The project includes extensive therapy gardens and many interesting site features for the residents and their families.  Site design for elderly and special needs users presents many unique design challenges and opportunities. 

This plan is conceptual and subject to change.  I will provide more images and details about the project after the design and construction are completed.

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Here are excerpts from a recent article I came across at the Denver Post (Clarke Canfield, AP), on this emerging trend:

Ever since the invention of the automobile, paved roads have meant progress. Now some cash-strapped towns and counties are finding progress too expensive, and they are tearing up battered roads and putting down gravel.

The high price of pavement and the sour economy have driven municipalities in states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Vermont to roll up the asphalt — a mile here, a few miles there, mostly on back roads — rather than repave.

“Do we really need to keep getting fancier? This is also about quality of life,” said Richard Beal, a selectman in the town of Cranberry Isles, Maine, population 118, which got its first paved roads in the 1960s. The town is considering ripping some of them up rather than spending the $500,000 or so that Beal said is needed next year to fix them.

The U.S. has more than 1.4 million miles of unpaved public roads, according to the Transportation Department.

Paved roads are particularly susceptible to deterioration in cold-weather states, where they take a beating from freeze-and-thaw cycles and road salt. States have gotten federal stimulus dollars for roads and bridges, but local municipalities have, for the most part, been left in the dust.

In Michigan, more than 50 miles of paved county roads have been converted to gravel in the past few years, according to the County Road Association of Michigan. Most of those roads aren’t well traveled, but this year, one county turned a 10-mile stretch of primary road into gravel for lack of money, said association spokeswoman Monica Ware.

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Themed communities now are targeted at hunters and anglers, cyclists and equestrians, pilots and gardeners, even oenophiles. ”Developments are becoming more specialized,” says Orlando real estate broker Scott Kauffman of Golfcoursebusiness.com, an expert on master planned communities. “People have different passions.”

An example: Kukui’ula on Kauai, a golf community that also is a sustainable development. It “markets itself as a ‘living garden,’ and buyers are drawn by a fabulous 50-acre co-op farm,” Kauffman says. Other vacation-home communities attract green thumbs to coffee and grape farms, and Colorado’s Maytag Mountain Ranch offers owners of its 27 100-acre ranches a share in a grass-fed cattle operation.

What sets the best communities apart are specialized facilities. When finished, the Motor Sport Country Club of Colorado outside Denver will have four tracks totaling 8 miles, including a Formula 1-style layout and an off-road racing course (motorsportcc.com).

For horse lovers, Palmetto Bluff’s nearly 200 acres of equestrian facilities in South Carolina include two barns, pastures, a covered arena, regulation dressage ring, 5-acre turf event field, and cross-country course designed by Olympian John Williams (palmetto-bluff.com).

The hunting-centric Wyoming Club offers owners shooting ranges and three satellite properties in Nebraska and the Dakotas, boasting a vast array of big game and waterfowl (wyomingclub.com).  

Other types of communities that are becoming popular are solar communities, wind power communities, carbon-neutral developments, and just about anything that can be marketed a “green”.  And we all know how popular golf communities have been over the years.

I see this shift toward more specialized communities as a trend that will grow.  Sure, some of the more quirky ideas will fail, but the overall trend should continue.  More home buyers have unique interests, and will be looking for communities that fit those interests.  This should be particularly true for older individuals who no longer have children or large families in the home, or are looking for vacation homes.  As our population gets older there should be even more demand. 

Speaking as a consultant, from a design/marketing/branding standpoint- the more unique the theme the better.  Suburban areas continue to grow, and there is only so much we can do with names, monuments, and theming for a typical boilerplate subdivision or retail center.  Uniquely themed communities provide more opportunity for interesting design elements, and should be easier to market- albeit to a more limited pool of customers.

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Many businesses and homeowners are looking for ways to be more sustainable, to save water, and to conserve resources to help their bottom line.  I have been surprised to find that many people are not aware that collecting rainwater- even in a simple “rain barrel” system from your roof for use in watering a garden, is illegal in Colorado. 

Historical Precedent

I think the Colorado Division of Water Resources website summarizes well the historical precedent in layman’s terms:  “Colorado water law declares that the state of Colorado claims the right to all moisture in the atmosphere that falls within its borders and that ’said moisture is declared to be the property of the people of this state, dedicated to their use pursuant’ to the Colorado constitution.  As a result, in much of the state, it is illegal to divert rainwater falling on your property expressly for a certain use unless you have a very old water right or during occasional periods when there is a surplus of water in the river system.  This is especially true in the urban, suburban, and rural areas along the Front Range.  This system of water allocation plays an important role in protecting the owners of senior water rights that are entitled to appropriate the full amount of their decreed water right, particularly when there is not enough to satisfy them and parties whose water right is junior ro them.”

The New Laws

Senate Bill 09-080, which was passed by the general assembly and signed into law by the governor this summer, allows for limited collection and use of precipitation, but ONLY if the following conditions are met:

1. The property on which the collection takes place is residential property, and
2. The landowner uses a well, or is legally entitled to a well, for the water supply, and
3. The well is permitted for domestic uses according to section 37-92-602, C.R.S., and
4. There is no water supply available in the area from a municipality or water district, and
5. The rainwater is collected only from the roof, and
6. The water is used only for those uses that are allowed by, and identified on, the well permit.

ALL of the above criteria must be met.  That does not allow anyone who is connected to a municipal water supply (ie. most homeowners) to do this.  I don’t really understand the reasoning behind this law.  I have a hunch that they set out to create this law to allow the average residential homeowner to collect a limited mount of rainwater, but then in the negotiations the bill was paired down to its current form- and we ended up with a meaningless law that effects only a handful of people.

Regardless, there is a lot of confusion about this law that should be cleared up.  Many people I have talked to now believe they are allowed to collect rainwater when in fact they are not.  Soon after the law passed, Home Depot even began selling rain barrels in their Front Range stores (and they have over 10 different models to choose from on their website).  I have found the reaction of most people when they find out this is illegal is first surprise, and then usually a comment such as “well, I would probably do it anyway”, and “they would never know.”

If you are so inclined to install a rain barrel (do so at your own risk), here is a tutorial I discovered on how to make your own.  Another good alternative (and perfectly legal) is to create a bioswale in your landscape.

House Bill 09-1129 has the potential to make a much bigger impact.  This law allows for developers to apply for approval to be one of 10 statewide pilot projects that will capture rainwater for use in non-essential use in the subdivision.  The Sterling Ranch development, in Douglas County, was one of the early applicants for the program.  The developer hopes to save the development’s use of municipal water by 50%.  It will be interesting to see the results of these pilot projects, especially for those of us in the planning, design, and engineering community.

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