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The city claimed it was the intent for the neighborhood groups to maintain the medians and the neighborhood groups felt it was always going to be the responsibility of the city. A little investigation determined that no formal agreement had ever been signed. The threat was that if we didn’t take responsibility, the city would rip up the landscaping and put back grass.
As of this article, a temporary agreement had been reached in which the city will continue to maintain the Town Centers while looking for public private partnerships to eventually take the maintenance responsibility.
Just a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to work with our city's maintenance staff on another project in San Marco. The St Johns Riverkeeper, SMPS and Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens teamed up to install a bioswale in the Lasalle Street right-of-way (adjacent to San Marco Library) to demonstrate how Low Impact Development (LID) techniques can be used to clean stormwater runoff. The project was entirely privately funded through donations and pro bono work of professionals.
The ultimate challenge turned out to be one that I should have expected: deciding who will be responsible for the maintenance. Our team was incensed that the city staff could potentially kill this beneficial project over something as basic as maintenance, particularly when everything was being provided to them at no cost.
Deciding it wasn't worth getting into a fight over, we agreed to maintain the system for one year. If after that period we had not found a permanent solution for maintenance or the city had not agreed to maintain it, we would remove the plants at our expense.
(read more about the project at http://www.jaxlid.blogspot.com)
I must admit the job of city maintenance is the most thankless I can imagine. When their budget is cut by 10% nobody in the community cries foul. They are expected to solve all problems, immediately and at no extra expense. Political leaders get the glory for the new projects, and then turn it over to these guys for perpetual care. I would be grumpy, too.
Part of our agreement with the bioswale was that we would keep a log of all maintenance activities. So, we invited Terry Theriault, P.E., the Chief of Right of Way and Grounds Maintenance, to walk the project with us and talk about what they expected.
I had a dual purpose for the meeting. Terry was one of the people I considered an obstacle during the approval process. I wanted to get to know him and understand the challenges they face. Because we hope to do more bioswale projects in Jacksonville, we understand that we must come to terms with the maintenance aspect.
Taking it further, I realized that we need to become advocates for maintenance in Jacksonville. This last step is hard for me because I don’t get particularly excited about maintenance. I love the ‘big-picture’ thinking and planning that goes along with improving our city. Maintenance is just dull and boring.
I learned from Terry that they break it into two categories each with a separate contract. One for areas that contain grass and trees (that can mostly be maintained with power equipment) and one for landscaped areas that require hand work (such as weeding and pruning). The latter is significantly more expensive than the former. So, with limited resources, the city maintenance staff is usually pushing for grass.
Edgewood Avenue: An example of grass landscaping.
But that mindset overlooks our quality of life. It puts ‘low-cost’ above ‘beautiful’ and ‘healthy’. It also ignores the larger cost associated with the intangible factors of living in a city that is polluted and dangerous.
Much of what we can do to improve the health of our city’s greatest natural resource, the St Johns River involves technologies that will require a little more maintenance. The practice of directing rainwater that has been polluted by our dirty streets, directly into the river, out of sight and out of mind, is a significant detriment. Using a more natural system of native plants not only cleans the river, it serves as a visual reminder to all who pass by that we live in a natural world, one that we should always be learning from.
Graphic by Content Design Group
Similarly, much of what we can do to make our neighborhoods safer involves bringing a little more nature into our busy world. As I learned recently from a Next American City blog entry (http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/3173) studies show that people drive slower beneath a tree canopy than beneath an open sky. Drivers are also less prone to road rage when surrounded by trees.
Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona
Maintenance is a significant expense for our city and thus an easy target during budget cuts. Often when we talk about what we can do to improve the city, the conversation centers on exciting new infrastructure or grand public facilities. Perhaps we need to spend more of our energy doing the little things that make our city an enjoyable place to live.
I would rather have a thousand small interesting things along my journey than a handful of large isolated landmarks. Just because these interesting things cost a little more to maintain shouldn’t put them at the bottom of the priority list. When we look at the greater costs associated with pollution and public safety, it seems like a small price to pay.
Editorial by Doug Skiles. Doug lives in San Marco with his wife, three kids and dog. He is partnered with his wife, Laura, in EnVision|Design + Engineering where they focus on redevelopment of urban property and community planning. He is currently president of the San Marco Preservation Society.
