North High Installing Permeable Pavers in East Parking Lot

Similar to the village's plan to , is choosing permeable pavers over asphalt or concrete for its east parking lot. From :

Improvement work is continuing at North High School to prepare for the 2012-13 school year. The first day of school for students is Monday, August 27, 2012.

On the east side of the school, workers are currently laying permeable pavers as the surface for the new, enlarged parking lot. Rather than installing an asphalt or concrete parking lot, District 99 decided to install permeable pavers in order to save taxpayers between $40,000 to $100,000 in overall project costs.

Before the start of the project, half of the land east of the school (east of Main Street) was a grass field and half was a parking lot. By converting the entire property into a parking lot, storm water detention was top-of-mind. The permeable pavers eliminate the legal requirement for the district to install a costly underground storm water detention system. Instead, the pavers act as the system, holding and dispersing rain and snow melt into the surrounding ground, and preventing excessive overflow into the neighborhood’s underground water systems.

“The decision to install permeable pavers was made for one reason:  economics,” says Marty Schack, Director of Facilities. “The types of pavers we are installing are the most advanced available on the market today, and are a really green solution.”

Several other benefits are expected by installing permeable pavers, including:

• Better water runoff than hard pack surfaces of concrete or asphalt, which makes the lot safer for pedestrian traffic during rain storms and in the winter when snow and ice accumulates more rapidly on hard pack surfaces.

• Less maintenance than asphalt or concrete. 

• More durable than asphalt or concrete. 

• The ability for district staff to perform repairs, whereas more costly contractors are needed to service asphalt and concrete surfaces.