Just off Lake Michigan in Grand Haven lies a 500-acre property where the Hooded Warbler sings, sandy dunes stand, beautiful forests grow, and over 300 species of trees, plants, and shrubs exist, one of the largest and last remaining wild pieces of Lake Michigan shoreline.

Two years ago, Ottawa County, with the help of a $3.9 million state grant, spent $7.1 million to purchase the parcel, ensuring its preservation. The County Parks and Recreation Commission is now drawing up proposals to develop a trail system that connects the new North Ottawa Dunes Park to Hoffmaster State Park along its northern boundary, and the Grand River to the south.

In the parlance of those managing land, parks, trails, and recreational resources, Ottawa County is improving its “green infrastructure.”

What is Green Infrastructure?

The idea of preserving natural resources, and providing citizens access to parks and wild places, of course, is not new. After all, the United States was the first to establish a national park, Yellowstone National Park, in 1872.

But the idea of carefully planning how to conserve wild places, enhance recreation, and provide people and wildlife equal access to natural resources, in the same way that engineers design transit, roads, water, and sewer lines to link neighborhoods and cities, is relatively new in Michigan and the United States.

Mark A. Benedict and Edward T. McMahon of the Conservation Fund invented the term green infrastructure, which they defined as “an interconnected network of green space that conserves natural ecosystem values and functions and provides associated benefits to human populations.” In other words, green infrastructure is the park in a local neighborhood, the farms that sustain Michigan’s second largest industry, and the trails and pathways along the river.

“Benedict and McMahon really pushed to have a unified title for all of it, to put it under one umbrella,” said Glenn Pape, the Online Citizen Planner Program Coordinator for the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University.

Summit Kicks Off in Hudsonville

On Thursday, the West Michigan Strategic Alliance and the American Institute of Architects Grand Valley Chapter host the second annual Natural Connections Summit, starting at 8:30am at the Pinnacle Center in Hudsonville.

The conference, which in 2006 attracted hundreds of government, non-profit, business, and academic leaders, is the largest gathering of green infrastructure practitioners in Michigan. This year’s conference recognizes success stories in Michigan. Featured speakers include Tom Daniels, Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania and author of When City and Country Collide: Managing Growth in the Metropolitan Fringe (1999) and co-author of Holding Our Ground: Protecting America’s Farmland (1997), Barbara Nelson-James of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and Dr. Soji Adelaja, the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in Land Policy and director of the Land Policy Institute.

Examples of how Michigan communities consider and improve their green infrastructure are many.

Traverse City recently removed an old coal-fired electrical plant from its lakeshore in order to expand a public park that is now the focus of summer events that attract thousands.

In 2004, Michigan opened the 31-acre Tricentennial State Park along the river front in Detroit, and a local conservancy is constructing a river walk that connects the park to neighborhoods and the city’s improving downtown.

The Land Policy Institute has been integrally involved in jumpstarting the West Michigan Strategic Alliance’s Green Infrastructure Initiative, which was initially launched with a grant from the People and Land program, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and co-coordinated by the Land Policy Institute and Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing-based environmental consultancy.

Today in West Michigan, Holland and Holland Charter Township are jointly undertaking the Holland Gateway project with an aim to improve access from Chicago Drive, which runs along the Macatawa River, to an inviting network of trails, and facilities that enhance access to hiking, canoeing, and kayaking on the river. The partnership proposes to build a $2.5 million pedestrian bridge, which would span Chicago Drive, a major artery that sees more than 45,000 cars per day, and enable residents and visitors to gain much easier access to the river. “This is an example of regional planning, two municipalities working together on this project for regional good,” said Katherine Kahl, project manager of the West Michigan Strategic Alliance’s Green Infrastructure Initiative.

The Land Policy Institute and the West Michigan Strategic Alliance have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to move forward with a new research partnership as well, a model relationship between a university and community stakeholder.

The Need for Green Infrastructure

Green infrastructure, according to practitioners, consists of hubs and links. Hubs include areas like reserves, lands that protect wildlife, national parks, farmland, forests, public parks and golf courses. What makes these areas function as green infrastructure are the links, which connect the hubs and allow for the natural flow of ecological processes. The links can range from conservation corridors, areas such as rivers or streams, to greenbelts, which include protected natural lands, farms, orchards, and woodlands, or landscape links, areas of cultural value to a region that enhance the quality of life of the residents.

At the heart of state and local activity to strengthen green infrastructure, say authorities, is the understanding that the quality of natural and recreational resources plays a big role in the strength of a community’s economy. Michigan community leaders also note that identifying valuable natural areas, and providing trail networks and other ways to link them to each other, also is a vital tool for responsible planning.

“It’s something we need to do when we’re developing and growing. We need to pay attention to the natural resources and how we can balance growth with the natural resources that people want,” said Marcy Colclough, a project manager with the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission. “We want to maintain a high quality of life in Michigan, so we can succeed economically.”

A Look to the Future

The Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University has been especially active in encouraging green infrastructure initiatives. In 2006, the Land Policy Institute awarded a Prosperity Grant to the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission’s “Growing Greener in Southwest Michigan” project.

The project, in its beginning stages, has acquired maps of trails and greenways, state and local parks, lakes, streams, rivers, and forests in Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren Counties. Stakeholder meetings will be held to allow participants to decide what natural features are most important to preserve in the community.

“We want to develop tools that would help land trusts and townships through planning and zoning efforts to implement that larger vision to have green that is intact and that helps focus growth and preserve our natural features,” said Ms. Colclough, who heads the team of 12 working on the project.

In 2007, the Land Policy Institute awarded a planning grant to the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission in Lansing, for another green infrastructure planning process. The commission plans to identify important natural areas so that the 78 units of government that make up the tri-county area can plan for green infrastructure.

As a result, “there could be more connected green space, trails and pocket parks,” said Michelle Reardon, who is in charge of the project. “They will be connected through corridors, which are not all sidewalks and pathways—but also through the preservation of natural areas that would connect the parks in the tri-county region.”

The Land Policy Institute’s Citizen Planner program also is offering a new workshop, Green Infrastructure: Linking Communities and Environment, How to Shape Development without Adversely Impacting the Environment and Natural Resources.

The intent, said Mr. Pape, is to produce a ripple effect, and prompt more awareness of how to plan for green infrastructure and improve a community’s quality of life and economic well-being.

“People follow quality of life. Jobs follow people,” said Ms. Kahl of the West Michigan Strategic Alliance. “Preserving a green infrastructure network provides the pristine vistas, the open space, forests, trail systems, aesthetic and spiritual beauty that people desire.”

In Dr. Adelaja’s view, “Our communities have to grow differently. Green infrastructure based strategies provide opportunities for communities to attract knowledge-based workers in growing their economies. This is an important area of interest of the Land Policy Institute.”

Sara Colunga is a student at Michigan State University and writer for the Land Policy Institute.

For More Information:

Land Policy Institute
Catharine Hansford, Outreach Coordinator: hansford@landpolicy.msu.edu

Growing Greener in Southwest Michigan: Southwest Michigan Planning Commission
Marcy Colclough: colcloughm@swmpc.org

Green Infrastructure Project: West Michigan Strategic Alliance
Katy Kahl, Project Manager: kkahl@wm-alliance.org

Tri-County Regional Planning Commission
Michelle Reardon, Land Policy Educator: mreardon@mitcrpc.org

Citizen Planner
Glen Pape, Online Citizen Planner Program Coordinator: North Ottawa Dunes Park