Sustainable City Network Magazine - Vol. 14 - Jan. 2015

BEST PRACTICES FOR LEADERS IN GOVERNMENT, EDUCATION & HEALTHCARE.

SUSTAINABLE CITY NETWORK

VOLUME 14 JANUARY 2015

4

DENVER STRIVES TO BRING SUSTAINABILITY TO SCALE LEADERBOARD SERIES SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.

11 DEMYSTIFYING SOCIAL EQUITY 14 CALL FOR ROAD SALT REDUCTIONS 28 COMMUNITY CAPITAL THROUGH LOCAL FOOD

BEST OF

LE CITY SUSTAINAWBORK NET

PLATTEVILLE, WI 53818 PERMIT NO. 124

PAID

PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE

www.sCityNetwork.com

contents

4

VOLUME 14 JANUARY 2015

Demystifying Social Equity

11

Researchers Call for Road Salt Reductions

14

Farm Bill Yields Bumper Crop of Sustainability Grants

16

Economic Growth and Cultural Vibrancy through Creative Placemaking

18

Incorporating Social Equity into Sustainability Initiatives

23

Universities Connect with Communities

25

Creating Community Capital through Local Food

28

Credit: VISIT DENVER

cover story

DENVER STRIVES TO BRING SUSTAINABILITY TO SCALE

21

Community Solar Shares the Sun with Everyone

[1]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

The Best of Sustainable City Network is a quarterly magazine highlighting the most popular articles posted on sCityNetwork.com, an online trade publication that serves government, education and healthcare institutions in all 50 U.S. states and the provinces of Canada. The magazine is available in print or as a digital download at www.sCityNetwork.com/bestof. The opinions expressed in the magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sustainable City Network, Inc. SUBSCRIPTIONS Contact 563.588.4492; bestof@scitynetwork.com www.sCityNetwork.com

Best Practices for Leaders in Government, Education & Healthcare Sustainable City Network magazine is produced by WoodwardBizMedia, a division of Woodward Communications, Inc.

EDITORIAL INFORMATION Contact 563.588.3853; randy@scitynetwork.com ADVERTISING SALES Contact 563.588.3858, kruden@woodwardbizmedia.com

GROUP PUBLISHER Karen Ruden PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR Randy Rodgers ASSOCIATE EDITORS Andrea Hauser Michael Manning BUSINESS MANAGER Linda Flannery CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Julianne Couch F. Alan Shirk Michelle Volkmann Smart Growth America The Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies Sara Booth Jeff Brehm Julianne Couch CREATIVE/PRODUCTION MANAGER Hobie Wood Unless otherwise noted, all images used throughout Š 2014 Ingimage, all rights reserved.

Sustainable City Network, Inc. 801 Bluff Street Dubuque, Iowa 52001 Visit Us On The Web sCityNetwork.com

Printed on recycled paper [2]

Upcoming Online Courses Lean & Six Sigma for Environmental Professionals

Online Course Begins January 20 Lean and Six Sigma are proven techniques for process improvement that save money, increase stakeholder satisfaction and engage employees.

Federal, state and local governments, educational and healthcare institutions and consultants working with these groups are seeing benefits to learning and applying these techniques. This 12-hours online course is presented by Sustainable City Network and the Northwest Environmental Training Center. Learn more at https://scn-processimprovement.eventbrite.com

Renewable Energy Project Development

Online Course Begins February 10 Learn how to develop cleaner, renewable energy sources for your business or institution in a 12-hour online course being offered by Sustainable City Network and Gundersen Envision. In this series, you’ll learn what it takes to develop your own renewable energy portfolio and see renewable energy projects in action. Learn more at https://scn-envision.eventbrite.com All 2-hour class sessions are recorded, so attend live or download later.

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 email 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.

Randy Rodgers Publisher & Executive Editor SUSTAINABLE CITY NETWORK www.sCityNetwork.com 801 Bluff Street Dubuque, IA 52001 563.588.3853 randy@scitynetwork.com

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

In this issue, we continue our Leaderboard Series with a profile of Denver, Colorado, the Mile High City. Denver is literally a city on the move. Its multi-billion investment in rapid transit and transit-oriented development is transforming the city, and its strides in water and energy conservation make it one of the most sustainable cities in the West. As the 6th fastest growing cities in America with an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent, one of Denver’s top priorities is making sure affordable housing opportunities keep up with demand.

In our cover story, you’ll meet Denver’s Chief Sustainability Officer Jerry Tinianow, who will also be the lead speaker in our free one-hour webinar on Jan. 15 (sign up or download the recording at http://sCityNetwork. com/webinars).

In other top stories: Social equity is the third, and sometimes forgotten, leg of sustainability. A recent survey found only one in 10 local governments has addressed this concern with the same energy they devote to other sustainability challenges. Two articles in this issue provide guidance on this topic.

Other articles in this issue focus on reducing road salt on winter highways; taking advantage of USDA sustainability grants; using creative placemaking as an economic development engine; developing community solar projects that allow everyone to benefit from renewable energy; using local foods to attract “locavores;” and developing partnerships between municipal government and universities.

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

We hope you find value inside.

The U.S. Leader in Sustainability News & Information Best Practices for Leaders in Government, Education and Healthcare [3]

LEADERBOARD SERIES SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.

DENVER STRIVES TO BRING SUSTAINABILITY TO SCALE CITY INTEGRATES GREEN INTO EVERY DEPARTMENT

BY RANDY RODGERS, PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR

LEADERBOARD SERIES

BEST OF

SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.

While Colorado’s epic floods of September 2013 made national news, it has been a water disaster of another kind that worries Denver’s Chief Sustainability Officer Jerry Tinianow the most.

“Really it’s the lack of precipitation,” he said. “Drought is a much bigger threat here.”

JERRY T INIANOW

IGNACIO CORREA - O R T IZ

JEF F T EJRAL

RICK PADIL L A

In June, Denver published its first Climate Adaptation Plan, intended to help the city and county prepare, mitigate and plan for risks associated with an increase in temperature and urban heat island effect, an increase in frequency of extreme weather events, and a reduced snowpack and earlier snowmelt, among other potential consequences of climate change. A hotter, dryer climate does not bode well for area ski resorts, which represent an important segment of the region’s economy.

Denver’s first foray into sustainability, which Tinianow called “Sustainability 1.0,” began in 2006 when former Mayor (and now Colorado Governor) John Hickenlooper launched Greenprint Denver. This effort established benchmarks and developed modest goals through the end of 2011. When current Mayor Michael Hancock was elected that year, he launched the second version of the city’s approach to sustainability.

make a difference. Not just demonstrating what can be done, but actually making changes at scale,” he said.

The “everybody plays” part of the agenda was a shift from sustainability being the responsibility of one small department, to sustainability being “a basic operating practice of every agency in city government,” Tinianow said.

As a result, Denver’s sustainability office is small by design.

Tinianow and a staff of two work with all other city departments to coordinate and integrate sustainability.

“The mayor is very much a systems thinker,” Tinianow said. “We want to ensure that basic resources are available and affordable to everyone both now and in the future,” he said. “And we emphasize the word ‘now’ because that speaks to the prosperity of the current generation. It’s hard to have a conversation with them about sustainability if they’re worried about where their next meal is coming from.”

While Denver’s 2020 sustainability goals are organized around 12 resource groups of equal importance, Tinianow said the city’s three biggest challenges at present are issues related to energy, water and affordable housing. Major upgrades to the city’s rapid transit system, including four new commuter rail lines, an additional light rail line and a bus rapid transit corridor, will also transform the Denver area in the next few years.

Energy

Denver was one of 10 cities in the U.S. to be selected to participate in the City Energy Project, a joint initiative of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Institute for Market Transformation.

“The principal features of ‘Sustainability 2.0’ can be summed up in the four-word agenda that Mayor Hancock gave me when he hired me in 2012,” Tinianow said. “That four-word agenda was ‘Scale and everybody plays.’

“We had already determined that commercial buildings were the greatest opportunities for energy savings and renewables,” Tinianow said. “Of the energy savings we need to achieve, we’ll probably have to get a disproportionate share of that out of our commercial buildings. It’s a lot easier to hit big numbers in commercial buildings than it is with single-family homes,” he said.

“What we mean by ‘scale’ is that these illustrative, boutique-type programs that you see in a lot of cities were great for introducing the conversation, but now we have to move big numbers … numbers that

At the same time, the Colorado General Assembly recently authorized local jurisdictions to develop Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE ) financing programs for energy retrofits in commercial buildings, and Tinianow said Denver hopes to be the first city in Colorado to have such a program. PACE is a financing mechanism that allows taxing bodies to sell bonds and provide loans for energy efficiency upgrades, [5]

LEADERBOARD SERIES SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.

Water

Denver Water is an autonomous authority that sells water to the city of Denver and suburban communities, serving 1.3 million people, or about a quarter of the state’s population. Manager of Water Conservation Jeff Tejral said the conservation of water has been a priority in Denver throughout the city’s history, but the last few droughts have been so severe that “it’s expanding our ideas of what conservation really means.”

