SC Magazine 1.1

Sustainable Communities

PR

EM

IER

IS

SU

E

9RO 1R ‡ -DQ )HE ‡ ZZZ S VF RUJ ‡

IN THIS ISSUE

Cities Discover Economic Benefits of Sustainable Development

Inside HUD’s New Focus on Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 8 Builders fight sales slump with efficient homes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 26 Housing & Transit: What’s being done to preserve affordability . p. 32

Create Lasting Value Come to the San Francisco Conference on 3USTAINABLE (OUSING #OMMUNITY $EVELOPMENT Make the connection for success at the new conference guaranteed to help you prosper and achieve your goals in the new era of sustainable development and green building INTRODUCING

Sustainable Housing & Community Development Live s ,EARN NEW STRATEGIES FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING MIXED USE TRANSIT ORIENTED development in the era of resource efficiency s -AKE CONNECTIONS WITH POTENTIAL PARTNERS AND lNANCING SOURCES s -EET EXPERTS IN GREEN BUILDING RENEWABLE ENERGY NONTRADITIONAL lNANCING SOURCES LAND USE PLANNING AND DESIGN

Save time and money on our succinct and economically priced one-day conference format.

A one-day conference for developers, financiers and associated professionals interested in sustainable planning & development and green building and the financial intricacies thereof. There will be a keynote plenary session with a prominent speaker, plus a working lunch for small group discussions and an evening networking reception.

Date and location San Francisco, CA. May, 2011

Breakout sessions will cover topics such as these types of topics: Q Track

1: The “greening� of affordable housing

s 4HE OUTLOOK FOR INCLUSIONARY ZONING and more supportive land use policies to encourage housing near jobs, transit s  Housing tax credit and other government program rules s  Green affordable housing programs and case studies s  Financing sources & methods, syndication trends s  Energy and water-efficient building techniques and certifications s  Renewable energy generation Q Track

2: New opportunities for infill, mixed-used and transitoriented development. s  How to find development opportunities and benefit from new planning efforts around transit expansions s  Ideas and incentives for land acquisition, site assembly s  Financing structures and sources s  7INNING ZONING DESIGN AND parking concessions s  Dealing with CEQA and VMT generation

WHO SHOULD ATTEND: s Real estate developers involved in housing, tax credit housing, commercial, mixed-use, infill and home building. s Real estate consultants, lawyers, accountants s Financing providers s City, county & regional planners s Community development, housing and redevelopment officials s Architects s Land planners

For details on the conference, location and date, go to www.p4sc.org For information about sponsorship opportunities, contact: Andre Shashaty, Email: Andre@P4SC.org s 415.453.2100 ext 303

Contents JANUARY/FEBRUARY 201 1

8

42

DEPARTMENTS 2

Letter from the Editor

3

Land Planning & Design: Design Ideas for Transforming malls into neighborhoods

5

32

38

Affordable Housing: Housing Finance Agencies embrace Enterprise standards

6

New Directions

16 Urban & Regional Planning

Features 8

U.S. Promotes Sustainability, ‘geography of opportunity’ The Obama Administration will undoubtedly meet resistance from the new Republican majority in the House, but federal policy has taken a fundamental turn toward sustainable planning and development. Our package of stories puts it all in perspective:

11

41 World Roundup 42 Around the nation

26

Meritage bucks bad market with high efficiency

29

KB Homes Uses Batteries to improve economics of Solar-Powered Homes

32

Housing & Transit: Cities Plan for Affordable Housing Preservation along Transit Lines With transit lines being developed and expanded throughout the nation, cities are debating how best to plan for the use of land near new stations. Is enough being done to encourage density and preserve housing affordability? What cities are leading the way on these issues? Our story begins to shed some light on these issues.

PSC Leadership Forum: HUD’s Poticha Takes the Lead on sustainability

18

13

Money flows for integrated planning of development, transportation

14

Federal Transportation Policy Supports Sustainable Communities

Cities discover economic benefits of sustainable planning, land use

Slow Home Sales Solution:

38

% California % Massachusetts % Texas % Washington, DC

44 Green Building California launches First State wide Green Building Code

46 Finance: Federal grants, utility programs sustain financial appeal of new solar installations

3

Reinventing the Suburbs: Tyson’s Corner Plan calls for high density, mixed-use around transit

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

1

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Remaking cities, changing the world

By Andre Shashaty

L

ondon–Walking the streets of the West End just before New Year’s, dodging tourists from across the globe, I realized why this city always makes me so hopeful for the future.

New York offers excitement and financial power, Istanbul intrigues the senses and Shanghai vibrates with ambition. But London speaks to the resilience of cities, their ability to adapt to change, and their potential to provide inspiration and direction for entire nations.

The city on the Thames has withstood the collapse of empires, invasions, plague, tyranny, conflagration, firebombing, killer smog and more. It has survived physical destruction and mass killing, coming back stronger and evolving into the diverse, thriving world center it is today.

The current challenge is more wide-ranging and complex. We must combat the threat of climate change by curbing greenhouse gas emissions, reverse the worst impacts of suburban sprawl, and improve the resource-efficiency of our built environment. Cities must deal with declining economies, rapidly growing populations, and in some cases, both.

London is one of many cities at the forefront of the transition from the old economy of manufacturing and resource exploitation to a new economy based on knowledge-based and service industries, including alternative energy generation and low carbon construction.

It is also one of the cities that sees the need to change their land use polices, to build more affordable housing close to jobs and transit, to increase density and to reduce reliance on private cars and the pollution and congestion that goes with it.

London is not necessarily ahead of other cities, but it is especially bold. It pioneered congestion pricing for driving a private car into the central city. Now, The London Development Authority wants this city of 7.5 million to be one of the world’s leading low carbon capitals so it can prosper in the new “global low carbon economy.”

It is not alone. Hundreds of cities throughout the world and right here in the U.S. want the same thing, including Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities that can no longer rely on automotive and steel jobs for viability.

I know cities are prone to bold thinking mixed with more than a little hype. But they are matching the bravado with action. Innovation is everywhere as we move into the second decade of this new century, and there is much more to come.

There is a long way to go, but the new era of sustainable community planning and development is well underway. Sustainable Communities magazine is your guide to this exciting time of change, and this is our very first issue. The magazine is published by the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a nonprofit group I founded in 2009.

If you like what you see, visit our web site at www.p4sc.org, and become a member.

You’ll ensure that you get all six yearly issues plus other valuable benefits. You’ll also be supporting our work to make our communities more sustainable -- not just environmentally, but socially and economically as well.

2

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

Sustainable Communities Vol 1, No 1 -DQ )HE ZZZ S VF RUJ

Sustainable Communities Magazine Editor and Publisher Andre Shashaty andre@p4sc.org Managing Editor Deirdre Greene dg@p4sc.org Advertising & Conference Sales Manager Wendy Chaney wendy@p4sc.org Office & Member Services Manager Carol Yee carol@p4sc.org Board of Directors Rev. Betty Pagett, Community Acceptance Strategist Todd Sears, Vice President of Finance, Herman & Kittle Properties Patrick Sheridan, Senior Vice President for Housing Development, Volunteers of America Dianne Spaulding, Executive Director, Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California Leadership Advisory Board Richard Baron, Chairman and CEO, McCormack Baron Salazar Doug Bibby, President, National Multi Housing Council Henry Cisneros, Executive Chairman, CityView; former secretary, U.S. Dept of Housing and Urban Development F. Barton Harvey, Former chairman and CEO, Enterprise Community Partners William C. Kelly, Jr., President, Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future (SAHF) Kerry Mazzoni, public policy consultant, former state legislator and former California Secretary of Education Nicolas P. Retsinas, Director, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University Caleb Roope, President/CEO, The Pacific Companies Sustainable Communities Magazine is published

by Partnership for Sustainable Communities a non-profit organization

To become a member or to make a tax-deductible contribution, contact 900 Fifth Ave Suite 201 San Rafael, CA 94901 415 453 2100 ext 303 www.P4SC.org

LAND PLANNING & DESIGN

REMAKING SUBURBIA:

Design ideas for transforming malls into walkable town centers

By Galina Tachieva, Duany Pater-Zyberk & Company

B

ecause of their location, parcel size, ownership structure, and opportunities for transit and mixed uses, malls have great potential to be transformed into transit-ready urban cores, commonly referred to as town centers.

Malls are usually located at major arterial intersections, along the paths of growth, in the vicinity of numerous residential subdivisions. This makes them ideal as centers along an integrated regional bus rapid transit network, light rail line, or other mode of public transportation. The overabundant retail space in malls can be rebalanced or replaced by complementary uses such as offices, residences, hotels, and civic or institutional services. Because of these advantages, malls have been the most frequent targets for sprawl repair. Examples include Mizner Park in Boca Raton,

V Most malls are dominated by parking lots and a megastructure

Florida; Paseo Colorado in Pasadena, California; and Belmar in Lakewood, Colorado, among others.

To reach the full potential of the repair of a mall, it is necessary to under-

stand its regional context – its location and its relationship to the other centers in the region. For example, a mall embedded in existing suburban residential fabric may be repaired more swiftly into a town center than a mall loV One strategy for mall repair is retaining the main structure and redeveloping the parking cated on the exurban fringes, lots. where it is entirely dependent on the prospect of future growth.

To make the critical distinctions between location and type, a site analysis must be performed, and from that the nature and feasibility of the repair can be determined.

When the mall is still successful, the repair should be forward-looking – visionary and proactive in character – and the process of the retrofit started while the mall is still economically vital. When the shopping mall has already JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

3

LAND PLANNING & DESIGN

lost its economic momentum, the retrofit becomes postfactum or retroactive.

A mall can be repaired through a series of interventions executed as one major redevelopment or in phases implemented over the course of decades. If done in phases, the main structure of the mall can be preserved and embedded in the urban fabric, and then pieces can be disassembled step-by-step, keeping only the anchors, and creating a main street. The final V For a declining mall, it may be best to preserve anchors only. stage may include the full demolition of the mall if the streets forming the new fabric feed the similar to the other commercial sprawl remaining structures become main street. The anchors may retain elements, but some of them are more obsolete. These are separate strategies retail use or become civic destinations. extreme: the footprint is excessively that can be employed sequentially, as Senior centers serving the surrounding large for a single-use building, pedestriphases, or partially, depending on the residential enclaves may be accommoan circulation is hampered by the vast circumstances. dated, with courtyards carved out of the areas of underutilized surface parking, footprints. and the only well-defined public space is Government’s Role The third, more polemic, strategy is inside the mall.

The introduction of mixed uses and a devolution of the mall into an agriculHowever, these deficiencies also the reconnection of thoroughfares into tural village. present opportunities for the repair of urban blocks are logical and important The material above is excerpted the mall. For instance, the large parksteps in the transformation. However, from The Sprawl Repair Manual, a pracing lots can easily accommodate a new the most critical intervention will be the tical guide that illustrates how to repair urban fabric as well as a range of public rationalization of parking and the addithe full range of suburban development spaces, including urban gardens for lotion of parking garages, because that types. It demonstrates a step-by-step cal food production. will facilitate the high density and mixed process for the creation of more susThere are three strategies for the uses necessary for a town center. tainable human settlements out of our repair of a mall, each with different deThe incentives for repairing malls wasteful sprawling landscape. To read grees of intervention. need to be strong, as the financial coma longer article on the subject, go to In the first strategy, the main strucmitments of the private sector required www.p4sc.org. v ture of the mall is preserved and emfor such redevelopments are very high. bedded in a new fabric. The structure is When dead or dying malls are redevelTachieva is an expert on urban rederenovated and the roof is converted into oped and intensified as complete town velopment, sprawl retrofit, sustainable a garden. This option is the most concenters, with residential and office planning and form-based codes. As a servative, assuming that the mall will components to supplement the retail, partner and Director of Town Planning survive as a mega structure, though its transit between these intensified nodes at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, function may change. The mall building, becomes viable. Just as the federal Architects and Town Planners (DPZ), or portions of it, can be transformed government subsidizes the Interstate Tachieva directs and manages the deinto civic (college campus, daycare faHighway system that advances sprawl, sign and implementation of US based cilities, community center, senior amenifederal, state and local governments and global projects. She is the author ties, museum, etc.) or office use. should support the creation of a netof the recently released Sprawl Repair The second strategy preserves only work of repaired commercial nodes to Manual. For info, go to www.sprawlrethe anchors and shows the evolution support regional transit. pair.com of the mall into a main street. Multiple The deficiencies of the mall are

4

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Housing finance agencies embrace Enterprise green building standards

A

s the 2011 tax credit allocation cycle begins, 18 housing finance agencies are using Enterprise Green Communities Criteria as either a threshold, option, or a tool to enhance the developer’s overall score for choosing projects in the competitive process.

The HFAs are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York City, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Colorado, which adopted the criteria

in 2010, is one of several states that make them a thresshold requirement. Other agencies that make them a requirement are Washington, D.C., and the New York Department of Housing Preservation.

A new version of the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria, updated to reflect current technology and national reference standards, is available online.

The revisions were made after reviewing 320 comments from interested parties.

Enterprise says the criteria are a framework for comprehensive green building practices, which are applicable for all affordable housing development

types, in any location in the country.

In regard to location type, the 2008 Criteria included only one set of mandatory and optional measures for all projects in the “Location and Neighborhood Fabric� category. The 2011 update includes mandatory and optional measures focused around smart growth principles that are most appropriate for three different location types — % urban/small city, % suburban/mid-size town or % rural/tribal/small town.

Some mandatory and optional —CONTINUED ON PAGE 48

9LJLU[ 0UP[PH[P]LZ I` 7HY[ULYZ H[ +7A +\HU` 7SH[LY A`ILYR *VTWHU` c (YJOP[LJ[Z HUK ;V^U 7SHUULYZ c

:WYH^S 9LWHPY 4HU\HS

¸/\NLS` PUZ[Y\J[P]L HUK MVYTPKHIS` PUZWPYH[PVUHSš 3LVU 2YPLY H WSHUUPUN THU\HS [V JVTWYLOLUZP]LS` HKKYLZZ ZWYH^S

3PNO[ 0TWYPU[ /HUKIVVR

0U[LNYH[PUN JVTT\UP[` KLZPNU HUK Z[VYT^H[LY THUHNLTLU[ ¸H Z\Z[HPUHISL WSHJL THRPUN T\Z[ YLHKš [OL 6YPNPUHS .YLLU

;OL :THY[ .YV^[O 4HU\HS

(SS `V\ ULLK [V RUV^ HIV\[ ZTHY[ NYV^[O PU VUL JVTWHJ[ WHJRHNL 9LJLU[S` YLSLHZLK [OPZ PZ H 7SHUL[PaLU ;VW ;LU

:\I\YIHU 5H[PVU Âś [O (UUP]LYZHY` ,KP[PVU

;OL ¸IPISL VM \YIHUPZ[Zš >HSS :[ 1V\YUHS HUK [OL ILZ[ ZLSSPUN IVVR VU WSHUUPUN ZPUJL ( 7H[[LYU 3HUN\HNL -PUK V\[ ^O`

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

5

NEW DIRECTIONS

Republican majority takes aim at GHG emission controls

T

he outlook for federal policy to promote community sustainability took a turn for the worse in January.

Greenhouse gases officially became subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act, just in time for Republicans to assume control of the House of Representatives with a mandate to protect oil and coal interests that would be hurt most by controls.

Fueled by political pressure to cut domestic spending, the Republican majority in the House will also be a tough obstacle for the Obama Administration’s fiscal 2011 budget proposals, including funding for transportation projects and regional planning to advance community sustainability.

The government is being financed by a series of continuing resolutions,

PHOTO: US COAST GUARD

without support from the Senate, which is still controlled by Democrats. But they will be able to force compromises on many issues, including funding levels for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation. They will also be able to block any new commitments by the government to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They will also be able to make a lot of noise. Republicans are promising to use their new power to hold hearings they hope will sow doubt about climate change and generate controversial headlines about the environmental and sustainability policies of the Obama Administration, including programs for mass transit and housing.

