This project demonstrates a practical, refreshing, applicable, proactive approach to stormwater management on private property that will raise public awareness and can be used, with minor modifications, across the country. The project presentation demonstrated that it can be very accessible to the mainstream public. This project can be used in any neighbourhood and have a positive impact on water quality and quantity without a major infrastructure installation. The involvement of landscape architecture students was considered by the jury to be a significant element in this grassroots approach to a major issue for most communities.
Citizens for a Safe Environment Is a not-for-profit group that is focused on achieving incremental positive environmental change through community-based activism. Schollen & Company Inc. was approached by CFSE to formulate a strategy to implement a series of "rain gardens" on private residential properties in the Riverdale Neighbourhood of Toronto with the over-riding goal of reducing the contribution of stormwater runoff to CSOs. This will in turn improve water quality along Toronto's lakefront. As a pro-bono assignment, Schollen & Company Inc. developed designs for the rain gardens and oversaw the implementation of the gardens by landscape architecture student work crews. The project has gained the interest of other municipalities as a prototype to facilitate the implementation of source-control storm water management solutions within private residential properties.
