DEM ANNOUNCES CONSERVATION DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS

RIDEM graphical banner, showing land and water scene

Home > News > News Item

News Release
RI Department of Environmental Management
235 Promenade Street, Providence, RI 02908
(401) 222-2771 TDD/(401) 222-4462

For Release:	October 4, 2006
Contact:	Gail Mastrati 222-4700 ext. 2402 Stephanie Powell 222-4700 ext. 4418

DEM ANNOUNCES CONSERVATION DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS

PROVIDENCE - The Department of Environmental Management announces that two conservation development workshops, presented by DEM's Sustainable Watersheds office and the Narragansett Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and coordinated by Grow Smart Rhode Island, will be offered on October 25^th and November 8^th.

The workshops will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.; the first at the University of Rhode Island's University Club in Kingston, and the second at Smithfield Town Hall. A light supper will be served on both evenings. The workshops are offered to planning boards, municipal staff and councils, conservation commissions, surveyors, landscape architects, architects, homebuilders, and other interested parties.

Conservation development is a creative land use technique that allows a community to guide growth to the most appropriate areas within a parcel of land, in order to minimize negative impacts to the environment and preserve community character. According to Scott Millar, Chief of DEM's Sustainable Watersheds office, conservation development provides numerous benefits. "By allowing design flexibility," he says, "it enables a community to guide growth to protect important natural, cultural, and recreational resources and to create continuous open space corridors. It also lowers development costs and lessons environmental impacts by requiring shorter road lengths and less paved surface."

In addition to learning about the benefits of conservation development, workshop participants will learn how conservation development fits into the Rhode Island legal framework for subdivision review, will participate in a hands-on exercise to practice applying conservation development principles to an actual site, and will be able to take advantage of ample discussion time to get their questions answered.

For additional information or to register for a workshop, contact Dee Dee Lozano, training coordinator, at Grow Smart Rhode Island, 273-5711, ext. 6, or via e-mail at dlozano@growsmartri.com. Advance registration is required and must be received one week prior to the workshop. The workshop fee is $20, which covers training, a conservation development manual, and a light supper.

-30-

For General Information 222-6800 • After Hours Emergencies 222-3070 • Disclaimer