The fundamental strategy of the studio’s alternative design proposal is to plan the landscape first and integrate development with it, rather than retrofitting the landscape to development. Given the great pressures for change in this region, and informed by the alternatives that were initially studied, this strategy is the only one that can maintain biodiversity, avoid harmful hydrologic impacts without costly structural changes, and produce a high-quality living environment.

It was therefore decided that an aggressive conservation strategy was needed to help shape the pattern of future growth. The conservation proposal should retain as much as possible the high quality of the character of the region, both for those who already live there and for newcomers; it should avoid increased flooding and reduction of groundwater recharge, and it should support the region’s biodiversity–one of the richest in the United States. Therefore, the model recognizes three major groupings of conservation objectives and values: cultural, hydrologic, and biologic.

Conservation of the cultural landscape is intended to promote a regional landscape of beauty, value, and meaning. It should retain the character of ridges and other landscape features, provide recreational areas and networks, sustain agricultural activities, maintain open space as an amenity, improve site access for schools and civic institutions, and protect historic places.

In order to accommodate the increased population without adverse hydrologic impacts, a strategy of hydrologic conservation should retain infiltration capacity and groundwater recharge, avoid economically and ecologically costly channelization, prevent harm to riparian zones, control flood discharge, maintain water quality, treat sewage and wastewater, and recharge residual water.

A biologic landscape conservation strategy seeks to perpetuate the region’s diverse and high-quality ecosystems. It should minimize fragmentation of natural areas, provide connectivity among ecological reserves and other significant habitat areas, protect riparian zones and corridors, maintain hydrologic regimes to sustain landscape types, and permit fire management.

Eleven criteria for conservation were derived from the research models and mapped (Figure 19). Then, in order to determine the relative importance of the conservation criteria, a Delphi method was used. This is a procedure that enables a group to make informed decisions about ranking (Cavalli-Sforza, 1979). From this, four levels of conservation priority were established. Each 30-meter square map cell was assigned a value of 1 (highest), 2, or 3, based on the highest level of occurrence of any criterion. Cells with no criteria present were assigned Level 4. These levels of priority are also shown in Table 1. The weighted conservation criteria were then combined as shown in Figure 20, the map of Conservation Priority.

When the locational priorities for development that were identified by the model of urbanization are compared with the evaluation of conservation priority, there are major conflicts of interest. These are shown in Figure 21. The red color range shows areas that are attractive for development, but do not have conservation priority. The green color range shows areas that have high priority for conservation, but have low development potential. Areas shown in brown have priority for both development and conservation; these are the areas in conflict.

Previously, it was seen that development responds to proximity to roads and utilities, and that the greatest development pressures occur near intersections of major roads. Many of these same areas have high conservation priorities and are critical to maintaining the ecological integrity and long-term stability of the region. Analysis of the conflict pattern reveals that the greatest conflicts occur in low-lying, vegetated floodplain areas under high development pressure, and in large contiguous areas of vegetated upland that are both important for habitat connectivity and also desirable for rural residential development.