Many Utah planners are familiar with the Bicycle Friendly Community and Tree City USA recognition programs. Many have also had experience with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. In this same spirit of an incentive-based certification, a new recognition program emerges – the River Friendly Community and Development program.
The Jordan River Commission is a voluntary partnership of local and state governments working to help facilitate the implementation of a long-range, community-driven vision for the 50-mile Jordan River corridor called the Blueprint Jordan River. In 2013, the JRC published the award-winning Best Practices for Riverfront Communities toolbox to assist local governments and developers in carrying out the recommendations of the Blueprint Jordan River. Closing the loop, the River-Friendly Community and Development program acknowledges and celebrates the implementation of these recommendations at the local policy and project level.
The River Friendly recognition program contains two tracks. Following the first track, local governments become eligible for Silver Level River Friendly Community recognition by committing to implement the Best Practices for Riverfront Communities toolbox in a resolution or legislative intent. Communities adopting a riparian corridor protection ordinance based on the Best Practices are recognized with a Gold Level.
The second track is a checklist, resembling a much simplified version of LEED, guiding developments through various categories of site design, recreation, vegetation, stormwater and water quality. Predicated on place, this program encompasses the unique context of the Jordan River watershed. It can address many different project types (restoration projects to subdivisions), and it can be easily applied across land uses and municipal boundaries. This voluntary, incentive-based program is meant to address projects on lands within one-half miles of the Jordan River.
Different from a national certification process that aims to encompass all different landscapes and demographics, the River-Friendly system aims to provide developers, land managers, and stakeholders along our local river corridors a vision to fully embrace these unique natural resources. This program hopes to encourage local governments and developers to build up and enhance what is already present along the Jordan River. For example, constructing a connecting trail or neighborhood access point to the existing Jordan River Parkway Trail, will bring you five points closer to a River-Friendly designation.
This process further incentivizes stakeholders to achieve the vision for the Jordan River corridor based on Envision Utah’s 2008 document, Blueprint Jordan River. The intention of this recognition program is not to replace other certification systems, but instead to encourage local governments and developers to raise the bar and insist on land uses and projects that contribute to the quality of the river corridor. The vision? An interconnected river system with natural buffers of open space, smart economic nodes that are strategically placed in existing infill areas that create river destinations, a land and water trail creating recreational opportunities along the whole corridor, neighborhoods and communities that embrace the river, and a restoration of the natural functions of the Jordan River.
Two municipalities and a county have already been recognized as Utah’s first River-Friendly Communities:
Salt Lake County is receiving a Gold Level River-Friendly Community recognition for reaffirming its support the goals and visions laid out in the Blueprint Jordan River through legislative intent language in 2014, and also for the passage of a Jordan River Flood Channel Management ordinance in 2011 that protects vulnerable floodplain areas from its various threats.
Salt Lake City is also receiving a Gold Level River-Friendly Community for their 2008 adoption of a Riparian Corridor Overlay District ordinance that protects lands within the first 100 feet of the annual high water mark of the Jordan River and its various tributaries.
In addition, Sandy City is receiving the Silver Level recognition for passing a resolution in 2015 supporting the implementation of the Best Practices for Riverfront Communities.
Want to become the next River-Friendly Community or Development? All award recipients receive an attractive plaque and signage that can be displayed at city gateways or at the project site. Learn more here.
