One of his company's recent projects, Village of Baxter in FortMill, SC, is a 950-acre development offering single-family homesand townhomes, commercial sites and more than 400 acres of openspace. Another example of Land Design's wide-open land use conceptis Alta Village on the former International Business Machines Corp.campus in the University City area.

Locally, many of the front doors in the Dilworth neighborhoodopen onto park space. Some metro Charlotte residential zoningrequirements mandate that at least 10% of the land in a plannedproject be developed as green space.

Crescent Communities, a division of Duke Energy Corp.'s CrescentResources Inc. and one of the largest developers in the region, hashad success with its three golf course communities but now hopes toattract tenants to its new non-golf communities with amenities thatinclude walking trails and other green-space facilities.