“It’s not just about using less during a drought,” Tejral said. “Metering and billing are pretty important parts of conserving. If you’re not metering it, you can’t measure it, and if you’re not billing people, they’re not getting a signal. There’s no real skin in the game for them.”

n

A view from the B-cycle station at Mariposa, one of Denver Housing Authority’s transit oriented development projects. Credit: Denver Housing Authority

with financing repayment attached to the property and added to the property tax bill.

Looking into the future, Tinianow said, Denver is trying to develop a program that would be a “game changer” in energy conservation.

One idea being discussed would be creating a private investment vehicle that would be like performance-based contracting on a community scale. In other words, once evaluators determined the savings that would be generated from a community-wide energy efficiency program, a privately funded pool of money could be created to finance the improvements in both residential and commercial properties throughout the city. In such a model, home or business owners would continue paying their usual amount for power until all the installation and financing charges were satisfied by the money saved on energy. This would allow energy upgrades to occur with no up-front costs to building owners.

“It’s not just energy,” Tinianow said. “We think this could work for water conservation as well.”

Another major contributor to water conservation is regulating the flow to meet demand. Since water evaporates much more quickly on the Colorado plains than it does near its source in high mountain reservoirs, it’s a critical balancing act to discharge only the water that’s necessary at any given

time, Tejral said.

Severe drought in recent years has caused Denver Water to redouble its efforts to conserve, accelerating its goal of reducing water consumption by 22 percent below its year-2000 per capita usage.

At the time, it had hoped to reach that goal by 2030, but the devastating drought of 2002/2003 prompted the agency to move that target date up to 2016. Tejral said he’s confident that goal will be reached, but even if it is, the region can’t afford to relax.

“The hard part is knowing whether you’ve actually changed people’s behavior permanently or is this just a momentary blip downward due to the drought or the economy? I guess the answer is that we’ll know more in the rear-view mirror,” Tejral said.

The agency uses a mix of carrots and sticks to encourage conservation. The carrots are a variety of rebates on low-flow toilets, faucets and other water-saving fixtures, as well as programs for industrial, irrigation and commercial users. Denver Water partially subsidizes and educates consumers on xeriscaping to replace turf grass with low-water-use native plants. The sticks include a set

Join our free Webinar on January 15, Sustainability in the Mile High City.

Sign up at http://sCityNetwork.com/Denver [6]

View the complete case study here.

HOT SAVINGS Fire Department Gets Fired Up Over LED Retrofit

Operating Impact • 38% reduced annual energy and maintenance cost • Reduced

the number of fixtures from 19 to 12 while increasing the light distribution

Dubuque Fire Department and Crescent Electric extinguish high energy cost with new GE Albeo LED fixtures.

Benefits • Lower maintenance and operating cost • Life span up to 100,000 hours • Uniform light distribution • Albeo fixture accomodates 6 LED lamps

Count on Crescent Electric for:

•Product recommendations •ROI analysis •No-obligation energy audits •Fixture and lamp recycling programs

Contact us to see how Crescent Electric can help you save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Roger Stoskopf (847) 612-2252 | roger.stoskopf@cesco.com Director of Energy Solutions and Services

Ph: 815.747.3145 • www.cesco.com

LEADERBOARD SERIES SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.

Transportation

Because Denver grew up on an open plain, space has never been a problem… and that’s the problem. Denver International Airport is nearly 23 miles from downtown – a 55-minute drive on a good day. Sprawling over 54 square miles, it’s the largest airport by land area in the U.S., and more than twice the size of the island of Manhattan.

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) operates several bus lines servicing the airport, but since the 1980s, RTD planners have been dreaming of a better way.

Beginning in 2016, that dream will finally come true.

n

Downtown Denver can be viewed from Denver Housing Authority’s Mariposa project, which features a 48 kW rooftop solar system and a mural by local graffiti artist, Jeremy Ulibarri (AKA Jolt), from GuerillaGarden. Credit: Denver Housing Authority

FasTracks is “a multi-billion dollar comprehensive transit expansion plan to build 122 miles of new commuter rail and light rail, 18 miles of bus rapid transit, 21,000 new parking spaces at light rail and bus stations, and enhanced bus service for easy, convenient bus/rail connections across the eight-county district,” according to RTD literature.

of regulations that restrict when irrigation can be used and others that outlaw the wasting of water in various ways. The agency has enforcement officers, but Tejral said they do more educating than ticketing offenders.

The long-awaited commuter rail link between the airport and downtown Denver will become a reality in 2016, reducing the travel time to just 35 minutes and making the airport feel a lot closer, said RTD Senior Architect/Urban Designer Ignacio Correa-Ortiz.

After the drought of 2013, Denver Water implemented a “water budget” program for large users like schools and golf courses, which Tejral said has given these users more flexible irrigation hours while saving as much as 35 percent more water than in previous years. A car-wash certification program helps area car washes save water while still providing quality service.

The project has been partially funded by a 0.4 percent sales tax approved by Denver-area voters in 2004. The new tax was expected to pay for the estimated $4.7 billion project, but the economic downturn later in the decade forced planners to go back to the drawing board, Correa-Ortiz said. That’s when RTD leadership turned to the private sector to fill in the gaps.

Another priority has been the recycling of non-potable water, Tinianow said.

“We created the largest public-private partnership (P3) in the nation for public infrastructure,” he said. The $2.2 billion Eagle P3 deal includes a public transit infrastructure $1.03 billion grant from the Federal Transit Administration and a 34-year, $450 million financing agreement with Denver Transit Partners, the private concessionaire helping to finance a portion of the project.

“We do have the capacity to recycle water by treating it at a level that’s not quite to drinking water standards but where it can be used for other things like irrigation. Most of the water used in Denver is for irrigation, so if we can replace potable water with recycled water wherever that can be done at scale, we can have some huge savings in water,” Tinianow said. “And the cost of recycled water is only 10 percent of the cost of potable water,” he added.

Denver has rationed water in the past, but has had a decent amount of precipitation over the last two seasons, Tinianow said. “However, we’re all very cognizant of the fact that it’s only a matter of time before the next big drought hits.”

[8]

In total, the FasTracks project will add 57 new transit stations, which in turn will spawn sustainable, transit-oriented communities throughout the region, Correa-Ortiz said.

At the center of the FasTracks project is the iconic Union Station, a downtown depot built in 1881. In its heyday, six different railroads operated 80 trains per day through the station, but throughout the

LEADERBOARD SERIES

BEST OF

SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.

late 20th Century business in and around Union Station steadily declined. The building and the vast stockyards and rail yards surrounding it fell into disrepair.

“RTD acquired Union Station (in 2001) when there was basically no interest from anybody in the region to invest in it,” said CorreaOrtiz. “Today, it has become the hub of all of the RTD’s rail and bus systems and has become what I describe as the mother of all TODs.” The transit oriented development (TOD) to which Correa-Ortiz referred started with a $900 million redevelopment project to renovate the station and build a massive retail, office and residential complex on the former rail and stockyards surrounding the multimodal transit hub. All of the light rail, commuter rail and bus lines, as well as several pedestrian and bike trails in the RTD system converge at the station complex.

“We’re looking at 14 different developments in that immediate area that will develop at least 1,500 dwelling units, close to 500 hotel rooms, plus, I don’t know how many square feet of office space, but many of these office buildings will be 12 to 18 stories high,” he said.

“It is truly a mixed use development.” The renovated Union Station and the new bus concourse behind it now operate at a LEED-Gold level, he said.

Correa-Ortiz said a major grocery store chain and a specialized food store will be locating in the complex, “so this will no longer be a food desert.”

Padilla said Denver is the sixth fastest growing city in America. “We’ve got 2,500 millennials per month moving into Denver. We’ve go 27,000plus individuals that are rent burdened in the city, which means they pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing. Our studies showed that lots of these folks are students, seniors, single parents and married couples with children. So, we found our population was spiking, but our housing wasn’t keeping up with it,” he said.

The task force gathered input for numerous stakeholder groups throughout the city when developing the Housing Denver plan, and established these eight priorities: 1. Increase Housing Resources 2. Revise and Articulate City Funding Process 3. Reduce Regulatory Burden of Subsidized Housing Development 4. Increase Critical Needs and Homeless Housing 5. Increase Housing Diversity 6. Preserve Workforce and Critical Needs Housing 7. Provide Greater Home Ownership Opportunities 8. Encourage Sustainable Housing Development

Tinianow said the city’s overall transportation goal is to reduce singleoccupancy commuter traffic by 10 percentage points by 2020. “And that’s a great example of a synergistic goal, because if we actually succeed in doing that we will also be helping our energy goal… and our air quality goal… and we’ll be helping our climate change goal by reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

Affordable Housing

In early 2012, Mayor Hancock convened a task force to look at the issues surrounding housing affordability in Denver, said Rick Padilla, housing and neighborhood development director for Denver’s Office of Economic Development. Out of that task force came the city’s 2013 3x5 Initiative, a plan to establish 3,000 units of affordable housing in the city within five years; and the Housing Denver five-year plan that will serve as the city’s comprehensive housing strategy between 2015 and 2019.

n

Thanks to a partnership between Denver Housing Authority and Denver Botanic Gardens’s Soul 2 Soil program, residents of DHA’s Mariposa development have overseen the management and harvesting of two on-site gardens. Credit: Denver Housing Authority [9]

LEADERBOARD SERIES SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.

