Florida Town Hires A Planner To Protect Environment
A small planned community in Florida called Harmony has hired a full time environmental planner to ensure protection for the town’s natural resources.
Environmental planner Greg Golgowski once worked to ensure developments such as the town of Harmony did little harm to the state’s natural environment. Now, Golgowski does that work for Harmony alone.
Harmony, located about half an hour’s drive from Orlando, is a planned community that includes 11,000 acres of meadows, wetlands, stands of southern pines and two 500 acre natural lakes. The land was once the Triple E Ranch, a working citrus and cattle farm.
“This is a very unique and progressive action for a development to take,” Golgowski said of his new role with Harmony. “It’s unheard of for a Florida developer to hire someone as staff to get its residents involved in the community’s environment and to make sure natural habitat is managed in order to preserve and protect it.”
Under the master plan for Harmony, just 30 percent of the property is to be developed, while the rest of the land will remain untouched, save for unpaved footpaths that will follow the natural contours of the woods and wetlands.
The land is home to diverse plant and animal life, including deer, otters, sandhill cranes, bobcats, ospreys and owls, as well as hundreds of types of plants, including a number of threatened or endangered species.
Golgowski’s job will include overseeing the manner in which Harmony’s general plans are executed. These plans call for no home sites to be developed on either the almost four miles of shoreline of Harmony’s two sandy bottom lakes or its golf preserve, and no gas powered boats will be allowed on either lake.
All Harmony homes are required to be Energy Star compliant and reclaimed water to be available to every home for lawn maintenance. More trees must be planted on the site than removed, and all public outdoor light fixtures to be totally shielded to minimize light pollution.
“I hope my work here at Harmony helps not only the community to better understand our world, but I also hope what we’re doing here will serve as a model for communities and developments around the state, the country and the world for environmentally intelligent development,” Golgowski said.
Before joining Harmony, Golgowski served as deputy executive director of the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, directing the review of more than 125 large land developments around the Orlando area for almost two decades.
Harmony General Manager Jim Lentz said that Golgowski’s experience and knowledge of the environmental nuances of large scale projects – as well as the Orlando area flora and fauna – made him a perfect candidate.
“We needed someone like Greg to act as steward of the land, to help us make sure that as we develop our home town of Harmony, it remains a true sanctuary for us, our children and their children,” Lentz said. “This commitment to preservation goes to the soul of what Harmony is all about.”
Provided by the Environmental News Service.
