Sustainable City Network Magazine - Vol. 12 - July 2014

BEST PRACTICES FOR LEADERS IN GOVERNMENT, EDUCATION & HEALTHCARE.

SUSTAINABLE CITY NETWORK

VOLUME 12 JULY 2014

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AUSTIN PLANS TO KEEP ITS COOL

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15 FINANCING SUSTAINABILITY PROJECTS 18 U.S. COASTS PREPARE FOR RISING SEAS 25 CLIMATE CHANGE UPDATE: HERE AND NOW

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contents

VOLUME 12 JULY 2014

Massachusetts Prepares for Mandatory Composting

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Redeveloping Abandoned Gas Stations

12

Financing Sustainability Projects

15

U.S. Coasts Prepare for Rising Seas

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Land Banks Help Restore Abandoned Neighborhoods

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Climate Change Update: It’s Costing Us Now

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Providing Fresh Produce to Urban Food Deserts

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Napkins in Food Waste: Biofuel Potential?

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cover story

AUSTIN PLANS TO KEEP ITS COOL Cover photo courtesy Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau (ACVB)

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Financing Sustainability Projects

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

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Jeffrey F. Bullock, Ph.D. President University of Dubuque

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Roy Buol Mayor City of Dubuque

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PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR Randy Rodgers ASSOCIATE EDITORS Andrea Hauser Michael Manning BUSINESS MANAGER Linda Flannery CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Elizabeth Ross White Julianne Couch Jessica Chapman F. Alan Shirk Michelle Volkmann

Cori Burbach Sustainability Coordinator City of Dubuque Jeffrey L. Bruce Owner Jeffrey L. Bruce & Company, LLC Scott Knapp VP Marketing A.Y. McDonald Mfg. Co. David Lyons President The Iowa Institute

CREATIVE/PRODUCTION MANAGER Hobie Wood Unless otherwise noted, all images used throughout Š 2014 Ingimage, all rights reserved.

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from the editor Welcome to Sustainable City Network Magazine – the Best of sCityNetwork.com! This quarterly magazine is a compilation of the most popular articles on our web site and in our weekly e-newsletter, the InBox, which is delivered to more than 40,000 leaders in government, education and healthcare across the U.S. and Canada.

Sustainable City Network produces advertiser-supported, non-partisan articles, webinars, trade shows and white papers that provide local institutions with quality, organized and timely information about sustainability projects, plans and best practices. This magazine is another way we fulfill our mission.

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In this issue, we continue our Leaderboard Series with a close-up look at the city of Austin, Texas. Austin learned early on that unbridled development took a toll on the quality of live in a city that cherished its natural assets. When a popular spring-fed pool began to get spoiled by upstream development in the early 1990s, Austin responded by developing the first green building code in the U.S., and it’s been a leader in sustainability ever since.

randy@scitynetwork.com

In our cover story, you’ll meet Lucia Athens, Austin’s chief sustainability officer, and Bob Gedert, the city’s resource recovery director, who share the framework and innovative strategies they’ve developed over the past four years as Austin has accelerated its efforts to reduce emissions and build resiliency against climate change.

OUR MISSION

In other top stories: You’ll learn how Massachusetts plans to implement a new composting mandate, requiring large food handlers to divert food scraps from landfills beginning in October. And, if your community has one of the estimated 50,000 closed and abandoned gas stations in the U.S., check out our report on Page 12 and learn the best practices for cleaning up and redeveloping those eye sores.

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“To make U.S. cities more sustainable through quality and well-organized information.”

Other articles in this issue focus on financing sustainability, sea-level rise, land banks, urban food deserts, climate change, and a story about an Iowa State University researcher who has discovered an unexpected source of fiber in food waste that increases its potential for making renewable fuel.

The articles in this magazine have been selected by our readers. We’ve packaged them together in this convenient magazine format, available in print or as a digital download at sCityNetwork.com/Bestof.

We hope you find value inside.

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AUSTIN PLANS TO KEEP ITS COOL TEXAS CITY BUILDS FRAMEWORK FOR TAKING ON CLIMATE CHANGE

BY RANDY RODGERS, PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR

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When it comes to sustainability, Austin, Texas has a reputation for staying ahead of the curve.

LUC IA AT HENS

From developing the first municipal green building policy, which served as a model for LEED, to creating what could be the nation’s first eco-industrial park exclusively for recycling and reuse companies, this “world headquarters of the armadillo,” is an innovative city where smart growth has been a cornerstone of a bustling economy for decades.

Chief Sustainability Officer Lucia Athens said the city of Austin got its wake-up call in the early 1990s when unbridled development almost resulted in the loss of a beloved natural asset.

Barton Springs Pool is considered one of the crown jewels of Austin.

BOB GEDERT Measuring three acres in size, the natural spring-fed pool maintains an average temperature of 70 degrees and is ideal for swimming year round. It draws nearly 800,000 visitors per year. But by 1990, after years of up-stream development, Athens said the quality of the water in the pool had begun to suffer, and authorities began closing it to the public after heavy rain events.

“The community was seeing that happen more and more and began to understand that if we didn’t get on top of how we were permitting development to protect water quality and address run-off issues and stormwater management, we might lose that asset,” she said.

When a local citizen group launched a “Save Our Springs” campaign, more than 1,000 people signed up to speak at a city council hearing that “went on all night,” Athens said. The event is remembered today as the “Barton Creek Uprising.”

“Elected officials heard loud and clear from their community that they were concerned, and (the city council) did significantly upgrade the water quality standards related to development at the time,” she said.

As a result, the city developed the first municipal green building policy in America, a project Athens herself was involved in as a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin.

“Green building really took off after that, but the city of Austin was the

first city that had a green building program that was a menu-based, points-based system that existed before LEED. So, it really sort of set the stage for LEED,” she said.

Athens believes the city’s stringent development standards are one of the reasons the local real estate market largely escaped the huge downturn suffered by many other cities in the recent national housing crisis.

“It’s not the most economical environment to do a speculative development and then flip it,” she said. “A lot of developers in our market are here for the long haul and they really care about our community and tend to stick around.”

One of those developers, former two-term Mayor Will Wynn, was a leading advocate for sustainability in 2007 when the city adopted its first climate protection resolution. That plan set a goal that all city operations would be carbon neutral by 2020. In April, current Mayor Lee Leffingwell and the Austin City Council set a community-wide goal to be net-zero by the year 2050, Athens said.

But, the devil, as they say, is in the details. It’s now up to Athens, with the help of a diverse team of city staff and local industry leaders, to figure out how to actually make it happen.

“We’re right now in the process of assembling some technical assistance groups … figuring out some interim targets between now and 2050 and then coming up with plans for each sector to reach the greenhouse gas reduction goals,” Athens said.

City operations have certainly done their part. According to Austin’s annual report on climate protection, updated in 2013, the city’s non-regulated municipal carbon footprint declined nearly 67 percent between 2007 and 2012.

“These reductions were achieved through energy efficiency measures and the use of zero carbon renewable electricity at city facilities, as well as by using less gasoline and diesel and more B20-biodiesel, E85-ethanol, propane, compressed natural gas, and electric powered vehicles,” the report noted.

In 2011, Austin became the largest local government in the U.S. to power all city-owned buildings and facilities with renewable energy, which helped earn it the Green Power Partner of the Year award by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2012.

Austin was a pilot community for the STAR Community Rating System, which measures and rates communities in a standard set of [5]

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The Austin City Council plans to divert 50 percent of materials from the landfills by 2015, 75 percent by 2020, 85 percent by 2030 and 90 percent by 2040. sustainability metrics. The city received a four-star rating from the organization in March.

Athens said climate change has been an important motivating factor in the city’s strategic planning. But city leaders found climate impact projections in the U.S. National Climate Assessment didn’t adequately specify how the changing climate would be felt locally. So, the city commissioned ATMOS Research to conduct climate modeling for the Austin area to predict its impact on the city through the remainder of this century. Led by Dr. Katharine Hayhoe from Texas Tech University, the research helped city staff develop a climate adaptation strategy that will address Austin’s greatest vulnerabilities.

“Dr. Hayhoe’s research showed us that extreme heat is going to be one of our major risks,” Athens said. “We already experience periodic extreme temperatures, but that’s going to become much more frequent in the future,” she said.

While Austin’s average yearly precipitation is not expected to change much, the distribution of that precipitation will become more erratic.

Floods, drought, wildfires, tropical storms, and even snow have already created havoc in the Austin area in recent years, and those events are expected to increase in frequency and intensity in the decades to come, according to “Towards a Climate Resilient Austin,” the city’s climate assessment report released in May. Austin’s strategy will be to address climate change from two directions: mitigation and adaptation. The city will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions with energy conservation, use of renewable energy, sustainable transportation, reforestation and using methane captured at landfills and wastewater treatment facilities. It will bolster its resilience to the effects of climate change by protecting its infrastructure, managing stormwater, preparing for wildfires, and developing plans for emergency response and business continuity.