New housing developments aren’t the only strategy being employed, Padilla said. The city is also approaching existing building owners within the desired transit zones to help them make their properties more affordable through various incentives.

Creative financing is another area ripe for innovation. “In the past five years, we’ve seen a 35 percent decrease in federal funding coming out of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. This has forced us to look at sustainability from an economic development standpoint,” Padilla said.

One of the strategies is a fee to developers who opt out of meeting certain specifications of the city’s “inclusionary housing ordinance.” These fees help fund other affordable housing development throughout the city. n

Denver’s riverside Confluence Park features biking and walking trails as well as a kayak run.

Credit: Stan Obert and VISIT DENVER

“This plan is going to guide the policy and the resource allocation from the city around housing and neighborhood development for the next five years,” Padilla said. Through meetings with more stakeholder groups, his department has developed an action plan with metrics that will be tracked throughout the implementation of the Housing Denver plan.

“The plan is really a recipe for opportunity,” Padilla said, referring not only to the residents who will benefit from the affordable housing but also to the lenders, developers and management companies who will make the projects happen.

Padilla said sustainability in housing isn’t just the encouraging of green building practices (which the plan does), but it’s looking at housing as a part of a holistic community. Creating housing opportunities near where people work, shop and go to school is a high priority. Eliminating food deserts and targeting housing developments in proximity to the RTD’s new or expanded public transit stations are all part of the plan, Padilla said.

“For example, these housing developments have to be within a half a mile from a light rail station or a quarter mile from a high-frequency bus corridor. We’re looking at that as a priority because we want to get people out of their cars,” he said.

[ 10 ]

“So, we’re getting very creative around that right now, and we are actively looking at best practices across the country in cities that have developed permanent sources of funding for affordable housing,” he said.

Tinianow said affordable housing is so important in Denver because of the city’s rapid growth and low unemployment rate (currently 3.7 percent).

“We’re seeing everything you typically see in a booming economy.

There are a lot of people moving in and housing costs are going up… so our office of housing and neighborhood development is looking at affordable housing across all income groups, particularly middle income and below,” he said.

Tinianow said Denver’s sustainability programs have contributed to the city’s success attracting and retaining major employers.

“Panasonic is moving an entire subsidiary with 330 high-paying jobs here, in large part because our sustainability track record was so far ahead of the other 21 cities they studied,” Tinianow said.

“Panasonic asked us for a side-by-side sustainability comparison between Denver and the other finalist city. It’s the first time we’ve ever received such a request in a relocation competition, but I don’t think it will be the last, for us or for other cities as well. And we were prepared for it; we completed the comparison 24 hours after the request came in,” he said. n

BEST OF

sCityNetwork.com

Demystifying Social Equity Where Research Meets the Road

BY JEFF BREHM

Many communities are on the cutting edge of sustainability and quality of life – investing in projects like community-wide recycling, energy efficiency and even some bike trails.

But are all these resources available to every resident?

JIM SVARA

JEF F MIHEL ICH

A recent survey found only one in 10 local governments have addressed social equity issues with the same energy they devote to other sustainability challenges.

Representatives of two of those communities – Fort Collins, Colo., and Durham, N.C., – shared their experiences and best practices in a session called “Demystifying Social Equity – Where Research Meets the Road” at the 100th International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Conference, held Sept. 14-17 in Charlotte, N.C.

“Integrating social equity and sustainability … is the ability of communities to consistently thrive over time, to make decisions to improve the community today without sacrificing the future,” said panel moderator Jim Svara, a visiting professor at the University of North T OM BONF IEL D Carolina and an emeritus professor at Arizona State University. “We are talking about ensuring that the costs and benefits of environmental and economic policy decisions are fairly distributed, that some are not benefitted and others hurt, and that all members of the community have access to the opportunity to improve their quality of life.

“If the purpose of sustainability is to grow the viability and livability of the community and the region, we are all in this together,” he added. “We are not going to be able to achieve those goals unless

we recognize the social, as well as the economic and environmental dimensions.”

An integrated approach to sustainability includes all of those dimensions, also known as “the three ‘e’s’ or ‘the triple bottom line’” – environmental, economic and equity components, Svara said. For community social equity, concerns usually fall into one of four areas – redressing injustices and remediating damages that were previously incurred; incorporation of all segments of the community in the political process; expanding opportunity and promoting equal access to public services, equal service quality, procedural fairness and striving for equal outcomes in areas like education, health and employment; and protection from disruptive effects of development.

A 2010 ICMA Sustainability Survey of 8,569 local governments (pop. 2,500-plus) drew 2,176 local responses. Svara noted that among the more than 100 “triple bottom line” policy priorities reported, economy was cited by 85 percent of respondents; energy conservation by 70 percent of respondents; and 62 percent cited the environment. Only 38 percent named social justice as a priority, although housing for all had more support at 48 percent.

In June 2014, ICMA and Arizona State University released a report, Local Governments, Social Equity, and Sustainable Communities, which builds on the 2010 results with follow-up surveys in 2012 on local government sustainability policies and programs focused on social equity. The later survey of 200 high-equity and 100 low-equity cities of similar sizes drew 112 responses (34 percent from each group) and produced some intriguing findings. It found that when comparing governments that are high on sustainability but differ on equity, high-equity governments have a higher minority population (30 percent vs. 23 percent), higher poverty rates (17 percent vs.

12 percent), lower education and income levels, and lower housing values and rates of home ownership.

The new report also presents an expanded social equity index that tracks activities ranging from financial incentives for affordable housing and energy-reduction programs for low income residents to expanded bus routes and pre- and after-school education programs.

“Over half of the governments were involved in none or only one of these activities,” Svara said. “It was interesting, in our interviews with officials, when we asked about how social equity is promoted [ 11 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

A new way of looking at sustainability is to understand that a sound economy is not possible without social equity, and society itself is not possible without a sound environment. in their sustainability programs, we often got responses like, ‘It depends on what you mean by sustainability,’ and, ‘It depends on what you mean by equity.’ It points out that there are not clearly accepted, widely used, shared meanings for these terms.

‘world class’ is a little arrogant, a little uppity. But we mean this in an aspirational way and a motivational way. When we evaluate our programs, we say to each other, ‘Is this world-class or can we do better?’ If it’s not, we adjust.

“Some communities are developing alternative approaches to articulating equity in the context of sustainability. They are thinking of this in two broad dimensions – promoting livability in the present, and what is necessary to promote viability in the long run.”

“But … and here’s where the social sustainability part comes in … are we world-class for everybody?” Mihelich asked. “Is everyone in the city able to enjoy everything we offer? Probably not. Out of 155,000 people, some are going to fall through the cracks and need some help.”

Included in the new report are nine case studies of early-adopting and leading-practice communities: Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, Mich.; Arlington County and Clark County, Wash.; Dubuque, Iowa; Durham City and County, N.C.; Fort Collins, Colo.; Hayward, Calif.; Lewiston, Maine, and Manatee County, Fla. The case studies identified some common themes: • Leadership from elected and administrative officials committed to sustainability is imperative to long-term success.

• Intergovernmental collaboration is critical in furthering sustainability goals.

• Developing an extensive network with local nonprofits facilitates success.

• Collaboration and citizen engagement are essential.

• Sustainability programs are often decentralized and not necessarily coordinated in a comprehensive manner, integrating environmental, economic and equity concerns.

• Surprisingly few governments are organizing through a comprehensive plan.

• Few governments — even those active in social equity — are addressing social equity issues as an integrated part of their sustainability strategies.

• Multiple rationales for sustainability and equity are needed for different communities.

“Our vision is to provide world-class municipal services through operational excellence and a culture of innovation,” said Jeff Mihelich, deputy city manager of Fort Collins. “People might say,

[ 12 ]

Fort Collins follows the triple-bottom-line approach, Mihelich said, and it applies to everything. “Our capital projects, our programs … every single staff report we write to our boards and our commissions and our city council includes an analysis of the triple bottom line.

It’s part of our DNA.” The city’s services area is led by a chief sustainability officer and includes a department of social sustainability, an environmental services department and an economic health department. “Notice we don’t call it economic development,” Mihelich said. “We call it economic health, and that’s important because these three departments have to be linked together and have to be aligned in their goals.

“Social sustainability in Fort Collins is the practice of ensuring healthy social systems so that people in our community can thrive.

We are NOT a service provider; our goal, more than anything, is to facilitate, convene, coordinate and provide strategic funding.”

The city’s Department of Social Sustainability was created in 2012. The 2014 budget of $292,000 (in an overall city budget of more than $1 billion) provides 7 staff members, three of which are paid through U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding. Mihelich said it’s built around a model many communities can use.

“The first thing you have to do is a gap analysis. That will show you how you can build your social sustainability strategic plan, and then you have to make sure you have the right alignment between the departments. They all have to line up. That last part is critical and I can’t stress it enough,” Mihelich said.

“Our gap analysis in Fort Collins focused on housing, community

BEST OF

sCityNetwork.com

health and wellness, income disparity, and mobility. You have to look at how people are falling through the cracks, what they need, and how can you move forward. Mold your programs to make sure they fit with your community’s values. And then look at the assets you have and how you can use them to promote your programs.

