Built Environment and Natural Resources
Natural Resources and Community Health
This section focuses on how a comprehensive plan can be used to provide opportunities for active living through deliberate planning policies and regulatory tools for parks, trails and open space. Identifying natural-resource assets in a community and planning for their use can also create economic development benefits. In this context, we consider natural resources to include public and private undeveloped land that could be used or acquired by a parks system/municipality, community group or developer. The land should also be accessible to the public so that benefits of active living can be shared.
Renewable Energy Integration for Sustainable Communities
Renewable energy installation has seen a significant increase, especially with a movement from small-scale, individually owned projects to utility-scale projects that feed into the main transmission grid. Renewable energy, such as wind, solar and biomass, is installed for many reasons. This section reviews the careful considerations necessary to determine if a renewable energy project is right for a community in terms of access to the electricity grid, economic payback and policy considerations.
