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| 1 Oct 2025 | |
| Outside In: Commercial/Institutional |
Completed in 2016
The Sustainable Green Parking Lots Guidebook by the Montgomery County Planning Commission offers a framework for rethinking how surface parking lots are designed, as they occupy large land areas and significantly impact community character, safety, and environmental health. Conventional lots lead to polluted stormwater runoff, worsen urban heat islands, raise flooding risks, waste energy, and often lack safe pedestrian pathways.
The guidebook emphasizes design strategies to lessen these impacts. Key recommendations include maximizing shading with large canopy trees, promoting natural drainage through bioswales and rain gardens, and using permeable pavements to absorb stormwater and recharge groundwater. Additional features include sustainable lighting systems, renewable energy integration, safe pedestrian circulation, and traffic-calming measures. Parking lots should also reflect community character by adding landscaping buffers, event spaces, bike facilities, and transit connections.
As a planning agency, MCPC recognizes the importance of policy implementation. The guide offers model ordinance language and regulatory tools for municipalities to update zoning, subdivision and land development, and stormwater ordinances. It features standards for minimum greening requirements, tree planting, soil volume for growth, screening, bioretention, and redevelopment guidelines.
The report highlights that green parking lots not only reduce flooding and pollution but also enhance appearance, increase property values, promote energy savings, and make public spaces more livable. By replacing single-use, heat-absorbing asphalt surfaces with multifunctional landscapes, communities can combine economic growth with environmental responsibility and a better quality of life.
Team Members:
Michael Stokes, AICP
Drew Shaw, AICP
Barry Jeffries, ASLA
Kevin Chavous, AICP CUD, ASLA, LEED AP
Troy Woodyard
Anastasia Somers
Rita McKelvey
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