“I think that in city management, we have a wonderful opportunity to do a lot of cool things,” Mihelich said. “We get to develop $10 million budgets. We get to build beautiful parks. Every now and then, we get to throw the bad guys in jail. But with a social sustainability program … we get to create programs and resources to help the people most in need in our communities.”

In Durham, N.C., the landscape looks a little different, but the sustainable community goals still apply.

“In many respects, we could not be at more opposite ends of the spectrum from Fort Collins when it comes to social sustainability,” said Tom Bonfield, the Durham city manager, noting that there is no racial majority among the more than 240,000 city residents; about 40 percent are white or African-American and 20 percent are Hispanic. Durham also has one of the highest median incomes of any city in the southeastern U.S., as well as one of the highest poverty rates in North Carolina.

“We are not nearly as deliberate and organized around the topic, but we are equally successful. That’s because social sustainability has been a large part of Durham’s DNA for so long, no one can remember it being any different,” he said.

“Thriving, Livable Neighborhoods” is one of five goals in Durham’s strategic plan, and its community-building portfolio encompasses a number of departments focused on social sustainability. The city’s programs and their progress are highlighted in the Durham Neighborhood Compass, a web-based resource that provides views

of more than 40 measurements of quality of life and services. Users can create neighborhood-level reports and find opportunities to get involved in community projects.

“We have more than 100 different data layers on the kinds of issues that helps us evaluate not just the entire community, but helps us understand the issues at the neighborhood level,” Bonfield said.

“The other thing that’s unique about our approach is we’re the only city in Durham County, so we have significant partnerships with the county in sustainability.”

Affordable housing is a major sustainability focus in Durham, and it’s linked closely with transit. A recent referendum approved a sales tax increase to build a 12-mile light rail connection between the downtowns of the city and neighboring Chapel Hill. The Durham City Council now has adopted a goal that 15 percent of all housing units within a quarter mile of every transit stop must be affordable.

A penny-a-year property tax initiative is providing $2.8 million a year for a dedicated housing fund to partner with other groups in building affordable housing. And city employees have an ongoing Habitat for Humanity project that begins building a new home as soon as another is finished.

“None of these projects would happen without a highly engaged community,” Bonfield said. “Our citizens have a significant consciousness and commitment to social equity.” n Jim Svara is a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina and an emeritus professor at Arizona State University.

Jeff Mihelich is deputy city manager of Fort Collins, Colo.

Tom Bonfield is the city manager of Durham, N.C.

THE BENEFITS

NAVIGATOR

™

The Benefits Navigator™ is our landmark corporate program that dispels the myths of employee benefits by analyzing risks, ensuring compliance and maximizing communications, so that your city can align the real costs of healthcare benefits with employee accountability.

Call the Employee Benefits Division at TrueNorth today to learn how!

EMP LO YEE BENEFITS │ C OM PLIA N C E │ W ELLN ES S

truenorthcompanies.com • (800) 588 - 8993 [ 13 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Researchers Call for Road Salt Reductions Sodium Chloride Seeps into Water Supplies Over Time

BY RANDY RODGERS

As winter weather sets in across much of North America, the annual debate over road salt ensues.

On the one hand, salt and other deicers save lives and money by reducing accidents and allowing commercial traffic and air travel to continue flowing throughout the season. On the other hand, the sodium chloride that gives salt its ice melting punch can be corrosive to vehicles, roads and bridges. When the spring melt carries it into nearby streams, it can be a hazard to plants and aquatic animals.

And, if it finds its way into the groundwater system it can even contaminate drinking water and pose a risk to human health, said Victoria Kelly, environmental monitoring program manager at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. “There is a growing body of research that shows salt use is degrading freshwater resources,” Kelly said in an interview released recently by the Institute. “In Dutchess County (N.Y.), it’s not uncommon for private wells to have sodium concentrations that exceed government health standards. This is especially alarming for people with sodium restrictions.”

n

Road crews spread between 10 and 20 million tons of salt on U.S. streets and highways each year. Research shows sodium levels in streams and groundwater are on the rise and having a negative impact on the environment and human health. Better management practices and/or alternative deicers can reduce the environmental impact.

In the state of New York alone, a half a million tons of salt is applied to roadways in a typical winter, and according to the Virginia-based Salt Institute, transportation agencies across the country applied about 17 million tons of salt to U.S. roads in 2013.

Cary Institute freshwater ecologist Dr. Stuart Findlay said the use of rock salt on roads has had a cumulative effect on the environment.

“Road salt is not simply transported from roadways, to streams, to the ocean. Our long-term studies indicate it is retained in watersheds, where it accumulates. In some rivers and streams, peak salt levels

have risen well above the federal level set to protect fish and amphibians (230 mg Cl/L). Even lower levels of exposure have negative effects on sensitive plants and animals if exposure times are long,” Findley said.

Salt, which lowers the freezing point of water, has been used as a road deicer since the 1940s. Its use gradually increased as more roads were built and faster highway speeds became the norm.

“Deicing salt is simply unrefined table salt,” Kelly explained. “We mine it from underground salt deposits, which were formed by ancient oceans, using drilling and blasting. The U.S. is one of the world’s

The push to find an inexpensive and environmentally friendly alternative to salt has some people thinking outside the box. [ 14 ]

BEST OF

sCityNetwork.com

leading road salt producers, with New York alone mining more than 4 million tons a year.”

different spreading equipment, so there is an initial capital expense,” he said.

As a result, rock salt is relatively cheap and plentiful. But, is there a better way?

Alternatives do exist, but some like calcium chloride are 5 to 6 times more expensive than salt, so they’re only economically feasible in especially vulnerable areas near reservoirs and municipal water supplies, Kelly said. The push to find an inexpensive and environmentally friendly alternative to salt has some people thinking outside the box.

“Anyone who has ever been stuck behind a salt truck knows that spreaders can be inefficient. Older equipment applies salt at a steady rate, regardless of vehicle speed or road conditions. Because salt bounces, a lot ends up on the roadside, where it does little to help drivers,” Kelly said.

“Management practices can reduce salt overuse. Some are as simple as calibrating equipment, not overfilling trucks, and pre-wetting salt.

There are also temperature sensors and application regulators that fine-tune the amount of salt applied. When the Town of East Fishkill, N.Y. retrofitted their trucks with this technology, they experienced real savings in their salt budget,” she said.

Findlay said spraying a brine solution is another way to use less salt.

“Compared to rock salt, brine uses 60 to 70 percent less sodium chloride overall, and it doesn’t bounce. Applying it before a snow event prevents the ice-pavement bond from forming, making it easier to remove snow later on. Because brine is a liquid, it does require

“From beet juice in Michigan to cheese brine in Wisconsin, novel deicers have gotten a lot of attention lately,” Findlay said. “One thing is clear – we really need to exercise best-management practices when applying salt, and invest in research on salt alternatives. It can take decades for road salt to flush out of a watershed, so the increased salt concentrations we see today will be with us even after its use has stopped.” n Victoria Kelly is environmental monitoring program manager at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. Dr. Stuart E.G. Findlay is an aquatic ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y.

PEN N STATE | ONLINE Earn Your Master’s Degree in Community and Economic Development Develop the knowledge and skills you need to work with residents and community leaders to address community needs and opportunities.

Help build sustainable communities with high quality of life.

Learn to navigate the complexities of communities and organizations to increase success in achieving goals and positive change.

Achieve your career goals—apply today!

worldcampus.psu.edu/sCityNetwork U.Ed.OUT 15-0192/15-WC-0229ajw/sss

[ 15 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Farm Bill Yields Bumper Crop of Sustainability Grants Guide Details 63 Government Programs If you’re looking for federal grants or lowinterest loans to kick-start sustainable agriculture, forestry, entrepreneurship, conservation, food systems or community development programs, a newly revised guide published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture might help.

The guide, titled Building Sustainable Farms, Ranches and Communities, describes 63 programs intended to assist local governments, private businesses and individual producers in a wide range of sustainability, economic development and conservation efforts.

The 86-page guide, available as a free download or for sale as a printed document, was produced in collaboration with the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (MFAI), the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). It was authored by Margaret Krome (MFAI), George Reistad (MFAI), and NSAC’s policy staff.

The Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SARE) provided principal funding for the production and distribution of the guide.

While it contains all the farm and ranch assistance programs you’d expect from the long overdue farm bill approved by Congress this year, the available funding isn’t just for big ag producers. Small towns and city folks will find programs that support urban agriculture and forestry, local foods, farmers’ markets, farm to school initiatives, biofuel development, and a variety of grassland, wetland and woodland conservation grants.

“This guide is written for anyone seeking help from federal programs to foster innovative enterprises in agriculture and forestry in the United States,” according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information

Services, an NCAT program. “Specifically, the guide addresses program resources in community development; sustainable land management; and value-added and diversified agriculture and forestry. Thus, it can help farmers, entrepreneurs, community developers, conservationists, and many other individuals, as well as private and public organizations, both for-profit and not-for-profit.”

Grants outlined in the guide fall into eight categories, described in the guide as follows: Economic Development for Farms, Businesses and Communities Many rural communities with historically agriculturally dependent economies have suffered as agriculture has concentrated toward fewer, larger farmers, serving and served by fewer local businesses. Programs in this guide offer direct and indirect support through loans, grants, and technical assistance, including for cooperative development.