The epicenter for the battle over greenhouse gas emissions is the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where the once open-minded chairAP PHOTO: HARAZ N. GHANBARI man has taken up the mantra that policies to reduce greenhouse gases are job killers. He will be assisted by one of the oil industry’s staunchest supporters and congressmen from two of the biggest coal-producing states in the nation.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) assumed the chairmanship of the panel, promising to fight the EPA and their efforts to curb carbon emissions.

“We will fight the administration’s relentless assault on jobs -- and stop them from doing through regulation what they have been unable to acV ‘Deepwater Horizon’ Gulf of Mexico oil spill, complish through legislation,” Upton upper right: Rep. Joe Barton recently wrote to FoxNews.com. and it is unclear when a final appropriaUpton had been regarded as a tion bill might be passed for the fiscal moderate on environmental issues, but year that began back on Oct. 1. changed his tune recently, allowing him The new Republican majority in the to prevail over Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX).

House won’t be able to change laws Barton was chair the last time Republi-

6

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

V Rep. Fred Upton

can’s had a majority. He is famous for his public apology to BP for the Obama administration’s reaction to the massive amounts of oil that leaked from the British oil company’s “Deepwater Horizon” rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Upton named Barton as “chairman emeritus,” an honorary post that includes two staff positions and a platform for public statements at any hearing Barton wishes to attend.

Under Upton, the current Energy and Environment Subcommittee will be divided into two subcommittees. The new Energy and Power Subcommittee, which will have jurisdiction over energy and Clean Air Act issues, is headed by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY).

The new Environment and Economy Subcommittee, which will focus on environmental regulations and their economic impact, will be chaired by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL).

In other key changes, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) replaces Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. At press time, no one had been named to chair the panel’s housing subcommittee.

Bachus said his top priority was to end federal support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the secondary mortgage market makers which together control massive numbers of home loans. v

High Stakes Land Use Decisions?

Don’t make a move without consulting our database Join Partnership Sustainable Communities for just $79 and receive: s -UST READ REPORTING AND ANALYSIS on the new land use policies, green building practices, and innovative development strategies that are remaking our cities and towns in Sustainable Communities magazine. Published six time per year, this is the only journal that brings together all the threads of change on land use, development, energy, and transit into one succinct, wellorganized, highly readable package. s /PPORTUNITIES TO NETWORK AND promote your organization in our -EMBER $IRECTORY

When it comes to land use policies and project entitlements, you can’t afford to act without a firm command of the facts and precedents.

Now you can get the information you need in one very user-friendly source. It’s the Land Use Research Library from the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

Whether you are a developer, a city land use official, or an elected leader, PSC’s Land Use Research Library brings you instant access to hundreds of academic studies and surveys on: t The impact of zoning policies t Housing cost trends and influences t Property values t The most effective economic development measures t Effects of various community development strategies t Economic contributions of inclusionary zoning and affordable housing development The Library is a benefit of membership in Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

s #RITICAL NEWS ALERTS IN THE SUBJECT areas of interest to you. s 0REMIUM WEBSITE CONTENT AT NO extra cost (view an example here). s $ISCOUNTED REGISTRATION FOR THE 3USTAINABLE $EVELOPMENT #ONFERENCE Join today and get the tools you need to make good land use decisions. You will also be supporting our advocacy work to advance the goal of sustainable communities including policies that encourage the development of affordable housing near jobs and transit. Join today, and be part of the new era of sustainable planning and development.

For more information, go to www.p4sc.org.

Or request a FREE membership information packet by calling 415-453-2100 x302.

U.S. promotes sustainability, When President Barack Obama took office, no agency in the federal government needed a new direction more than the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Two years later, the housing agency is leading the way in the new era of holistic urban planning and sustainable real estate development.

V

Salt Lake City will be at the center of continued expansion of transit-oriented land use planning under a $5 million grant Salt Lake County received under HUD’s new Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program.

8

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

HUD

Secretary Shaun Donovan has been working hard since taking office to make sure that “federal dollars stop encouraging sprawl and start lowering the barriers to the kind of sustainable development our country needs and our communities want.” He has committed HUD to creating what he calls “the geography of opportunity” for people of all types and at all income levels.

Donovan has launched a new era of active cooperation on policy and funding programs between HUD and the federal agencies in charge of transportation and environmental protection. His department is also helping cities and regions develop and implement inter-jurisdictional sustainable land use and transportation plans using one of the only pots of new domestic funding in the entire government. The $140 million in grants is being administered by HUD’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities. [See the following interview with Shelley Poticha, the head of that office.]

In a speech to the Congress for the New Urbanism in May 2010, Donovan said he was determined to bring a holistic and interjurisdictional view of community development into the mainstream.

Donovan explained the need for this fundamentally new approach in the context of home mortgage foreclosure patterns. He said they showed that “hidden costs like transportation can put families over the edge into increased financial

‘geography of opportunity’ vulnerability,” and that the highest foreclosure rates were often in the places with the least access to transportation.

AP PHOTO BY HARRY HAMBURG

Donovan explained the problem as follows: “During the housing boom, real estate agents suggested to families that couldn’t afford to live near job centers that they could find a more affordable home by living farther away. Lenders bought into the “Drive to Qualify” myth as well—giving easy credit to homebuyers without accounting for how much it might cost families to live in these areas or the risk they could pose to the market.”

“And when these families moved in, they found themselves driving dozens of miles to work, to school, to the movies, to the grocery store, spending hours in traffic and spending nearly as much to fill their gas tank as they were to pay their mortgage—and in some places, more.”

Donovan admitted that past federal intervention in

V HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan

community planning was not always successful. He said he wanted to reassert the federal government’s role in helping cities but without “returning to the one-size-fits-all approach we saw during urban renewal. Rather, we must use new tools that help us partner with local governments in ways that

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

>>

9

>>

recognize the variations of communities—and neighborhoods within those communities.”

Mainstreaming Sustainability Donovan said HUD is trying to integrate principles of sustainable planning and development into decision-making for all its funding programs. He said that for all HUD notices of funding availability this year, HUD has established criteria that will incentivize grantees to think about how they can incorporate green building and features into their plans.

HUD has also decided to try to make up for the federal government’s role in encouraging sprawl—”whether it’s building the beltways and highways in the second half of the 20th century that connected employment centers outside city limits or, more recently, a housing finance system that perpetuated the ‘drive to qualify’ myth.”

He said more and more people are “voting with their feet—in search of walkable neighborhoods with transportation options,” and cited the threat of global warming to V

PHOTO COURTESY CAPITAL CITY PARTNERSHIP

St. Paul, Minn., was among the cities that received an award in the very first round of grants made under HUD’s new Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program.

10

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

explain why HUD will be using location-efficiency to score grant applications.

According to Donovan, HUD will use the LEED-ND green neighborhood rating system CNU developed in partnership with the National Resources Defense Council and Green Building Council, to make sure “federal dollars stopped encouraging sprawl and started lowering the barriers to the kind of sustainable development our country needs and our communities want.”

Encouraging Diversity Donovan evoked the idea of “equitable, inclusive neighborhoods, with opportunities for people of all ages, incomes, races and ethnicities.” He said that “diverse, inclusive communities offer the most educational, economic, and employment opportunities to their residents.”

He tied the movement toward sustainable, inclusive development directly to the struggle for racial equality, saying “We don’t accept a worse set of health outcomes for one population—and another for everyone else. So, why should we when it comes to housing and community development— with all that we know about how central it is to creating a geography of opportunity?”v

PSC LEADERSHIP FORUM:

HUD’s Poticha takes the lead on sustainability SHELLEY R. POTICHA IS DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SUSTAINABLE HOUSING AND COMMUNITIES AT HUD. The office is presiding over $100 million in new Sustainability Planning Grants intended to encourage metropolitan and rural regions to plan for the integration of economic development, land use, and transportation investments.

The office is also awarding $40 million in Challenge Grants to fund land-use related planning activities that are linked to a future transportation investment—modernizing building codes, zoning laws, and other barriers to sustainable development.

Poticha previously served as president and CEO of Reconnecting America, where she became a national leader for the reform of land use and transportation planning and policy with the goal of creating more sustainable and equitable development. Prior to joining Reconnecting America, Poticha was the executive director of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Andre F. Shashaty, president of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, spoke with her recently. Here are highlights of their conversation: Shashaty: What are you able to tell me about the competition for HUD’s $140 million in Sustainable Communities Planning grants and challenge grants?

Poticha: We had a lot of interest all over the country and expressions of interest from every state. The application due date was August 23, and we got a really great crop of proposals. Grant awards were announced after this interview; see related story in this issue.

Do you have any thoughts on what cities are ahead of the curve?

The thing that is just amazing to me, in a very gratifying way, is that we are seeing an interest in the program from the biggest metro areas in the country. We are also seeing [interest] from mid-size cities. A lot of interest from communities that have been hit by the economic issues in the country.

I noticed that you have an article posted on your website by Angela Glover-Blackwell. Do you agree with her that bad planning and sprawl are “a hidden cause of

PHOTO BY DENNIS WHITEHEAD

our economic woes”? She implies that better planning and compact development, transit-oriented development, and green building can help solve our economic problems. How do you see it?

We are finding a tremendous alignment between the issues that sustainable communities are looking at and the mission that HUD is now engaged in: to be a key player in rebuilding the economy.

We have, for lots of reasons, disconnected our thinking about where people live and where they work and what kinds of options people have about getting around in their communities. The regions that are showing the highest rates of foreclosures are also the regions that we call the “drive till you qualify suburbs”— the places where, if you just keep going out farther, the houses will be less expensive. And one of our concerns is that when people are in one of those places and they have to do every trip by car and commute a long way, they rack up expenses. Some of these [expenses] are hidden and you don’t really think about them as part of your calculus when you are going to buy a house.

One of the things that we are investigating right now is the connection between the cost of transportation based on where households are located and the viability of different communities in terms of affordability. There are ways in which we could reduce that burden for working families.

>>

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

11

much does it concern you that public transit >> projectsHowseems to be so troubled these days and are raising their fares and cutting service?

There are a couple ways to look at this. The first is that the demand for public transportation options is probably the highest it has been in the last 50 years. The American Public Transportation Association has been documenting this. [Demand] just [keeps] going up, and simultaneously the number of local ballot measures to self-fund public transportation projects is also at an all time high. Parts of the country are doing it on their own: Salt Lake City, Houston, Dallas, to some extent Denver. They are all working out agreements with private-sector partners to invest in public transportation projects.

The issue of a lack of funding for operating transit systems is a huge problem. But I don’t think this initiative around sustainable communities is tied to the fate of public transportation. A lot of the places that we are going to be working with don’t have a lot of public transportation. So, for those places, creating opportunities for people to safely walk, bike, be able to take shorter driving trips, or park in one place and take care of a whole bunch of errands is key.

When you look at how people move around in this country, 80% of trips are local trips to shopping, to school, to the park—those kinds of trips are not commuting trips.

How do you deal with the fact that Americans tend to love their cars, they love highways, and they are okay with government spending on highways—and at the same time, they hate density—any kind of density, low-income density, high-income density. Does that make it harder to encourage less dependence on cars?

The federal government is not here to tell somebody to do something that they don’t want to do. This is a program that is about supporting communities that already want to do this kind of work. This is not imposing rules on anybody to live and invest in a way that they don’t want to do. Public support has to be there for any of this work to move forward.

The wake-up call is that we received thousands of letters from every possible place in the country expressing support for this program when we sent out our advance notice for public comment on the planning grant program. There’s a big group of communities out there that understand the economic imperative and see that there’s a shift in demand. Not everyone is going to want to get out of their car, but there is a sizable group that’s ready for some options.

What is your thought about implementation on

12

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

PHOTO BY DENNIS WHITEHEAD

California’s Senate Bill 375, and does that factor into what you are doing in any way? Certainly, your California applicants are going to dovetail what they applied for with their California obligations under SB 375, but what are your thoughts about SB 375?

Well, this is not an official opinion…this is my personal opinion. I think that it is ground breaking that the state of California has ambitious goals (for GHG reductions through changes in land use). I think it’s probably one of the first in the nation to acknowledge specifically that our pattern of development has a connection to climate. Also, that it is not just pollution from cement plants and factories that causes our global warming challenges, but transportation emissions. We are not going to be able to get a grip on our contribution to climate change without looking at the pattern of development in our communities and promoting the ability for people to not have to drive for every single trip.

The fact that the state is recognizing that it is going to need a bundle of tools in order to combat global warming is really important.

Do you want to say anything about the extent to which you think that other states will come to see the wisdom of California’s path?

I really think that what communities and states are struggling with is the economy. They are looking at every possible way in which they can rebound. The places with diverse economies, the places that responded to the real estate market, to demographic changes, and market preference changes, have weathered the economic cycle (this latest one) better than others.

I really think that that’s the key to getting the community and states engaged. There are also, along the way, a whole bunch of other benefits, including climate benefits. v

FEDERAL GRANTS:

Money flows for integrated planning of development, transportation WASHINGTON – After a very long retreat from supporting regional and local urban planning, the federal government got back into the game to the tune of $168 million in 2010. But this time, the feds are not dictating what cities must do or how they do it, and they are not neglecting rural areas either.

Forty-five regional planning agencies were chosen to receive close to $100 million under the first round of new Sustainable Communities Planning Grant awards from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Meanwhile, a groundbreaking collaboration between HUD and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has awarded $68 million in “challenge grants” for 62 local and regional partnerships seeking to create a more holistic and integrated approach to connecting affordable housing, job opportunities and transportation corridors.

Integrating housing, transit The funding included $40 million in new Sustainable Community Challenge Grants to help support local planning designed to integrate affordable housing, good jobs and public transportation. Meanwhile DOT awarded nearly $28 million in TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) II Planning Grants to implement localized plans for projects that integrate transportation, housing and economic development.

The $98 million in Sustainable Communities planning grants will support state, local, and tribal governments, as V

well as metropolitan planning organizations, in the development and execution of regional plans that integrate affordable housing with neighboring retail and business development, according to HUD. The funding will help regions devise new plans for economic competitiveness by connecting housing with good jobs, quality schools and transportation, HUD said.

Becoming competitive “Regions that embrace sustainable communities will have a built-in competitive edge in attracting jobs and private investment,” said Shaun Donovan, HUD secretary.

“In awarding these grants we were committed to using insight and innovation from our stakeholders and local partners to develop a ‘bottom-up’ approach to changing federal policy as opposed to ‘top-down.’ Rather than sticking to the old Washington playbook of dictating how communities can invest their grants, HUD’s application process encouraged creative, locally focused thinking,” Donovan stated.

HUD’s Sustainable Communities Challenge Grants will be used in conjunction with transportation projects to increase the efficiency of local transportation while encouraging mixed-use or transit-oriented development. Such efforts may include amending or updating local master plans, zoning codes, and building codes to support private sector investment in mixed-use development, affordable housing and the

>>

For more details on grant awards, go to www.p4sc.org

Atlanta Peachtree Corridor streetcar project.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

13

NEW ERA FOR DOT:

>> re-use of older buildings. Other local efforts may include

retrofitting main streets to provide safer routes for children and seniors, or preserving affordable housing and local businesses near new transit stations.

TIGER II Planning Grants will prepare or design surface transportation projects that would be eligible for funding under the TIGER II Discretionary Grant program. These projects include highways, bridges, transit, railways, ports or bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

Rather than require applicants to navigate two separate grant application procedures that might be on different timelines and with different requirements, HUD and DOT joined their two new discretionary planning programs to create one point of entry to federal resources for local, innovative sustainable community planning projects.

Transportation funding Meanwhile, DOT also awarded TIGER II grants for 42 capital construction projects. “These are innovative, 21st century projects that will change the U.S. transportation landscape by strengthening the economy and creating jobs, reducing gridlock and providing safe, affordable and environmentally sustainable transportation choices,” said Secretary Ray LaHood.

Roughly 29% of TIGER II money goes for road projects, 26% for transit, 20% for rail projects, 16% for ports, 4% for bicycle and pedestrian projects, and 5% for planning projects.

