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A Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) is a plan that covers five or more years and details expensive projects and equipment. The plan details financing, timeframes and justifies the projects. A CIP is non-binding and is updated annually.
Healthy watershed practices like green space preservation, bioretention and floodplain restoration are typically large undertakings requiring significant time to develop, coordinate and fund. Additionally, these practices also offer the potential for many positive externalities, such as improved water quality, additional recreational area, land for forestry production and the development of trails for recreation and transportation.
Incorporating healthy watershed practices into the capital improvement planning effort will allow local governments to better understand where funding may be available, coordinate efforts with other interested parties and ensure projects are executed in a timely and efficient manner.
Including healthy watershed options in the capital improvement plan is vital to ensure a dedicated funding source for operations and maintenance of the project. Long-term success of all infrastructure projects depend on ongoing maintenance. Often operations and maintenance compete with other spending obligations, making the risk of failure higher.
Be sure to include financial and nonfinancial long-term project impacts when quantifying the expected energy or water savings, offset values, value of reduction in volume of runoff and pollutant removal. Many jurisdictions have developed values specific to their context, for example, the City of Houston avoided runoff at $0.66 per cubic foot. Establishing and reporting these types of values will help determine which projects are the most economically efficient.