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Noone
January 05, 2012, 04:30:45 AMNice article. What type of tree is that in the swale? Edgewood Ave. with traffic on both sides. Just more of a safety issue. The resolution of maintenance cost is the issue. Looking forward to hearing how other communities have resolved this expense.
dougskiles
January 05, 2012, 05:19:04 AMThose are Cypress trees.
mfischer0
January 05, 2012, 07:19:19 AMGreat to know all the details behind that project at the library. Many of us were taken aback when the oaks disappeared, but the replacement makes sense.
avs
January 05, 2012, 09:00:11 AMThis is a great project to lead the way on designing more public landscaping that is self-sustaining and not resource consuming. Sustainable Springfield is very supporitve of this project and its great design - way to be progressive and think outside the box Doug and SMPS!
Tacachale
January 05, 2012, 10:39:17 AMExcellent article, Doug. Very informative. People need to be better educated on the necessity of proper maintenance of all kinds. Without that, we'd end up paying significantly more for significantly less benefit.
Non-RedNeck Westsider
January 05, 2012, 10:59:39 AMWhile definitely a good idea, I have a few questions regarding the system itself.
There are times during heavy rainfall that even our existing drainage system (especially in San Marco) gets overwhelmed. Based on the diagram, everything seems to flow back into the earth at whatever rate it gets absorbed and it's in conjunction with the existing storm drains, so essentially you would be pooling a lot more water during the heavy storms, thus causing even more flooding, right?
That's the bad as I see it.
The good and potential awesomeness that I see from it. In planned developments and during infrastructure improvements when applicable, could you use the same type of system, except tie it in with new stormwater lines via a modified french drain? From the ground down - landscaping, mulch, earth, rock bed, french drain with risers, sand bed, stormwater drains connected via the risers in the french drains. This way during normal events, the french drains would do what they do. In the event of moderate to heavy rains, the water level in the french drains would rise over the risers and then dump directly into the storm drains, alleviating all of the excess water.
If there was a stepback of say 4-6 feet from the curb to the start of the sidewalk, not only would you add a visible and necessary border between pedestrians and automobiles, it would enhance the surroundings. Utilities would then have to be located either under the sidewalks or on the other side.
dougskiles
January 05, 2012, 11:36:04 AMGreat questions, NRW.
The conventional system of underground storm pipes remained in this system. The water initially flows into the bioswale, but during an extremely heavy rain it would fill up and then any additional water would flow directly into the storm inlet, and out. The primary objective of these systems is to clean the 'first flush' of water that carries most of the pollutants.
During the design, I checked the water table and percolation rates to confirm that water will not stay in the swale longer than 36 hours (it percolates into the ground).
It won't solve the major flooding problems in San Marco, but it won't add to it. It will solve some of the minor ponding that we experienced along this section.
Many of them work exactly as you say. For this project, we had a limited budget (mostly through a Coca-Cola Foundation Grant), so we kept it as simple as possible. A more complex system, similar to what you described above, will be installed soon at the North Florida Sustainability Resource Center.
Spar Council 1869
January 05, 2012, 11:57:05 AMA fantastic project, Doug.
dougskiles
January 05, 2012, 12:11:32 PM^They are coming soon to your area, too. The Hogans Creek master plan talks about extensive use of these systems.
Dashing Dan
January 05, 2012, 12:31:40 PMFWIW Jax Beach has a huge underground tank, beneath the east end of Beach Blvd, that holds storm water and then pumps it over to their golf course.
jaxlore
January 05, 2012, 04:12:58 PMgreat article and interesting ideas!
jaxlore
January 05, 2012, 04:20:29 PMThe whole point about maintenance is so true. I took somebody on the skyway to go to lunch a while back and it smelled like, well you know, and the carpet was stained and nasty and as much as I wanted to not drive downtown from san marco for lunch it was a hard sell because of the way jacksonville lets stuff just fall apart. I know maintenance of landscaping is a little different but not really it' still quality of life.
Tacachale
January 05, 2012, 04:34:17 PM^It's all related. Properly maintaining anything, from a median to a road to a building, is far cheaper than buying a new one. Cutting maintenance to save money now always leads to wasting money later.