An example of projects funded is $47.6 million to the City of Atlanta to construct a new streetcar line connecting many of the most important downtown residential, cultural, educational and historic centers.

TIGER II funds are being used to support a $546 million TIFIA (Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act) loan for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to build the Crenshaw/ LAX Light Rail Line, a key piece of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s 30/10 initiative to construct 12 major transit projects in 10 years. v

The biggest Sustainable Communities Planning grants went to these major metro areas: BOSTON CHICAGO CLEVELAND FRESNO HARTFORD KANSAS CITY

14

KNOXVILLE SAINT LOUIS SAINT PAUL SALT LAKE COUNTY SEATTLE SOUTH FLORIDA

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

Federal transportation Community development professionals have long decried the destructive impacts of federallyfunded highways on America’s cities. In fact, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has probably done more to encourage suburban sprawl than any other federal agency.

Under the Obama Administration, however, there’s a new attitude at DOT. For the first time ever, the agency is actively cooperating with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to make sure federal transportation spending makes communities stronger, and that funding decisions are considered in coordination with housing and other development needs.

PSC President Andre Shashaty caught up with one of the key architects of the new policy, Beth Osborne, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Transportation Policy at DOT. Here is a summary of their conversation.

What’s the significance of DOT’s collaboration with HUD on holistic regional planning for cities, and regions, and people concerned about the sustainability of our cities?

BETH: I think the significance of this program is that it gave folks the opportunity to bring a wide range of stakeholders to the table. Having a little bit of federal money there to help pay for planning may be enough to convince folks to go ahead and join together and look at their regions holistically.

From your vantage point in Washington, is this a milestone in terms of federal policy?

BETH: Absolutely. We have had a lot of programs that were developed looking at very particular things, like how to build a good roadway network, or how to build affordable housing. And programs like this allow local government and regional entities to look at all of the needs of their community over the next several decades and make sure they’re not making disjointed investments; that they are looking at them as a whole, how each investment will affect the other. When they do these comprehensive looks at their community and they focus their development where infrastructure already exists, they avoid the need to build more and more things, and that also saves money.

And at a time when we’re all facing stretched budgets, a little bit of planning money can mean a lot of savings for the tax payer and these governments down the road.

policy supports sustainable communities

V Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood travelled to Atlanta to announce TIGER II grants to 75 innovative projects in 40 states. The Department of Transportation said the nearly $600 million in competitively awarded TIGER II grants will put people to work “building a 21st century foundation for tomorrow’s economic growth.”

The Secretary of DOT has talked about livability, and he has talked about the extent to which you can get people out of their cars. How much of a change has taken place in the last two years in DOT’s orientation on the alternatives to private cars?

BETH: Well, we have certainly taken opportunities with our discretionary dollars to make sure we’re looking at the end goal and not the mode. So, if the goal is to make sure that somebody can get to work conveniently, affordably, and cleanly, a community gets to figure out what that means for them. And if they can track the results of their project in a meaningful way, we use our discretionary dollars to reward that. And that has certainly in many cases meant good funding for good transit programs like the Tucson street car or the New Orleans street car. It has also meant replacement of deteriorating bridges [and work on roads and highways]. So it feeds a lot of different things in a lot of different places.

In California, Southern California’s regional governments responded to state directives setting very ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saying they could only do it if the state could promise them significantly more public transit funding. Can you give me a comment on that given that so many public transit systems are financially challenged right now.

BETH: We have certainly underfunded transit in the past and so it’s not to say that part of the solutions isn’t to build a lot more transit. One of the reasons that Secretary LaHood has been so interested in the initiative is because he hears people talk about these issues every time he goes out on travel. He hears people come to talk about wanting better

transit and wanting to be able to let their kids walk to school and things like that. So, you know, a lot of this is making sure the government supplies people with what they want. One thing I talk a lot about is that market surveys show the sort of communities people want to move into, and they tell you over and over they want vibrant walkable connected communities. And yet we don’t really build a lot of them.

The formation of our partnership with HUD began because when a new rail transit line is planned, we found that developers gobbled up every strip of land along that new line for high-end developments. So one of the reasons we need transit is for those who can’t afford to own four cars, for a family of four. And so we recognize that the supply and demand were far off kilter and it was resulting in the land with transit accessibility going to people who frankly needed it less, but enjoyed the lifestyle.

Give me a brief snapshot of the TIGER program. It seems to be the DOT’s main program that does the most for communities and sustainability. Tell us a little bit about it and what’s coming up in the next few months.

BETH: I think you’re right to point to TIGER as the program where we’ve embodied our five priorities. The Secretary has laid out five priorities. They are improving safety, economic competiveness, community livability, environmental sustainability, and state of good repair. And so there’s a lot of things we’re trying to address with TIGER. And you will see in our first list of awardees, that we hit on all of those areas.

I think that the program helps harness innovation at the state and local level by showing people the sort of things that we were looking for and inviting their best ideas. And we got way more great ideas than we could have ever funded. We got $60 billion in requests for $1.5 billion in funding.

TIGER is the first DOT initiative that really is, you used the phrase multi- modal, but I would say it gets to the issue of how transportation plays into a community’s development goals, whether that be walking, biking, driving, or public transportation.

BETH: I think that’s a good way to put it. It is outcome based. We were not looking at any particular mode; we were looking at what projects state and local government could bring to us that would have the best impact on the communities where they’d be built. v

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

15

URBAN & REGIONAL PLANNING

HUD grants building capacity for implementation of local plans

By Megan Truxillo

C

hicago–One of the most practical uses of the first round of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Sustainable Communities Planning Grants can be found here, where the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is using the $4.25 million grant to help fund the implementation of its long-term comprehensive development plan, the GO TO 2040 plan.

The GO TO 2040 plan, unveiled last fall, seeks to improve livability and bring about sustainable prosperity by linking transportation, land use, housing, economic growth, the natural environment and human and community development in the region. The federal grant was announced just one day after Chicago unveiled the plan.

CMAP’s executive director Randy Blakenhorn said in a statement, “this HUD award literally could not have come at a better time. The technical assistance that this award will help us to carry out regionwide will jumpstart our communities’ local efforts to implement the GO TO 2040 recommendations.”

It will fund the Local Technical Assistance (LTA) program, which will create new resources for technical assistance and result in a series of innovative, replicable projects that link housing, land use and transportation in the Chicago region, said Bob Dean, deputy director for local planning.

CMAP is hiring staff which it will send out to work for local agencies for 3 or 4 days a week, for up to a year. Dean acknowledged that budget constraints have hurt the ability of localities to do plans, saying half the localities CMAP services have comprehensive plans that

16

are more than 15 years old.

Rather than use the HUD money to make grants, which localities would then use to hire contractors, CMAP is assigning planners to work with them.

Dean said this saves a lot of administrative and legal effort due to the fact that there is little money changing hands.

In keep with CMAP’s focus on practicality, the assistance can be used for comprehensive planning or the nuts and bolts of implementing existing plans, such as updating zoning ordinances, parking requirements or subdivision requirements. A key consideration is the ability of localities to conduct public consultations with relevant groups. “You can have a great plan, but if people who needed to be involved are not involved,

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

it probably is not going to go anywhere,” Dean said.

GO TO 2040 lays out a broad vision for the region but also details specific things that need to happen to realize that vision, Dean said.

GO TO 2040 covers the seven counties and 284 communities that make up the Chicago region. It paints a vision of Chicago’s future as an epicenter of economic and cultural activity, with a high quality of life for its citizens. The plan is both comprehensive and specific. It covers four broad areas, but includes specific recommendations for achieving each. The four areas are livable communities, human capital, efficient governance and regional mobility.

Livable Communities Livable communities, according to the plan, are healthy, safe and walkable; with transportation to schools, jobs, services and basic needs, and are cost effective for individuals and local governments. To achieve livable communities the plan focuses on four specific areas: % Achieving greater livability through land use and housing; Supporting investment in existing communities to create opportunities for more compact, walkable, and mixed-use development, with a range of housing options; Emphasizing growth that increases access to transit and reduces reliance on cars. % Managing and conserving water and energy resources; Through development of communities that utilize low-energy modes of transportation; Promoting adoption of green building practices for new buildings and retrofit of existing buildings; Encouraging communities to invest in small-scale renewable energy generation. % Expanding and improving parks and open space; The plan recommends preserving an additional 150,000 acres of land over the next 30 years. % Promoting sustainable local food production to preserve farmland and ensure equitable access to fresh nutritious food.

Regional Mobility A cornerstone of the 2040 plan is improvement of transportation in the region. Although the Chicago region is known for its vast transportation network, it is aging rapidly and the plan seeks to revitalize and modernize it.

The plan focuses on three areas: % Investing strategically in transportation, focusing funds on existing infrastructure and in metropolitan areas instead of spreading funds too thinly.

% Increasing commitment to public transit and utilizing increased gas taxes and congestion pricing on tollways to support transit projects.

• Creating a more efficient freight network.

For more information online: http:// www.cmap.illinois.gov/2040/main Other examples of how HUD grants will be used are as follows. For a complete list of winners of the HUD Sustainable Communities grants, go to www.p4sc.org.

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO FOUNDATION $4,000,000 for a project called Smart Valley Places which represents a consortium, renewed commitment, and the ‘bridging capital’ to reverse harsh local economic conditions and improve the Valley as an attractive place to live, work, do business, and participate in California’s healthy, prosperous, and sustainable future.

The regional partnership includes Valley jurisdictions to develop shared vision and planning principles; capitalize on the prospective California High Speed Rail stops on the main line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco; and develop, adopt, and share state-of-the- art sustainability land use, transportation, resource efficiency and community leadership planning tools and best practices.

CONNECTICUT: CAPITOL REGION COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS $4,200,000 to implement a bi-state Sustainable Knowledge Corridor in the Hartford and Springfield regions. The bi-state Knowledge Corridor Consortium will: update and integrate existing regional plans to form a Knowledge Corridor Detailed Execution Plan for a Sustainable Region; build off of major Federal investments in the region—the Springfield-New Haven rail line, the New Britain-Hartford Busway, and the

CRCOG Sustainability Development Guidelines—to create energy-efficient, affordable housing opportunities near transit and job centers in welldesigned, mixed-use settings; and establish imaginative new efforts such as affordable housing training for zoning commissioners; incentives for density creation in transit-rich locations; studies to help establish pilot feeder bus service to link jobs, housing and transit; a web-based platform to share information on successful land use strategies and progress toward a more sustainable Knowledge Corridor, opportunity mapping, and studies on how to harvest increased land values near stations and plow it back into affordable housing and transit infrastructure.

SOUTH FLORIDA REGIONAL PLANNING COUNCIL $4,250,000 for development of a “2060 Southeast Florida Regional Plan for Sustainable Development” to create a cohesive, integrated regional “vision” across issue areas and jurisdictional boundaries for the region. The plan will 1) serve as the framework for future federal investment; 2) support the efforts of individual counties, municipalities and other regional partners whose plans and projects further the implementation of the regional Vision and Plan; and 3) put the Southeast Florida Region in the best position possible to capture federal funds for critical infrastructure projects designed to improve the region’s sustainability.

The project will integrate data, tools, and models to assess the region today, understand the region’s future, and track progress toward the vision and the RPSD. A monitoring plan will focus on measuring progress toward specific regional outcomes aligned with all six Livability Principles, plus a seventh climate change principle because of Southeast Florida‘s unique vulnerability to its most severe impacts. The group —CONTINUED ON PAGE 31

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

17

Cities discover economic benefits of sustainable planning, land use

BY ANDRE SHASHATY

V

Global View: Our city’s greener than yours

Mayors of the world’s major cities know better than most national governments why being green and sustainable matters. They know they have to compete globally to attract investment and jobs, and that they must offer a good quality of life to the highly educated people that today’s economy needs. If they can make their cities a haven for green businesses, all the better.

In Shanghai, China, shown on a planning map at the city’s museum of urban planning, a key priority is to create more badly needed green spaces.

PHOTO BY DENNIS WHITEHEAD

18

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

C

all it smart growth, sustainable planning, transit-oriented development or even pedestrianism, but make no mistake: City after city is discovering that it pays to reform land use planning and redirect real estate development to make their communities more compact and less dependent on private vehicles.

California and Oregon have jumped out front by passing state legislation to push cities in this direction. However, this is not a “left coast” phenomenon. City officials all over America recognize the need for more sustainable land use patterns. Cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Salt Lake City, and Oklahoma City realize that reducing sprawl and cutting the rate of growth in private vehicle use opens the door to a better quality of life and renewed economic vitality.

With $140 million in new federal grants for sustainable community planning announced last fall, the momentum for reform and new approaches to planning and development is only increasing. After all, American cities have a long way to go to begin to reverse the impact of 60 years of suburban sprawl and ever-increasing numbers of cars and vehicle miles travelled per capita.

Response to climate change The effort to change land use began as a response to the threat of global warming due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Fuel efficiency standards alone won’t cut GHG emissions enough—we also have to reduce how many miles we drive to make a dent in emissions.

This change in turn requires rethinking the patterns and routines of suburban life, which typically involves driving long distances to and from work and using one’s car for almost every errand.

Today, with the economy hurting and cities looking for firmer financial footing, city leaders see economic benefits as well as environmental pluses in changed land use patterns. City planners are realizing that they can’t afford to keep expanding their infrastructure to facilitate greenfield development. They also recognize that they can’t spend money fast enough to accommodate increasing populations to avoid more and more crippling traffic congestion.

On the revenue side, city planners realize that reducing sprawl, increasing transportation options and offering ample green spaces are ways to attract the kind of well-educated workers whom service businesses look for when deciding where to locate.

Economic benefits More specifically, cities are coming to believe that transit-oriented development is an economic winner and that housing close to jobs holds its value far better than quickly built tract housing in outlying areas. Even largely suburban areas, where large lots and long drives are a way of life, are finding that creating mixed-use town centers is good business.

Expansion of light rail systems and real estate development along new routes is one of the brightest spots in the American economy today. Texas is known for pick-up trucks and wide open spaces, but it has discovered public transit makes economic sense.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

>> 19

V California’s Inland Empire may be the poster child of suburban sprawl, but more communities are working to create pedestrian-friendly town centers like Victoria Gardens, a mixed-use town center in Rancho Cucamonga.

>>

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) recently studied the fiscal impacts of transit-oriented development associated with development of the DART light rail system. The analysis considered development near existing and planned light rail stations and found that the total value of projects attributable to the presence of a DART rail station since 1999 is

$4.26 billion. Increased taxable property values associated with the rail stations have the potential to generate ongoing annual tax revenues totaling $16.8 million for DART member cities and over $46 million for area school districts.

Based on a fiscal planning model, the retail component of transit-oriented development projects in the DART service area will generate over $660 million in annual taxable retail sales, boosting local municipal revenues by $6.6 million annually, the agency believes.

The City of Atlanta is planning to construct a new streetcar line connecting many of the most important downtown residential, cultural, educational, and historic centers. The first phase of the project will run for 2.62 miles in the heart of Atlanta’s downtown, business, tourism, and convention corridor, connecting Peachtree Street with Sweet Auburn Avenue.

“The Atlanta Streetcar project moves the City of Atlanta forward and keeps us competitive with other similar cities by improving our regional transit connectivity, boosting our billion dollar tourism industry, helping local businesses along the Sweet Auburn Avenue corridor, and building a more sustainable future,” Mayor Kasim Reed said. “Most important of all, the Atlanta Streetcar project puts our citizens back to work soon by creating 930 jobs during the construction phase and more than 5,600 jobs over the next 20 years.”

David Alan Harvey / Magnum Photos

1 in 8 Americans is struggling with hunger.

Including people like your office secretary on her way to work, the cashier at the grocery store, or your old friend from high school. Who’s the 1 in 8 in your life that needs help?

20

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

Go to feedingamerica.org to see how your support can help those in need.