Athens said success hinges on finding solutions to two challenging obstacles: time and money.

“When we’re talking about looking at things 50 years in the future, that doesn’t match political cycles,” Athens said. “… And then cost is a challenge. We’re struggling to maintain our public parks and our urban forest. How do we find the resources to do that kind of longterm maintenance to keep those ecological systems healthy? We don’t have a utility structure for trees. We don’t pay a bill for our use of air in any given month,” Athens said.

She said the city is in “information-gathering mode” for now. “But I’m sure we will be looking at some different financial models to try to come up with some solutions. Can we fill any of these gaps with bond [6]

funding? Can we have special fees that would be tied to any of these services? Will the public be willing to accept that? As we begin to move into potentially a more robust carbon market in North America, will we be able to monetize any of our assets related to carbon offsets? Those are some of the different things we’ll be looking at.”

While it remains to be seen how much Austin citizens will be willing to pay for solutions, Athens said the local public is “acutely aware” of the impacts that have already begun to put a strain on local resources as drought, wildfires and tree loss continue to plague the city and region.

“We’re experiencing some very severe water shortages right now; our water utility is having some huge financial challenges because they’ve done so well with conservation,” she said.

In the four years Athens has served as chief sustainability officer for the city of Austin, she’s proud of the comprehensive framework her staff has developed for defining, tracking and measuring sustainability across more than 20 city departments. The framework tracks 153 city-led projects and programs in 10 “areas of innovation,” including water, energy, mobility, health, waste management, arts & culture, youth and other agenda items that address the triple bottom line of sustainability: ecology, economy and social equity.

“We’ve been able to cast the net quite widely,” she said. Her staff has grown to nine people with the recent addition of a sustainable food policy coordinator.

Athens knows city staff can’t do the job alone. Getting the public engaged and working toward common goals will be critical to success.

To that end, her department recently launched a mobile phone app dubbed “Rethink/,” which uses games and competitions to encourage citizens to learn and adopt green behaviors. Education and outreach to take sustainability to the neighborhood scale will continue to be a major focus of her office, Athens said.

Bob Gedert is Austin’s resource recovery director, a title that acknowledges a recent change in the city’s attitude toward waste.

“The department used to be called Solid Waste Services but a couple years ago we changed it to Austin Resource Recovery because we changed our mission from picking up trash and taking it to the landfill to recovering resources,” Gedert said.

The Austin City Council passed its first zero-waste resolution in 2009, becoming the first Texas city to do so. That resolution was followed in 2011 by more aggressive goals to divert 50 percent of materials from the landfills by 2015, 75 percent by 2020, 85 percent by 2030 and 90

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The city banned single-use plastic bags in 2012, and Gedert said he believes 100 percent of Austin’s 14,000 retailers are currently in compliance. Next spring, his department will make recommendations for new requirements to divert construction and demolition materials from the landfill. City staff is also working on a proposal to green special events, requiring major festivals to develop and report sustainability plans of their own.

Half of Austin’s residents live in single-family homes, and half in apartments. City staff collects recyclables from 186,000 singlefamily households, and private haulers collect from the apartment complexes. Recyclables are sorted by two private companies contracted by the city.

Yard trimmings are collected weekly at the curb and turned into compost. Branded “Dillo Dirt,” in a nod to the iconic Texas armadillo, the compost is used in city parks and offered free of charge to local residents.

A pilot program is now collecting food scraps from 14,000 households.

“We’re experimenting with the types of trucks we use and what type of containers work best,” Gedert said. “When we get all the kinks worked out in that pilot, then we plan on expanding it citywide.”

Austin closed its landfill prematurely after a recent airport expansion created concerns about airplanes hitting the birds that were attracted by the garbage. It now hauls its trash to a private landfill, paying $21 per ton, one of the lowest tipping fees Gedert has seen.

n

Photos used throughout, courtesy Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau (ACVB).

percent by 2040. In order to reach these targets, Gedert’s department will need to continuously ratchet up its efforts to reduce waste at the source, collect more materials for recycling, and educate citizens on conservation practices.

In 2012, the council passed a Universal Recycling Ordinance, which phases in more stringent requirements through 2018.

“By 2018, every single building in the city will have the capability to collect recyclables and compostables,” he said. Private trash haulers are now required to report how much trash they pick up and what they divert from the landfill. The city’s recycling vendors are required to add one new item to their list of materials collected at the curb or accepted at collection points within the city.

As a result of closing its landfill early, the city had to find a new use for a 107-acre parcel of land originally designated for landfill expansion. Perhaps ironically, the city decided to develop that vacant land into an “eco-industrial park.”

“The concept behind it is to invite major re-manufacturing facilities to locate there and consume our recycled materials,” Gedert said. He said many of these materials are currently exported overseas. “So, now, instead of shipping around the world, we’ve got a circular local economy around recycling,” he said.

The industrial park will be ready for tenants in 2015, and financial incentives will be offered to companies that agree to buy materials from local recyclers.

Whatever progress Austin has made in recent years, city leaders aren’t ready to declare victory or let the momentum wane. Athens said the city just launched a three-year project to rewrite its land development code to reflect the vision and objectives of its 2012 comprehensive plan, ImagineAustin, a roadmap intended to guide the city for the next 30 years. n

Read about Austin’s initiatives at austintexas.gov/resident/conservation-and-recycling [8]

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Massachusetts Prepares for Mandatory Composting Large Food Handlers Must Divert Scraps from Landfills by October

BY ELIZABETH ROSS WHITE

BROOKE NASH

Banana peels don’t go in the trash can. At least not in Massachusetts, where a growing number of municipalities have curbside composting programs, and the state plans to ban commercial food waste in landfills later this year.

waste must be sent to an anaerobic digestion facility or a composter,” according to a press release from the Massachusetts Office of Environmental Affairs.

Similar to recycling, residential food-scrap programs are simple: Households are given plastic bins to dispose of their organic waste. The compost bins are placed on the curb for weekly street-side pickup service.

Although most of the programs are voluntary, officials say citizens have been enthusiastic about participating.

In step with the state’s efforts to reduce food waste, individual households can now participate too. Composting is a tangible way for people to help reduce their trash output weekly.

“The passion the residents have for this program is incredible,” said DA VID CASH William Fitzgerald, Department of Public Works director in Manchesterby-the-Sea, Mass., about the town’s new compost program.

Composting helps protect the environment and delivers rich rewards, state officials said, reducing landfill waste and harmful greenhouse gas emissions. It also saves on disposal costs, promotes economic development in the private sector and produces compost soil that’s great for gardening.

“It’s a win, win, win all around,” said David Cash, commissioner with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Food waste is the single largest component of trash, according to state environmental officials, with more than 1 million tons of it entering the Massachusetts waste stream each year – along with other organic material.

The state is now taking steps to ban commercial food waste in landfills, with a law that takes effect on Oct. 1. The law will require “any entity that disposes of at least one ton of organic material weekly to donate or re-purpose the useable food. The remaining food

Anaerobic digestion is a process that converts food waste into energy.

The disposal ban will affect about 1,700 businesses and institutions, including supermarkets, colleges, hotels, hospitals and restaurants.

Back yard composting is another option for home owners who have the time and space to do so.

“It really is a personal choice,” said Brooke Nash, branch chief of the state Municipal Waste Reduction program. Since 1991, Massachusetts has distributed more than 100,000 backyard compost bins and continues to do so.

“Composting in the backyard is still a great way to go – if you have the space and you’re inclined,” she added.

While major metropolitan areas along the West Coast – including Seattle, Portland and San Francisco – have long had curbside programs, Massachusetts communities added composting to its curbside service options more recently.

Currently, three Bay State communities, Hamilton, Wenham and Manchester-by-the-Sea, have full curbside composting. Three other communities, Ipswich, Salem, and Cambridge, have pilot programs, which may require residents to pay for the pickup service or only involve a certain area of a city.

In Massachusetts, as elsewhere, each community is different. In some cases, citizens will introduce the idea to municipal leaders. In others, municipal leaders will take the lead. In most cases, all communities who have either pilot or full curbside programs create free compost for residents to use in gardens.

The trail-blazer, Hamilton-Wenham, started its curbside program in 2009.

“They were quite ahead of the curve,” Nash said.

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Students took a leading role with Manchester-Essex Regional High School’s Green Team, an environmental group. With the help of interested residents, the team offered advice on organizing the committee and created an Internet presence. The student group even started working on the project before the volunteer committee was formed.

The idea was originally promoted by local resident and environmentalist Gretel Clark, who carried it through two pilot phases and on to its town-wide program in Hamilton. It now includes Hamilton’s neighboring town, Wenham, as well.