Farm Loans Farms and farm businesses often need access to capital, both for land and operating costs. This guide describes several USDA direct and guaranteed loan programs, which increasingly are available to enterprises of all sizes, with terms and availability designed to serve beginning, underserved, and veteran borrowers.

Insurance and Risk Management Farmers seek to manage risks associated with farm production as well as market fluctuations. Some use only crop insurance, but many also use strategies like diversifying their farm enterprises or seeking organic or other higher value markets. Historically, crop insurance policies have been unavailable or poorly designed for organic and diversified farms. This guide features several programs offering steps to correct such inequities, as well as other risk management education programs.

Natural Resources Conservation and Management Farmers, foresters, and other landowners seek to adopt resource management practices that protect soil, air, water and wildlife on their land in an economically viable way through many strategies. These include sustainable forestry practices; intensive rotational grazing of livestock; soil conservation; organic or biodynamic farming systems; cover crops and crop rotations; farmland protection, wetland and other

“Building Sustainable Farms, Ranches and Communities” is available as a free digital download at https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/summary.php?pub=279 [ 16 ]

sCityNetwork.com

habitat restoration; riparian buffers, and many other practices. This guide describes funding, technical assistance and other resources to support such land management changes.

Nutrition and Consumer Food Access The nation’s struggle to address the health, fiscal and social implications of obesity has brought a renewed awareness of the importance of affordable, culturally appropriate, safe and nutritious food, including fresh fruits and vegetables. Many families and communities in both urban and rural areas lack community food security. Remedies range from creating market linkages between local producers and consumers to more systemic efforts to address underlying poverty in a community. This guide describes several forms of federal economic and technical assistance.

Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Fluctuating fuel prices, concerns about climate change, and desire for greater national energy self-sufficiency have resulted in several programs supporting renewable energy and energy conservation.

Some programs support energy production on farms and ranches, including biomass production and processing, wind turbines, manure digesters, solar panels, and geothermal. Others help build community infrastructure that supports renewable energy or conservation. Others in this guide support individual landowners or producers’ interest in creating energy or reducing energy costs on their farms or ranches.

Research and Outreach As farmers, ranchers and landowners move toward more sustainable agricultural and forestry practices, they often need reliable, researchbased information, technical assistance, or other informational help.

Several programs offer outreach, research, or community assistance, and the last two Farm Bills have included provisions to focus particular assistance on underserved, beginning or veteran farmers and ranchers.

BEST OF

Value-added and Marketing Innovations Because earnings in extractive industries (for example, agricultural production and timber harvesting) are generally low and volatile, many entrepreneurs seek environmental sustainability by adding value to natural resources through processing, packaging, marketing, distributing the products themselves, or by producing their goods with methods that gain market premiums. This guide describes programs offering financial, technical, marketing, and other assistance for such enterprises, as well as programs that support local marketing or market development, including organic or food safety-related certifications.

The guide provides information on eligibility, uses and restrictions applicable to each funding opportunity. The downloadable PDF version contains clickable links to online applications and other resources.

Basic program information and project examples are also provided.

“The guide can also help USDA and other agency employees become aware and take better advantage of the enormous array of federal programs and resources available to their clients in supporting sustainable innovations in agriculture and forestry,” the authors said.

“This edition is the guide’s sixth printing and fourth complete update, incorporating programs from the 2014 Farm Bill.”

The guide book also provides tips on project conception and grant writing strategies, as well as numerous links to related online resources.

The Michael Fields Agricultural Institute offers workshops to help use the guide. The workshops cover how to envision and design sound projects; how to identify programs offering resources; and how to maximize your chances of submitting successful proposals. Find more information at www.michaelfields.org. n

Sacramento BioDigester, Sacramento CA The Sacramento BioDigester in Sacramento California converts 25 tons of food waste per day into various forms of renewable energy including heat, electricity and vehicle fuel. Unison Solutions Inc., based in Dubuque, Iowa is proud to be part of the team at the Sacramento biogas project. The unique technology designed and manufactured by Unison allows them to fuel their waste haulers with conditioned biogas from the digester. Currently the site processes 100 scfm of biogas with plans to increase their vehicle fuel production and continue to reduce their dependence on petroleum products. Learn more about it at www.unisonsolutions.com [ 17 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Economic Growth and Cultural Vibrancy through Creative Placemaking How Arts and Culture Lead to Sustainable Prosperity

BY JULIANNE COUCH

What is creative placemaking?

JIM T ISCHL ER

Essentially it is a development built around and inclusive of arts, cultural and creative thinking, such as museums and orchestra halls, public art displays, transit stations with art themes and live-work structures for creative people, according to Jim Tischler, with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority’s Community Development Division.

Tischler explained Michigan’s statewide MIPlace partnership in a presentation at the recent Growing Sustainable Communities Conference in Dubuque, Iowa. The partnership is a collaborative effort of multiple state agencies in Michigan and the 40-member public/private Sense of Place Council. MIPlace MEGAN ST ARR helps communities re-examine the importance of everyday settings and experiences that shape our lives – the downtowns, parks, plazas, main streets, neighborhoods and markets that influence where people live and how they interact.

MIPlace’s purpose is to “keep Michigan at the forefront of placemaking. It’s a simple concept that people choose to live in places that offer the amenities, resources, social and professional networks and opportunities to support thriving lifestyles.”

Tischler said that vibrant, successful regions promote economic activity. In fact, he said, economic, social, cultural and ecological return on investment can equal prosperity in a community.

He presented a visual definition of what placemaking looks like, showing three images of what he called “Anyplace, USA.” The first

[ 18 ]

was a generic intersection, with a gas station on the corner, no sidewalks, and no green landscaping within sight. The audience could tell by looking at the image that this place was not only not livable, it was not sustainable, he said. A second image was an improvement over the first, with transportation enhancements and landscaping.

This is better, he said, but still not sustainable. Finally, the third image showed cars sharing the road with bicycles, pedestrians walking down a pleasant sidewalk, rich vegetation and attractive shop fronts. It would be easy to imagine an appealing residential district intermingled with the conveniences of this street.

“As humans, we know what makes a place livable,” he said. “But how do we systematize it?”

Tischler said it is important to develop a unified delivery of programs to create an efficient system. Dollars should flow to the projects, rather than projects chasing after dollars.

“MIPlace shifts the paradigm to place-based livability but we have a set of internal rules: we’re not going to be a government program,” he said.

Recent years have brought a heightened distrust of government in many parts of the country, Tischler said. In his experience, any government initiative gets the following response, “Thirty percent say we should have done it years ago; 30 percent say no way, and 40 percent are in between.”

He believes those responses occur mainly when there is no public ownership of a project. The key, he said, is to present projects that are marketplace and data driven.

“The market wants place-based livability and sustainability,” Tischler said, and unfortunately, “there ain’t enough butter to cover the toast.”

By that, he meant that there are not enough resources to fund every worthy project. The answer is to think systematically not individually, he said.

BEST OF

sCityNetwork.com

He drew a connection between placemaking and economic development. The typical approach to development is that businesses go after the talent. Tischler said that 60 percent of the workforce are knowledge workers, and that most of these are either “millennials” or are downsizing baby boomers forging second or third careers. Many in this group relocate to new metropolitan areas and of this group, about 35 percent move without a job.

“They entrepreneur to put employment prospects together,” he said.

“That’s why placemaking will be a big part of what brings them in.

Communities should try to capture these young workers and boomer entrepreneurs.”

To make system change a reality, Tischler said, communities, have to look at the operators in the system. In Michigan, six internal agencies formed around the idea of placemaking. This connected to the development of the Sense of Place Council, which includes state trade organizations, realtors, smart growth developers, bank associations, credit union leagues, environmental councils, municipal leagues, historic preservation networks, planning associations and architecture associations.

Initiatives of the MIPlace Partnership include self-assessment and technical assistance tools for local officials and stakeholders; a six-module placemaking curriculum and guidebook; and strategic work with state agencies to help them institutionalize placemaking as an economic and community development strategy.

Concerning, the placemaking curriculum, Tischler said that in a little more than two years they have trained nearly 12,000 elected or appointed officials and citizens, adding “we are developing an army of lieutenants and soldiers so knowledge and practice will pervade from bottom up as we change state programs.”

were priorities for residents. Starr said she heard a story on National Public Radio describing one version of the project. Local potters made soup bowls into which local chefs served soups they’d prepared from locally sourced ingredients. Diners were two groups of people: artists who had a project but no funding, and art patrons who were looking for a project to help fund.

The model had done well in other communities, and Starr developed a version that would work in Dubuque. Her group began in 2010 by sending out a flier and contacting potters, caterers and farmers.

“We found that this was an easy ask and that making soup was an easy endeavor, especially since they had such great local ingredients to work with,” she said.

The application proposal for artists to follow was rather simple, Starr said, and they had about a month to prepare it before their pitch event. They had to describe the artistic project the Art Gumbo grant would help them create, discuss the impact the proposed project would have on the Dubuque community, detail how they would show progress on the project, and how they would spend the money. At first, many artists did not see how what they did in the studio translated into having an impact on the community, Starr said.