Oklahoma City is working on an ambitious planning process to redevelop 750 acres of underutilized land between the downtown core and the shore of the Oklahoma River.

The “Core to Shore” project will build and connect a series of neighborhoods, parks, and economic opportunities that the city hopes will create to new jobs and a higher quality of life for residents. Major aspects of the Core to Shore plan include a new streetcar line, a pedestrian-friendly boulevard, a 40-acre central park and development of business, retail, and mixed-use housing along the park.

About 50 other cities are considering starting street car lines, a fact that underscores better than any other how Americans have come full circle in regard to urban planning and the private car. Most American cities had street cars in the early 1900s; the advent of freeways and the political power of the automobile industry convinced cities to give them up in the 30s and 40s.

Higher taxes per acre In Sarasota County, Fla., the financial benefits of compact, mixed-use development were quantified in a recent study by Public Interest Projects, Inc., of Asheville, N.C. The firm studied property tax revenue on a per acre basis and infrastructure costs, and reported that “the urban form consumed less land, cost less to provide public infrastructure, and had a higher tax return,” according to the firm.

The study compared tax revenue from a range of building types in different locations on a per acre basis. It showed a much greater return from some types of development, mostly close-in, mixed-use properties, both old and new, over more conventional, single use suburban land uses, according to an article in Planning Magazine by Peter Katz, Sarasota County’s director of Smart Growth/Urban Planning.

It found that mixed use properties performed dramatically better even than the strongest shopping mall in the county when it comes to generating property tax revenue, according to the article. One mixed-use property generated $800,000 in property taxes per acre, compared to $21,732 per acre for the mall.

The article goes on to talk about the financial advantages of compact development because of the savings it offers on “horizontal infrastructure,” such as roads, water and sewer lines. (See “Sarasota’s Smart Growth Dividend” in Planning Magazine, December, 2010, p. 26)

Drawing up blueprints For most of the past decade, regions across California have been envisioning more efficient ways to grow. These

blueprint planning exercises illustrate the potential to save open space and farmland, reduce traffic congestion, and improve air quality. Sacramento is one region whose blueprint has also shown that growing more efficiently can save billions of taxpayer dollars on infrastructure and on individual transportation spending, according to “Windfall for All: How Connected, Convenient Neighborhoods Can Protect Our Climate and Safeguard California’s Economy,” a report by TransForm, based in Oakland, California.

As it was developing its metropolitan transportation plan for 2025, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) projected that, despite spending an estimated $23 billion through the year 2025 for transportation projects in the six-county region, vehicular congestion throughout the metropolitan area would increase by nearly 60% and vehicle miles traveled per household would increase by 20%. In addition, based on the sprawl-like development patterns of the late 1990s, the region would urbanize 661 additional square miles by 2050 under the base case scenario.

SACOG undertook an elaborate process of consultation with the public and elected officials of its constituent jurisdictions to come up with its “Preferred Blueprint Alternative Special Report 2005.” This comprehensive guidance on how the region should grow would result in the following savings compared to continuation of the then-current development trends: • $9.4 billion less for public infrastructure costs (e.g. transportation, water supply, utilities); • 14% fewer carbon dioxide emissions; • $655 million less for residents’ annual fuel costs; and • $8.4 billion less for land purchases to mitigate the environmental harm of development.

Smaller towns are investing in compact, downtown development as well. The town of Windsor in Sonoma County is already benefitting from preparing to be a walkable public transportation center, even though a newly approved light rail system won’t arrive for years. The downtown’s sales tax revenue increased tenfold over an eight-year period after the city created an accessible core of civic services, greenspace, and compact housing options for all incomes. Vacancy rates remain low in the downtown, despite the national economic downturn, according to “Windfall for All.”

Rafael Town Center The city of San Rafael’s Town Center is an excellent example of the kind of development cities in California are encouraging.

Completed in January 2002, the mixed-use infill develop-

>>

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

21

>>

ment on the site of a shuttered department store has been a success for the city and the developer, Samuelson Schafer.

(The project is pictured on the cover of this issue.)

James Schafer of Samuelson Schafer says he is “very happy” with the project’s financial performance. Schafer and his partners in Los Angeles and Phoenix believe that infill development that attracts people to live in downtown areas are key to a city’s success and viability. Having people living downtown creates a built-in market that lets retail, dining and entertainment businesses compete against outlying shopping centers and malls.

Because the project is downtown and residents can walk to work, shopping or entertainment, the city agreed to a parking ratio of one space for each apartment.

The San Rafael Redevelopment Authority assembled the project site and selected Samuelson Schafer in a competitive process.

The city closed off Court Street, which borders the project on the west, to create a central gathering place called City Plaza. The area includes a water feature and public art.

The project fits well with the city of San Rafael’s desire to reduce dependence on private cars and to bring vitality and retail customers to the city’s center, said Bob Brown, community development director. The city uses the space for a weekly farmer’s market in the summer, special events, and civic ceremonies, making it a focal point for downtown activity.

No data on the development’s impact on sales tax revenue are available, but the Town Center draws thousands of V

Crowds are attracted to the plazea at Rafael Town Center.

people on a weekly basis who might otherwise not be shopping or dining downtown.

Rafael Town Center has 113 apartments, 95 percent of which are occupied. The apartments are at the high end of market rents, with one bedrooms renting for $1,300 to $1,600. Two-bedroom units average $1,900 and go as high as $2,350.

Thirty-eight units are set aside for people earning less than the area median income, exceeding the required set aside. In return for the extra affordable units, the project received a density bonus.

The project also boasts 40,000 square feet of office space, 24,000 square feet of retail, and two levels of parking.

Office space rents average $3.30 per foot gross; offices are 99 percent leased. Retail space goes for an average of $2.30 per foot net. Although there are retail vacancies, that’s no different than the rest of town, or the county, for that matter.

Property values It’s widely reported that the recent wave of foreclosures was far worse in outlying suburban areas that require long commutes to job centers than it was nearer to jobs. The extent to which this is true varies from city to city, but the general idea is at the forefront of federal policymaking.

One study shows that homes in more walkable neighborhoods are worth more than similar homes in less-walkable neighborhoods, pointing to a bright spot in the residential real estate market. “Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities” by Joseph Cortright, analyzed data from 94,000 real estate transactions in 15 major markets provided by ZipRealty and found that in 13 of the 15 markets, higher levels of walkability, as measured by Walk Score, were directly linked to higher home values.

“Even in a turbulent economy, we know that walkability adds value to residential property just as additional square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms and other amenities do,” said Cortright. “It’s clear that consumers assign a tangible value to the convenience factor of living in more walkable places with access to a variety of destinations.”

Walking brings value Walkability is defined by the Walk Score algorithm (www. walkscore.com), which works by calculating the closest amenities—restaurants, coffee shops, schools, parks, stores, libraries—to any U.S. address. The algorithm then assigns a Walk Score from 0 to 100, with 100 being the most walkable and 0 being totally car dependent. Walk Scores of 70+ indicate neighborhoods where it’s possible to get by without a car.

By the Walk Score measure, walkability is a direct func-

22

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

tion of how many destinations are located within a short distance (generally between one-quarter mile and one mile of a home). The study found that in the typical metropolitan area, a one-point increase in Walk Score was associated with an increase in value ranging from $700 to $3,000 depending on the market. The gains were larger in denser, urban areas like Chicago and San Francisco and smaller in less dense markets like Tucson and Fresno.

“These findings are significant for policy makers,” said Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, which commissioned the research. “They tell us that if urban leaders are intentional about developing and redeveloping their cities to make them more walkable, it will not only enhance the local tax base but will also contribute to individual wealth by increasing the value of what is, for most people, their biggest asset.”

Why cities invest in sustainable development: • Efficiently accommodate a growing population • Attract creative, skilled workers who do not want long commutes • Reduce spending on roads, interchanges, and signals • Increase retail sales and sales tax revenue • Make better use of existing infrastructure • Help stabilize and increase property values

The economic benefits to be had by redirecting development from outlying areas to infill development near transit and existing housing include reductions in the costs of sprawl.

In many fast-growing regions, subdivisions of low cost housing built quickly at the peak of the boom are now riddled with vacant foreclosed home and high levels of absentee ownership.

The phenomenon prompted one author to call the suburbs the new American slums. That might be overstating the case, but mayors know that outlying neighborhoods with higher foreclosure rates can be a huge drain on city resources, including police services.

Green makes financial sense

(The programs have been slowed and in some cases halted by legal challenges from mortgage lenders but may resume.)

Cities in other nations are probably ahead of American municipalities in pursuing what could be called the zerocarbon future. Cities like London and Freiburg, Germany, are working hard to reduce the carbon emissions of their buildings. They see this as a way to attract the kind of bright young people that “new economy” jobs demand and to attract green businesses.

The proponents of “zero carbon” construction believe that owners and maybe even tenants can increase disposable income, freeing money to go into the local economy, by reducing their energy costs or even realizing income by selling back surplus power to utility companies.

A Chinese company, BYD, is moving into the North American market with, among other things, a household electricity storage battery. The idea of storing power in the home could make it possible for households to generate solar power or buy cheap power during non-peak demand periods and then sell stored power to the local utility during the highest-rate, peak-demand periods.

In Southern California, the Los Angeles Business Council is promoting creation of a system of electricity generation from installation of photovoltaic panels on the rooftops of multifamily and commercial buildings across the city. It says a solar “Feed-in Tariff “ program allows businesses, public and non-profit organizations, and residents to install solar panels on their roofs and parking lots and sell the power generated back to the local utility. v

Resources: Reconnecting America, a national nonprofit organization that is working to integrate transportation systems and the communities they serve with the goal of generating lasting public and private returns, improving economic and environmental efficiency, and giving consumers more housing and mobility choices. http://www.reconnectingamerica.org/public/about Sacramento Area Council of Governments “Preferred Blueprint Alternative Special Report” www.sacog.org/regrpt/pdf/2005/01.../BP_Insert_

Finally, some cities see great economic potential in the movement toward green building and alternative energy generation.

The most obvious economic benefit is to create construction jobs in the retrofitting of existing buildings to be more efficient users of electricity and water. About half the states had started programs allowing cities to make loans to property owners for energy retrofits to be repaid from tax assessments, so called Property Assessed Clean Energy programs.

JAN_2005.pdf The Vision California project, funded by the California High Speed Rail Authority in partnership with the Strategic Growth Council, is developing two modeling tools to formulate and compare scenarios for how California can accommodate growth. http://www.visioncalifornia.org/

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

23

Putting GHG Reductions in Perspective:

What it really means to reduce your carbon footprint Communities Strategy (SCS), a comprehensive plan to guide new development and the evolution of our transportation system in ways that reduce solo driving and cut per capita emissions,” said SANDAG Executive Director Gary Gallegos.

Filling garbage bags

F

ew public issues generate as much controversy as the idea of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, partly because of the abstract nature of the problem. If you are advocating for policy changes aimed at reducing emissions, try putting the issue in concrete, easily understandable terms. When you do, your audience may realize that emission reduction does not mean drastic changes in lifestyle.

The best effort we’ve seen to do that comes from the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) [www. sandag.org], which has put California’s “mobile source” GHG reduction goals in perspective, with help from the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, [http://rael. berkeley.edu/] and CoolCalifornia.org.

Under California’s Senate Bill 375, the San Diego region will be required to reduce GHG emissions from cars and light trucks 7% per capita by 2020 and 13% by 2035, according to targets set in September 2010 by the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

“SANDAG is currently drawing up the region’s Sustainable

24

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

The new targets apply to emissions from passenger cars and light trucks, with a baseline year set in 2005. In the San Diego region in that year, drivers of passenger vehicles emitted an average of 26 pounds of carbon dioxide per person each weekday. Here are some of the data points SANDAG is using to illustrate what the new goals mean to individuals: A pound of carbon dioxide has enough volume to fill two large garbage bags.

To meet the 7% reduction goal, a San Diego resident would need to cut his or her emissions by 1.8 pounds per weekday. That’s like burning 21 fewer gallons of gas a year, or planting five trees and maintaining them for 10 years.

For a 13% reduction, a San Diego resident would need to cut his or her emissions by 3.4 pounds per weekday. That’s like burning 38 fewer gallons of gas a year; planting nine trees and maintaining them for 10 years; shutting off the average home’s electricity for two weeks; or recycling 228 pounds of waste instead of sending it to the landfill. v

To achieve a 7% reduction, a person could: • Telecommute to work one day a month • Carpool two days a month • Bike or walk instead of driving 10 miles a week • Take the bus instead of driving 12 miles a week To achieve a 13% reduction, a person could: • Telecommute to work two days a month • Carpool to work four days a month • Bike or walk instead of driving 18 miles a week • Take a bus instead of driving 21 miles a week

Are you ready for changes in land

use planning and real estate development that are reshaping our world?

Now there’s a magazine guaranteed to help you succeed in the new era of sustainable planning and community development. It’s called Sustainable Communities Magazine and you’re holding it in your hand.

Get the Next Best Thing to a Crystal Ball City after city is pursuing new approaches to compact, transitoriented development that includes affordable housing near jobs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reverse the damaging effects of sprawl.

Market demand is changing, too.

Unlock the secrets of success in this challenging new era with Sustainable Communities Magazine, the only publication focused on sustainable planning and community development.

If you develop, design or finance real estate, you can’t afford to miss a single issue of Sustainable Communities Magazine. s 'ET A CLEARER PICTURE OF WHERE GROWTH is going to occur, where you should acquire sites, and what kinds of projects to plan. s 4AP INTO NEW PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS to win financial assistance, zoning concessions and exemptions from onerous environmental reviews. s ,EARN HOW TO MAKE THE NUMBERS WORK for green building and alternative energy generation, and how to choose the most cost effective products and techniques

s &IND OUT WHAT lNANCING IS AVAILABLE FOR mixeduse and infill construction s +EEP UP WITH CHANGING STATE AND LOCAL GREEN building and sustainability requirements and priorities for funding s 4AKE ADVANTAGE OF TRANSIT ORIENTED development opportunities and new incentives for affordable housing construction. s ,EARN HOW TO TURN ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS from a negative into a positive in the battle against NIMBYism.

If you want to get all the critical information you need in one succinct, readable and insightful package, there’s only one place to turn: Sustainable Communities magazine.

Don’t miss an issue: Join the Partnership for Sustainable Communities and you’ll receive all 6 issues.

For details on the benefits of membership, go to www.p4sc.org.

Or request a FREE membership information packet by calling 415-453-2100 x302.

Slow home sales solution

0.0694 in

BY STEVEN M. THOMAS V Meritage Lyons Gate in Gilbert, AZ

Meritage beats the sales slump with high-efficiency homes

26

P

hoenix–Meritage Homes faced an important decision in the midst of the housing market collapse: “We could either get down in the dirt and try to make an economy product to compete with all the foreclosures and short sales on price, or we could bring a new kind of value to the marketplace. We chose the latter,” said C.R. Herro, vice president of environmental affairs.

The fruit of that choice can be seen in a number of Meritage’s communities in Arizona, including Lyon’s Gate in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert, where the company is selling a new kind of highly sustainable home in a very slow market.

Meritage bet the bank on a comprehensive, high-tech package of sustainable features that are included in the base price of its new homes in Gilbert and elsewhere. The features are designed to work together as a system to save energy and make the interior environment quieter, cleaner and healthier.

Features include lining the entire interior with sprayed-on polyurethane foam that seals the house to contain heat during winter and cool air during summer, a weather-sensing exterior watering system that reads the atmosphere to know how much moisture plants need, dual flow toilets, energy star appliances, low-e thermal windows and the latest computer-controlled

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

solar system on the market that makes hot water and electricity and helps heat and cool the home in season.

The solar system, manufactured by PVT Solar Inc., heats the home during the day by drawing in air heated by the solar panels through vents underneath the panels. At night, the same vents can bring in air cooled by energy loss to the night sky, a process called radiative night cooling, cutting down on the need to use an air conditioner at night.

