Northeast Ohio Regional Retail Analysis
Executive Summary
Overview
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTSRetail land use is the source of a number of impacts on the environment. These include airborne pollutants from vehicular trips for shopping purposes, stormwater runoff quality and quantity, as well as noise, light pollution and community aesthetics.
Retail projects can have significant environmental impacts which extend well beyond the local jurisdiction in which they are located.
Excess parking capacity, common throughout many areas of Northeast Ohio, unnecessarily increases the amount of stormwater that washes directly into urban streams. This runoff carries with it significant levels of petroleum, nitrogen, heavy metals, and sediment, which contributes to the degradation of streams, rivers, and lakes.
Land area developed for retail use in the study area increases surface runoff by 874 million cubic feet annually.
If all vacant land in the region currently zoned for retail use was developed, surface runoff could increase by an additional three billion (3,000,000,000) cubic feet per year.
It is estimated that vehicular shopping trips in the region annually generate 19,100 tons of hydrocarbons, 10,250 tons of nitrogen oxides, 153,000 tons of carbon monoxide, and 2,691,500 tons of carbon dioxide.
The traffic associated with a typical large super-regional shopping center (such as each of the eight largest shopping centers in the study area) generates quantities of air emissions causing the centers to rank among the top sources of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons within the seven-county study area.
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