We need to be able to envision a greener and healthier future for our communities and understand the cost and benefits of green infrastructure implementation. The Green Infrastructure Charrette Program is designed to help community leaders and policy makers to examine how living green infrastructure investment might work on the streets, roofs and walls of their own communities.

The Charrette program is designed to help community leaders, designers, building owners and policy makers to examine how living green infrastructure investment could work on the streets, roofs and walls of their own communities. The Green Infrastructure Design Charrette involves engaging multi-disciplinary volunteers to redesign North American neighbourhoods in need, with fifteen generic types of green infrastructure as their tools. The results are then subject to an aggregate cost-benefit analysis.

The combination of engaging visuals and financial analysis help to articulate a compelling vision for green infrastructure investment, opening the eyes of community leaders and policy makers to the possibility of transforming their communities.

Charrettes have helped catalyze green infrastructure investments, informe policy decisions, influence development, and build municipal staff capacity.

Green Infrastructure Strategies Overview

Agenda

Site Descriptions

Mission of Stakeholder(s)
Provide a peaceful neighbourhood oasis that provides flexible space for events

Potential Stormwater Management Benefits
Capture and manage annual rainfall on the park site per City Wet Weather Flow guidelines

Other Potential Benefits/features
Incorporate a shade structure, washroom pavilion or public art (or combination of the three) in the park design

Site Data

• Site Area: 4,900 square meters (52,743 square feet)

• Impervious Area: 94,075 s.f. or 82% of site

Site Program

• The conversion of this site into parkland offers an exciting opportunity to provide new parkland in one of the City’s Areas of Parkland Need, as defined by the Parkland Strategy.

• This new park will be a neighbourhood destination, a meeting place, and a welcome respite to the busy nearby surroundings.

• Surrounded largely by office and retail uses, this park will serve daytime users, nearby residents, and passersby.

• The west side of the site is bounded by Atlantic Avenue, which serves as the main northern access to the Exhibition GO station, currently a stop on the Lakeshore West GO line, a future stop on the Ontario Line subway and location of a new Transit Oriented Community.

• The north side of the site is bound by Liberty Ave, the main east-west corridor through Liberty Village.

Mission of Stakeholder(s)
Sanctuary Farms (SF) is a sustainable business that focuses on closing the food loop through two main objectives: 1) cultivating organic produce and 2) creating nutritious compost. Sacred Spaces (SS), is dedicated to edifying individuals on sustainable practices like farming, composting and land stewardship. SS also aims to provide equitable green spaces and the arts to historically disadvantaged communities. With these goals we want to foster a thriving community on the lower eastside of Detroit where people are safe, healthy and connected to their local environment and food by actively being involved in closing the food loop.

Potential Stormwater Management Benefits
Stormwater Management Systems, Composting and Organic Waste Management, Urban Agriculture and Food Production, Green Spaces and Native Plant Restoration, Biodiversity and Habitat Preservation, Urban Heat Island Mitigation

Other Potential Benefits/features
Soil Health and Erosion Control, Water Conservation and Efficiency

Site Data

• Site Area: 13.208 acres | 576,698 sqf | 197 parcels

• Impervious Area: NA, currently vacant lots previously with homes

Site Program

• This project will act as public park space, a meeting place, and overall act as an example of what the Detroit Land Bank can/could do with the thousands of vacant lots in the City

• The campus will be occupied by two entities: Sanctuary Farms will be privately owned but open to the public and Sacred Spaces land area will be put into a community land trust.

• SF currently has and operates on an acre of land which is 10 blocks away from the the Stellantis plant; the neighborhood is mostly vacant with very little housing.

• Currently only access to water is via a wabash system connected that to a drip irrigation system; no power on-site

• In need of stormwater management

• Desire a connected walking path all throughout the campus to encourage walking and strolling in nature.

