San Mateo County Green Streets & Parking Lots Projects

About Green streets and green parking lots are designed to mimic drainage patterns of the natural landscape. Pollutants are removed as stormwater runoff flows into landscaped "rain gardens" or swales, where it can soak into the ground as plants and soil filter out pollutants. Green streets and parking lots are designed to convert stormwater from a waste directed into a pipe, to a resource used for watering plants and replenishing groundwater.

Benefits This innovative approach to stormwater management can also enhance pedestrian and bicycle access and safety, contribute to traffic calming, add urban green space and wildlife habitat, enhance neighborhood livability, increase community and property values, help deepen residents' sense of connection with the natural environment, and control localized flooding and heat island effects.

Projects in San Mateo County
for more information, click on each project below

Brisbane: Parking Lot at City Hall	San Bruno: Belle Air/Third Avenue
Coming Soon! Daly City Serramonte Library

Funding for these projects and the Green Streets and Parking Lots Design Guidebook was provided by a countywide vehicle registration fee allowed by Assembly Bill 1546 authored in 2004 by the Assembly Member Joseph Simitian, and subsequently extended with Senate Bill 348 in 2008 by Senator Simitian.

Article: Slow It, Spread It, Sink It Estuary News, August 2009:
In San Mateo County, motorized vehicles are beginning to pay for their impacts on water quality, in six pilot “green stormwater” projects that will slow, spread, and sink urban runoff into rain gardens, swales, and green streets and parking lots. In 2005, the state legislature authorized up to $4 in increased registration fees for vehicles in San Mateo County. “It was important to us to have a nexus with the automobile,” says City/County Association of Governments of San Mateo County’s (C/CAG) Executive Director Richard Napier. “Why not have the autos that are putting the brake pads, the copper, the oil into the Bay pay for the programs that are trying to address their impacts?”

While other counties had attempted to get similar legislation passed, Napier says his agency’s
bill’s success was due to the fact that it was pitched as a pilot project with a clear end date and
involved a nominal amount of money. Plus, then-Assembly member Joe Simitian went to bat for
the fee, says Napier, “and we had some luck.” After C/CAG proved to the Governor’s office that
they were doing good work as a result of the initial bill, says Napier, the legislation was extended
until 2013...more