One of the main design elements for any successful road project is the street trees. Some may look at street trees as an afterthought, but they shouldn’t. Street trees serve many important functions such as creating shade (minimizing heat island effect), enhancing the aesthetic appeal of the street, providing habitat for birds and other wildlife within developed areas, and adding to the value of nearby homes and businesses.

Because of all the benefits provided by street trees – especially mature trees – maximizing survival rates is a top priority. When considering the keys to street tree survival, species selection is obviously important, but if there is one thing I have learned over the years it is that for successful planting you must start with the soil.

Inspection services come in many different shapes, styles, and sizes offering a range of services, deliverables, and values. A disturbing trend that I see occurring more and more often is the “staffing agency” approach to inspection services. My opinion (based on years of observation) is that this approach undermines the overall quality process by not providing real value.

Previously in this series, we discussed the primary source of stormwater pollution and the effects that urban stormwater runoff is having on salmon throughout the Northwest. In summary, very few (about 25%) coho adult salmon are surviving long enough to spawn in urban creeks and only about 25% of hatched salmon embryos are surviving when raised in unfiltered water. With this post, we begin a series of posts discussing Low Impact Development (LID) solutions that can be used to minimize impacts to fish, starting with bio-retention.

Developers often use the word “value.” Sometimes they’ll talk about creating value, and other times they’ll talk about extracting value. In land development, a project must add or provide value to be a success.

This seems so obvious, but many less-than-successful developers skip the critical step of defining the value they intend to redeem. In turn their consulting teams assume what value the developer wants to achieve. This circle of ignorance can and does lead to confusion, wasted time and resources, mismatched relationships, and projects that don’t optimize the value the developer wanted.