“It was like fighting a civil war getting it going,” Clark said. A “several-years battle,” it took a while to convince residents to become comfortable with composting.

There were a few reasons for the initial resistance, Clark said. The town is conservative, “and people don’t want to change.” Also, many had a problem with the “yuck factor,” she said. “They didn’t like the idea of all that mushy stuff sitting around for a few days.”

It did take several public forums, one-on-one contacts, emails and even a composting hot-line to allow discussion and a way for people to get used to the new idea, Clark said.

And problems flared up. During the pilot program, flies were causing

havoc during the hot summer months, she said. “That first year, I got calls from people who were just freaked out by the fly larvae in the bins.”

But she and others helped educate residents. In hot weather, meat and cooked food needed to be stored in the freezer until the day of compost pickup to avoid flies. In the winter, residents learned to store compost cans in their garages so the food scraps won’t freeze in the cold and then stick to the bins.

Hamilton-Wenham uses the hauler, Hiltz Disposal, which introduced a specialized dual-stream, rear-load packer truck that combines recyclables and compost pickups. Also, the Massachusetts DEP offered grant money to pay for compost bins.

After some time, Hamilton-Wenham officials made it clear that the pilots would evolve into full, town-wide curbside programs. Objections were raised, but ultimately it was cost and not environmental concerns that helped move the program forward. Through detailed spreadsheets, town officials were able to show how the budget for solid waste would be reduced with the new program.

Residents showed more willingness to cooperate after the regular pickup schedule was restricted. When regular trash pickup was reduced to every other week – instead of weekly – they were forced to rely on the weekly compost and recycling pickup. In this “pay as you throw” system, residents had to pay for special blue trash bags to accommodate extra trash beyond one 30-gallon barrel every other week.

“It worked,” Clark said. “It was pretty, pretty dramatic. In less than a year, we saved well over $100,000 in tipping fees.”

Now that the curbside program is in full swing, residents are feeling more comfortable, Clark said.

“People who were my most vociferous opponents now stop me on the street and tell me how proud they are of themselves and of their town,” she said.

In Manchester-by-the-Sea north of Boston, on the other hand, an all-volunteer Compost Committee started looking into the idea last summer and the program was launched in less than one year. Its program is quite similar to the Hamilton-Wenham model. In fact, much of its success is due to what Clark and others learned from the experience in Hamilton-Wenham.

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Working with municipal leaders, the Manchester group found the same hauler, Hiltz Disposal, and the same nearby composter, Brick Ends Farm of Hamilton. The Massachusetts DEP provided a grant of $47,000 for compost carts and offered technical assistance.

Students took a leading role with Manchester-Essex Regional High School’s Green Team, an environmental group. With the help of interested residents, the team offered advice on organizing the committee and created an Internet presence.

The student group even started working on the project before the volunteer committee was formed. “(Composting) is a very good idea,” said Teddy Economo, a Green Team member and junior at Manchester-Essex Regional High School. “It definitely helps save a lot of resources in our town and it cuts down on the waste.”

n

The towns of Essex and Manchester are located in an ecologically important area, with open spaces, streams, wetlands, coastal plains, salt marshes, ocean tidelands, beaches and rocky shores.

Once the proposal was presented to the town last December, the Board of Selectman voted unanimously in support of it. By midApril, gleaming green bins were stationed like proud sentries along the streets of Manchester. A team of Boy Scouts and residents had delivered all 2,300 “compost carts” to households in the town.

Questions about whether animals can get into the bins are sometimes asked. Of course, “there’s nothing that a human can open that a raccoon can’t,” Fitzgerald said, but the bins “have total locking lids.

People were kicking them around and they didn’t open.

“You can’t over think these things. You’ve got to just do it,” he added.

Pickup service also works well. A split waste disposal truck, the same kind used for Hamilton-Wenham, picks up both compost and recycling in one trip. A second truck picks up the regular trash.

“It’s a great citizen-led initiative,” said Tom Kehoe, of the Board of Selectman. “We’re looking for this to be good for the people in the town, as well as the town itself.”

Kehoe noted that the program will save water, too, as sink-mounted garbage disposal use will decrease.

Manchester’s residents and town officials are pleased. On the first day of curbside pickup in April, a press event was held on a pictureperfect spring day at Manchester-Essex Regional High School.

“It was truly a collaborative effort,” noted Tory Morton, Manchester Composting Committee Chair at the press event. “It wasn’t me. It was so obvious that it was because of all the collaboration; that it was all of us working together. It warms my heart. It makes me want to cry.

Everyone was so helpful!”

Town Administrator Greg Federspiel agreed.

“It’s been an administrator’s dream,” he said. “It’s been a great example of what citizens can do to make the world a better place.” n Brooke Nash is branch chief of the Massachusetts Municipal Waste Reduction program.

David Cash is a commissioner with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. [ 11 ]

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Redeveloping Abandoned Gas Stations Cleanups Benefit Local Economies

By Julianne Couch

Brownfield /’broun,feld/ n: abandoned, idled or underused industrial and commercial properties where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination. The empty gas station on the corner. The shuttered restaurant with a cracked parking lot. The abandoned factory or foundry on the edge of town.

These examples of brownfields are ubiquitous in communities across the country – and they are an increasingly visible concern. In fact, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores, of the

nearly 200,000 gas stations that existed nationwide in 1991, more than 50,000 are now closed.

So how should communities address brownfields – sustainably and on a budget?

Cleanup and redevelopment of petroleum brownfield sites can encourage higher property values, create jobs and benefit the local economy by creating a safer, healthier urban space to house businesses and residences, according to the Brownfield Center at the Environmental Law Institute. But many businesses and industries prefer developing “greenfields,” or undeveloped land, to avoid the perceived complications of brownfields redevelopment.

Extensive development of greenfields, particularly combined with underdevelopment of brownfields and other infill properties, can intensify urban sprawl and consume valuable farmland and habitat.

This is why it might make sense to redevelop brownfields first, before moving into greenfields for development.

Although there are expenses associated with developing a brownfield site, it does not have to be a budget buster. Groundwater contamination costs more to clean up than just the soil.

Contaminated materials that need to be transported off-site for treatment also can be costly, according to the Brownfield Center. If a property is cleaned up to commercial use standards, rather than residential use standards, the cleanup will typically be less expensive.

There also are grants, low interest loans and tax incentives to help local governments investigate and clean up brownfields. Since 2003, when petroleum-contaminated sites first became eligible for brownfield grants, the EPA awarded more than $89.8 million for the assessment and cleanup of petroleum brownfield sites. For a site to be eligible, the EPA or the state must make the determination that a petroleum-contaminated site is “relatively low-risk” compared to other petroleum-contaminated sites in the state. It must have “no viable responsible party;” it must be assessed, investigated or cleaned up by a person not potentially liable for the contamination, and it must not be subject to a corrective action order under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Regardless of whether a property is a gas station or another type of business, it is critical to integrate the remediation with the redevelopment, said Rayo Bhumgara, president of Massachusettsbased Sustainable Strategies 2050, which helps communities

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navigate the clean-up and redevelopment of brownfield sites. The first question to ask about a brownfield site is whether it poses an imminent hazard to human health or the environment. Even if tanks have been removed and soil remediated, an abandoned gas station can still be a hub for criminal activity, and can cause property values and the local tax base to erode.

“These things affect the fabric of the city. The longer a property has been abandoned, the greater the ripple effect. Then it affects the whole neighborhood, not just one discreet location,” he said.

“There are derivative effects of not taking action for a prolonged period of time. And if there is a cluster of abandoned sites, that creates a negative dynamic for the community at large.”

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Of the nearly 200,000 gas stations that existed nationwide in 1991, more than 50,000 are now closed, including this one in Melvin, Ill.

When city managers and other officials are dealing with a brownfield site, they should first determine whether the property owner or owners will clean the site or whether the owners have walked away from their cleanup responsibilities, Bhumgara said.

If the contamination is such that there are imminent hazards, then regulatory agencies will become involved.

“Cities don’t like to take responsibility for clean-up, unless they take title to the property,” he said. “If there isn’t an imminent hazard, the regulatory agencies will determine the long-term strategy for cleanup.

Where the owner is non-responsive, the city should step in and try to get the property redeveloped. The city has limited options if they don’t have control of the property. If they do have control, they can consider various redevelopment options and then align the remediation with the redevelopment.”

Normally, when a business wants to select a site for expansion, they evaluate potential sites based on several criteria that will work for their business. Bhumgara applies that method in reverse for brownfield sites.

