, people are starting to say, ‘I need to jump on that boat.’”

With the design charrette, the conference has essentially two components. Frey said the charrette will be available to the first 50 people who register, while the conference can accommodate up to 300 participants. The cost for both the charrette and conference is $275; the conference alone is $150 per person, Frey said.

For more information or to register, visit www.jamesriverbasin.com.