2022 AIA Communities by Design Reimagining Petaluma SDAT - Report - Page 19
Petaluma DAT
Existing Assets
• Some walkable and tree-shaded neighborhoods
• Parks and paved trails
Opportunities for Action
• More trees and restoration of wetlands
• Encourage use of the river
• Green belt with walking and cycling paths
• Promoting green zones and public/ open spaces
• Limit asphalt and nonporous surfaces
Recommended Actions
Based on community input, the above established
goals, and our professional expertise we developed a
series of existing tasks, challenges, and corresponding
recommendations to address these measures. Those
include:
1. Prioritize bike and pedestrian circulation to enable
cohesive and diverse mobility options.
2. Provide green infrastructure to manage stormwater,
increase capacity for retention, prevent erosion and
clean discharge to Petaluma River.
3. Incorporate more nature into the urban environment
to facilitate ecosystem restoration, increase
biodiversity, improve air quality, add trees to mitigate
urban heat island and improve carbon sequestration.
4. Enhance connections to parks and green open spaces
5. Restore and protect historic marshlands along the
Petaluma River to increase water holding capacity and
mitigate flooding and sea level rise
Given Petaluma’s residents increased activism and
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interest we believe the time is right to tackle these goals
and transform the City of Petaluma into an example of
resilient, sustainable, and equitable living community.
Create a Green Ribbon of Connected
Corridors:
Developing a system of interconnected green corridors
will provide many benefits for residents and wildlife.
Green corridors offer opportunities to relax while
enhancing social interaction. Green corridors also
provide a major role in a community’s well-being
by promoting physical activity – increasing levels of
walking, biking. Consider reallocating space within
the existing automobile centric right of ways, with the
purpose of creating a multipurpose pathway for bicycles
and pedestrians that is flanked by a shaded canopy of
trees and provides green space for the development of
bioswales.
Maximize the benefits of the green corridors by
connecting green spaces to existing community hubstransportation or commercial in turn forming a greater
green urban framework. Creating a network of green
infrastructure that would manage stormwater with
natural systems as an alternative to traditional gray
drainage pumps and pipes. Green infrastructure includes
rain gardens, bioswales, tree pits, natural retention and
detention ponds, blue and green roofs, rainwater and
stormwater cisterns, and permeable pavement. These
natural drainage systems capture, retain, filter, and slow
the release of stormwater, using the storage, infiltration,
evaporation, and carrying capacity of distributed natural
elements rather than buried pipes. In addition, green
infrastructure provides attractive landscape amenities,
reduces the need for potable water use, lowers the urban
heat island effect and stormwater runoff, improves
water quality, decreases flooding, sequesters carbon,
and recharges needed groundwater reserves. Returning
water back to the land naturally rather than sending
it down a pipe through a storm sewer is a strategy
communities need to adopt. They must work with nature,
not against it.
Reallocating space with the existing roadways would allow for the development of multipuprose pathways and bioswales.