“We start with locations that are looking for industries/end-users. The goal is to identify users that will be a good match for the location and the community,” he said. “Before developing a strategy to identify the most viable industries or end-users for a brownfield property, it is important to understand the characteristics of the property and community, including existing buildings that can be adapted and re-used, infrastructure, utilities, environmental liabilities, zoning and allowable uses, and ownership.”

The next step is to gain an understanding of a range of attributes that the community or region has to offer, Bhumgara said, including real estate/facilities, operating costs, workforce talent, business

Although there are expenses associated with developing a brownfield site, it does not have to be a budget buster. Since 2003, when petroleum-contaminated sites first became eligible for brownfield grants, the EPA awarded more than $89.8 million for the assessment and cleanup of petroleum brownfield sites. [ 13 ]

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environment, logistics and access, taxation/incentives, vendors and partners, utilities and infrastructure. This then gives a basic definition of the ingredients that might be combined to develop the strategy to qualify and attract industries/end-users.

“Redevelopment has to drive the cleanup of brownfield sites, where an imminent threat does not exist, and it is important to understand what the market will support for each location and for the community,” he said, which is how his company works with cities to create an action plan that will identify the steps to redevelopment.

“At the end of the day, bringing in new businesses/end-users drives redevelopment,” Bhumgara said. “Brownfields just have an additional layer of complexity, which can be navigated through, but they also have opportunities because they are located in places along transportation corridors, with existing infrastructure/utilities and other positive attributes. These sites might have outdated facilities or infrastructure, but they can be adapted for contemporary uses.”

Bhumgara helps create action plans that prioritize sites, identify key industries/end-users, identify key infrastructure upgrades, opportunities for public private partnerships, develop community involvement plans and review permitting and regulatory issues. Some cities have capabilities in-house for this type of analysis, but more than 95 percent of cities don’t, he said.

“This type of analysis is highly specialized,” he said. “A consultant might be a good investment because they bring experience from other cities where they are working. They can propose and adapt solutions you many have not thought about and help you implement a plan that is results oriented.”

stakeholders to implement recommendations, Bhumgara said.

“Develop a road map of what you can do quickly to connect the dots without spending a lot of money,” he said. “Prioritize sites/actions based on how long it may take to implement, the financial investment required and the regulatory/policy changes needed.”

Many brownfield sites of all types have been and currently are in the process of being cleaned up and developed. According to the United States General Accounting Office, there are as many as 425,000 throughout the U.S., mostly concentrated in urban areas. Most of these are “legacy” brownfields that go back 10, 20, 30 years or more since they were abandoned, Bhumgara said.

“Most were operating before EPA had the regulatory enforcement or oversight it does now. Some became Superfund sites because of imminent threats and an unacceptable level of risk to human health and the environment,” he said, adding that we are in a “different world” than in the 1970s, 1980s or1990s.

“The probability of an industry abandoning a facility and not closing it in an appropriate manner today is remote,” Bhumgara said. “But we still have a lot of legacy sites that we will be redeveloping over the next 10-20 years and beyond. Brownfields offer a terrific opportunity to re-build the industrial/manufacturing base in the U.S. by highlighting the positive attributes of these locations and re-adapting them for 21st century businesses.” n

related youtube video: http://youtu.be/BYH2QngCmhA

Cities should set up a task force made up of community organizations, city officials, business representatives and other committed

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Financing Sustainability Projects Crowdfunding Lets Citizens Invest a Little to Get a Lot

BY JESSICA CHAPMAN

City budget deficits are far from rare. Chicago, Phoenix and Newark are just a few examples of cities confronting likely shortfalls in the upcoming fiscal year. And on the extreme end of the spectrum there’s Detroit, which filed for bankruptcy in the summer of 2013 citing a staggering $18-20 billion in debt.

So how can cities find room in their budgets for sustainability initiatives?

based crowdfunding site called Community Funded, described the fundraising tool as “a big shift in the way things are being funded.”

Scrolling through Community Funded’s website, Stover pointed out inspiring examples of crowdfunding: a family raising money to pay for a child’s exorbitant hospital bills, Fort Collins residents coming

Well, in Colorado the recent legalization of recreational marijuana use means cities like Denver could begin seeing millions in new revenue starting this year. Such a distinctive way of generating new money makes it perhaps fitting that this year’s annual New Partners for Smart Growth conference took place in the “Mile High City.”

But, most municipalities represented at the conference couldn’t bank on taxation and regulation of a controlled substance to pay for smart-growth projects. Two conference sessions in particular offered attendees a number of other compelling ideas and options for funding projects.

One session, “Follow the Crowd: New Funding and Civic Engagement Tools for Equitable Development,” addressed how funding models are shifting and new avenues are opening up to basically anyone with an internet connection, assisted by recent legislation and an increasingly civicminded public seeking to connect with each other and support their communities.

One model discussed – crowdfunding – has become a buzzword in recent years. Popularized by platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, crowdfunding provides a way for many people to pool resources, typically through online donations, toward a larger goal. Ryan Stover, cofounder and chief creative officer for a Fort Collins, Colo.-

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companion crowdfunding site, Popularise), the momentum around crowdfunding will be boosted by enactment of the 2012 Jumpstart our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. Though not yet fully in effect, the legislation, among other things, deregulates securities rules on raising capital, including lifting a ban on public solicitation of, and marketing to, investors.

The changes will have powerful effects not only on crowdfunding ventures, but business startups like Miller’s as well.

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www.CommunityFunded.com is a crowdsourcing platform that makes it easier for citizens to start, share, and support their community’s great ideas.

together to maintain a bike lending library, a young man with little money but a lot of entrepreneurial spirit launching a new brand of energy bar.

“Crowdfunding is storytelling with this funding process built in,” Stover explained.

Add to it the power of technology, he said, and the possibilities soar.

“The multiplicative effect of communication takes these concepts to a whole new level,” he said. “Technology allows incredible connectivity.”

Crowdfunding could be modified and used for many different purposes, Stover said, including use by government entities.

“We’ve had conversations with governments of all sizes,” he said. “There’s the idea of taking these tools and you can put them on any website and open up any platform. It works great for government programs aimed at revitalizing and creating startups and business incubators. Things are being created already. It’s a set of tools that can be adapted and fit to any niche.”

According to both Stover and Dan Miller, co-founder of the Washington, D.C.-based real estate startup Fundrise (and its

“It’s going to create a revolution in capital and how the entire system works,” said Fundrise’s Miller, whose business eliminates middlemen in real estate transactions and allows individuals to invest in their communities for as little as $100. “The JOBS Act will allow people to raise capital with really little to no upfront cost. It will be a few thousand in legal fees instead of nine months of filings and hundreds of thousands [spent] preparing.”

Meanwhile, philanthropic foundations also remain a stable option for cities and organizations in need of supplemental funding to support programming. A session called “Where’s the Money: 2014 Smart Growth Funding Report” brought together representatives from several well-known philanthropic foundations to relate trends and offer advice on funding opportunities.

Panelists returned to themes of resilience and adaptability in their recommendations. Funding appeals related to climate change mitigation also are particularly appealing to foundations right now, they reported. Panelist Francesca Vietor, program director with the San Francisco Foundation, emphasized the need for grant applicants to also be cognizant of the country’s shifting demographics.

That doesn’t mean organizations should feel limited though, said John Nordgren, a senior program officer with the Kresge Foundation.

“You can start with where you are,” he reassured. “You can start with water if that’s what your community is wrestling with and use that as a door through which you can work on other agendas.

But have a broad conversation. Engage across sectors. Do multi-

Explore current Community Funded projects at www.communityfunded.com/explore-projects [ 16 ]

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sectoral, multi- jurisdictional engagement on your own as a matter of course.”

“We’re going to be very vulnerable if we do things the way we’ve always done,” Gougeon said. n

Scot Spencer, associate director of advocacy and influence for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, emphasized the powerful role that philanthropy can play. He cited as an example the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in 2012, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was limited in the ways it could offer assistance to affected communities.

Ryan Stover is co-founder and chief creative officer for a Fort Collins, Colo.-based crowdfunding site called Community Funded.

According to Spencer, about 20 early childhood centers were devastated by the storm, but FEMA was able to offer assistance only to federally-funded Head Start-affiliated centers. This not only created the burden of leaving a number of childcare centers closed for an extended period of time, but also caused some parents to be unable to work as a result of the absence of childcare.

“But a bunch of philanthropies came together to give money upfront to get some things taken care of,” Spencer said. “In times of emergency, philanthropy can come to a pretty hefty rescue and in a pretty good way that government cannot at all times.”

Thomas Gougeon, president of the Gates Family Foundation in Denver, cautioned that philanthropies should not be viewed as a panacea.

“The real resources are in the public sector and the private economy,” he said, “not in philanthropy. While philanthropy can be additive, you have to harness the other two to do the things you want. Just trying to work off philanthropy isn’t going to get it done.”

