Consider solar water heating. Include low-flow plumbing fixtures. And specify water booster pumps, like packaged pumping systems with staged pump operation, to serve after-hour part loads better. But flexible regulations that holistically consider land use issues can benefit the environment, reduce costs, and help create compact, mixed-use, pedestrian friendly communities. Allow narrower residential streets.
Oversized streets mean more paving, runoff, and tree removal.
Destroying a lot of one natural feature to save a little of another often doesn't make sense. Smaller parking lots reduce stormwater runoff, soil erosion, nonpoint source pollution, and impact on wildlife habitat. Allow natural methods like grassy swales or gravel packed trenches instead of higher-cost systems with curbs, gutters, and storm sewers. Devise flexible ordinances that allow clustering of open space. The NRC, an arm of the US National Academy of Sciences, issued its report last month.