“The sustainable features we are putting in these homes would cost $50,000 if they were treated as options,” Herro says. “But we are including them in a base price that makes them competitive with other similar-sized homes in the area that use five times as much energy.” Homes in the Lyon’s Gate community range from 1,600 to 3,000 square feet with prices ranging from $175,000 to 230,000.

“When we started looking at this a year and a half ago,” Herro says, “all the experts and other builders said that you couldn’t get more than a 20 percent reduction in energy use in a production home because it would become cost prohibitive. But we spent a year working on this design internally and with our suppliers and came up with what we feel is a new template for homebuilding.”

Third-Party Verification While it’s trendy to market everything from appliances to real estate as green, Meritage is taking pains to verify

V Meritage learning center

the savings it offers homeoowners. The energy efficiency of Lyon’s Gate homes has been certified by third-parties, including Salt River Project, the local electric company which designated the homes “Powerwise,” the Energy Star program, and independent home energy raters. According to the Salt River Project, buyers of one of Lyon’s Gates smallest homes, around 1,640 square feet, will save an average of $1,000 dollars a year in utility costs compared to a new home built to code and $1,500 over an older home of

>>

2010 GREEN BUILDER RANKING Calvert Investemnts has updated its 2008 “Green Homebuilder” rankings based on the environmental and sustainability practices of America’s 10 largest publicly traded homebuilders. While all 10 have improved their policies and practices relating to the environment and resources, much progress remains to be achieved.

The homebuilding industry was one of the earliest and most

A Survey of Sustainable Practices by the 10 largest U.S. home builders by Calvert Investments came up with the following ranking of major firms.The survey used five major ‘green’ indicators: land, building materials, energy, water, and climate change.

visibly affected segments of the U.S. economy during the recent

1. KB Home

6. DR Horton

financial crisis. While new residential building projects are only

2. Pulte Homes

7. Standard Pacific

a quarter of what they were five years ago, the trend in the first

3. Meritage Homes 8. NVR

half of 2010 is moving upward. Green building, which is gaining

4. Toll Brothers

9. Ryland Group

5. Lennar

10. MDC Holdings

momentum, offers an opportunity to the industry as it focuses on rebuilding its market and restoring financial profitability. Estimated at $36-49 billion, the green building market is considerable and expected to increase twofold between 2009 and 2013.

http://www.calvert.com/sr-greenerpastures.html

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

27

the same size. “What Meritage is doing at Lyon’s Gate and its other developments is unquestionably a game changer,” says Rich Franz-Under, an architect, LEED certifier and green building official in Tucson. “There have been builders around for a while offering high-performance homes, but not on the scale of Meritage. They are a top-10 publically traded builder and other builders are going to have to begin offering similar sustainable features in order to compete with them.

“We aren’t building these homes this way because special interest groups think this is the way it should be done or to suit someone who is concerned about their carbon footprint,” says Herro. “We are building them to make money. What we are doing at Lyon’s Gate and our other green communities represents the future intentions of this corporation.”

It’s working

Renaissance Place at Grand St. Louis, Missouri The first Certified U.S. Green Building Council LEED for Neighborhood Development in the state of Missouri.

www.mccormackbaron.com

28

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

Meritage sold 33 homes at Lyon’s Gate from late June to November, approximately 10 percent of the offering, a figure Herro says is “good in the current market,” and it is building 1,000 more green homes around the state.

In Maricopa, a town 20 miles south of Phoenix especially hard hit by the real estate recession, new home permits have slowed from 600 a month to 10 or 12. Almost all the permits now being pulled are for homes in Province, an active adult community that Meritage took over from a bankrupt builder and converted to its green, all-inclusive model.

“That is about the only place new homes are being built in Maricopa,” says city Planning Manager Kazi N. Haque.

“Meritage had found a niche that works in Province.” According to Bill Lurz, a respected housing expert in the region, green homes are “outselling conventional new homes in the Valley of the Sun at a rate of 3 to 1.”

“Being an energy efficient homebuilder helps them differentiate their homes in the marketplace,” says Vicki Davis, program manager for Salt River Projects Powerwise Homes program.

Other big builders are also going green. In the Phoenix area, Shea Homes and Joseph Carl Homes are offering extensive green features, either as standard equipment or as options, while Beazer, another top-10 national homebuilder, has begun to market all its homes in Arizona and 15 other states as being “eSmart,” promising a 30 percent reduction in energy use as a central selling point.

“You are not seeing it everywhere yet,” says Michelle Desiderio, director of green building programs for the National Association of Homebuilders’ research center, “but we have reached a tipping point in some markets” where sustainable new-home construction is becoming the norm. v

THE NEW SOLAR HOME:

Home builder uses batteries to improve economics of solar-powered homes LANCASTER, CA – A major Chinese manufacturer of batteries and electric vehicles is teaming up with with a leading American home builder in a project here that could make solar-powered homes more economically attractive than ever.

BYD Company Limited, a Chinese firm which recently announced it would base its U.S. operations in Los Angeles, is supplying its solar panels, energy storage batteries and LED Lighting systems for KB Home’s Alamosa community in West Lancaster. The City of Lancaster has waived all local municipal development fees for the project and fast-tracked it through the approval process, allowing construction to begin almost immediately.

KB Home began construction on the home in late March 2010 in association with BYD. The home was built to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ENERGY STAR® guidelines. KB Home also installed an electric vehicle outlet to demonstrate the home’s ability to charge electric vehicles.

According to the tests and evaluation prepared by Energy Inspectors, the Alamosa Home achieves a HERS score of 39 (factoring in the solar system) and accounting for the natural gas for heating and cooking.

The home can generate more electricity than it would use on an annual basis. When “total energy usage” is considered, including both natural gas and electricity, the home will continue to consume more energy than it can produce, but only 39% of the amount that a home built to the standard building code (and without a solar system) would use.

The combination of solar power generation with a household battery for storing the power is the key innovation at the Alamosa house, said Thomas C. DiPrima, executive vice president of KB Home’s Southern California division.

A homeowner with solar power generating capability but no way to store the energy operates under serious constraints. The homeowner can only use solar energy during daylight hours and is still dependent on the electrical grid used to distribute all electric power. Power in excess of the homeowner’s needs goes into the grid, and the homeowner gets a credit for the power he or she contributed.

The battery allows homeowners to control their own power supply, even at night, and to take advantage of the

V KB Homes Alamosa community West Lancaster, CA

fact that many utilities charge more for power during peak daytime demand periods and less when demand is low at night. The BYD battery allows homeowners to go on the grid at night to buy cheap power and use it during the day to supplement their solar power, or to sell it in the daytime back to grid. “The homeowner does have the opportunity to make money,” said DiPrima.

Batteries also make the solar panels more efficient, since they capture even small increments of solar-generated power, whereas the electricity grid does not.

By building in the solar features upfront and working directly with the manufacturer of the solar panels and batteries, DiPrima said he is closing to getting the incremental cost down to around $4,000 per home.

He says it is conservative to estimate that a buyer of such a home would save $60 a month in energy costs and be able to heat and cool their home as much as they wish.

KB has 50 or so homes completed in Lancaster and is offering the solar technology as standard on five homes and as an option on others.

DiPrima’s Southern California division stretches from the Mexican border to Santa Barbara County. “Our goal is make it standard throughout Southern California, and if we can crack it in California, we can crack it in Florida, too,” he said.

“This remarkable new house is truly the home of the future,” said R. Rex Parris, mayor of Lancaster. “This type

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

>> 29

>>

of cutting-edge initiative is precisely what happens when you combine the brain power of one of the nation’s premier homebuilders with one of the world’s most forward-thinking energy companies.”

A Los Angeles-based company, KB Home has delivered over half a million homes for families since its founding in 1957.

BYD Company Limited is ranked #1 at the top of

Bloomberg’s and BusinessWeek’s 2009 Tech 100 List and is the leading manufacturer of advanced battery technologies.

BYD’s solar panels have TUV/CE and UL listings, and the company enjoys rapid growth in consumer electronics and automobile manufacturing under its BYD brand. With investments from Warren Buffett and MidAmerican Energy Holdings, BYD is the fastest-growing Chinese automotive and green energy technology manufacturer. v

What sustainability means to one community LANCASTER, CA–If you want to know what local political leaders hope to gain from sustainable development, just ask R. Rex Parris, the mayor of this city of 146,000 located northwest of Los Angeles.

Parris is betting his city’s future on reversing the social and economic damage of suburban sprawl, and encouraging economic growth through alternative energy generation.

The Lancaster architectural and design commission is encouraging mixed-use development and changes to sidewalks and streets to encourage walking and cycling.

The city has also revitalized its downtown with what it calls The BLVD Transformation Project. “The goal of this project is to create a promenade-style community gathering space,” said Vice Mayor Ron Smith. It incorporates a new Lancaster Museum and Art Gallery, a Performing Arts Center and art galleries to create a vibrant cultural scene.

The goal was to create a pedestrian-friendly environment by eliminating two lanes of traffic, replacing them with at-grade, on-street parking, and slowing speeds to 15-20 miles per hour. It also involves adding landscaping, including rows of trees to mitigate the wind and heat.

The city has also worked hard to clean up the social and economic damage done by the home foreclosure crisis.

In the 1990s, Lancaster saw an explosion in development of subdivisions offering inexpensive starter homes for people priced out of communities closer to the job centers of Los Angeles County. When the home value bubble burst and lenders began to crack down on bad mortgage debt, the weaknesses of the city’s housing market became apparent. “Many subdivision homes were owned by absentee landlords,” Parris said. “We had more foreclosures than anybody -- we led the nation.”

It has been a top priority to clean up the resulting crime in the hardest hit areas and to stabilize those neighborhoods, he added.

The city is also looking at energy efficient home construction and renewable energy generation as key

30

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

elements of its economic future. It is working with KB Homes to create an innovative prototype for energy efficient homes (see separate story). The energyefficient homes appeal to owner occupants, which is what the city wants, Parris said.

But that’s just the beginning. Parris wants to turn his city into the “alternative energy capital of the world.”

Parris knows that sounds a bit ambitious, but the points out that Lancaster has the right climate and geography to produce solar and wind power. It has more than 300 days of sunshine per year and plenty of wind, which means that, once the capital costs of tapping those sources is covered, the supply of energy is “limitless and incredibly cheap.”

It is encouraging Beautiful Earth Group, a developer of utility-scale solar and wind power generating facilities, to undertake a photovoltaic power generation field on the city’s west side It doesn’t take a lot of manpower to run a solar power plant, but Parris said the availability of a direct link to the solar-generated power will attract manufacturing firms which will employ local residents.

He said that an increasing number of firms recognize that they must use power from renewable sources in their manufacturing processes if they really want to market their products as green. v

URBAN & REGIONAL PLANNING —FROM PAGE 17

HUD grants increase local planning capacity will build and sustain inclusive leadership and partnerships to strengthen regional collaboration and stewardship, providing a foundation for the region’s future long-term success. That the Southeast Florida Regional Partnership already has 194 member and supporting organizations and can leverage $136 million in Federal, state, and local funds toward development and implementation of the RPSD, provides a strong testimony to the consortium‘s commitment to creating a region that is economically competitive and prosperous, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable.

INDIANA: EVANSVILLE METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORGANIZATION $1,420,300 to develop a Regional Plan for Sustainable Development (RPSD) for the greater Evansville region. A new consortium would collaborate to integrate land use, housing, and transportation planning within the region, taking special care to improve the situation of the region‘s marginalized populations, particularly through the provision of more transportation choices and affordable housing. The City of Evansville has already made significant investments to encourage sustainable development and revitalize its urban core.

able Coast, the Gulf Coast Plan,” the first ever comprehensive regional plan for 14 jurisdictions. The plan will focus on equitable housing, sustaining the economy, integrated land use and modal planning, climate change for sustainable development, clean watershed, food systems, clean air and a sustainable infrastructure. An example of plan efforts include bringing housing, economic development, transportation, and social equity interests together toward the desired outcomes of reducing per capita vehicle miles travelled and uniting sewer and stormwater infrastructure planning with habitat protection in order to address water quality.

TEXAS: HOUSTON-GALVESTON AREA COUNCIL $3,750,000 to develop a sustainable development comprehensive plan through stakeholder-driven efforts that support and enrich workforce improvements, facilitate job growth and attract new residents, conserve the natural environment and enhance the built environment, and enable the pursuit of federal funding for implementation of transportation, housing, hazard mitigation, and community and economic development projects that further sustainability in the region. v Among the basic needs of all people is the need for shelter …

a place to live, a place to call home ...

SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS $2,850,000 to unify planning for transportation with sustainable housing and redevelopment, and help communities look at how they can be sustainable over the long haul, including better linking workforce training to the business communities; redeveloping older community assets, such as the Ypsilanti Ford plant; and looking at housing, streets, green infrastructure, and energy efficiency. Also necessary is taking a look at infrastructure which is about to reach crisis status.

MINNESOTA: METROPOLITAN COUNCIL $5,000,000 to support development along the region’s growing network of transit corridors in ways that make transit more successful, promote housing and transportation affordability and availability, and make communities more vital. It will include public involvement in creating corridorwide plans and strategies for optimal development along five major corridors, including Southwest LRT, Bottineau, Cedar Avenue Bus Rapid Transit, Northstar Commuter Rail and the Gateway Corridor (I-94 East), using “beyond the rail” planning of Central Corridor LRT as a model.

MISSISSIPPI: GULF REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION $2,000,000 to create the “Constituency for a Sustain-

Yet, the reality, particularly in recession-steeped America, is that housing is NOT readily available, accessible, and affordable for everyone.

A rendering of The Commons at Grant, an NCR property

SAHF is working on that.

Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future (SAHF) represents national nonprofits who develop and provide highquality, affordable housing. SAHF members are in 49 states and Washington, DC, providing homes to approximately 90,000 lowincome households, SAHF MEMBERS including seniors, the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society disabled, and working Mercy Housing families with children.

National Affordable Housing Trust National Church Residences The NHP Foundation NHT/Enterprise Preservation Corporation Preservation of Affordable Housing Retirement Housing Foundation Volunteers of America

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

31

©TRANSBAY JOINT POWERS AUTHORITY, WWW.TRANSBAYCENTER.ORG

V San Fransico new Transbay Center rendering

©TRAVELPORTLAND.COM

V Portland MAX light rail

Housing & transit Cities Plan for Affordable Housing Preservation along Transit Lines Dozens of major U.S. cities have committed to construction or expansion of mass transit systems, but only a few communities have effective programs to ensure the affordability of housing along the new train, streetcar and bus routes they are building.

Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis and St. Paul have implemented programs to address housing affordability near transit, and San Francisco is not far behind. Leaders in those places recognize that property adjacent to a new transit line often goes up in value, sometimes dramatically, and that such increases can put apartment rents and home prices out of reach of the people who need public transit most.

In a report on the need for proactive efforts in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Great Communities Collaborative warns that there is a potentially brief window of opportunity to take action.

“The current recession provides a special opportunity, while land prices are weaker and market-rate developers have reduced access to credit, for developers of affordable housing to secure scarce developable properties near transit,” the group said.

The organization also points out that when the real estate market heats up again, property values and rents will

32

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

rise rapidly, and “moderate to lower income households may be permanently priced out of locations with good access to job centers.”

There is another reason for governments and transit authorities to worry about encouraging housing near transit: Development of higher density apartments and condos near transit stops makes public transportation systems more likely to succeed. Sometimes this development is slow to occur without government encouragement. In the Portland, Oregon, region, for example, Metro, the regional government authority, is working to encourage more high-density mixeduse development near transit. The agency summed up its motivation this way: “Building housing near transit is one of the most effective ways to reduce road congestion, improve air quality and increase transit ridership. Car trips are less frequent in centers with a balance of jobs, housing and urban amenities. Focusing development in existing urban areas uses land more efficiently, reduces the need for costly new public facilities and prevents unnecessary conversion of farmland and natural areas to urban use.”

What follows is a brief overview of efforts to preserve housing affordability in Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Portland and the San Francisco Bay Area. Sustainable Communities magazine will look at efforts in other cities in future issues and invites readers to submit comments and suggestions for future coverage of this important topic.

