Terrain Volume 07 | No.

2
Summer/Fall 2007

The Newsletter of the New York Chapter American Society of Landscape Architects

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President’s Message
GREEN STANDARDS FOR PARKING LOTS
BEGIN PUBLIC REVIEW
New Rules Would Use Plantings to Reduce Pollution,
3
Green Standards for
Conform to Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC

Parking Lots, continued “June 18 – City Planning Director Amanda M. Burden today announced the begin-

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Biofiltration In Storm
ning of public review on new regulations for commercial and community facility park-
ing lots that impose new regulations for landscaping, perimeter screening of the lots
as well as requirements for canopy trees in planting islands within the lots. In keeping
with the Bloomberg administration’s PlaNYC sustainability goals, the proposal will pro-
Water Management mote the greening of new parking lots and those which are enlarged, and put New

6
York at the forefront of innovative self-sustainable planting methods. The plantings
that the plan calls for would be designed to act as a natural water filter and absorb
storm water runoff. Vehicular circulation within the lots would be improved by new
maneuverability standards.
Dirtworks, PC wins
'Instead of imposing heat-trapping oceans of asphalt, these proposed parking lot
2007 Honor Award standards will beautify our streets, cool the air, and absorb pollutants and storm water

7
runoff, said Director Burden, 'And they will make these parking areas throughout the
five boroughs more pleasant. This small change can contribute immeasurably to the
environment and our quality of life."

"BAD BOY" OF THE PLANT The requirements would apply to new or enlarged open parking lots of at least 18
WORLD GETTING A NEW spaces or 6,000 square feet serving retail and office buildings and institutions such as
hospitals and schools. Parking garages, roof parking, gas stations and residential
REPUTATION parking lots would be exempt from the requirements. The proposed amendment to

10
the zoning would prescribe perimeter screening comprised of evergreen shrubbery
and trees at the edges of parking lots to screen them from the streets. Evergreen
bushes no more than 3 feet tall as well as ornamental trees every 25 feet would pro-
vide an attractive buffer. In addition, street trees at the curbs would also be required
New Firm Profile:: around the lots.
r2P Studio
Continued on page 4.

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Open Studio
 Biofiltration In Storm Water Management
By Peter A. Gisolfi, ASLA, AIA, and Ronen Wilk, RLA
Communities across the nation are focusing on the need for
more stringent management of storm water runoff. Many
older water treatment systems and techniques are inade-
quate for handling the increased volume of runoff being cre-
ated by the development of sites and buildings. More roof-
ing and paved areas are being added to portions of sites
that are already impervious to rain, increasing the amount of
storm water that is being prevented from infiltrating readily
into the ground. This runoff, along with polluted water from
parking lots, is often being discharged into outdated munici-
pal drainage systems, and ends up in streams, rivers, lakes,
and oceans.
Storm water systems are becoming essential elements in site
design today. Regulatory agencies, building owners, archi-
tects, and developers recognize the need for new storm
water management systems, and many are turning to LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) criteria as
benchmarks of sustainable site development. LEED site engi-
neering guidelines include:
•The storm water system should hold, infiltrate, and
filter as much water as possible on-site.
•Water should be cleaned before it is infiltrated or
released off-site.
•Where appropriate, water captured on-site should
be used for irrigation.
•Shade should be maximized over heat absorbent
materials — such as asphalt — to reduce the “heat
island” effect.
The basic premise of approval procedures related to storm
water management is that a developed site should perform
within the drainage basin in the same manner as the natural
site. That is, a significant portion of the water should infiltrate
into the soil, and the water that enters the ground water
aquifer should be filtered during and by the infiltration
process. The first goal is to retain the same amount of water
that would have been retained by the site’s natural condi-
tion. Test borings may indicate if a layer of clay or rock is
close to the surface and causes an unusual amount of runoff
from the natural site. Local engineering departments, how-
ever, often decline to accept this possibility as they review
system designs. Rather, they imagine that the “natural” site
absorbs storm water easily.
The fundamental strategy for detention is to slow the release
of storm water in surface ponds or underground chambers,
then allow it to be released — at a rate less than or equal to
the release rate in the site’s natural condition — into the
municipal system or a natural stream. Generally, the reten-
tion system is designed also to promote infiltration into the
ground water system.
A recently developed technique is to filter storm water that
runs off from paved surfaces and roofs through grasses and
other plant material on its way to a retention system. Some
wetlands plants actually have the ability to absorb pollu-
tants. This “biofiltration process” filters the runoff naturally
before it is retained, so the water is clean when it is eventual-
ly released into the drainage basin.
It is especially important to clean the polluted runoff from
blacktop parking lots. Asphalt is oil-based, and its surface is
fouled continually by automobile emissions. In warm weath-
er, asphalt is also hot and unpleasant. (Concrete paving
reflects more heat and contributes less to the heat island
effect, but concrete is costlier, and harder to repair.)
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Remediation techniques which can help turn a blacktop
parking lot from a detriment into a woodland include:
•Planting trees in the lot.
•Making the tree pits into biofiltration devices.
•Storing filtered water in and under the lot.
•Designing the system to have retention and
filtration capacity that releases filtered water into
the municipal drainage system only when there is
overflow during major storm events.
Said in the simplest way, a parking lot can function almost as
a natural system — and drivers get to park in the shade!
Darien Library Water Quality Basin
In the system for the parking lot of the new public library in
Darien, Connecticut, which we designed, water collects in
islands planted with trees and grasses. Biofiltration cleans the
runoff before it is recharged into the aquifer. Infiltration is rel-
atively prompt on this site, as the soil is coarse and sandy.
Should heavy rain fill the tree islands to capacity before it
can drain into the aquifer, the water overflows into an under-
ground retention system, and to a terraced and planted
biofiltration basin area.
At the landscaped front of the library, storm water collects in
a bio-swale and recharges underground before it is released
into the municipal system. Only after the biofiltration and
underground system are filled to capacity will the water flow
through underground piping into the Town’s drainage sys-
tem.
Our system for the Darien Public Library provides for the biofil-
tration, cleaning and recharging of water on-site, and pro-
motes the sustainability of the system through ease of main-
tenance. Equally important, it minimizes the release of storm
water off-site, a condition that could create flooding and
pollution in adjacent and downstream properties. The
release of water off-site will be less than it was before the site
was developed even though impervious surfaces have
increased significantly.
Another storm water management design employing biofil-
tration is our system for the John Burroughs School, an inde-
pendent school in St. Louis. School officials had initially
secured local approvals for a conventional stormwater man-
agement system. When we introduced them to the concept
of biofiltration, they embraced this as an environmental and
educational opportunity. The new biofiltration system we
designed will be an instructional tool for the school’s 600 stu-
dents, who will be involved in plant selection and installation,
and will learn about important environmental and sustain-
ability issues.
Continued on the next page.
 Biofiltration In Storm Water Management, continued
The design features a tiered biofiltration system, using three
sequential planted basins. (*B) Storm water flows from one
area into the next, and then into the campus’s existing pond
which serves as part of the detention system. Any overflow
from the pond runs into the municipal drainage system.
Infiltration of storm water into the aquifer is particularly slow
on this site, as the soil is largely clay, yet runoff from the
school’s parking lot only reaches the pond in a major rain
event. This runoff will contain much less pollution and sedi-
ment after it has been filtered through the biofiltration basin.