Dan Miller is co-founder of the Washington, D.C.-based real estate startup Fundrise, and its companion crowdfunding site, Popularise.

Francesca Vietor is program director with the San Francisco Foundation.

John Nordgren is a senior program officer with the Kresge Foundation.

Scot Spencer is associate director of advocacy and influence for the Annie E. Casey Foundation. related youtube video: http://youtu.be/_wuWnl4O7CM

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The future might well lie in the innovations unfolding at Stover’s Community Funded and Miller’s Fundrise. Reflecting on his aspirations for Fundrise, Miller said, “The real vision is you give people a tool to build their own city. They’re using this as a vehicle to organize, invest and manage and be a part of development around them. … It’s going to create better cities that are more connected and relevant to local community.”

Philanthropists agree.

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U.S. Coasts Prepare for Rising Seas Experts Urge Coastal Regions to Plan for Likely Effects

By F. Alan Shirk

Dave McKeon

Sea level is a “slow-moving emergency,” according to scientist Steve Goldbeck. As chief deputy director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), one of the first U.S. coastal community agencies to establish a master plan to deal with sea level rise, Goldbeck has first-hand experience helping coastal communities deal with the effects of climate change.

And around the country, from Connecticut to Florida to California, coastal communities are weighing the reality of sea level rise into their longterm planning.

Jim Murley

Laura T am

S teve Goldbeck

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“Science is pretty clear. Sea level is rising and it has risen significantly in the last 100 years. The most robust numbers are from the U.S. National Research Council (suggesting sea level rise over the 21st century of between 22 and 79 inches). But it is difficult to predict,” Goldbeck said. “We don’t know, for example, how much greenhouse gases will be emitted in the next several decades.”

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that sea level worldwide is currently rising by about 0.118 inches per year, which is “a significantly larger rate than the sea-level rise averaged over the last several thousand years …”

The California’s Climate Action Team projections indicate a rise of 10 to 17 inches by 2050 and between 31 and 69 inches by 2100, considered the best available sea level projections

for the West Coast. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Working Group I Fifth Assessment Report (WGI AR5), which provides a comprehensive assessment of the physical science basis of climate change, projects a 17- to 32-inch sea level rise by 2100, depending largely on how much greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere during the remainder of the century.

Worldwide effects

IPCC’s report, compiled with 54,677 comments by 1,089 expert reviewers from 55 counties and 38 governments, noted that “human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming and understanding of the climate system.”

There have been numerous other predictions, including one study cited

by Ocean.NationalGeographic.com that said to expect oceans to rise between 2.5 and 6.5 feet by 2100, enough to swamp many of the cities along the East Coast.

“Really, it’s more important that people start planning immediately for a rise in sea level. BCDC, which has served some 100 cities in nine California counties for more than 20 years, is trying to be resilient to a range of sea level rises. We have a mandate to plan for the Bay and its shoreline as a regional state agency,” Goldbeck said. “People need to make sea level rise part of the planning for a number of threats and issues. For example, we know we are going to have a major earthquake here again. We already face the potential for flooding and extreme storms. We must have a regional strategy for the bay in planning at all levels.”

Much of the San Francisco Bay’s shoreline land, reclaimed from the bay in the 1800s, is already very low lying and vulnerable to flooding that could affect more than 250,000 residents and cost $60 billion alone to replace, Goldbeck added.

“This includes a lot of major companies like Google in the Silicon Valley that are close to the shoreline,” he said. “This is the future we are trying to prevent.”

Creating a strategy

Another important Bay Area agency that works closely with the BCDC is SPUR, formerly known as the San Francisco Planning and Urban Development Association. Founded in 1910 after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, SPUR is a 4,000-member, non-profit research, education

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and advocacy organization focused on issues of planning and governance, including renewable energy, housing and sea level rise, among other issues.

Laura Tam, SPUR’s Sustainable Development Policy director, echoed Goldbeck’s recommendation that U.S. coastal communities incorporate sea level rise strategies in all future planning.

“An important role for SPUR is helping to jumpstart a conversation about sea level rise. People have to think about a problem we are going to face going forward,” she said. “It’s not going to get better. We recognized the need for regional, local and scenario planning and we were part of the first wave of consciousness when we began writing about sea level rise in 2009.

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Palm trees reflected in a canal at a golf course, Miami, Florida

“Our Climate Change report issued in 2011 was the first of its kind for the bay,” Tam added. “California is at the forefront on this issue.

We have put together a statewide climate adaptation strategy to mitigate our impact and we continue to fund a lot of studies that examine our vulnerability to issues like sea level rise. That includes risk assessments for transportation, energy, habitat protection, building codes and other existing nature and infrastructure. We know that we have to do things and that we have a lot of opportunities.”

Risk assessments and building development

For those who haven’t begun seriously addressing sea level rise, Tam suggested that the best place to start is a comprehensive risk assessment.

“Understand what projections are most applicable, what are you going to face and where,” she said. “Coastline makeup and tectonic movements will affect any ocean rise. Create coastal inundation maps that show what land would be covered by a rise.”

Building codes also have to be amended to account for sea level rise,

Tam said. Structures need to be properly designed and funded so that future changes can easily be made, for example, raising the height of sea walls or levees. Any design and financial strategy needs to offer protection well into the next century.

Through Tam and its other professionals, SPUR provides policy options to local governments in the Bay area and advocates where it is appropriate.

It also acts as a clearinghouse for information.

On the East Coast, communities such as Cape Cod, the New Jersey shore and South Florida also are planning for sea level rise in the longterm. One example is a 600-mile stretch from Cape Hatteras to Boston nicknamed the “northeast hotspot,” which experienced an increase in the rate of rise three to four times higher than the global average between 1950-1979 and 1980-2009.

Heather McElroy, a natural resource specialist with the Cape Cod Commission in Barnstable, Mass., said the commission was created in 1990 with regulatory authority over certain development, especially to increase the protection of natural resources on Cape Cod.

Access the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2013 report at www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ [ 19 ]

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Cape Cod also continues to nourish beaches with more sand in strategic places, but replenishing beach sand is not always an easy option.

“On the Cape Cod Canal at Sandwich, a jetty system robs sand from the beaches, which threatens a group of private homes,” she said. “The owners spent about $200,000 last year to dump sand on the beach. But that’s just a band aid.”

Considering undevelopment As a regional planning agency, McElroy said the commission seeks to make Cape Cod’s coastline more resilient in many ways.

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Projections of global mean sea level rise over the 21st century relative to 1986–2005 from the combination of the CMIP5 ensemble with process-based models, for RCP2.6 and RCP8.5. The assessed likely range is shown as a shaded band. The assessed likely ranges for the mean over the period 2081–2100 for all RCP scenarios are given as coloured vertical bars, with the corresponding median value given as a horizontal line.

Source: Church, J.A., P.U. Clark, A. Cazenave, J.M. Gregory, S. Jevrejeva, A. Levermann, M.A. Merrifield, G.A. Milne, R.S. Nerem, P.D. Nunn, A.J. Payne, W.T. Pfeffer, D. Stammer and A.S. Unnikrishnan, 2013: Sea Level Change. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

The commission reviews larger commercial and industrial projects, subdivisions greater than 30 acres and all state environmental permitting. A regional policy plan was updated to include the new FEMA flood plain regulations, especially in light of the rise in sea level.

The town of Chatham, which is at the Cape’s elbow, adopted a flood plain bylaw that prevents any residential development in Zone A, which is usually inundated, McElroy said. The law covers permitted uses, special permit uses and prohibited uses, she said. A property owner challenged that law, but the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld it, ruling in 2005 that the bylaw was “based on reasonable public interest and did not render the lot economically worthless. Therefore, no compensation was due.”

“This was an important victory in efforts to defend the Cape against sea level rise and other coastal issues,” McElroy said. [ 20 ]

“We have applied for grants to underwrite remediation, planted grass, removed rip rap jetties and expanded salt marshes,” she said. “We are looking for ways to undevelop the coastline where we can.”

When it comes to sea level rise, shore towns like Long Beach, Seaside Heights and Point Pleasant have to balance current problems with future ones, said Dave McKeon, planning director for Ocean County, N.J., based at

Toms River.

“While we are looking 50 years down the road, we could get hit by a Category 4 storm like Sandy,” he said. “What is the worst? That’s the challenge.”

Ocean County relies on the USGS for tide heights and other information and it’s a very reliable network, McKeon said.

While it has no formal or legal requirements prohibiting building, McKeon said Jersey beach communities are very dense with development in comparison to Cape Cod. “We don’t have forced buyouts, but we are evaluating them,” he said.

“We do have our Blue Acres Program, which has funds available to buy properties that have been flooded numerous times with repetitive losses.