Denver, Colorado

©ATLANTA BELTLINE 2011

The Denver Urban Land Conservancy is acting on the fact that this is “the opportune time to invest in real estate

V Beltline Project, Atlanta, GAs

V Union Station Redevelopment, Denver, CO

©DENVER UNION STATION PUBLIC AUTHORITY

The Atlanta BeltLine is a $2.8 billion redevelopment project that will shape the way Atlanta grows throughout the next several decades. The project provides a network of public parks, multi-use trails and transit along a historic 22mile railroad corridor circling downtown and connecting 45 neighborhoods directly to each other.

At the heart of the BeltLine is an integrated approach to land use, transportation, greenspace and sustainable development that will create a framework for future growth in Atlanta. The project attempts to attract and organize some of the region’s future growth around parks, transit and trails to change the pattern of regional sprawl in the coming decades.

BeltLine transit will connect to existing public transit service in up to five locations and to future transit systems, such as the Peachtree Streetcar and commuter rail lines.

Affordable housing is a vital component of the Atlanta BeltLine. Fifteen percent of BeltLine Tax Allocation District (TAD) net bond proceeds must be set aside for the Beltline Affordable Housing Trust Fund (BAHTF) to be used for affordable workforce housing within the district’s boundaries.

Over the 25-year life of the TAD, this amount is estimated to be $240 million and is expected to generate more than 5,000 workforce-housing units.

The goal of the BAHTF is to create a balanced mix of rental and owner occupied housing units and to encourage the distribution of affordable housing around the beltline.

BAHTF dollars will only be awarded to those developments that would not be economically feasible without this public subsidy.

©DENVER UNION STATION PUBLIC AUTHORITY

Atlanta, Georgia

V Union Station Redevelopment, Denver, CO

around proposed transit stations in order to capitalize on current values and preserve affordable housing before the city’s Fastracks light rail is fully operational.”

Using $2.25 million in seed money from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Urban Land Conservancy and the city of Denver have put together the Denver Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Fund to keep rental housing affordable along new transit lines. The goal is to preserve and create at least 1,200 units of affordable for sale and rental housing along Denver mass transit corridors over a ten-year period.

The Fund is capitalized at $15 million, with an eventual

>>

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

33

>>

goal of $25 million in total loan capital. The current fund will revolve to make up to $25 million in capital available to purchase and hold sites for up to five years along transit corridors. The investment of $25 million will leverage over $100 million in local economic development activity, serving many of Denver’s lowest income neighborhoods with construction and permanent job creation.

The Fund will also directly benefit low-income households that on average spend 60% of their gross income on housing and transportation expenses combined. By controlling these expenses and providing access to quality, environmentally-sustainable housing, the TOD Fund will make it possible for families to build wealth and access employment and educational opportunities; it will provide employers with access to an expanded workforce.

Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit, assembled the initial $15 million in capital that allowed the Fund

to begin operations in 2010. The City of Denver is the largest single investor, providing $2.5 million in top loss investment.

Urban Land Conservancy committed the initial $1.5 million equity to the Fund and leads the real estate acquisition, management and disposition of assets for the Fund.

Other investors include: • Colorado Housing and Finance Authority • Rose Community Foundation • Mile High Community Loan Fund • Enterprise Community Partners • US Bank • Wells Fargo For information online: www.urbanlandc.org.

AMERICAN CITIES are seeing a renaissance of public transit development, largely because it is a good way create jobs and because voters are sick of traffic congestion. Unfortunately, land use planning around transit lines is often an afterthought.

“The experience with most regions building modern transit systems is that there is so much political effort required to find the will and financial commitment to build the first line, that there is little emphasis on land use planning around station areas prior to construction” according to a report on transit-oriented development in Minneapolis by the Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership in Land Use. “It’s only after a transit line proves its success, it starts to create confidence in the development community that the housing market will view rail transit as an actual amenity,” the report added.

Consider the case of Los Angeles, where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa admits that little was done to plan for land uses around stations when the city launched subway ser-

34

vice for the first time in 2000.

Now, with a massive expansion of LA county transit getting underway, he said land use planning should take place well before expanded transit lines are constructed and new stations built.

Villaraigosa is pushing hard to transform LA from the land of sprawl and traffic jams to a much more transit-oriented region. He started by winning voter approval of a sales tax increase over 30 years to finance transit expansion. Now he is pushing to obtain federal loans against that tax revenue to allow the expansion to be completed in only 10 years.

There’s just one problem. Planning for the real estate around the transit lines is not moving nearly as fast as the design and financing of the transportation systems and stations. They see the need for planning to prevent gentrification of market-rate housing so as to price out existing residents already living near transit. But they are still struggling to find resources and planning capacity to fulfill those good intentions.

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

© PHOTO BY JUAN OCAMPO. THESOURCE.METRO.NET

WHY ISN’T MORE BEING DONE?

V James Rojas shows L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigos his model of Los Angeles that shows various rail lines.

Among the obstacles the city faces are the following: • The city’s planning staff has seen heavy job cuts.

• Budget constraints don’t leave much room for financial assistance or land banking.

• Inclusionary zoning to encourage affordable housing in the city was dealt a severe legal setback recently. v

The Central Corridor is a light rail transit system being developed to link Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. It is the second light rail transit (LRT) in Minnesota – the first one being the Hiawatha line. Minneapolis is applying lessons learned from its experiences on the Hiawatha transit line to the Central Corridor, conducting station area planning in advance of opening day, according to a report on transit-oriented development in Minneapolis by the Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership in Land Use. The Minneapolis Department of Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED) operates several programs intended to help preserve or create affordable housing near the new transit line.

The Higher Density Corridor Housing Program provides a funding source for public acquisition of sites for multifamily housing development on or near community, commercial and transit corridors. Neighborhood organizations, nonprofit and for-profit developers, CPED staff and other interested parties can nominate sites for the program.

Sites that are selected will be acquired by CPED and resold to the proposed development at their fair reuse value.

Report documents depopulation of subdivisions All across the land, subdivisions in once fast-growing areas are becoming depopulated due to unemployment, dramatic declines in prices, and of course foreclosures.

The formerly expanding regions in the South, West, and northern Midwest are most heavily impacted, say the authors of a Lincoln Institute working paper, The New American Ghost Town: Foreclosure, Abandonment, and the Prospects for City Planning.

Researchers Justin Hollander, Colin Polsky, Dan Zinder, and Dan Runfola sought to identify vacancy hot spots, analyze why these areas have declined, and tailor policy recommendations to planners and policymakers for encouraging neighborhood revitalization. They used GIS technologies to analyze housing occupancy data provided by the United States Postal Service to show how housing occupancy patterns changed during the recent foreclosure crisis. They also used spatial analysis techniques to identify clusters of declining zip codes.

Among the finding: suburban areas recorded a higher net increase in declining zip codes during the foreclosure period than other areas.

From the weblog of the Lincoln Institute of Land Use Policy, www.lincolninst.edu/ v

©METROPOLITAN COUNCIL. WWW.METROCOUNCIL.ORG

Minneapolis, Minnesota

V The Twin Cities Central Corridor LRT Project Rice Street Station with the Minnesota State Capitol in the background.

This program’s goal is to create multifamily housing developments on or near community, commercial and transit corridors where at least 20% of the housing units are affordable at less than 50% of median income and at least 51% are affordable at less than 80% of median.

The Capital Acquisition Revolving Fund (CARF) can be used to purchase strategic properties for redevelopment or for site assembly for both economic development and housing development along transit corridors. Funds can be used

>>

Congratulations TO THE

Partnership for Sustainable Communities® on publication of the first issue of

Sustainable Communities magazine.

10877 Wilshire Blvd # 1200 Los Angeles, CA 90024-4332 www.cityview.com

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

35

>> UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES:

Can transit-oriented development decrease transit use?

Rising incomes in some gentrifying transitrich neighborhoods may be accompanied by an increase in wealthier households who are more likely to own and use private vehicles, and less likely to use transit for commuting, than lower-income households. That’s according to a recent report from the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University.

The report, Maintaining Diversity in America’s Transit-Rich Neighborhoods, suggests that cities should actively promote walking, biking and transit use and discourage driving. Some possible ways to do that include the following: Q Attract core and potential transit riders

to transit-rich neighborhoods. This will reinforce the self-selection processes by which people predisposed to transit use purposely choose to live near a transit station.

Q Support zero-vehicle households: If resi-

dents can live in transit-rich neighborhoods without owning a car they will be more likely to walk and use transit and will also be able to reduce their transportation expenses, leaving more resources available for housing and other necessities.

Q Reduce the availability of parking: Al-

though changes to parking requirements and programs will prove controversial in many neighborhoods, policies that reduce the amount or increase the price of parking can reduce driving and increase transit use while making housing more affordable by reducing the costs of providing parking for residents.

For information online: http://www. dukakiscenter.org/transport-management/

36

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

to assemble or aid in assembly of larger sites for development of new commercial buildings, mixed residential and commercial buildings and mixed-income rental and ownership multifamily housing.

Portland, Oregon The tri-county region’s long-range plan calls for substantial amounts of growth to occur in medium to high-density mixed-use, walkable urban centers and corridors linked by high quality transit service. However, “the creation of mixeduse, higher density districts has not been widely embraced by the development community, largely due to economic infeasibility,” according to Metro, the elected regional government for the region.

Metro’s Transit-Oriented Development Program aims to provide built examples of transit-oriented development projects and to demonstrate the potential of public-private partnerships for making great communities. The program uses various approaches to identify qualified developers interested in partnering with Metro to create compact transitoriented communities.

The program has acquired key opportunity sites at transit stations. “Through active engagement in the design and construction of real projects, the program has helped identify and remove obstacles to the creation of transit villages, main streets and mixed-used urban centers envisioned by the region’s 2040 Growth Concept,” Metro said.

The Transit-Oriented Development Program provides financial incentives and uses public/private partnerships to enhance the economic feasibility of higher density mixed-use projects served by transit. The program uses site control and requests for proposals and qualifications to engage a private development partner or purchase a transit-oriented development easement on projects eligible for program funding.

San Francisco, California The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has committed up to $10 million through its Transportation for Livable Communities program to help establish a new revolving loan fund to finance land acquisition for affordable housing development in select locations near rail and bus lines throughout the Bay Area.

The revolving loan fund has received the pledges necessary to begin making loans. MTC has received $40 million in pledges from Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI), foundations and a couple of commercial banks. The combination of the $10 million commitment from MTC plus $40 million in pledges will bring the fund to a total of $50 million.

An initial closing of the fund at $25 million is expected

©TRANSBAY JOINT POWERS AUTHORITY, WWW.TRANSBAYCENTER.ORG

in late February, with the full $50 million in place by the end of the 2010-11 fiscal year on June 30. The first loans likely will be funded shortly after the initial closing.

In addition to the revolving loan fund, MTC supports affordable housing near transit through the Transportation for Livable Communities program. The Commission in 2010 approved $44 million in grants to 22 projects around the region. Most projects have affordable housing elements within the project area. For more information: http:// mtc.ca.gov/news/press_releases/rel505.htm MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger said the fund would play “a critical role in preserving sites for affordV San Fransico new Transbay Center rendering able transit-oriented development while the credit markets and bond institutions recover to support affordable housing connear transit stations is a key tool in meeting those goals,” said struction again.”

MTC Chair and Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty.

“In order to meet urgent and strict state goals for greenMTC is the transportation planning, funding and coordihouse gas emission reductions and sustainability, Bay Area renating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. gional planning agencies for land use, air quality and transporMTC created the Transportation for Livable Communities tation face an imperative to reduce the number of cars on the program in 1998 to fund small-scale, community and transitroad and miles driven. Building affordable, compact housing oriented projects that improve neighborhood vitality. v

Linking state, federal policy on housing, transit Affordable housing advocates are increasingly making the connection between housing and transportation.

This is partly because the foreclosure crisis has demonstrated that a household’s commuting costs should be included to determine housing affordability. But it’s also because federal and state transportation funding is a powerful potential tool for encouraging local governments to provide more affordable housing.

The Holy Grail for housing advocates is to link federal highway and transportation funding with a localities’ success in encourage affordable housing development.

The reauthorization of the federal transportation programs that provide over $50 billion annually for transportation planning, maintenance and infrastructure is the key to that dream, says Jeffrey Lubell, executive director at the Center for Housing Policy.

He called for modification in the way that transportation funding is allocated to provide strong financial incentives for states, metropolitan areas and local communities to do the following:

• Increase the compactness of residential development; • Expand the availability of homes affordable to families with a mix of incomes near public transit, job and retail centers, and other essential destinations; and • Better coordinate affordable housing, transportation and workforce policies.

“If local communities knew they had to make substantial progress toward these objectives in order to achieve their full allocation of federal transportation dollars, they would have a strong incentive to do so. In many communities, this could help break down traditional barriers to affordable housing development.”

The proposed change in transportation funding is one of the issues addressed in a paper titled “How Transportation Reform Could Increase the Availability of Housing Affordable to Families with a Mix of Incomes Near Public Transit, Job Centers, and Other Essential Destinations,” by Jeffrey Lubell and Emily Salomon, January 2010. v

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

37

By Andre Shashaty

F

airfax County, VA–The Tyson’s Corner area here along the Capital Beltway and the Dulles Airport Access Road has long exemplified the problems of cardependent sprawl, but an exciting new comprehensive plan could transform the district into a model of sustainable development.

The first six major property owners have submitted plans to redevelop their property under the plan adopted this past summer. Massive amounts of negotiation on how to transform a detailed, well thought-out plan into zoning and design details will take at least a year, but the pressure is on to break ground as early in 2012 as possible.

The plan is a landmark for the region and a model for the nation.

It is comprehensive and thorough, but also gives city zoning staff and developers alike a great deal of flexibility in how to achieve broad goals. The plan addresses financing and the need for creative partnerships.

It also has provisions to ensure that the drive for commercial development in this high-priced bastion of high-end hotels, retail and corporate offices helps propel new affordable housing development as well.

Even more amazing is how this landmark plan was achieved in Virginia, a state that strictly limits local power, where property rights are sacrosanct and where historically any government mandate for affordable housing has been legally barred if it hurt a real estate developer financially.

One of the first projects conceived under the new plan is Tyson’s Spring Hill Station, which was used as a

38

REINVENTING THE SUBURBS:

Tyson’s Corner Plan calls for high density, mixed-use around transit conceptual demonstration project in the planning process. The developer, the Georgelas Group of McLean, Va., is enthusiastic about the plan, saying it will address the area’s biggest problem: traffic congestion.

“With a proper mix of shops, galleries, restaurants, hotels, office, residential, and theatres, the demonstration project will create a place that is vibrant for 18 hours [a] day. Currently, Tyson’s Corner shuts down after 5 pm making the evening

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

rush hour extremely congested. A good mix of uses coupled with the arrival of rail will mitigate the traffic congestion problems that plague Tyson’s today.”

“The future is headed this way, not only because of the environment, but because people are tired of spending countless hours in their cars,” said Aaron J. Georgelas, managing partner.

Spring Hill Station could get through rezoning by the summer and construction could start as early as spring of 2012. The project will have

V Left: Tyson’s corner, west view; above: aerial view

roughly 3.5 million square feet of hotel, office and retail space and about 4,000 residential units encompassing 4 million square feet.

Plan Calls for Density The redesign of Tyson’s Corner was inspired by construction of Metrorail’s Silver Line. This line will run from the East Falls Church station and ultimately extend beyond the Washington Dulles International Airport into Loudoun County. Four Metro stations are planned to open in the Tyson’s Corner Urban Center by 2014.

Because the plan was designed to take advantage of the four new Metro stations, ’75 percent of future growth will be within a half mile of these stations. Many offices and homes will be a three to six minute walk from the stations, allowing people to get around on foot, bicycle, bus or Metro.

The arrival of Metrorail service

provides an opportunity to transform Tyson’s from an “edge city” into a true urban downtown for Fairfax County.