“They had to think about why does a photo or sculpture matter and

Percival Scientific’s I-36NL Research Chamber: Removing Variability from Water Testing!

“The Percival I-36NL chamber has been a reliable product and a very important part of our testing procedure.”

Tischler noted that Dubuque is a good example of creative placemaking fitting into economic development and sustainability.

Water Pollution Control Department Perry, Iowa

“Creative placemaking can fit within a larger context, and is the next frontier,” he said.

Megan Starr of Dubuque co-founded and organized a project that fit into the sort of creative placemaking Tischler discussed.

Called Art Gumbo, the project was a concept adapted from other communities around the country where arts and funding for the arts

Percival Scientific recognizes the challenges in protecting our precious water supply. You can count on our efficient, reliable incubators to make the important work you do every day more effective.

Let us build a chamber to meet your exact testing needs! 1.800.695.2743 or sales@percival-scientific.com

www.percival-scientific.com [ 19 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

n

A farmers market, like this example in Michigan, can help develop a sense of community vibrancy and spur economic growth.

what is the role of the artist in bringing a community together in a meaningful way.”

The Voices Warehouse, a Dubuque arts center, was the site of the first Arts Gumbo event, featuring 10 artists with proposals to pitch and 55 arts patrons. Patrons read over the proposals and asked questions of the artists and their projects. Contributions that night totaled $660. That money funded the installation of a public art sculpture

by Dubuque artist Gene Tulley on a rooftop in the city’s renovated Millwork district.

funded with $11,685 raised over four years before Art Gumbo closed its doors, when the time seemed right to move on to other things, Starr said.

At its peak, it raised contributions of $1,500 in one night, and many of the projects it funded still live on. n related youtube video: http://youtu.be/2e5vmuFVzRM

Other competitions followed and winners were expected to find volunteers to help at the next dinner, Starr said.

Jim Tischler is director of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority’s Community Development Division.

“Even those whose projects were not supported gained valuable practice explaining why their artwork mattered,” she said.

Megan Starr was the co-creator of Art Gumbo, a quarterly soup dinner which provided crowd-funded cash grants for creative ideas in Dubuque, Iowa.

Art Gumbo organizers were able to pay potters for the bowls, and pay local growers and caterers for the meals. Altogether, 24 projects were

[ 20 ]

BEST OF

sCityNetwork.com

Community Solar Shares the Sun with Everyone SunShot Initiative Helps Make Solar PV Cost-Competitive

BY JEFF BREHM

While the cost of rooftop solar photovoltaic systems has decreased, a recent U.S. government survey found that only about 25 percent of residential rooftops can support PV systems due to shading, building design and other issues.

ANDREW BEL DEN

Community solar offers a way to share the benefits of solar, even if the panels won’t work on an individual building.

Residents, municipalities, companies and utilities are organizing projects that provide renewable energy and financial benefits to local participants.

And in many cases, they’re using sites unsuited for traditional development.

The growing popularity of solar is thanks in part to hundreds of workshops on the subject provided by KAT HRYN WRIGH T the Solar Outreach Partnership, part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) SunShot Initiative, a national collaborative effort to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of electricity by the end of the decade. One of those workshops was part of the 100th International City/County Management Association Conference, held Sept. 14-17, in Charlotte, N.C. ICMA is one of the initiative’s outreach partners.

“Solar PV is becoming much more cost-competitive … and the market has grown pretty substantially here in the last few years,” said Andrew Belden, director of state and city programs for Meister Consultants Group, which is part of the SunShot Solar Outreach Partnership. “What was a small, niche application five years ago is now a multibilliondollar-a-year industry. There’s been an exponential curve in PV installations in the U.S. in the last few years, and all indicators are that this trend will continue.”

That’s caught the attention of a lot of consumers, but many of them can’t install PV systems on their homes.

“There are a significant number of people who rent or own a condo … who don’t have access to the roof or the land around it,” said Kathryn

Wright, a Meister consultant. “Community solar is a way to overcome this barrier.”

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) defines community solar as “one solar-electric system that provides power and/or financial benefit to multiple community members.”

Unlike group purchase programs like Solarize, or crowd funding programs such as Solar Mosaic, community solar projects can be developed by a special-purpose entity (owned by the participants or a third party) or can be sponsored or managed by a local utility. More than 40 are already established across the U.S., with 14 of those in Colorado.

“In participant-owned projects, individual community members invest money to develop a solar installation and they receive the net metering credits, so they benefit from the electricity,” Wright said. “In some cases they also receive renewable energy credits and investment tax credits, but this is legally complex and there can be local nuances.

“A third-party owner usually already has internal expertise with these kinds of issues, and handles any operations and maintenance,” she explained. “But the third party might take any direct credits for themselves … and they usually require a higher return on investment.”

In projects with utility-sponsored ownership, the utility owns the system or retains a third party to own and manage it. The utility allows its customers to purchase rights to the benefits of the PV system, such as net metering credits or “green power” purchases. More than 20 of these projects already are underway, with the majority administered by municipal utilities.

Wright and Belden provided three community solar case studies: • EcoVillage in Ithaca, N.Y.: A condo association installed a 50-kW ground-mounted PV system, using a 15-year loan from residents and other incentives. Operational in April 2011, the $300,000 system serves 55 percent of the load of 30 homes. A new metering system allows owners to monitor electricity use and enables the system to accurately allocate credits.

• Brewster (Mass.) Community Solar Garden: In this 346 kW brownfield installation, a municipal lease was awarded to My Generation Energy. Of the 50 members of the system, who are guaranteed $1,400 in annual energy savings, more than half are [ 21 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

“Some of my colleagues in Europe asked me, ‘What’s the solar market like in the United States?’”

Belden said. “The answer is, there isn’t a solar market in the United States – there are 50 solar markets. The rules and regulations and incentives in states are all different.”

Community solar also offers land-use value because it can be installed on sites with limited development potential, such as closed landfills, Belden said, adding “I was involved with a project in New Bedford, Mass., where they took a Superfund site that was completely useless, land that was kind of a burden to the city, and installed a 1.75-megwatt ground-mounted PV system that’s producing power for the community and also generating tax revenue.”

The growing popularity of community solar projects has made a difference in the solar energy market overall. As a result of that growth, solar PV is becoming more cost-competitive. While only 1 in 4 homes can accommodate roof-top solar panels, community solar cooperatives allow even apartment dwellers to take advantage of the renewable energy source.

n

unaccredited investors. Brewster gets lease payments and use of the vacant land; My Generation Energy gets renewable energy credit revenues and ownership payments.

• A Kit Carson Electric Cooperative project in Taos, N.M.: Under an agreement with Clean Energy Collective, a 98.7 kW solar canopy system was installed in 2012 at Taos Charter School. The co-op benefits from a 20-year power production agreement; Clean Energy Collective receives revenues for panel energy production, and utility customers get net metering credits.

Belden also provided a “Solar 101” overview of technologies and market drivers.

“Germany has far less solar resource than just about anywhere in the continental United States. It’s working there, so it can work just about any place here,” he said. “And as solar prices keep coming down (from as much as $12/watt in 1998 to as little as $3/watt today), a lot of local governments and utilities are trying to figure out what to do as their customers are seeing the value solar can provide.”

Incentives are another driver. They range from federal investment tax credits and accelerated depreciation for eligible owners (for-profit companies) to state and utility rebates, solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) and net metering, which allows solar system owners to export excess power to the grid in exchange for credits. The latter group varies widely in availability and amounts, which can create confusion, but the SunShot Solar Outreach Partnership offers free technical assistance services that can help. [ 22 ]

The growing number of solar parking canopies also are particularly exciting, he said, since “communities typically have massive amounts of parking space; you can turn that under-utilized space into a solar generating facility.”

Both consultants agreed the future looks sunny for community solar.

“It’s starting to drive conversations at the state policy level and we’re seeing more and more efforts to support legislation,” Belden said.

“If utilities get behind it, I think we’ll see a lot more community solar in the future,” Wright also said. “It doesn’t have the same problems they have with multiple distributed generators in terms of getting back their fixed costs.”

And no one should ever underestimate consumer demand.

“I think there are going to be a lot of calls for this from customers who don’t have any other way to take advantage of solar,” Belden added.

“As they start to see their neighbors benefitting from this technology, there’s going to be pretty significant pressure from constituents to adopt these programs, and utilities and governments are going to have to be responsive to this.” n related youtube video: http://youtu.be/efhdu2X4d9o

Andrew Belden is director of state and city programs for Meister Consultants Group, which is part of the SunShot Solar Outreach Partnership.

Kathryn Wright is a consultant for Meister Consultants Group, an international consulting firm that specializes in alternative energy and environmental sustainability.

BEST OF

sCityNetwork.com

Incorporating Social Equity into Sustainability Initiatives Sometimes People Come to the Table, and Sometimes the Table Comes to Them

BY SARA BOOTH

Cities often struggle to be certain that the benefits they provide are evenly distributed. Leaders of two very different cities – Detroit, one of the nation’s largest cities, with a population of nearly 700,000, and Dubuque, Iowa, less than a tenth that size – both found that a key to achieving their goals was to involve more voices in planning, and not necessarily in the way you would expect.

How the two cities achieved this involvement was discussed during the Growing Sustainable Communities Conference, held recently in Dubuque.