• Detroit is working to implement a Stormwater Management - Drainage Charge Program and this project wishes to maximize its ability to avoid these fees via implementation of GSI

• Need to define the edges of the property lines in a unique fashion

• Need to find ways to mitigate smells and leachate on the property for composting activities

Narrative Description

The land development for Sanctuary Farms (SF) and Sacred Spaces (SS) will span an expansive 13-acre campus on Detroit's lower east side, aiming to close the food loop, promote environmental justice, and embody deep ecology. The project, located in the Riverbend neighborhood, will dedicate part of the land to food production, including organic farming and a compost-making demonstration site, allowing SF to lead the way in sustainable food practices by recycling organic waste back into nutrient-rich soil. By creating a regenerative system, the campus addresses food sovereignty while reducing the environmental impact of food waste. Another section of the 13-acre site will be transformed into a nature sanctuary, filled with native plants and trees to ensure equitable access to green spaces for community members. This sanctuary will be protected through a community land trust or conservancy to ensure the land remains a place for nature equity and community use in perpetuity.

The project also prioritizes deep ecology by emphasizing the interconnectedness of all living systems and fostering a close relationship between people and nature. Through partnerships with local universities, farm agencies, and community groups, the campus will offer learning gardens and spaces for experimental urban permaculture, providing hands-on opportunities for education in sustainable practices. These elements, coupled with curated cultural spaces such as an amphitheater, a playscape, and a biophilic learning center, will make the site a center for both ecological learning and community well-being. The campus is envisioned as a catalyst for further development in the Riverbend area, offering a serene environment with walking paths for people to immerse themselves in nature and connect with local arts and culture.

In closing, we envision the Lakeview campus becoming a development catalyst and a cultural anchor for the Riverbend neighborhood, driving future growth in an area that has long been divested. This project aims to not only restore the land but to build a thriving community space that fosters resilience, sustainability, and ecological harmony. As future development is spurred in Riverbend, our work will remain focused on ensuring that the benefits of these changes flow directly to the people of the community. By placing the land into a community land trust or conservancy, we will protect it from displacement while also ensuring that nature and other lifeforms are respected and valued throughout the development process.

This holistic approach integrates food sovereignty, environmental justice, and deep ecology, laying the foundation for a future where human and ecological well-being are equally prioritized. We are committed to creating a space where the land, the community, and all living systems thrive together, creating a model for sustainable urban development that could be replicated across Detroit and beyond.

Mission of Stakeholder(s)
Create a complete, sustainable and climate-resilient community on a 94-acre site.

Potential Stormwater Management Benefits
Stormwater management, rainwater harvesting and reuse, day-lighting of natural creek bed

Other Potential Benefits/features
Energy conservation, air pollution and noise mitigation, property value enhancement, amenity and recreational space

Site Data

• Site Area: 94 acres, 4,094,640 square feet, 380,405 square meters

• Impervious Area: 2,866,248 square feet or 70% of site

Site Program

• The site will be redeveloped as a complete, sustainable community that is resilient to the effects of climate change.

• The integration of GI surfaces will be implemented at a comprehensive scale and offer multiple benefits.

• The site will better serve the community with GI applications through demonstration sites for the first phases of development and design standards to carry forward intensive green infrastructure systems for future phases of development.

Narrative Description

Community Description
Brooklyn Center is one of Minnesota’s few “majority-minority” communities, including large numbers of recent immigrants as residents. The specific project area, once a thriving regional retail and services center known as Brookdale, has seen steady disinvestment for more than 20 years. In the 1960s it was one of a handful of new, thriving indoor malls in the suburbs with major retail anchors.

As median household incomes declined, the 1990s were increasingly difficult for the area, and Sears was left as the only major anchor retailer after a few years with 50% vacancy rates at the indoor mall. The mall itself closed in 2010 and other than the stand-alone Sears building, it was demolished in 2011. Several efforts to revive the area with stand-alone, big box retailers such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target and Kohl’s created a brief respite but ultimately also failed. Sears, which owned its site, finally closed for good in 2018, leaving behind 94 acres of abandoned big-box retail and vast surface parking lots.

