CityStories / City Profiles / Small Cities / Mission Viejo, California
Population: 93,102
- Green space
- Affordable housing
- Home energy efficiency incentives
- City of Mission Viejo Official Website
Photo Galleries
Mission Viejo, California
Halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego in Orange County, Mission Viejo, like its green neighbor Irvine, is a young, master-planned community, which was only incorporated in 1988. Two decades later, the city is almost completely built out and has a near-equal balance of housing to jobs.
Eleven percent of the city's 11,000 acres are landscaped green space and are irrigated with recycled water. Fifty-two-acre Oso Viejo Park has several miles of hiking and biking trails, and backs up to the city's community and senior center, a hub of activity in Mission Viejo.
To improve existing housing conditions and create more affordable housing, in August 2008 the city developed a new housing element as a part of its general plan. Plans for 2009 to 2014 include affordable housing outreach, density bonuses, a housing rehabilitation program that provides grants and loans to repair homes for lower income residents and free home weatherization for those who qualify. To provide further incentives for energy efficiency, in February 2008 the city council voted to make fee waivers for solar installation permanent.
Credit Shira Golding/FlickrNew York and Connecticut families with school-age children can breathe a little easier. Earlier this year, Governor David Paterson signed...
Lighter colored strata revealed by the decline in Lake Mead's water levels. For more on Las Vegas, read the city profile. Credit: Loop_oh/FlickrFor recent visitors to...
Flooding and sewer overflow in West Haven, Connecticut. Credit: Christopher ZurcherThe impervious paving with which we are so familiar—the asphalt and concrete that...
Porous Paving
The EPA's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System site provides information about applicability, siting and design criteria.
Georgia's Department of Community Affairs has a page on best practices for porous paving.
Portland, Oregon's Bureau of Environmental Service pervious paving projects page.
City of Chicago's permeable paving site with many local examples.
San Francisco Parks Trust permeable landscape page.
Environmental Health Perspectives provides a good overview in "Paving Paradise: The Peril of Impermeable Surfaces."
NRDC's report Stormwater Strategies: Community Responses to Runoff Pollution considers a variety of responses implemented across the country.
Water Conservation
US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation: with a mission to "manage, develop, and protect water and related resources in an environmentally and economically sound manner in the interest of the American public" the bureau provides information about water levels in reservoirs throughout the West, updates on dams, powerplants and related projects and a library of water reclamation materials.
Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART program: Information on WaterSMART grants for water and energy conservation projects, basin studies with integrated management plans and water supply reviews and details on the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives in the Southwest.
In Hot Water: Water Management Strategies to Weather the Effects of Global Warming (NRDC report)
Water Efficiency Saves Energy (NRDC report)
Las Vegas Water District conservation pages
Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNVA) conservation and rebates
Green Space: Pesticide Bans
Text of New York's Child Safe Playing Fields Act
Text of Connecticut's ban on pesticide use on school grounds
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