Some areas are just too vulnerable and need to be undeveloped.”

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Since its creation in 1998, the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust Fund, paid for by a 1.2-cent voter-approved dedicated tax, has preserved more than 11,800 acres of open space.

Dunes, bulkheads, seawalls

Other options to deal with rising sea levels include dunes, bulkheads and seawalls. The county recently distributed more than 300,000 dune grass plants and 100,750 feet of fencing to towns and organizations to help fortify dunes along the county’s coast. The county initiated the program during the early 1990s following severe storms in the fall and early winter months that resulted in the weakening of dunes along its 44 miles of coastline.

Ocean County is finalizing a Multi-Jurisdictional All Hazards Mitigation Plan, a blueprint for reducing property damage and saving lives from the effects of future natural and human-made disasters. The plan incorporates the new FEMA flood plain directives, steps taken before, during and after Sandy, and looks at other hazards that can potentially affect Ocean County, such as forest fires and winter storms, McKeon said.

“The plan addresses sea level rise,” he said. “There is an awareness here and people are getting the wake-up call. On the bay, we have seen some trees die because the saltwater is encroaching on them. I also know that the Delaware Bay is rising and that about 50 homes were abandoned and bought from the property owners because nothing could be done to save them from the rising water.”

South Florida also is being proactive about the rising ocean, but faces a unique problem according to Jim Murley, executive director of the South Florida Regional Planning Council, based in Hollywood, Fla. Since the state rests on a very porous lime rock substrate formed over several thousand years by coral reefs, it soaks up water like a sponge, he said.

“The water table is very close to the surface and very fresh,” he said.

“Since saltwater is heavier, and when the oceans rise, it will push up the water table.”

South Florida canals

A series of intricate freshwater canals drain the southern part of the state, but during storms or rising sea levels, the saltwater moves up into the canals. Currently, numerous control gates with force pumps prevent the saltwater from moving too far up the canals, especially during high tide. These might not offer the same protection as the sea level rises, Murley said.

South Florida also has seen remarkable development, including Miami Beach – which is built on sand and marsh. But it is a small footprint to

work in jammed between the ocean and the Everglades.

“There’s not much potential for relocation,” Murley said. “How costly would it be to do that? And people are here because they want to see the water and they have to keep building higher buildings to do that.”

The regional planning council for Palm Beach, Dade, Broward and Monroe counties, is made up of people from agencies, government and universities, Murley said.

“We all work together to communicate and share the latest information when it comes to issues like sea level rise,” he said. “While we realize it will be an expense, we assume that everything is possible. We are all committed to an ongoing process using whatever national and international resources are at our disposal.”

Another key for the council is its vital signs network monitoring changes in nature.

“For example, are animals moving to new habitats? If the mangroves that need saltwater move farther inland, saltwater is moving farther into fresh water,” Murley said.

During the past 100 years, the sea has risen about 9 to 11 inches, proof that sea level rise occurs gradually, Murley said.

“We assume that we can put things into place that will mitigate that rise,” he said. “Right now, it’s hard to sit here in our situation and say here’s what we are going to do. We know we need no-regret strategies — things that will help now and later.”

“Maybe 70 years down the road, the building codes that we enforce today could pay off to combat rising sea level,” McKeon said. “We don’t know, but we can’t lose by taking care of the Earth.” n Steve Goldbeck is chief deputy director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

Laura Tam is sustainable development policy director for SPUR, formerly known as the San Francisco Planning and Urban Development Association.

Heather McElroy is a natural resource specialist with the Cape Cod Commission in Barnstable, Mass.

Dave McKeon is planning director for Ocean County, N.J., based at Toms River.

Jim Murley is executive director of the South Florida Regional Planning Council, based in Hollywood, Fla.

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Land Banks Help Restore Abandoned Neighborhoods Michigan Leads the Way with 36

By F. Alan Shirk

There are about 14 million housing units vacant year-round in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau and other sources. Many of them are abandoned and tax delinquent, creating a blight of despair and ugliness throughout industrial cities in the Northeast, the Rust Belt and metropolitan areas everywhere.

Chris Norman

K aitlin E. Wright

Land banks – governmental entities that specialize in converting vacant, abandoned and foreclosed properties for productive use – are a promising, and sometimes under-utilized tool for urban planning and community development, according to Frank S. Alexander, co-founder of the Center for Community Progress, which has worked to implement land banks in many areas of the country.

The loss of population in major cities since the 1950s and the more recent mortgage crisis, forcing millions from their homes, continues to decimate communities. Cleveland’s population, for example, fell from more than 900,000 in 1950 to fewer than 400,000 in 2010. Today, Detroit has nearly 80,000 vacant homes. In Las Vegas, there are 40,481 vacant single-family homes, 16,542 empty condominiums and 5,137 vacant townhouses, according to the University of Las Vegas.

The negative impacts of vacant residential, commercial and industrial properties are well known, and it is challenging to rebuild these abandoned communities and neighborhoods.

Founded in 2010, the Center for Community Progress is the country’s preeminent organization addressing issues of vacant properties, both the prevention of abandonment and adaptive reuse. Its staff in Washington, New Orleans and Flint, Mich., provides advocacy, technical assistance and organizational development services to governments and activists throughout the U.S., “helping neighborhoods, cities, counties and states forge and implement effective strategies to prevent and reuse vacant properties.”

Alexander is the Sam Nunn Professor of Law at Emory University, Atlanta. He has authored eight books and more than 40 articles, including the 2011 publication, “Land Banks and Land Banking” and the Georgia Land Bank Resource Manual.

According to Alexander, there are about 150 land banks in 23 states, including Michigan which leads with 36. The center has helped more than 100 communities in 22 states during the last four years and recognizes three generations of land banks. Each succeeding generation has expanded its legal, acquisition and disposition powers.

Center General Counsel Sara Toering, co-author of the Georgia Land Bank Resource Manual, said the land banking concept first emerged in the 1960s as a new urban planning tool to deal with urban sprawl and the early decline and abandonment of inner-city neighborhoods.

First generation banks included St. Louis (1971), Cleveland (1976), Louisville (1989) and Atlanta (1991). While this first group of agencies began to attack the problem of vacant properties, Toering said they did not have a lot of clout and acquired properties passively, mostly those that failed to sell at sheriffs’ sales.

Toering said in the early 2000s, states began to revise land bank and tax laws, which led to the second generation of land banks, including the Genesee County Land Bank in Michigan and the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Land Reutilization Corp., or CLB, which has done much to eliminate vacant properties in greater Cleveland through demolition and rehabilitation.

“Michigan and Ohio amended multiple parts of state law and also changed tax foreclosure law,” Toering said.

The 2003 Michigan Land Bank Fast Track Act created self-funding mechanisms for land banks, allowed them to acquire all tax-foreclosed properties and empowered Michigan land banks to demolish and rehabilitate properties through code enforcement.

Before passing the act, the state legislature streamlined the Michigan tax foreclosure process, shortening it from seven to only two years.

Toering said the third generation of land banks arose out of the recent foreclosure crisis and are supported by state statutes to give maximum power to local governments to repurpose vacant properties.

“It’s a laser focus on the problem,” she said. “Land bank statutes are

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now much easier to read and understand. All-important self-financing mechanisms are built in. For example, when a property transfers back to public, productive use, 50 percent of new taxes revert back to the land bank for five years.”

Perhaps the most important advantage is that a local government can tailor a land bank to fit community needs.

“The land bank in Valdosta, Ga., is tremendously successful with its partnership with Habitat for Humanity to turn as many as 100 properties a year into single-family homes,” Toering added. “The Cuyahoga County bank has a multi-million dollar annual budget, operating on a much larger scale with great success.”

The Fulton County/City of Atlanta Land Bank Authority (LBA) began to focus on ‘conduit transfers’ of tax-delinquent properties to community development corporations (CDCs) at the rate of about 50-100 properties a year, she added. It later created the first-ever five-year holding period in 2009 to rescue properties during the foreclosure crisis, enrolling more than 200 properties and releasing 34. In 2011, LBA teamed up with other land banks in the state to establish the Georgia Association of Land Bank Authorities (GALBA), which gave the land banks a formal voice in state politics.

“The primary thrust of all land banks and land banking initiatives is to acquire and maintain properties that have been rejected by the open market and left as growing liabilities for neighborhoods and communities,” Alexander wrote. “The first task is the acquisition of title to such properties; the second task is the elimination of the liabilities; the third task is the transfer of the properties to new owners in a manner most supportive of local needs and priorities.”

