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planning in principle


Ancaster Creek, pre-parking conditions at McMaster (C1965)


McMaster University Campus Master Plan . March 2002

7.3.11 Existing treed areas along the rail alignment, Cootes Drive, Ancaster Creek and adjacent to Westaway Road, will be preserved as much as possible as the West Campus becomes intensified.

7.3.12 A number of opportunities exist for campus development to contribute to enhancing the water temperature, water quality and fish habitat of Ancaster Creek. A continuous stream buffer with a minimum width of 30 metres will be provided between the stream bank and the parking lot edges. This will in certain cases involve cutting back the edges of existing parking lots. The University will work with community partners to naturalize the buffer with native trees and shrubs.

7.3.13 Development of West Campus should proceed on the basis of an appropriate, state of the art stormwater management plan that directs site-related stormwater run-off water into a system of wet ponds/wetlands. An appropriate location for such a system would be between the railway embankment and Cootes Drive, outside the 30 metre stream buffer, as illustrated in Figure 7-C

7.13.14 The University shall pursue opportunities to implement a variety of techniques to clean and cool water that runs off from surface parking lots before it reaches Ancaster Creek, including but not limited to: sand filters, to screen out and trap pollutants; oil and grit separators which remove sediment, screen debris and separate free oil from stormwater; and bio-retention areas, which are depressionalareas designed to mimic pollutant removal processes present in natural ecosystems. The West Campus vision indicated in Figure 7-C demonstrates how ditches planted with vegetation that prefers moist soils but can survive dry periods can be introduced in place of medians in surface parking lots, to collect, clean and cool run-off water.

7.3.15  The University should explore a variety of opportunities to implement environmental demonstration projects on West Campus, such as installing porous paving in surface parking lots to mitigate stormwater runoff.

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