Creating a Green Infrastructure Plan for Gary, Indiana

Brief Overview of What We’re Doing

Delta Institute’s partnership with the City of Gary, Indiana, focused on the creation of a Gary Green Infrastructure Plan, a two-year project focused on assisting the City with planning and implementing Green Infrastructure designs, identifying 61 Priority Projects to install 26 acres of rain gardens, permeable pavements, street planters, and other GI designs, collectively reducing the negative impacts of 132 million gallons of stormwater annually.

Since 2016, as part of the Plan, Delta Institute, the City of Gary, the Alliance for the Great Lakes, and other partners developed a GI Mapping Tool, city-wide GI Suitability Analysis, a GI Zoning Ordinance, a Stormwater Impact Financial Analysis, a prioritized GI project list, and GI management strategies. The GI Plan will play a significant role in how the city uses GI strategies to regulate land use, advance development projects, manage stormwater, control sewer overflow problems, and decrease pollution.

The GI Plan was approved and officially adopted as part of the City of Gary Comprehensive Plan in Fall 2019.