Involving Businesses in Detroit Detroit’s recent woes are well known; as manufacturing declined, unemployment rose and the city filed for bankruptcy in 2013. But even as businesses were closing and neighborhoods were being abandoned in 2011, a dozen people convened to look to the future with a climate action plan. Now the vastly expanded group, known today as the Detroit Climate Action Collaborative is ready to present a climate ordinance recommendation to the Detroit City Council, and a broad-based collaboration makes it likely that their suggestions will become law.

“We are no longer waiting to be invited to the table,” said Kimberly Hill Knott, director of Detroiters Working For Environmental Justice, which convened the collaborative and continues to support it. “Instead, we are creating our own table and inviting the people that we believe need to sit at our table.”

Naturally the collaborative’s table included government agencies, educational institutions and environmental organizations. But the group drew surprise – and some criticism – for including such partners as DTE Energy Co., whose coal-fired power plants have been widely criticized for their carbon emissions, as well as Ford, Chrysler and General Motors.

“We took a lot of heat for that,” Knott said, “but we believe that we cannot have an effective climate action plan if we do not have the right people at the table, meaning those who are really most responsible for contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. … I had to bring the business leaders in early so that they could have a vested interest in the process and could actually be a part of the solution.”

The collaborative set out to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and then found that no one knew what the current carbon-emission levels were.

A comprehensive climatology report was required before target levels could be set.

With the help of scholars from Wayne State University, the city also assessed the likely impact of climate change. When extreme heat and flooding were identified as likely issues, this revealed yet more areas where research was needed: Did anyone know which communities had adequate trees and adequate cooling centers to protect their residents and which ones needed extra help?

“If you’re planting trees, where are you planting them?” Knott asked.

“There needs to be a very keen strategy in terms of these mitigation efforts” to ensure neighborhoods throughout the community are receiving equal protection.

Drawing Out Differences in Dubuque In Dubuque, the problem of power went in the other direction. The city’s Human Rights Department was founded in response to the Civil Rights Movement, but it functioned reactively, simply investigating claims that residents brought to it rather than addressing larger patterns.

Making a change involved broadening the input to include members of marginalized communities. The goal was to create “a human rights department designed to bridge communities and build community,” said Kelly Larson, Dubuque’s human rights director.

Investigating claims of illegal discrimination is still an important part of the department’s work, but by treating each case separately, “patterns of discrimination were being missed,” Larson said.

Understanding the underlying problems in human rights required research. To form a picture of a diverse community and work on ways to get there, the department engaged consultants to study both the city government and the larger community. The findings were likely similar to those of many smaller cities: [ 23 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Positive factors • Strong commitment to making sure basic needs were being met • Desire to be inclusive and welcoming • Culture of volunteerism and service.

Negative factors • Lack of cultural self-awareness • Strong pressure to conform

“We were able to start more proactively addressing issues that were resulting in complaints,” Larson said.

It also was important to coordinate with other agencies, and to reach out to the community to bring in leaders among marginalized groups – “recognizing that there’s not any one institution that can resolve these issues on our own, so we have to work collaboratively across groups.”

The input of those groups made the most difference in transforming the department, Larson said, adding “if we don’t attend to the process that gets us to the point of making changes in the structure, then it’s unlikely to be successful in the long run.” n

• Focus on similarities and pressure to ignore differences So, though it might have seemed counter-intuitive, the human rights department had to learn to look for points of difference – in communication styles, daily experience and access to opportunity – and examine them closely, even before they caused problems.

Investigating claims remains an important part of the department’s work, and its legal unit continues to focus on that aspect. But new positions were added to focus on training and workforce development, human relations and community engagement.

related youtube video: http://youtu.be/Aoma5A1HhrI

Kimberly Hill Knott is director of Detroiters Working For Environmental Justice.

Kelly Larson is human rights director for the city of Dubuque, Iowa.

Declare your success. Share your expertise.

Sustainable City Network presents the Project Gallery. nto ry-Sacrame e ll a G t c je Cities /Pro Sustainable ts 25 tons ifornia conver

Cal Sacramento, gy including BioDigester in to en newable ener am re cr of s rm ue, The Sa fo us rio sed in Dubuq per day into va lutions Inc., ba So n The so of food waste ni t.

U ec . oj e fuel biogas pr ity and vehicl Sacramento e th at heat, electric am te the to be part of tured by Iowa is proud and manufac ed gn si de gy lo with no ch unique te aste haulers to fuel their w em th s w ly lo Current the Unison al the digester. om fr as og bi with plans to conditioned fm of biogas sc 0 10 s se n and continue site proces fuel productio e cl hi ts. ve r ei oleum produc increase th ence on petr nd pe de r ei .c olutions om to reduce th www.unisons at it t ou ab Learn more

Submit your project by March 14th to be in the April issue!

Project Gallery ads are $385 and include: - Project photo - 100 word description - Your logo - Your website address

Contact Tim Koehler to learn more | 563-588-3856 | tkoehler@woodwardbizmedia.com [ 24 ]

sCityNetwork.com

BEST OF

Universities Connect with Communities Sustainability Spawns Local Partnerships

BY JULIANNE COUCH

Universities have long been known as centers of innovation. After all, they employ some of the nation’s top research scientists, not to mention knowledgeable faculty and expert staff.

AMY SEEBOT H

But universities often need their students to participate not just in the technical ideas behind innovation, but in building relationships with the community where the school is located, since that cooperation brings projects off the drawing board and into practice.

Two such partnerships were described in a presentation at the Growing Sustainable Communities Conference in Dubuque, Iowa, Oct. 7-8.

MORGAN APPL EY

RYAN WIL L IAMS

At the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, non-traditional student Morgan Appley moved to town for reasons other than attending college.

She’d been active with the Sierra Club in Vermillion and other elements of the town’s budding environmental movement. But when USD started its sustainability degree program, Appley decided she wanted to pursue this new major.

That didn’t mean the end of her community involvement, however. As a student, she worked with people such as Alice Alexandrescu of the Vermillion Sierra Club to develop the city’s first Earth Day event. The activity list became so long they realized what they really had was an Earth Week.

“Out of that effort and the process of building collaboration, we realized we

T IM ZAUCHE

needed to make it Earth Every Day,” Appley said.

For this ambitious event to be a success, the college of about 10,000 students in a town of about that same size would need to work together. It seems like it should be pretty simple to pick up the phone and invite someone from campus to sit down with someone from the business community and plan an inclusive sustainability event. But “we had to cross into unsafe zones – either crossing onto campus or off campus – in order to get involved,” Appley said.

To ensure the project didn’t become fragmented, they developed sustainability teams, connecting a student with a community member. Together they would create 15 events throughout the week, with speakers, farm tours, hikes, recycling demonstrations and other events. The highlight was a presentation by author Frances Moore Lappé of the Small Planet Institute. Appley said few USD students knew who she was, nor did many townspeople. But Earth Week organizers made a special outreach to townspeople for the event. And of course, faculty did the same with their students, in the form of extra credit for attending. As a result, the presentation drew several hundred people.

As a result of the success of this event, Appley and Alexandrescu, along with others, formed a non-profit organization called Greening Vermillion, with the two of them as the current staff. The organization exists to build connections, to make a more vibrant community, and to connect the Vermillion community with USD. “It is important to get students off campus and into downtown.”

Appley said.

They’ve developed a tips list to help bridge the town-and-gown divide.

For students or faculty, these include finding and attending local meetings, shopping local farmers markets, finding local open mic/ poetry slams to attend and thereby meet local community members, and asking organizations, businesses and individuals for help with campus projects.

For community members, tips include attending university-sponsored events; speaking with professors at events; getting students involved with community events or speaking to their classes; offering their organizations as a site for a service learning program; holding events for community members and students and advertising these on campus. [ 25 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Sustainability and Renewable Energy minor,” he said, adding that figuring out what should go into the major was harder. It needed to be technical and rigorous, but not so much that it would be the work of a graduate degree. With the help of 25 industrial partners, the major was created and the first students will graduate in May 2015.

n

With the help of more than 60 students and 11 local businesses, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville sustainability program is growing sunflowers and using the seeds for food and fuel. The group decided on sunflowers because they don’t need a long growing season or a lot of water.

Another project with a campus focus and community-wide implications is taking place at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, where Tim Zauche is professor of chemistry and renewable energy in the Sustainability and Renewable Energy Systems program and Amy Seeboth is the campus sustainability coordinator. In conjunction with more than 60 students and 11 local businesses, they are growing sunflowers and using the seeds for food and fuel.

Zauche explained that sunflowers don’t need a long growing season and they don’t need a lot of water. That’s why the top states for sunflower production range from the Dakotas down through Texas.

States such as Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois grow a lot of corn and soybeans, but not many sunflowers. One result of this specialization is a loss of biodiversity, Zauche said, so it’s a positive step to reintroduce sunflowers for farmers to adopt as one of their crops.

The project began because of demand, he added.

“In 2006, industry approached UW-Platteville to say we weren’t graduating students with the skills they needed. So, we started a

[ 26 ]

One of the hands-on learning elements of the program was growing and producing sunflower oil. Before the oil could be marketed, of course, they needed to obtain the land, plant the seeds, tend the crops, harvest the sunflower seeds, find a use for the solids, cold press the seeds into oil, bottle that oil into appropriate containers with appealing labels, and get the product into local grocery stores and farmers markets.

