County government is creating strategies to implement Low Impact Development policies.

Written by Kristen Schmutz

Belden Communications News 

Officials in Volusia County are putting a state grant to work to create a plan incorporating low-impact strategies into the development process to focus on where, how – and how much – Volusia County will grow in the future.

According to a release, the idea behind low impact development, or LID, is to integrate practices into the land planning, design, and development process that emphasize conservation and use of natural, on-site features to protect water quality. The Volusia County Council has been discussing the low impact and green infrastructure (GI) practices for some time, most recently during a workshop in April and a special meeting in June, to help mitigate the impacts of new development.

During the Council’s regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, August 2, council members accepted a $75,000 grant from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity to develop recommendations for a LID ordinance and companion guidebook.

The project will develop recommendations for incorporating LID principles into the County’s ordinances. As part of the process, research will identify best practices in the low-impact development approach, including parking standards and retrofitting strategies for green parking lots and resilient, nature-based stormwater solutions. The LID guidebook, created as part of the project, will be a tool to aid local governments in implementing LID and GI principles. Under the agreement, Volusia County will produce a training webinar and video to help promote the guidebook.

One of the future decisions for Volusia County will be whether to create incentives to encourage the use of low-impact development practices or make them mandatory.

“The goal behind the incorporation of these LID and GI strategies will be to incentivize and/or require these as standards for development and redevelopment,” states a draft of the grant agreement. “Barriers and challenges to the implementation of LID and GI will be explored in addition to opportunities for implementing LID.”

The deadline to complete the project is March 31, 2023.