The plan calls for maximizing density around the four new train stations there, increasing the mix of uses and replacing the current wide main roads surrounded by parking lots and access roads to buildings with a more traditional street grid that invites people to walk. The plan calls for a 24/7 urban center in which “people are engaged in their surroundings and a place where people want to be... where people [can be found] sitting at sidewalk cafes, walking or jogging down tree-lined boulevards, enjoying public art and outdoor performances and playing in the parks.”

The transformed Tyson’s will be organized around eight districts, each with a mix of land uses. The transitoriented developments (TODs) around the four Metrorail stations will resemble intense and busy downtowns. The four non-TOD Districts will include lively neighborhoods leading to the edges of

Tyson’s. Closer to the neighborhoods outside of Tyson’s, the pattern of development will carefully transition down to a scale and use that respects the adjacent communities.

Up to 100,000 residents are expected to live in Tyson’s by 2050 compared to the 17,000 that resided in the area in 2010. The number of jobs is expected to increase from 105,000 to as many as 200,000 by 2050.

The targeted land use mix will provide a ratio of four jobs for every household in Tyson’s – a significant improvement over the 2010 ratio of approximately thirteen jobs for every household. This greater mix of uses throughout Tyson’s will promote walking by providing more people with the opportunity to live near their jobs and other everyday destinations.

The plan calls for several different zoning districts, but the greatest bulk and intensity will be in “Transit Station Mixed Use” areas near the Metro stations. They are planned for a

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

>> 39

>>

balanced mix of retail, office, arts/civic, hotel and residential uses. The overall percentage of office uses throughout all of the Transit Station Mixed Use areas should be approximately 65 percent. This target of office uses will help Tyson’s maintain a balance of land use and transportation over the next 20 years. Individual developments may have flexibility to build more than 65 percent office if other developments in the category are built or rezoned with a use mix that contains proportionately less office. The residential component should be on the order of 20 percent or more of the total development.

Affordable Housing Mandated Affordable housing is a core part of the plan, largely because there is very little of it in the area now.

For the highest density areas, there is a threshold requirement that projects with residential development make 20 percent of the housing affordable to people earning 50 to 120 percent of the area median income – with a specified percentage at each income level in that range.

The requirement is coupled with a $3 per square foot fee that developers will have to pay for every nonresidential project built in certain zones. The money will be used to help finance affordable housing development It adds up to a huge opportunity for affordable housing developers in a market that has previously been too costly, said Michelle Krocker of the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance. “I’m very excited. This is inclusionary zoning in Fairfax County.”

Some developers have questioned the financial feasibility of meeting the affordable housing requirement, but not

Tyson’s plan at a glance The long-term plan anticipates the following: • 75 percent of all development to be located within an easy walk (1/2 mile) of Metro; • An urban center that could include 200,000 jobs and 100,000 residents; • A jobs/housing balance of approximately 4.0 jobs per household; • A sustainable Tyson’s with restored streams, a green network of public parks, open spaces and trails and green buildings; and • A redesigned transportation system with circulator routes, community shuttles, feeder bus service and vastly improved pedestrian and bicycle routes and connections.

40

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

V Sharon Bulova

Aaron Georgelas. He said it’s “critical” that the new Tyson’s have ample affordable housing for workers. “It’s really important we have a solid mix of people who can live and work in Tyson’s corner.”

“There is a tremendous amount of flexibility for developers and land owners in the plan,” said Sharon Bulova, Board of Supervisors chairman. That also means that the board entrusted staff in zoning, planning and housing agencies to make many decisions on a case-by-case basis, she noted.

For example, there is no floor to area or height limit in the zones closest to transit stops. In regard to the affordability requirement, developers of mixed-use projects with no expertise in affordable housing are allowed to form partnerships with other developers that are focused on tax credit developments to meet aggregated set-aside obligations in separate properties.

“The bottom line is that it’s a paradigm shift in Fairfax County. Our previous growth was about development of single family homes and townhouses, separated from commercial and retail,” Bulova said.

The plan has been received very positively by local citizens, she said, attributing that to the lengthy process of public debate and consultation involved in formulating the plan.

How did the board overcome the fact that, in many suburbs, density is a dirty word? “There was a time in Fairfax County when that was true,” said Bulova, who was elected in 1987 on the promise that she’d work to slow the area’s growth.

Now, she said, local residents realize that it’s not whether there is growth, but how growth is managed. She said residents are beginning to understand the benefits of density, that it will allow people to walk from their home to shop, dine out, see a show or jump on the train to go to Washington, D.C. It also allows planners to concentrate growth, so that it does not impinge on older, stable residential districts or encroach on green spaces.

The recession will slow the development process under the plan, but only enough to make it more manageable, she added.

For more information on-line see: http://www.fairfaxcounty. gov/dpz/tysonscorner/ v

WORLD ROUNDUP

GOING INSIDE A GREEN NEIGHBORHOOD What is it like to live in a city that is reputed to be one of the greenest in the world, where, in one neighborhood, private car use is pretty much nonexistent?

We are talking about Freiburg, a city which has been pushing the envelope to reduce carbon emissions for decades, and more specifically, the Vauban neighborhood. Vauban was built as “a sustainable model district” in the 1990s.

All houses are built to a low energy consumption standard. Other buildings are heated by a combined heat and power station burning wood chips, while many of the buildings have Solar collectors or photovoltaic cells. The district is also home to the Solar Settlement which purports to be the first housing community world wide in which all the homes produce a positive energy balance, that is, the homes produce more energy than they use.

For a first-hand account of life in Vauban, we recommend reading “Real green living” by Heather Rogers, the author of “Green Gone Wrong,” published by Verso.

The article can be viewed on the web site of Red Pepper, a bi-monthly magazine and associated website of left politics and culture. Go to http://www.redpepper.org. uk/real-green-living/

United Arab Emirates OIL PRODUCER PUSHES RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH Even countries that produce oil know that renewable energy development gives them crucial diversification as energy suppliers as well as an advantage in the worldwide competition to create knowledge-based economies.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently opened the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology campus, the Middle East’s first graduate research institution dedicated to renewable energy and clean environmental technolo-

©MASDAR CITY 2010

Germany

V Masdar City

gies. It is located in Masdar City, a clean technology cluster being developed on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi that will be powered entirely by renewable energy and is intended to attract companies and organizations focused on renewable energy and clean technologies.

Construction at Masdar City began in 2008, and the first buildings were scheduled to open in 2010. General Electric is a strategic partner in Masdar City and will build its first Ecomagination Centre in the city. The centre will focus on promoting sustainable business solutions that will support the development and deployment of new and innovative technologies.

The new city is a project of Masdar (the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company). “The advancements in renewable energy and clean technology are vital to diversifying Abu Dhabi’s economy, creating jobs, helping meet rising energy demands, expand its energy portfolio and to conserving its hydrocarbon resources,” said Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar, and chairman of the executive committee of the board of trustees of Masdar Institute.

United Kingdom UK REAFFIRMS, TWEAKS ZERO CARBON GOAL The United Kingdom’s stated goal that all new homes be zero carbon by

2016 will require some tweaking, according to a Task Group convened by the Zero Carbon Hub, the group with lead responsibility for delivering homes to zero carbon standards by 2016.

UK Housing Minister Grant Shapps walked a fine line in reaffirming the nation’s goals but at the same time promising to be flexible and to consider the Zero Carbon Hub’s recommendations.

“We’re serious about building greener homes, but also committed to finding the most practical way of doing this,” he said. He acknowledged the need to have a plan that could be implemented by local councils and builders, showing that their concerns about the practicality of the zero carbon mandate have been heard.

Shapps said he would give “the people at the sharp end of delivering zero carbon further options to invest in local renewable energy schemes, which will provide councils and developers the flexibility they need to meet these standards.”

He said that builders would probably be able to meet zero carbon goals partly by contributing to a fund used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in a community as a whole.

The Zero Carbon Hub was more direct. It said “the currently proposed 70% improvement over 2006 levels is not deliverable as a national minimum standard for all dwellings from 2016 as it would significantly constrain the range of house types (and designs) which could be built.”

For more details and links, go to www.p4sc.org HYDROGEN-POWERED BUSES SET TO ROLL London–Zero-polluting hydrogen buses are set to start hauling passengers here this winter. Plans call for eight buses using the latest hydrogen fuel cell technology, emitting nothing but water vapor. The buses will form the only hydrogen bus fleet in the UK and the largest currently in Europe, according to the city’s press release.

The city said it already has 100 hybrid buses with more on the way. v

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

41

A R O U N D T H E N AT I O N

" $

!

#

housing. He filed a legal challenge in 2009 to the city of Pleasanton’s 13-year-old limit on housing construction, arguing that the East Bay community is defying state housing laws and adding to urban sprawl, vehicle use and greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2008, as attorney general, Brown joined a Sierra Club lawsuit against the city of Stockton’s General Plan 2035 because it would encourage sprawl.

The plan has since been reworked to call for reducing greenhouse gases, green home building and infill to balance sprawl.

" Massachusetts:

BROWN ADMINISTRATION PUSHES HOUSING, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Sacramento–Republicans may be celebrating the takeover of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., but in California’s state capital, they are dreading the “second coming” of Edmund “Jerry” Brown. Twenty-seven years since Brown completed his first stint as California governor, he is back in office again, promising to promote affordable housing, green building, sustainable development, and greenhouse gas reductions.

Brown’s move from the attorney general’s office to the governor’s office comes shortly after the state’s voters rejected a ballot measure supported by oil companies to suspend the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Assembly Bill 32). He was elected partly because he supported the environmental law while his opponent wanted to suspend it.

“As Californians,” he said at his inauguration, “we can be proud that our state leads the rest of the country in our commitment to new forms of

42

©LISA GERSHMAN PHTOGRAPHY 2010

! California

V Inauguration of GovernorJerry Brown

energy and energy efficiency. I have set a goal of 20,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2020 and I intend to meet it by the appointments I make and the actions they take.”

While the opponents of AB 32 said the law would cost the state jobs Brown asserted that his approach would help create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

Brown is a supporter of affordable housing. As attorney general, Brown showed he would not allow cities to obstruct development of affordable

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

Financial incentives for local governments to pursue sustainable land use patterns and performance-based building energy efficiency standards are among the measures called for in the state of Massachusetts’ plan to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020 by 25 percent from 1990 levels. The state hopes to achieve an 80 percent reduction in GHG emissions by 2050.

The state’s Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020 was prepared in accordance with the Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act of 2008.

It includes a number of innovative measures to reduce GHG emissions from buildings. In addition to strengthening existing energy efficiency policies, the plan establishes a new energy labeling pilot program for residential and commercial buildings wherein buildings will be classified based on their energy usage. This label will allow consumers to compare energy efficiency of buildings in much the same way as fuel efficiency of vehicles. The pilot program is set to go into effect for residential buildings in Western Massachusetts and commercial buildings in Eastern Massachusetts in 2011. Depending on the success of the pilot, Massachusetts may incorporate a mandatory rating requirement into the

© 2009 DAIMLER AG

state building code in the future. # Texas The plan also calls for a moveCAR SHARING EXPANDS ment away from prescriptive energy Austin–German carmaker Daimler efficiency standards for new buildings has transplanted the car-sharing sertowards performance-based standards. vice it started in Germany to this city With performance-based standards, and is making plans for further expana maximum energy usage for a buildsion in the U.S. ing is prescribed but developers can Car2go signed up 3,000 members determine how best to achieve that during a six-month trial here, accordlevel. This policy is meant to encourage ing to USA Today. The system makes it energy efficient design of buildings as as easy as using an ATM machine for a whole while simplifying the building people to rent one of Daimler’s “Smart code. The goal is to have performanceForTwo” vehicles. based standards replace the current In Austin, members of the program prescriptive standards for new residential and commercial buildings by 2020.

For existing buildings, the Plan calls for deep cuts in energy usage by offering rebates on utility bills for retrofits that significantly improve energy efficiency. Currently, rebates are available for moderate improvements to buildings, improvements that only reduce energy usage by 20 to 30 percent. Under the new policy, V Car 2go in Austin, Texas there will be more stringent retrofit requirements, like greater levels can either reserve a car by phone or of insulation and prevention of air leakinternet, or just walk up to a Smart car age, to receive a rebate. that’s part of the program, swipe their After buildings, transportation is membership card against the windthe next largest contributor of GHG shield, get in and drive wherever they emissions in Massachusetts. To reduce need to go. They pay 35 cents a minVehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) in the ute, or up to $12.99 per hour and up to state, the plan calls for 80 percent of $65.99 a day. new development between now and The brilliance of the system is that 2020 to follow “smart growth” prinusers can leave the car at any desticiples, meaning the development occurs nation within the service area. They in mixed-use, high-density areas that don’t need to bring it back to a central are bike and pedestrian friendly. To facility. Or they can use one of the achieve this goal, the Plan recommends many car2go “Designated Park Spots” (1) adopting legislation that provides – a parking space reserved for the municipalities with better guidance on rental vehicles. city planning and zoning, (2) offering The obvious question is how cusfinancial incentives to municipalities for tomers find a car2go? The company adopting smart growth policies and (3) says they can use one of these options: requirements for consideration of smart • Find out online at the company’s growth development to receive statewebsite. funding for projects.

• Use one of the available 3rd-party applications to • Call for over-the-phone information.

$ Washington, D.C. BICYCLE SHARING PEDALS INTO CAPITAL CITY A bicycle sharing system launched last fall in northern Virginia and the District of Columbia has been well received and has already been expanded.

The Capital Bike Share program started with a fleet of 1100 bikes that could be rented from any one of 100 locations throughout Washington and Arlington.

“Capital Bikeshare adds another option to the transportation mix,” said Jay Fisette, chairman of the Arlington County Board. “It is a perfect fit for Arlington’s Car-Free Diet as bike sharing also helps to reduce emissions and increase healthy activity.”

The $6 million bikeshare program is funded in Washington by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration under their Congestion, Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) fund. The Crystal City Business Improvement District helped Arlington with a sizeable $200,000 contribution.

Membership options include 24hour ($5), 30-day ($25) and annual memberships ($75). As a special introductory price, annual memberships are being offered for just $50.

Capital Bikeshare will be similar to a system the Public Bike System Company (PBSC) produced, commonly known as BIXI. The BIXI system has been running in Montreal, where BIXI is based, since 2009. It was recently launched in Minneapolis, London, and Melbourne, Australia.

BIXI bike sharing stations are solar powered and use wireless technology to allow for easy installation and adjustments. v

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

43

GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

CALIFORNIA:

New green building code takes effect; Sets standards for most structures, voluntary goals

W

hile many local governments are beginning to encourage buildings to get some sort of certification for green construction, the state of California has just put into effect what’s believed to be the first mandatory statewide green building code in the nation.

The California Green Building Standards Code (known as CALGreen) took effect on January 1, 2011.

For most new residential and nonresidential buildings constructed in the state, CALGreen imposes mandatory requirements in five distinct categories: planning and design; energy efficiency; water efficiency and conservation; material conservation and resource efficiency; and environmental quality. As David Walls, executive director of the California Building Standards Commission explained, CALGreen “change[s] the whole fabric of how buildings are built by integrating green practices into our everyday building code.”

Notable exemptions to CALGreen’s mandatory provisions are residential buildings over three stories, federal buildings, buildings constructed on Native American lands and remodels and additions to existing buildings.

Key mandatory provisions include: % 20 percent reduction in water consumption from the previous code; % 50 percent diversion of construction waste from landfills to reuse or recycling facilities; % Use of low pollutant-emitting materials; and % Mandatory inspection of HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) and lighting systems in non-residential buildings over 10,000 square feet to ensure the systems are operating at maximum efficiency.

NEW MODEL ENERGY CODE ADOPTED American city and state building officials have a new model code to chew on regarding energy efficiency. In what the U.S. Department of Energy calls a “ a major milestone” a 2012 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) that will achieve a 30 percent increase in energy savings compared to the 2006 version of the code has been established by the International Code Council. DOE said “This decision represents the largest, onestep efficiency increase in the history of the national model energy code.”

