Review: Week of February 7 – 11, 2022 

• Natural and Built Sustainability – 2/8/22
• Infrastructure – 2/9/22
• Urban Design – 2/9/22

Combined Focus Team Attendance Total:  ~78

Top 10 things we heard

• Design for multimodal transportation & walkability.
• Identify and preserve “meaningful open space” (open space that provides ecosystem services and is contiguous).
• Development should be efficient and compact (high density).
• Brown Ranch should be semi self-contained to reduce traffic and include civic spaces, services, and commercial businesses (examples: day care facilities, post office, grocery store, sporting facilities/fields).
• Avoid general sprawl and avoid car-centric development. Reduce parking surface area and use of asphalt, which reduces heat island effect and also contributes aesthetic value to the community.
• Design to minimize light and noise pollution.
• Design for fire resilience: include defensible space, xeriscaping, and fire-resistant construction.
• Building performance is critical: Home must be affordable for the lifetime of the building, not just during construction.
• Grey water: Plumb and prep individual homes for grey water use (for toilet flushing, cold water wash, etc.) not just landscaping common areas. This will require Couny-level policy change.
• Equity is important. Every family deserves a quality place to live.  All housing developed at Brown Ranch should be high quality.

Top things we learned 

• City’s water district can serve an additional 800 Equivalent Residential Units (EQR) with water before needing to add Elk River water supply.
• Construction of the wastewater treatment plant expansion is not necessary until an additional 3,680 EQRs are built. At this threshold, treatment trains will have to be added to the existing plant, rather than building a new facility. The sewer collection pipe has already been extended up to Brown Ranch.