Today, the City is younger, poorer and much more diverse than the surrounding communities: 38.3% under age 18, poverty rate of 12.1% versus the county rate of 9.9%, 62% non-white residents, half of whom are Black or African American. Among residents, 23% were foreign-born, and 29% speak a primary language other than English. Household median income is 21% less than the area as a whole, and 44% of households are income-burdened for their housing. The sheer size of the area has been a challenge for a dedicated but small city staff and its diverse and lower-income residents. The City needs an innovative and comprehensive plan that can attract capital from multiple sources and define the path of development over a multi-year timeline. The City and community partners are committed to leading a comprehensive re-visioning of the area as an advanced, healthy and thriving community.

As an urban area that followed a typical suburban growth pattern in the 1960s and 1970s, the community was built-out by the 1980s with a predominantly auto-oriented development pattern that is not environmentally or economically sustainable. The site’s strengths in the past included its accessibility by major highway systems that carry some of the heaviest traffic volumes in the Twin Cities. Re-visioning will include more transit options: inter-city bus rapid transit, internal circulation that includes bicycle and pedestrian mobility, and links to an expanded regional light rail line with stations less than a mile from the site.

Community Vision
The City seeks to double its current population of 33,782 by redeveloping this large site as a complete, high-density community, with 12,000 new housing units and advanced energy, water and transportation infrastructure. Green infrastructure that offers multiple benefits and is resilient in the face of climate change is a key strategy for redevelopment. This large, mostly blank canvas will be redeveloped with mixed uses, housing affordable for mixed incomes and pan-generational residents. There will be focused efforts to create new opportunities for small businesses, especially locally-owned with BIPOC entrepreneurs, and invest in the capacity of BIPOC development teams to participate and lead development efforts.

The long-term result of this project will be a complete community, with a low carbon-footprint for its built environment and infrastructure systems that are hardened for the effects of climate change. The core principle is to implement an integrated set of strategies for pollution reduction and climate readiness and create a critical mass of infrastructure investments, amenities and design standards that can attract other capital investment and operate all buildings and operations as 100% carbon-free.

Green Infrastructure
As a blank canvas, the site offers opportunities to implement an intensive application of green infrastructure systems that manage the site’s stormwater, reduce energy consumption, enhance property values, improve health and well-being, and mitigate the effects of the Urban Heat Island and climate change. These strategies will distinguish the site among other development sites in the region with high levels of integrated green spaces and outdoor amenities spaces. A central feature of the site’s green infrastructure includes the daylighting of Shingle Creek that runs through the site.

Other elements of green infrastructure will include green roofs and green walls on vertical planes, especially at ground levels. Some of the green roofs will be developed as integrated green roof-solar PV systems using the latest technologies for such systems. A distributed network of best practices for stormwater management, such as rain gardens, swales and tree trenches, will manage rainfall events at least to the level of the 10-year storm standard (2.16 inches in 24 hours). Building sites will include additional stormwater management from rainwater harvesting systems, with reuse of harvested water for irrigation and other non-potable uses.

The goals for green infrastructure, beyond stormwater, include energy conservation from shading, capture of particulate matter by vegetative surfaces, and improved physical and emotional health from the presence of biophilic elements. The Green Infrastructure Foundation (GIF) will be a partner on the project, and engage its network of technical experts and a body of research to guide the planning of green infrastructure strategies. This national expertise will be combined with participation from local stakeholders to facilitate design of comprehensive green infrastructure systems based on the interests of local stakeholders. GIF will also use its comprehensive cost-benefit matrix tool to calculate the return from a wide range of benefits from green infrastructure. The goal is a detailed concept plan and development guidelines for green infrastructure across the entire site, with estimated costs and an estimated dollar value of multiple benefits from the green infrastructure, including local job creation, air quality improvements, and the enhancement of property values.