Landscape Architect Articles

LASN Ordinances January 2012: Round Rock, Texas Going Green01-01-12 | News

Round Rock, Texas Going Green

By Buck Abbey, ASLA, Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, Louisiana State University

Proposed landscape ordinance changes for Round Rock, Texas include these water conservation measures:
- All plant material must be native or adapted species.
- The area surrounding required trees and shrubs cannot include sod or turf grass.
- Amended soils in landscape areas.
- Eliminate the 100 percent irrigation coverage requirement.
- Allowances for temporary irrigation and above ground systems.
- Allow alternate irrigation measures to reduce water consumption.
- Allow landscape areas to be designed to capture and infiltrate storm water.

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- Round Rock, Texas Development Services 2011

The round rock for which this Southwestern town was named in 1854 can still be seen in Brushy Creek in the historic part of town north of Austin. This is the community in which outlaw cowboy and train robber Sam Bass met his end on his twenty-seventh birthday, July 21, 1878 to the blazing guns of the Texas Rangers.

Once a feeder route of the Chisholm Trail that sent cattle drives and cowboys north to Midwestern markets, this town is now home to Dell Computer and related high-tech industries. Towns like Round Rock with a high standard of community design, interesting character, quality schools and ample outdoor recreation activities tend to attract industry and development. They also tend to have good development codes.

Part of the quality of life found in this community is a result of their community landscape code, and their tree protection and preservation ordinance. Both are now being revised by the Development Services Division to address changes to local development, consolidate overlapping tree requirements and to simplify the documents. The city is also ?EUR??,,????'?????<

This rock in Brushy Creek, a convenient swallow-water crossing marker for those in wagons on horseback or driving cattle back in the mid-1900s, gave Round Rock, Texas its name.
Photo ???????(R)???????(C) 2006 Larry D. Moore (GFDL).

Code Changes
Round Rock is entirely scraping its landscape code. The biggest change is to partially convert it to a
point-based code, i.e., compliance is measured in points rather than design intent, performance or prescribed outcome.

Many landscape architects feel point-based codes change the emphasis from design to quotas. City planners seek a means to quantify compliance. If a point system is used, it should apply to all aspects of the design. This code does not do that.

The point schedule measures compliance with points for various classes of plant material and site elements. Points have been added to promote sustainability, with such items as bike parking shade structures and plant materials. However, there is no measure for onsite stormwater management performance. To discourage the use of potable water, the schedule provides negative points for turf grass use.

The code also promotes water conservation, including the use of native plants, reduction in the use of grass within tree planting zones and trimming the 100 percent requirement for irrigation coverage. It also allows alternate means for irrigation as a water conservation strategy.

But perhaps the greatest greening stratagems in the code are to stimulate designers to find creative site planning methods to ?EUR??,,????'?????<

Design Components
Standard design components of this code pertain to a variety of zoning districts. Most landscape planting areas are eight feet wide. These include planting areas interior VUA landscaping, perimeter parking lot landscaping, screening, detention ponds, irrigation design and ?EUR??,,????'?????<

The draft includes an ?EUR??,,????'?????<

Curiously, this requirement replaces the street-yard planting requirement of the current code, whose purpose was to improve the view from the public street, reduce views of street-side parking lots and improve roadway safety. This was the first constitutional landscape requirement under California law in 1949. This ruling was the first to allow communities to cross over the property line and place landscape requirements on private property.

Since this was the initially reason for the introduction of public landscape codes, one wonders why the 30 percent street yard landscaping is being eliminated. With the street yard gone, parking lots and buildings will be pushed closer to the public street.

As retired Texas Tech professor George Tereshkovich so aptly pointed out in his 1990 study of Texas tree and landscape ordinances, ?EUR??,,????'?????<