the etowah initiative:
fall 2002
evaluation of conservation subdivisions
Stephanie Shelton, Karen Francl, Nancy Aten, Emily Franzen
Nancy Aten (Environmental Design)
Karen Francl (Forestry)
Emily Franzen (Law)
Stephanie Shelton (Environmental Design)
Group
Workplan (MS Word format)
Group Workplan
(MS Powerpoint format)
Several years ago, Etowah Practicum students were asked by the Cherokee
County Director of Planning and Zoning to develop and present to the Cherokee
County Commission information about conservation subdivisions, and to
draft an ordinance permitting conservation subdivisions. The Commission
liked what was presented and they adopted the ordinance drafted by our
students, typos and all. Subsequently eleven conservation subdivisions
have been approved and several built in the county. We promoted conservation
subdivisions as a means of clustering development away from sensitive
natural resources such as streams and wildlife habitat (and thereby protecting
them), providing opportunities for passive recreation, and reducing infrastructure
costs for developers. Many other counties in the metro Atlanta area have
followed Cherokee County's lead and are promoting the use of conservation
subdivisions. The question to be answered by this project is, are conservation
subdivisions really providing any ecological services in the Etowah watershed?
Are they resulting in protected water quality and biodiversity? If we
find that they are not, can we suggest amendments to the ordinacne that
will ensure the protection of these resources?
The client in this case is the Cherokee County Department of Planning
and Zoning. The project would probably involve developing indicators of
ecosystem integrity and applying these to a representative handful of
the conservation subdivisions in Cherokee County, and maybe a couple outside
the county. If the indicators show ecosystem services are not being provided,
we would need to analyze the ordinance and interview developers to determine
why and make suggestions for amending the ordinance.
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