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• Workshop Figure 3 (above). Identifying secondary conservation areas. Figure 4 (below).ldentifying potential development areas. developments will be unnecessary in the fu- ture; indeed, there will always .be a strong "market for them among avid golfers. How- . iver, conservation subdivisions offer a means of satisfying the yearning for natural vistas and neighborhood open space among '• many home *buyers in the non- golfing ma- ' jor'ity of the American public • A FOUR -STEP PROCESS The golf course analogy does notend here, •ee • rr..0 o...$..�s.... u..... however. The same simple four -step meth- odology used for decades by designers of successful golf communities can be used to create highly marketable conservation sub- divisions. • The first step calls for "greenlining" the open .spaces. Greenlined areas consist not only of the unbuildable wetlands, flood - plains, and steep slopes that typically com- ' : prise much of the open space in cluster de- velopments, they also include.a substantial amount of the site's relatively flat, dry land that might be managed as woodlands, fields, meadows, village greens, and playing fields. in their general suitability for development, these dry upland areas are similar to the types of land that would otherwise be dedicated to golfers. After identifying the open space that is to be conserved, the next three steps are quite straightforward: locating house sites, align- ing streets land trails), and drawing in the . lot lines. As any experienced site designer could attest, these steps represent a complete inversion of the usual process of designing conventional subdivisions. By reversing the procedures, however, open space becomes the central organizing feature of the devel- opment rather than merely an afterthought. By contrast, in standard checkerboard sub- divisions, the central organizing feature is the linear network of asphalt that we call streets. Herein lies the fundamental differ- ence between subdivisions designed by land- scape architects and ones typically laid out by other professionals such as engineers, planners, and surveyors. • Of course, the skills one learns in engi- neering schools and those emphasized in landscape architecture programs are both es- sential•in producing designs that are pleas- ing and functional. In fact, experience sug- gests that the best subdivisions are designed by multi- disciplinary teams. It could be ar- gued that_ landscape architects .should take • the lead during the initial phases (greenlining and house site location), with engineers as- suming most of the responsibility as the plan proceeds into its detailed design stages. However, good give -and -take collaboration throughout the design process is always to be encouraged. The accompanying set of illustrations, from a site planning handbook called Con- servation Design for Subdivisions: A Prac- tical Guide to .Creating Open Space Net- works, demonstrates how this methodology would be applied to a property typical of the Piedmont region in southeastern Pennsylva- nia, where the Natural Lands Trust assists landowners, municipal officials, and devel- opera in designing land - conserving residen- tial subdivisions. The process begins with two markedly dif- ferent site planning exercises. One calls for sketching a conventional layout — realisti- cally and with minor engineering involve- ment at that point —to demonstrate the maxi- mum yield of the property, given its inher- ent constraints. This yield plan is illustrated Continued on page 52 lanuarvI998