7.2 Site Planning Objectives

site planning establishes appropriate buffers, setbacks, and amenities around facilities

The goal of site planning for the installation is to produce an attractive, sustainable development.  Sustainability requires the built environment to be designed and constructed to preserve and enhance the natural environment.  Manmade facilities are designed as a part of the environment to minimize negative environmental impacts.  General site planning techniques resulting in sustainable development are cost efficient because they conserve energy and reduce construction and maintenance costs.  The most energy-efficient and ecologically sensitive buildings could still be extremely damaging to the environment if developed on an inappropriate site.  Fort Carson site planning principles include the following.

Sustainable Energy and Water Use Goal:
Sustain all facility and mobility systems from renewable sources by 2027 and reduce the total water purchased from outside sources by 75% from the 2001 baseline.  The desired end states are; secure sustainable energy sources; alleviation of dependence on fossil fuels and adverse air emissions; funding for life cycle costs; reduction of reliance on petroleum imports and vulnerability; reduction of wastewater discharges; efficient water consumption; increase in the quality of re-use and; development of sustainable water source solutions.

• Promote military cohesiveness and efficiency in training:  Site facilities in such a way that units retain their identity while creating flexibility as military units deploy from and redeploy to Fort Carson.  Co-locate military training facilities to minimize transportation requirements.  Protect “close-in” training opportunities for military units when training calendars change.

• Minimize development of open spaces:  Avoid “sprawl” development that increases infrastructure life cycle costs and degrades quality of life.  Encourage designers to design buildings that grow up (more stories), rather than grow out.  A compact design requires fewer linear feet of utility lines – like water, sewer, gas, electricity, phone service, and others.   Develop an “open space” infrastructure plan that identifies what areas should be protected from development and what areas are available for future development.  Continue working with neighbors and the Army to create continuous buffer land around Fort Carson.

• develop pedestrian circulation systems throughout the installation

  Improve walk-ability of the installation:  Create comprehensive pedestrian walkways that connect facility locations to promote pedestrian traffic as facility and infrastructure projects are built.  Reduce the amount of large parking lots surrounding facilities and locate facilities closer to streets/sidewalks while meeting Force Protection requirements to allow pedestrians easy access.  Increase the number and quality of walkable communities by building multiple destinations and uses within close proximity.  Adopt design standards for sidewalks.  Connect sidewalks with greenways and parking lots.

• Site facilities to promote mass transit opportunities:  Implement new approaches to transportation planning, such as better coordinating land use and transportation; increasing the availability of high quality future transit services; creating redundancy, resiliency and connectivity within road networks; and ensuring connectivity between pedestrian, bike, transit, and road facilities.  In short, connect a multi-modal approach to transportation with supportive development patterns to create a variety of transportation options. Provide shelters at all pickup and drop off locations.

• Site facilities based on analysis of interrelationships among users of facilities to adjacent facilities:  Site facilities in close proximity to the customer base to minimize transportation requirements.  As part of the analysis of best sites for a new facility, identify users of the facility and where they reside.  Then maximize the ability of customers to use a variety of transportation means in order to reach the new facility.  This type of an approach will create increased high-density development and increase use of alternative transportation systems.

• Create high-density mixed-use areas:  Plan for facilities to be clustered to preserve land and reduce construction cost.  Clustering should occur on the flattest land areas.  Combine living, working, and service-related facilities to promote easy of use for customer base.  In soldier areas, continue to co-locate barracks, operations facilities, motor pools, chapels, gyms, and AAFES facilities.  Increase development densities to promote walking instead of driving and create pedestrian corridors.  In other areas on Fort Carson, co-locate administrative areas focusing on directorates and offices that work closely together.  When clustering facilities, force protection measures must be considered.

• Site facilities to leverage existing utility infrastructure and future renewable energy opportunities:  Locate facilities with consideration of climatic conditions such as wind, solar orientation, and microclimate.  Minimize need for costly expansion to infrastructure.  The most cost-efficient locations for new development are where roads, sewers, water lines, gas lines, and other utilities currently exist.  Siting facilities close to existing infrastructure also preserves open space for close-in training, creates wildlife corridors, preserves water quality, and provides for a better quality of life.

• Low impact development:  Preserve natural site features such as topography, hydrology, vegetation, and tree cover.  Preserve the natural site by molding development to fill around existing landforms and features.  This development approach minimizes extensive earthwork, preserves existing drainage patterns, and preserves existing vegetation.  Minimize cut and fill requirements, and keep run-off on site to the maximum extent possible.  This improves water quality, retains traditional drainage patterns, and also maintains the historical character of Fort Carson.

• Provide a variety of transportation options:  Ensure connectivity between pedestrian, bike, transit, and road facilities.  Couple a multimodal approach to transportation with supportive land-use patterns that create a wider range of transportation options.  Look for ways to incentive alternative means of transportation as compared to fossil fuel vehicles.  Provide efficient connections between different types of transportation.  As an example, provide pedestrian walkways to multiple facilities from one shared parking lot.  Cluster high-density use facilities around future transit stops.

Sustainable Transportation Goal:
The long term goal is to reduce automobile dependency and provide balanced land use and transportation systems by 2027.  The desired state is to enhance quality of life and support rapid deployment, increase viable alternatives to urban sprawl and associated single occupancy vehicles, decrease on and off post travel time, and reduce air emissions.

Site Planning Design Standards