According to the HUD website, land banks also can clear titles, extinguish property taxes on abandoned structures or acquire and hold properties for future public use. This enables them to be flexible and

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The Fulton County/City of Atlanta Land Bank Authority acquired and demolished this 28-unit foreclosed apartment building and transferred ownership to National Church Residences, which redeveloped the property as Betmar Village, a 42-unit senior living facility in Atlanta’s Lakewood neighborhood.

effective tools for bringing abandoned properties back into active use, contributing to local property tax coffers, advancing communal goals for more green space, and increasing the local supply of affordable homes.

At the same time, the land banks’ efforts reduce blight, enhance public safety, stabilize communities and rehabilitate properties that

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the real estate market cannot process efficiently. In these ways, land banks combat both the direct and indirect costs of vacant properties.

The Greater Syracuse Land Bank (GSLB) is a new third generation land bank, one of eight founded after New York passed enabling legislation. GSLB incorporated in 2012 and acquired its first properties in October 2013.

The city had tried targeted investment (CDBGs), tougher code enforcement and other methods to deal with 1,800 vacant structures and 3,000 vacant lots concentrated in certain neighborhoods, Executive Director Kaitlin E. Wright said, but “nothing could approach the scale of our problems. Now, our land bank seems like it will work well for both the city and Onondaga County.”

The bank already acquired 280 properties and disposed of a dozen, Wright said, and it is working on getting three dozen more.

“The bank is a bridge between the private and public sectors. We are able to sell to well-vetted buyers. We ask for detailed development plans, itemized budgets, how it will be managed and proof of financing,” she said. “For example, if a developer says he or she can do the labor, we ask for proof that they have done it before.”

A lot of the value in a land bank is invisible, so GSLB must do enough tangible things to show its value, Wright said, including working closely with elected officials and neighborhood associations.

But adequate funding is a major challenge for land banks.

“The primary way we acquire properties is through tax delinquency,” Wright said. “We can build a lot of inventory at low cost. It’s difficult to acquire through other methods,” she said. “Donation is another option for us.”

The GSLB also hopes to change the market.

“Maybe we can generate market demand if we fix enough properties.

Many of our neighborhoods have been neglected for years. In some, the vacancy rate is 20 percent. GSLB only controls a small percentage of properties in each neighborhood. We are combating absentee landlords who are buying and flipping without our control. Hopefully, the sales we make will turn a weak real estate market stronger,” Wright said, adding that a house in Syracuse can currently be purchased for as little as $10,000.

The object is to get the properties, stabilize them and flip them for the best outcome.

“For the first 50 days a property is on the market, we only look for buyers who will occupy it. We want responsible private investors who we will help to find funding if possible. We prefer to sell a block of properties as one,” Wright said.

GSLB also uses enforcement mortgages equal to the value of the property and the amount a buyer plans to invest. If work is not done according to plan, GSLB can take back the property.

Chris Norman is in his fourth year as executive director of the Fulton County/City of Atlanta Land Bank Authority, or LBA, a “vital cog in the wheel” of Georgia, especially during the meltdown from 2008-2010.

“We took on a lot of water; a lot of people were stressed out; there were a lot of foreclosures here,” Norman said, adding that Georgia was among the top five states in terms of the severity of the foreclosure crisis. LBA distributed funds made available by the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) and bought and held properties through the Land Bank Depository Agreement Program, launched in 2009.

One of the more significant achievements of this program was the acquisition and demolition of a 28-unit foreclosed apartment building. Ownership was transferred to National Church Residences, which redeveloped the property as Betmar Village, a 42-unit senior living facility in Atlanta’s Lakewood neighborhood.

LBA is poised to expand its scope of activities even more, Norman said, largely because of the self-funding option authorized recently by the Georgia legislature.

“I am incredibly excited about land banks, a targeted and strategic investment of resources,” Toering said. “There is a lot of networking now. Folks in the trenches have been doing work for decades and are sharing best practices. That means less reinventing of the wheel and more innovation.

“The increasingly regional approach is exciting, too,” she added.

“Local governments are combining forces to address the symptoms of blight on a broader scale, which is essential.” n Sara Toering is general counsel for the Center for Community Progress and co-author of the Georgia Land Bank Resource Manual.

Kaitlin E. Wright is executive director of the Greater Syracuse Land Bank in Syracuse, N.Y. Chris Norman is executive director of the Fulton County/City of Atlanta Land Bank Authority.

Read more about the Fulton County/City of Atlanta Land Bank Authority at www.fccalandbank.org/banking.htm [ 24 ]

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Climate Change Update: It’s Costing Us Now Latest Report Warns of Immediate Impacts FROM U.S. GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH PROGRAM

Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present. Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington State, and maple syrup producers in Vermont are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of recent experience.

So, too, are coastal planners in Florida, water managers in the arid Southwest, city dwellers from Phoenix to New York, and Native Peoples on tribal lands from Louisiana to Alaska. The third National Climate Assessment, released recently by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, concludes that the evidence of human-induced climate change continues to strengthen and that impacts are increasing across the country.

Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours. People are seeing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that thrive in their gardens, and the kinds of birds they see in any particular month in their neighborhoods.

Other changes are even more dramatic. Residents of some coastal cities see their streets flood more regularly during storms and high tides. Inland cities near large rivers also experience more flooding, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Insurance rates are rising in some vulnerable locations, and insurance is no longer available in others. Hotter and drier weather and earlier snow melt mean that wildfires in the West start earlier in the spring, last later into the fall, and burn more acreage. In Arctic Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded, and autumn storms now cause more erosion, threatening many communities with relocation.

Scientists who study climate change confirm that these observations are consistent with significant changes in Earth’s climatic trends.

Long-term, independent records from weather stations, satellites, ocean buoys, tide gauges, and many other data sources all confirm that our nation, like the rest of the world, is warming. Precipitation patterns are changing, sea level is rising, the oceans are becoming more acidic, and the frequency and intensity of some extreme weather events are increasing. Many lines of independent evidence demonstrate that the rapid warming of the past half-century is due primarily to human activities.

The observed warming and other climatic changes are triggering wide-ranging impacts in every region of our country and throughout our economy. Some of these changes can be beneficial over the short run, such as a longer growing season in some regions and a longer shipping season on the Great Lakes. But many more are detrimental, largely because our society and its infrastructure were designed for the climate that we have had, not the rapidly changing climate we now have and can expect in the future. In addition, climate change does not occur in isolation. Rather, it is superimposed on other stresses, which combine to create new challenges.

This National Climate Assessment collects, integrates, and assesses observations and research from around the country, helping us to see what is actually happening and understand what it means for our lives, our livelihoods, and our future. The report includes analyses of impacts on seven sectors – human health, water, energy, transportation, agriculture, forests, and ecosystems – and the interactions among [ 25 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond, but there is still time to act to limit the amount of change and the extent of damaging impacts. Learn more at GlobalChange.gov. sectors at the national level. The report also assesses key impacts on all U.S. regions: Northeast, Southeast and Caribbean, Midwest, Great Plains, Southwest, Northwest, Alaska, Hawaii and Pacific Islands, as well as the country’s coastal areas, oceans, and marine resources.

Over recent decades, climate science has advanced significantly.

Increased scrutiny has led to increased certainty that we are now seeing impacts associated with human-induced climate change.

With each passing year, the accumulating evidence further expands our understanding and extends the record of observed trends in temperature, precipitation, sea level, ice mass, and many other variables recorded by a variety of measuring systems and analyzed by independent research groups from around the world. It is notable that as these data records have grown longer and climate models have become more comprehensive, earlier predictions have largely been confirmed. The only real surprises have been that some changes, such as sea level rise and Arctic sea ice decline, have outpaced earlier projections.

What is new over the last decade is that we know with increasing

certainty that climate change is happening now. While scientists continue to refine projections of the future, observations unequivocally show that climate is changing and that the warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. These emissions come mainly from burning coal, oil, and gas, with additional contributions from forest clearing and some agricultural practices.

Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond, but there is still time to act to limit the amount of change and the extent of damaging impacts.

The climate assessment report documents the changes already observed and those projected for the future. It is important that these findings and response options be shared broadly to inform citizens and communities across our nation. Climate change presents a major challenge for society. This report advances our understanding of that challenge and the need for the American people to prepare for and respond to its far-reaching implications.

The complete report is available for download at GlobalChange.gov. n

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amento, Cal including igester in Sacr D io B to wable energy en ne am re cr of Sa s e rm Th Dubuque, rious fo Inc., based in per day into va ns te tio as lu w So od n fo so of project. The e fuel. Uni ity and vehicl amento biogas ic cr tr Sa ec e el th , at at he the team to be part of tured by Iowa is proud and manufac ed gy design lo no ch ers with te ul ue ha uniq eir waste em to fuel th th s w lo ntly the al re n ur Uniso e digester. C th om fr as og to conditioned bi as with plans 0 scfm of biog 10 s inue se nt es co oc d site pr uction an hicle fuel prod ve r ucts. ei od th pr se increa petroleum pendence on de r ei .com th ns io ce nsolut to redu at www.uniso it t ou ab e or Learn m

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Providing Fresh Produce to Urban Food Deserts Mobile Food Vendors Struggle to Serve Inner-City Families

BY MICHELLE VOLKMANN

Through a variety of methods that range from inexpensive carts to converted school buses, food security advocates in many cities sell fresh fruits and vegetables directly to low-income customers living in urban food deserts.

