How Should Stewardship Apply to Land Development?
To be a good steward is to be a careful and responsible manager of something within your care. When land is purchased for the purpose of development, the purchaser becomes the steward of the land, and becomes legally obligated to develop the land in a way that meets regulatory standards. But, more importantly, any good steward will feel duty-bound to go beyond their mere legal obligations and create a development that will provide great opportunities and benefits for the community at large. While the reality is that development projects are not always designed and created with these goals in mind, the Bluestem team has sought to make a commitment to good stewardship in the development of their mixed-use project.
How Has the Bluestem Team Committed to Being Good Stewards?
The Bluestem team has committed to good stewardship in several ways: through environmental friendliness, a community focus, local development and an innovative design. An explanation of how they have achieved these goals can be found below.
Environmentally Friendly
The foremost consideration of the Bluestem development was its proximity to Lake Roland park. Lake Roland park offers unique landscapes, including the rare serpentine barren, and also provides an abundance of recreational opportunities. As such, one of the major goals for the Bluestem team was to create a development that would exist in harmony with the park and increase accessibility to the resources and amenities found within the park.
This was completed in a variety of ways. Landscape architects who have worked on Lake Roland park projects previously, such as Human & Rohde, were employed to make thoughtful choices regarding placement of plantings and structures in order to preserve the environmental integrity of the park and the development land itself. Additionally, the Bluestem team collaborated with the Lake Roland Nature Council to better understand the difficulties the park was facing and how Bluestem could help to rectify some of these issues. By creating Bluestem’s vision of a multi-use village, a hazardous mulch tumbler and several outdated structures will be demolished, thereby increasing the water purity and clarity of Lake Roland. The Bluestem development team has worked in tandem with Baltimore County officials to determine a plan of action that will ensure local sewer lines will not be overtaxed by the new development. They will also create stormwater management and waste management systems that meet the rigorous standards of commercial construction. To learn more about Bluestem’s commitment to environmentally friendly design, click here.
Community Focused
The Bluestem development team understood that there would naturally be concerns from the community about any new development that was created within Bare Hills, and as such the team sought to forge positive connections with the community to understand their concerns and provide viable solutions. The Bluestem design plans ultimately underwent four phases, each adding new improvements and adjustments to better meet the community’s needs. These included changes to maintain the natural topography of the land, incorporate native plantings in the landscape architecture, reduce the height of the residential building, adjust the density of the building layout, create an access point to the “Orange” trail within Lake Roland Park and more. The Bluestem team also responded to a need within the community for more pedestrian access to amenities, a variety of boutique-style shopping, new restaurants and additional housing options to accommodate Millennials and Baby Boomers as their living needs change. To learn more about how Bluestem has made the community a priority in their development, click here.
Locally Developed
The Bluestem development team consists of a variety of specialists, firms and individuals who have not only lived and worked in the communities surrounding Bare Hills, but whose specialty is in developing projects for the unique needs of community members in these areas. The team includes professionals from Bozzuto, Vanguard Retail Property Development, Keystone Realty Company, Alexander Design Studio, Human & Rohde, Plusen Landscape Architects, SGS Law, The Traffic Group, MFI Realty, Morris & Ritchie Associates and more. Bluestem also boasts innumerable local supporters and stakeholders who see the development as an opportunity to enhance the functionality and usability of existing Bare Hills infrastructure. To learn more about how Bluestem has committed to a locally developed project, click here.
Innovatively Designed
The Bluestem development team is keenly aware that the nature of how we live, work and play is changing. Our housing, retail and transportation needs are evolving, as Baby Boomers find themselves with empty nests and a desire to age in place, and Millennials find themselves drawn to areas with lower crime rates and greater educational opportunities for the families they are beginning to raise. As such, the way we create developments must change, and the Bluestem team has committed to a mixed-use space, in the vein of places such as Remington Row and The Rotunda, but that push the bar with a design that is environmentally sensitive and considerate of local needs and aesthetics. It is the hope that this kind of smart, thoughtful planning will not only meet the needs of the community, but also encourage other developers to make similar choices in other regions across the country. To learn more about how Bluestem is innovatively designed, click here.
The Bluestem development team understands that good stewardship requires responsibility, transparency, commitment to the local community, the ability to find actionable solutions and a desire to serve a purpose larger than simply building a new development. Ultimately, their commitment to environmental friendliness, a community focus, local development and innovative design will help them act and serve as good stewards of the Bluestem development property, thereby inspiring other development firms to commit to similar action and continue creating developments that are based on an intelligent, sustainable and solutions-based design. To learn more about Bluestem’s commitment to environmental preservation, click here.