Voluntary Measures In addition to the mandatory provisions, CALGreen includes two tiers of more stringent voluntary green measures. Compliance with one of the more stringent tiers will allow a building to be certified under “CALGreen Tier 1” or “CALGreen Tier 2.” This gives builders a way to differentiate their developments in the marketplace.

By way of comparison, the mandatory CALGreen standard requires 50 percent of construction waste to be diverted from landfills, while Tier 1 requires 65 percent and Tier 2 requires 75 percent.

The CALGreen voluntary measures were the source of criticism from environmental groups including Sierra Club, NRDC and the California Green Building Council, who maintain that the CALGreen Tier 1 and Tier 2 certifications will lead to confusion with other well-established green certifica—CONTINUED ON PAGE 47

44

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

Corporations embrace sustainability, add executive-level CSO posts

By Steven M. Thomas he spread of green consciousness and practices will be the next revolutionary transformation in business and culture, a megatrend comparable to the onset of mass production and the IT revolution, according to a May 2010 article in Harvard Business Review entitled “The Sustainability Imperative.”

The viral growth of the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) position in companies across the economic spectrum shows that awareness of this emerging megatrend has penetrated the corporate zeitgeist. Corporations involved in the creation and maintenance of the built environment are in the forefront of the trend.

In 2009 and 2010 well-known homebuilding, building material, home furnishing, communications infrastructure, and property development and management companies began listing CSOs on their corporate reports. The names are impressive – Meritage, Alcoa, Owens Corning, ATT, SAP, IKEA, Portfolio Property Management and the Tower Companies to mention a few – and the c-suite designation shows that these companies know that mastering sustainability is not just about corporate reputation anymore. It is about corporate survival.

Plenty of progressive companies have had sustainability managers for a decade or more, people working to save energy or comply with environmental regulations or burnish the corporate green image, but putting a board-level executive in charge of a high-priority, coordinated, companywide effort is a game changer.

Sustainability recruiter Ellen Weinreb noted in her March 2010 “Corporate Responsibility Jobs Report” that there was a sharp uptick in 2008-09 in sustainability positions with the

5 WAYS COMPANIES BENEFIT FROM STRATEGIC SUSTAINABILITY

1. By reducing penalties for non-compliance with environmental and energy usage regulations on local, national and international levels, along with lawsuits for environmental or human harm

2. By leveraging a reputation for greenness to create better marketplace reception for products and services

3. By saving money on energy costs 4. By saving money on material costs 5. By raising the morale of employees and suppliers who value working in a sustainable enterprise

title Vice President and Director. The CSO position is the next logical step.

“I believe that CSO is a title that the senior-most CSR executives will increasingly carry,” Weinreb writes.

“The emergence of the CSO title is indicative of the growing trend of sustainabilV Alcoa CSO Kevin Anton ity as a core business strategy,” says Owens Corning VP and CSO Frank O’Brien-Bernini. “Sustainability is most effective when its execution is embedded throughout the organization . . . [so] that a high, wide and deep sustainability perspective is integral to the executive leadership team where key decisions are made and strategic direction set.”

Sustainability competence presents so many challenges and so much opportunity that strategic leadership in the boardroom has become essential, a fact recognized by Alcoa, a leading supplier of commercial building panels, when it named its first CSO Kevin Anton in August 2010. Anton led a sustainability committee at the aluminum company for 18 months before becoming CSO and the success of the committee helped push through the idea of a board-level position. One example of that success: “We saved $100 million in reduced energy costs worldwide last year,” Anton says.

“Alcoa is in a unique position to take a proactive sustainability approach and turn it into a competitive advantage,” says Alcoa Chairman and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld. “Our vision is to make sustainability a prime driver of our business and a compelling part of our brand.”

Home furnishings giant IKEA sounded a similar note and emphasized the importance of topnotch leadership in achieving sustainability excellence when Steve Howard became the company’s first CSO Jan. 2011.

“Sustainability is a cornerstone of our strategic direction and serves as a catalyst for further innovation and development,” says IKEA Group President and CEO Mikael Ohlsson. “To economize with resources and constantly renew and develop is an important part of IKEA’s heritage. Steve Brings passion and impressive competence within the field of sustainability paired with strong leadership skills, and we look forward to taking important new steps [in sustainability] in coming years.” v PHOTO COURTESY ALCOA

T

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

45

RENEWABLE ENERGY FINANCE

Federal grants, utility programs sustain financial appeal of new solar installations

W

ASHINGTON, DC – While the incoming Republican majority in the House of Representatives loves to equate environmentalism with job losses, they quietly acquiesced to an extension of the Department of Treasury’s Section 1603 program for one year in the tax-unemployment deal cut this winter.

Policymakers recognized that “the solar industry is one of the fastest growing industries in our country, and this extension will create tens of thousands of new jobs for Americans,” said

Solar Energy Industries Association President and CEO Rhone Resch.

The program was created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Section 1603) to provide commercial solar installations with a cash grant in lieu of the 30 percent solar investment tax credit (ITC). President George W. Bush signed the 8-year ITC into law in 2008, but the economic conditions created by the global recession made it clear that few would be able to utilize the tax credit.

The 1603 Treasury Grant Program

(“TGP”) eliminates the need to secure scarce equity capital to finance a commercial solar project.

Meanwhile, California is launching new ways for property owners to make money by selling solar power generated on their premises to their local electric utility.

The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) recently authorized a new procurement process called the Renewable Auction Mechanism, or RAM, for the procurement of smaller renewable energy projects that are eligible for the California Renew-

Florida utility nudges solar sellers Gainesville, Fla – The city owned utility company here is pushing for faster results from property owners who want to make money by selling it solar power.

Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) started a solar feed-in tariff (FIT) program in March 2009, apparently making it the first U.S. utility do so. The program differs from “net metering” for solar in that the company agrees to buy solar power from customers who install photovoltaic (PV) panels on their buildings at a fixed rate for 20 years. The agreement allows for a cash flow stream that can be used to underwrite loans for installation of the panels.

GRU is currently paying customers 32 cents per kilowatt hour. for up to 10 kilowatts.

The problem with FIT is that it is not generating much power. As of early December 2010, FIT participants were producing 2.7 megawatts, far less than the 8 megawatts the company originally estimated. Many applicants who signed up for FIT in 2009 failed to install PV systems by early December 2010. The recession and the failure of banks to provide financing were limiting factors.

46

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

V Downtown Gainsville, Florida

Gainesville’s FIT program was revamped for 2011, with shorter deadlines for completing PV installation. Rachel Meek, GRU’s solar program coordinator, believes that the tighter deadlines will get participants to produce power more quickly. If they fail, there will be room for new parties to apply.

—Jessica Zimmer

ables Portfolio Standard (RPS) Program.

The goal is to give property owners and entrepreneurs enough confidence in the cash flow they can generate from selling power to allow financing of the upfront cost of installation.

According to the PUC, the RAM is a simplified and market-based procurement mechanism that will promote competition and elicit the lowest costs for ratepayers, encourage the development of resources that can utilize existing transmission and distribution infrastructure, and contribute to RPS goals in the near term.

“We expect RAM to complement the RPS Program by reducing transaction costs and providing a procurement opportunity for smaller RPS-eligible projects, which have not been able to effectively participate in the annual RPS

Facts at a Glance: Sec. 1603 grants: The 1603 Treasury Grant Program has supported the deployment of 1,081 solar electric systems and 98 solar thermal systems as of November 22, 2010. Since guidance for the program was released in July of 2009, the manufacture and construction of these solar energy projects has supported roughly 20,000 U.S. jobs (direct, indirect and induced).

Source: Solar Energy Industries Association

solicitations to date,” according to a PUC statement.

RAM evolved from the Commission’s inquiry into expanding the existing feedin tariff program for generators 1.5 MW and below. Unlike the feed-in-tariff’s complex negotiated pricing structure, RAM relies on market-based pricing, and selects projects based on least cost

rather than on a first-come first-served basis at an administratively determined price, according to the PUC. “Our intent in establishing RAM is to create a standardized procurement process for projects up to 20 MW in size in order to promote robust competition and reduce the administrative burden associated with these projects,” PUC said. v

Going Beyond the Minimum

Green is not prohibitive for builders, the state asserts. Building to the CALGreen code will add only $1,500 to $2,000 in cost on an average 2,000 sq. ft. home, and 1-2% to the total project cost for commercial buildings, said David Walls.

The biggest adjustment will be on local building officials charged with administering and enforcing the new code. However, for both builders and administrators of CALGreen, “having a mandatory code will help with the uniformity and consistency among the hundreds of jurisdictions throughout the state,” says Osama Younan, chief of green building and mechanical engineering, Department of Building and Safety for Los Angeles. “There will be a learning curve for everyone involved, but collaboration among the jurisdictions, the state and the construction industry will help everyone get the level of green building knowledge they need to have.”

GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN —FROM PAGE 44

tions, like Build It Green and the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED certification.

“The tiers cause confusion in the marketplace and the potential for builders to label their buildings green without substantiating their claims,” said Elizabeth Echols, director of the Green Building Council’s Northern California chapter. Many local officials who would be responsible for verifying builder claims do not have the technical expertise that LEED and other third-party verifiers provide, she added.

Others, however, applauded the adoption of the tiered approach, pointing out that it will allow buildings to receive green certification without the high cost attached to third-party certification programs like LEED. For LEED to co-exist with CALGreen, it will likely need to raise its certification bar: A side-by-side comparison of the two programs, published

by USGBC, shows that CALGreen is actually more stringent than LEED in some areas.

Another early criticism of the code was that it was actually less rigorous than green building standards already in place in more than 50 jurisdictions in California.

CALGreen addresses this concern by allowing a city or county to adopt more restrictive green standards than the CALGreen provisions. Already a number of cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, have elected to incorporate more rigorous standards into the CALGreen code.

Incorporation of green building standards into the state building code is a positive step for the environment and a natural progression of the state building code. CALGreen is also an important step for California to meets it greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets: According to the California Air Resources Board, CALGreen will result in a 3 million cubic foot reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

The cost of complying with CAL-

For more information on CALGreen: http://www.bsc.ca.gov/CALGreen/greencode.htm v

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

47

Conference to cover housing, sustainable development San Francisco--Developers, city officials and financiers working on sustainable development and affordable housing will gather here in May for a new conference hosted by the Partnership for Sustainable Communities (PSC).

Sustainable Housing & Community Development Live will focus on new strategies for affordable housing, mixeduse & transit-oriented development in the era of resource efficiency and GHG reduction.

“Our conference is a great way to make connections for success and learn about fast-moving changes in land use planning, environmental regulation, renewable energy and financing,” said Andre Shashaty, president of PSC. Registration details are available on line. The early bird rate is $199, if you register before March 11. Members of

PSC pay just $169, a savings of 15% “This is a very tightly-packed day of interactive breakout sessions that will allow plenty of time for questions with our expert speakers, making the most efficient use of your time,” said Shashaty. “You will be so engaged you won’t even think of looking at your Blackberry.”

There will be a keynote plenary session with a prominent speaker, plus a working lunch for small group discussions and an evening networking reception.

For details, go to www.p4sc.org or call 415 453 2100 ext 302. For information about sponsorship opportunities, contact: Andre Shashaty by Email: Andre@ P4SC.org

AFFORDABLE HOUSING —FROM PAGE 5

measures are applicable to all projects, regardless of lcoation. Other mesureas are applicable only for porjects in a specific type of area.

In the Energy Efficiency category of the Criteria, the whole-building energy performance requirements have been updated to reflect revised national model codes, including the US EPA’s Energy Start for new Homes and its High Rise Multifamily Program.

For example, for new construction single family and low rise multifamily, the new performance standard is 15% better than 2009 International Energy Conservation Code.

For mid and high rise new constructions, the standard is 15% better than standard 90-1.2007 by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Global Green, USA, analyzed 2010 QAPS to determine how “green” they were in a report titled Green Building Criteria in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Programs, an analysis of 2010 QAPs by Global Green, USA (www.globalgreen.org) The 2010 QAP analysis shows the continuation of the trend established in previous years of a steady increase in both required and optional green

48

building measures. It found that 33 states improved scores from 2009 to 2010. The highest scores were given to Connecticut and Georgia, who tied for first for the second consecutive year by earning 50 points out of a possible 55. The next highest scoring state was Maryland, with a score of 48. Colorado was a new addition to the A group, gaining 30 points from the previous year due to the state’s adoption of Enterprise Green Communities criteria as a mandatory component of their QAP. For on-line info about the Enterprise criteria, go to www.greencommunitiesonline.org.

Communicate to build Community Acceptance With reports from around the country coming in that community resistance to affordable housing development is increasing, a new report on how to change public opinion on the issue makes for important reading.

It’s called “What Works and Why: Affordable Housing Communications Campaigns 2000–2010” and it was published by Partnership for Sustainable Communities®

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

The report examines efforts by advocates and government agencies to build public and political support for affordable housing developments and funding and to counteract the negative attitudes toward affordable housing found in many communities. It describes 15 campaigns from New York to North Carolina to California, with reproductions of some of the advertisements used in those campaigns.

This report was sponsored by the Marin Community Housing Action Initiative, a collaborative organization in Marin County, Calif., with support from Greenbelt Alliance, Marin Community Foundation, the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California.

To read the executive summary of the report, go to www.p4sc.org. The full text of the report, with illustrations, is available for $12.00. The report is available at no charge to members of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Information on membership can be found online at www.p4sc.org or by calling 415-453-2100, ext. 302.

Fifteen communication programs are described in “What Works and Why: Affordable Housing Communications Campaigns 2000-2010.” v

High Stakes Land Use Decisions?

Don’t make a move without consulting our database Join Partnership Sustainable Communities for just $79 and receive: s -UST READ REPORTING AND ANALYSIS on the new land use policies, green building practices, and innovative development strategies that are remaking our cities and towns in Sustainable Communities magazine. Published six time per year, this is the only journal that brings together all the threads of change on land use, development, energy, and transit into one succinct, wellorganized, highly readable package. s /PPORTUNITIES TO NETWORK AND promote your organization in our -EMBER $IRECTORY

When it comes to land use policies and project entitlements, you can’t afford to act without a firm command of the facts and precedents.

Now you can get the information you need in one very user-friendly source. It’s the Land Use Research Library from the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

Whether you are a developer, a city land use official, or an elected leader, PSC’s Land Use Research Library brings you instant access to hundreds of academic studies and surveys on: t The impact of zoning policies t Housing cost trends and influences t Property values t The most effective economic development measures t Effects of various community development strategies t Economic contributions of inclusionary zoning and affordable housing development The Library is a benefit of membership in Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

s #RITICAL NEWS ALERTS IN THE SUBJECT areas of interest to you. s 0REMIUM WEBSITE CONTENT AT NO extra cost (view an example here). s $ISCOUNTED REGISTRATION FOR THE 3USTAINABLE $EVELOPMENT #ONFERENCE Join today and get the tools you need to make good land use decisions. You will also be supporting our advocacy work to advance the goal of sustainable communities including policies that encourage the development of affordable housing near jobs and transit. Join today, and be part of the new era of sustainable planning and development.

For more information, go to www.p4sc.org.

Or request a FREE membership information packet by calling 415-453-2100 x302.

© Siemens AG, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

The world of tomorrow needs

answers that last.

That’s why we’re building them today, with customers all over the world.

It’s why we’re designing our technology to last longer and use fewer resources. It’s why we’re helping our customers reduce their CO2 emissions. And it’s why we’re pioneering new answers with one of the world’s largest environmental portfolios.

As a result, we were just named the best in our business sector by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. And recognized as the top company overall by the Carbon Disclosure Project,

the world’s largest independent database of corporate climate change information.

Yet we’d never claim to have all the answers. That’s why we’re working with 190 countries. Thousands of cities. Tens of thousands of companies. In energy, industry and healthcare.

We’re working with the world today to create answers that last for the world of tomorrow.

siemens.com /answers