[Lawrence Greene]

Before your plant selection, I would ask which type of Geothermal well is being installed. Is it a closed system or is it an open system.
Some of the open systems discharge water to the surface.

[Lawrence Greene]

As part of your hydro seeding, I would recommend a bonded fiber matrix- See the Profile Products website-either of their Flexterra products should work

[Lawrence Greene]

To add my two cents:
In Massachusetts, the rain gardens are designed as a pre-treatment unit to treat storm-water before it is infiltrated or discharged.
Only during the growing season will the plants aid in the absorption of nitrogen, and phosphorous.

The layered soil profile within the bottom of the rain garden contributes the treatment of the storm water.

All the soils within the rain garden are imported.
The growing media is amended with wood chips and leaf compost and below that is a tiered system of sand and crushed stone of varying sizes. This soil profile is sized per the volume of runoff that needs to be treated.

[Lawrence Greene]

I don’t have any cool comments to add about school-campus design, just questions:

Do you know the availability/capacity of the on-off site infrastructure (water, sewer, drainage?
What are the onsite soils?
What are the local and state Permits that are required?
Will the school program include Natural Grass fields, if so will you need to incorporate an onsite well for irrigation?
Will the school program include an Artificial grass fields?
What is the Bus Traffic-Routes (Number of Buses)
Will there be any concerns/issues with site distance at the School entrance?
What is the availablity and status of walkways on abutting streets so kids are able and willing to walk to school?

[Lawrence Greene]

The few cemetery projects I worked on, the design program was to create the total number of plots as possible. It was very similar to designing a subdivision/ row housing.

We designed a main roadway system and then laid out “side streets” which acts as the space between the plots. If you were to walk down the “side street” you would have plots on your left and right.

In sizing the plots we were given the average vault size and then sized each plot at little bit wider and longer and left room for a burial stone.

Our design program was to keep it as simple as possible. They wanted a marker at the end of each row of plots. So if someone needed to be buried in plot (example E7) the cemetery staff could measure over from the marker the required distance and excavate the hole.

Another aspect we looked at was the depth to groundwater. Basically trying to determine how much of the vault is in the groundwater and making sure the groundwater would not force the vault out of the ground.

Hope that helps

[Lawrence Greene]

I may be way off in my comments, but- If you are struggling with the overall site design, maybe a step back into the feasibility phase may help. Have you answered the following questions?

Does the community/ developer want retail and or commercial space and if so how many square feet and how much parking will each use require?
Does the community/developer want a combination of single family homes, condos, apartments?
Does the community/developer want portions of the development age restrictive (55-over)?
Will the network of interior streets be looped or will there by multiple dead-end streets?
Is the intent of this design to preserve a portion of the land as open space?
If so, within the open space will there be trails, fields, playgrounds or be left undeveloped?
Will this development require a sewer connection, extension or will the effluent be accommodated by onsite septic systems?
Will this development require a water connection, extension or an onsite well?
Are the soils within or portions there of suitable for development?
Will the surrounding streets accommodate this expansion?
Will the commercial and residential uses have separate entrances? Do the proposed entrances have sufficient site distances?
Will the proposed grading of the site design require importing-exporting soil or will it be a balanced site?
Will this development connect into public transit?

Answering these questions will help determine a design program and a building envelop.
Good luck

[Lawrence Greene]

My comments are more on the practical side of this design:

Is there a need for such a network? Are the people in this community lacking areas for recreational activity?
Will this bike/running path connect to any commercial/industrial districts or to schools? If so, will business owners and schools provide bicycle parking?
Will business owners have concerns that the proposed street plantings will shield their store front?
Will this bike/running path and street plantings affect site distances for people leaving their driveways?
In this area, is the trash pick-up curb side? If so, will this proposed design affect the trash pick up operations?
Who is going to maintain the bike-running surface and the plant material?
How are you going to address storm water runoff for the increase in impervious surface?
What is the construction budget?

What is the construction budget?

[Author]

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