Drainage systems, biofiltration systems, and retention systems

NYC Department of City Planning
are not designed in a vacuum. They are parts of existing, if
imperfect, ecosystems. When site development is complete,
the ecosystems should not be damaged. If the combined
techniques of storm water collection, filtration, and retention
are used effectively, entire hydrologic systems, including sur-
face water and ground water, can be protected, and even
improved.

Long-time Parks Advocate M.M. Graff Dies at Age 97

By Eugene Patron

Brooklyn, NY – Mildred Millar Graff, who
wrote about and championed New
York City Parks from the 1960s through
the 1980s, died at her home in Brooklyn
in early July at the age of 97 . “Dickey”
as her family and friends called her,
combined a can-do spirit and hands-
on advocacy to help protect and care
for the natural environment and beau-
tiful architecture of New York’s great
parks and green spaces.
As one of the founding members of the
Friends of Prospect Park in the mid
1960s, Graff organized a campaign to
care for some of the Parks most
notable, but neglected, trees such as
the Camperdown Elm. A self-trained
tree expert, Graff soon went on to
address tree care in Central Park: rolling
up her sleeves to work with arborists in
the Park. In the 1980s when she
became too ill to get out and visit her
beloved Parks, Graff, never a wall-
flower, fired off letters to park adminis-
trators and elected officials with her
thoughts on oversight for the City’s
parks.
“When I remember Dickey Graff it’s not
just her passion for parks I think of, but
the particular time when her passion
flourished,” said Adrian Benepe,
Commissioner of the New York City
Department of Parks & Recreation.
“Dickey committed herself to helping
New York’s parks back when there
weren’t the many easily accessible
opportunities that exist today for peo-
ple to get involved at their local parks.
The best tribute New Yorkers can give
her is to become active participants in
Mildred Millar Graff
the lives of their parks through the many
volunteer organizations that support
parks.”
“Dickey was just the kind of smart and
tough friend New York’s Parks needed
back when Parks didn’t receive the
kind of support from the City they do
today,” said Tupper Thomas, President
of the Prospect Park Alliance and
Prospect Park Administrator. “She went
around Prospect Park like a cross
between a triage nurse and town crier,
identifying the sick trees and raising the
alarm.”
“Dickey didn’t coat her opinions in
sugar, but she knew what she was talk-
ing about,” said Elizabeth Barlow
Rogers, President of the Foundation for
Landscape Studies, and founding pres-
ident of the Central Park Conservancy
from 1980 until 1996. “I learned a lot
from her. Her books on trees and rocks
in Central Park were my best instruc-
tion.”
According to the Greensward
Foundation, Graff was born in St.
David's, Pennsylvania, near
Philadelphia, but grew up from the age
of three in Forest Hills, Queens. After 30
years of marriage and living on Long
Island, in 1964 she moved alone to
Brooklyn Heights.
Among the books and publications she
wrote, co-authored and illustrated are
Tree Trails in Prospect Park (1968), Tree
Trails in Central Park (1970), Rock Trails in
Central Park (1976), The Making of
Prospect Park: Notes for a Projected
Historical Study (1982), Central Park --
Prospect Park: A New Perspective
(1985) and Bridges of Central Park
(1990). She also wrote articles for The
New York Times, Popular Gardening
and other publications.
For more information on Prospect Park
events, programs and membership,
call the Park Hotline at (718) 965-8999 or
visit www.prospectpark.org.
Dial 311 for all Parks & Recreation infor-
mation