Increasing access to affordable produce isn’t simple or cheap, according to mobile produce supporters, but it isn’t impossible either.

Comprehensive and effective strategies incorporated among local government officials, volunteers and potential customers can sustain these mobile farmers markets for the long term. If successful, a mobile vendor can be just as popular as a neighborhood ice cream truck to area children.

In the summer months, 25 percent of Detroit-based Peaches and Greens’ customers are children. That’s a good thing, said Lisa Johanon, executive director of the nonprofit Central Detroit Christian Community Development Corp., which runs Peaches and Greens. The business started in 2008 and is one of the longest running mobile produce trucks in the nation. It is a subsidiary of Central Detroit Christian CDC, though run independently as a for-profit business.

Changing eating habits in the inner city is "going to take a lifetime," Johanon said. "That’s why we work with the children. We are building anew with them.”

The USDA’s Economic Research Service estimates that 23.5 million Americans live in food deserts – areas with limited access to fresh, healthy and affordable food. More than half of this population is categorized as low income. “This lack of access contributes to a poor diet and can lead to higher levels of obesity and other diet-related illness, such as diabetes and heart disease,” according to the agency.

A desire to reduce – and eventually eliminate – food deserts is on the radar of government officials at all levels. For example, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has a task force looking for ways to improve fresh farm food access for the working poor and low-income communities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors convened a Food Policy Taskforce in 2012.

While food deserts are an issue throughout the nation, one potential solution – mobile farmers markets – thrives at the local level.

In her research article, “All (Food) Politics is Local: Increasing Food Access Through Local Government Action,” Emily Broad Leib, associate director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, encourages localities not yet active in food policy to join the more than 130 cities and counties in the U.S. and Canada that have

n

The USDA’s Economic Research Service estimates that 23.5 million Americans live in food deserts – areas with limited access to fresh, healthy and affordable food.

local food policy councils.

“Local governments should use their greatest asset, the ability to work closely with their constituents, to learn how the community purchases and prepares food, respond to the community’s unique needs, and implement targeted and effective policy interventions,” Broad Leib wrote in the Harvard Law and Policy Review in September.

Broad Leib co-founded and directs Harvard’s Food Law and Policy Clinic, the first law school clinic in the nation devoted to studying and providing legal and policy solutions for the health, economic and environmental challenges facing the current food system. She provides guidance for nonprofit organizations and government agencies throughout the U.S. Through her position, she recommends food laws [ 27 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

providing a service that is needed.”

In order to make a profit, Johanon said Peaches and Greens constantly revises its business plan to be “on the cutting edge.”

“We want to redesign Peaches and Greens. We want to move toward a co-op model, but not until it’s a sustainable business. We don’t have a lot of sales in the winter months. We still need to figure out how to make it work. It’s always about trying to break even,” she said.

In today’s economy, food vendors at all levels are facing challenges to operate in the black. Due to its low overhead costs, mobile groceries might have an advantage in low-income areas, Broad Leib said.

“One thing we see is that the grocery store has left because of the cost of property in urban areas and the n Peaches and Greens started in 2008 to provide access to fresh produce to residents in owners saying that the resident population is not going Detroit, Mich. to buy these types of items,” Broad Leib said. “A mobile vendor gets around those issues. They don’t have the high property values. The mobile vendor is a way to get and policies aimed at increasing access to healthy foods. into those neighborhoods and show that people will buy these types of food. They start showing that there is a demand. Then it is more likely The two main challenges for mobile food vendors are permits and costs, that new stores will open in these areas.”

Broad Leib said.

“In a lot of cities, mobile vendors are not allowed,” she said. A permit for operating a produce cart simply doesn’t exist and the majority of people don’t know how to apply for a variance. Cities that streamline the permitting process and reduce permit fees will reap the benefits of mobile food vendors, she added.

“Ultimately we want residents to use the mobile food vendors. Cities need to make it so they can operate affordably,” Broad Leib said.

In terms of cost, mobile farmers markets have difficulties earning a profit. Many start their engines with enthusiasm each summer, but fail to stay in business after a few years.

Johanon agreed that putting affordable produce in the hands of lowincome individuals is a daily struggle.

“When Peaches and Greens started, other similar programs started, but they have closed their doors after one or two years. It didn’t take hold,” Johanon said. “It’s hard to make it. It’s hard to break even.”

When Peaches and Greens started in 2008, the organization on average sold $400 worth of produce daily. Now it typically sells $200 worth.

“We are not giving up because of the people,” Johanon said. “The reality is that our community has 22 liquor stores and one grocery store. Seventy percent of the population doesn’t have a car. We are still [ 28 ]

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach that can be applied in all food deserts “because local needs and conditions differ, priorities for food policy in different municipalities will also differ,” Broad Leib wrote.

“The best advice would be if people are interested, sit down with farmers, vendors, and customers, and figure out what the barriers are.

Talk to them about what they think will work,” Broad Leib said.

Local governments should remember that “food is a community issue, food is a cultural issue, and, most importantly, food is a personal issue,” she added. n Emily Broad Leib is co-founder of Harvard’s Food Law and Policy Clinic, the first law school clinic devoted to providing legal and policy solutions for the health, economic and environmental challenges facing the current food system.

Lisa Johanon is executive director of the nonprofit Central Detroit Christian Community Development Corp. that runs Peaches and Greens, a mobile food vendor serving food deserts in Detroit’s inner city.

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Napkins in Food Waste: Biofuel Potential?

ISU Professor Finds Surprising Source of Fuel

BY THE LEOPOLD CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

An Iowa State University researcher has found an unexpected source of fiber in food waste that increases its potential for making renewable fuel: napkins.

S TEPHANIE JUNG

Funded by a grant from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Stephanie Jung explored fermentation of the sugars, starches and fibers in food waste to make bioethanol. An associate professor of food science and nutrition, Jung works to make food processing technologies more sustainable by reducing the amount of energy used or waste produced, adding value to the production cycle by collecting food byproducts, and converting food waste into bioethanol.

The project was conducted in collaboration with ISU Dining, which has implemented its own measures to sustainably process food and recover waste. They use a trayless dining system, which results in less dishware to wash, and raises students’ awareness of how much food they’re loading onto their plates.

M A L COL M ROBERT SON

The dining service also composts its food waste, first removing inorganic materials such as waxed cups, soda bottles and foil packaging. The organics are washed through a pulper to remove most of the liquid waste and reduce the volume — and transportation cost — of the solid remains. The reduced particle size of the pulped solids also makes it easier to compost.

Jung says typical solid food waste includes fruit and vegetable peels, cereal grains and meat scraps. This raw material is composed of sugars, starches, fibers, proteins and fats, of which the first three can be fermented into ethanol. But there was an additional, unexpected source of fiber — used paper napkins.

“I was looking at these plates coming from the students with these huge amounts of napkins,” Jung said.

She asked the dining service to separate the napkins from the waste so she could compare fermentation results for food waste alone, food waste combined with napkins, and napkins alone. She found that more ethanol is produced from napkin fermentation than just food waste.

Jung’s fermentation process involves tweaking the enzyme-to-yeast ratio to match the sugar-to-fiber ratio of the pulped raw material.

To maximize ethanol production, Jung suggested that along with silverware, students also can remove napkins from their plates for separate processing. Like the trayless system, this has the added benefit of raising students’ consciousness of how much paper they waste with their meals.

The biggest limiting factor for the food waste-to-fuel conversion cycle is the cost of enzymes, which are expensive to procure. Jung hopes to conduct a more detailed life cycle assessment of the process. She said she also would like to see an overall reduction in food waste, estimated to be between 30 and 50 percent of total food production. Much of the food waste in the United States ends up in landfills, where it produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

The research was a special project of the Leopold Center’s CrossCutting Initiative that looks at energy use and a systems approach to solving complex ecological problems.

“Food waste represents one of the largest portions of solid waste going into municipal landfills,” said Malcolm Robertson, who leads the Cross-Cutting Initiative. “With rising energy prices and environmental concerns, we need to minimize the impacts of food waste, especially since it has the potential to be converted into clean energy. This research looks at how effectively and efficiently we can do that.” n Stephanie Jung is an associate professor of food science and nutrition at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Malcolm Robertson leads the Cross-Cutting Initiative at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

For more information about Jung’s project and related issues, visit http://tiny.cc/p50whx [ 29 ]

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