That’s a long list of tasks, but students were eager to take part. One of them, Ryan Williams, was a key player in selling and marketing the sunflower oil. Williams, who plans to graduate in December 2015, explained that sunflower oil “has healthy benefits like olive oil, but better yet, it is high in vitamins, with a high smoke point, so it is good in cooking.”

For the first step, obtaining the land, the campus farm was out, because it is used for water quality research purposes. So Zauche put the word out that although he couldn’t afford to rent farm property for sunflower fields he was looking for suboptimal land to plant. Then Seeboth joined the project and was able to locate land that would be donated for the effort. The catch was its proximity to an industrial park.

A contract farmer donated labor and planted 6.7 acres of land in sunflower seeds. The sunflower crop was beautiful, so much so it attracted bridal parties and wedding photographers for photo shoots.

But because of the soil conditions, the crop was quite stunted.

BEST OF

sCityNetwork.com

“The seeds we grew locally became damaged due to improper storage the first year,” Zauche said. “Our moisture analysis came back wrong.

That has been corrected this year. All of these seeds were used for cattle feed.”

To save the day, he said, “one of our friends supplied us with Wisconsin grown sunflowers for the students to press. This oil was used locally for alternative products as well as on campus for cooking, teaching biodiesel processing in chemistry labs, and so on.”

The oil that the students bottled was purchased from a Wisconsin producer called Century Sun, Zauche said. “It was organically raised and was supplied to us already pressed and filtered. The students just needed to bottle it.”

As a result, it was not accepted at some farmers markets because it was not locally raised or processed. But that is a problem that should be overcome in the next season, as seed production starts to occur in more appropriate fields. Zauche and Seeboth agree the important thing is to engage students in experiential learning. There were so many things they didn’t know they’d need to consider, decisions they’d need to make along with way, Seeboth said, but the group figured it out together.

“Universities should lead by example, not just be siloed institution,” she said. “Universities have resources and can take the lead loss for the broader region. This is a chance to discover if sunflower production might be a good industry for Wisconsin.

“Plus, it’s a fun way to get out of the office and get our boots dirty in the field,” she added.

Learning about commodity agriculture and harvesting also was important, Seeboth said.

“It is amazing how we’ve lost the skills to do sunflowers in Wisconsin,” she said, as she explained how they figured out which harvesting equipment to use and found that regular corn equipment works very effectively.

they used only gets about half of the oil from the seeds, but at least the chemical and heating method hasn’t depleted the vitamins, she said.

The project was designed with the goal of every step being student driven, Seeboth said. They bottled 2,000 bottles of oil, which took two nights.

“Student engagement really worked with label design. The contest winner got to have his name on the label,” she said.

They were also able to hire numerous students to help with the bottling, and employ a few more to manage various aspects of the project. Ryan Williams was one of those. He expected most customers to be “foodies” or people in more urban areas like nearby Madison, Wis. After all, not everyone cares how their cooking oil is made, or even what it is. Often people look at price first. But their best customers have been residents of the Platteville area who just like a chance to buy a locally made product, either for their own consumption or for gifts.

Both students and the community loved the project, Seeboth said, and they have plenty of room for expansion, because their biggest competitors are olive oil producers from California, not other sunflower producers.

Next year the students will once again plant sunflowers in the industrial park mostly because, as Zauche said, the P.R. was good and the university wanted them back. But now they’ve also located an eight-acre organic farm where they can plant. If the crop works out, they’ll be able to produce and sell their own oil next time. They plan to bottle both bulk quantities of oil and smaller bottles. They’ll keep working to make the project more student-run, although the realities of student graduations present a looming challenge. n related youtube video: http://youtu.be/27bbgzH42lk

To grow truly organic sunflowers, the seeds must be cleaned and be free of weed seeds. It was hard for the group to find someone to do this for them, since newer farming methods don’t require cleaning seeds first. But they found a company near Platteville with a fanning mill. That company works mostly with Amish and organic farmers, and was just what the sunflower project needed.

Morgan Appley is a student at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, S.D.

To get the oil from seeds, mass producers use chemicals like hexane.

Then they heat the oil to remove that chemical. The upside of this method is that it is very efficient. But the downside is that it leaves traces of chemical behind, Seeboth said. The cold-pressed method

Amy Seeboth is the campus sustainability coordinator for the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

Tim Zauche is professor of chemistry and renewable energy in the Sustainability and Renewable Energy Systems program at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

Ryan Williams is a student at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

[ 27 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Creating Community Capital through Local Food ‘Locavores’ Infuse Millions into Regional Economies

BY JEFF BREHM

Americans buy local food for its freshness, to support the local economy, and because they like to know the source of the product, according to a 2009 Food Marketing Institute survey. Local governments are increasingly focusing on cultivating locally-based, self-reliant, sustainable food economies for many of the same reasons.

“In North Carolina, we eat $45 billion worth of food every year,” said Dr. Nancy Creamer, a distinguished professor at North Carolina State University and director of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, a collaboration between NC State, North Carolina A&T State University and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. “Just imagine a small portion of that going to our local farmers, and the economic engine that inspires.”

Creamer was the moderator of a panel on “Creating Community Capital through Local Food” at the 100th International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Conference, held recently in Charlotte, N.C. The session explored local food through the lens of building community capital, shared success stories and provided information on key resources in building broader community development strategies.

“You can bring some revitalization to your communities through local food systems,” Creamer said. “And from a national perspective, as we face droughts and floods and climate issues, keeping our food supply diverse and spread out across the country is really important.”

The CEFS is celebrating its 20th anniversary of developing sustainable agriculture systems and local food systems, Creamer said. It conducts production systems research on a 2,000-acre facility and works statewide to reduce constraints on developing local food economies.

“I’ve been in this field for 30 years … and there’s really been a sea change,” she said. “It’s wonderful to see the momentum and energy now around local food systems that’s developed over the last 10 years or so. It involves economy, it involves entrepreneurship, it involves health, conservation, sustainability, food access … a lot of things come together around local food systems.”

“When we think about community assets, we need to go beyond our traditional notion of just financial assets. There are seven forms of what we call community capital … and local food systems touch on all seven,” said panelist Dr. Rick Morse, associate professor of public administration and government in the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [ 28 ]

Morse noted the recent addition of the term “locavore” to popular vocabulary. In 2007, “locavore” was added to the New Oxford American Dictionary as the word of the year and is defined as “a person who attempts to eat food produced within a 100-mile radius.”

In 2012, the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems (CRFS) partnered with ICMA to assess the current status of local government involvement in food systems. They conducted a national survey of local governments concerning their food-related policies, programs, partnerships and plans.

“Nearly 2,000 municipalities and counties from all 50 states responded,” Morse said. “This survey represents the most comprehensive effort to date to quantify the status of local governments’ food-related activities.”

Highlights of the survey results included: • Farmers markets and emergency food provision plans are widespread. A total of 1,175 communities have at least one food program supported (partially or fully) by the local government (60 percent of total respondents).

• 1,642 communities reported at least one food policy (83.9 percent of total respondents).

• 306 communities have at least one plan that addresses food topics (19 percent of respondents).

• Only 2.5 percent of responding jurisdictions reported the presence of a community development plan that addressed food topics.

• Local governments are most advanced in their support of farmers markets and safety net programs.

• There is a large potential to systematically improve the health and security of vulnerable populations, in particular through planning, policies and collaboration to make significant systemic changes.

• Communities may not be aware of federal resources available to support these activities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass” is a good resource.

“The results provide insight into the ways and lenses through which local governments engage in and view food systems, which may be of

BEST OF

sCityNetwork.com

interest to good food advocates seeking municipal or county support for their efforts,” Morse said, adding that the survey will be repeated next year. “They also reflect significant potential for innovation, as virtually every type of food-related activity included in the survey was found to exist in every type of community – municipalities and counties, small and large, in every region of the country.”

Christi Shi Day, program lead for Community Food Strategies, a part of the CEFS, shared some North Carolina examples of food initiatives fostering community capital, starting with incubators such as the Piedmont Food & Ag Processing Center in Hillsborough, N.C. The 20,000-square-foot, $1.4 million facility features four kitchens, dry storage, cold and freezer storage, space for catering van access, and business counseling and meeting facilities, all available for hourly rentals.

Eastern Carolina Organics, based in Durham, N.C., is a grower’s cooperative or “food hub,” which aggregates, distributes and markets farm products that are produced regionally or locally, so they can be purchased from wholesale or retail or institutional markets. Started in 2005 with a $48,000 Tobacco Trust Fund grant, it has grown to more than 70 growers, 130 customers, five staff and $2.7 million in sales from a 26,000-square-foot warehouse.

“Small-scale farms often don’t have the volume or continuity of products to be able to carry large-scale accounts, so they come together in food hubs,” Shi Day said.

The Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative is an example of communitysupported agriculture, or CSA. “People in the community buy a subscription at the beginning of the season and the farmer delivers a share of the harvest,” Shi Day said.

Incubated by Cooperative Extension in Moore County, N.C., Sandhills drew 3.5 percent of the local population to subscribe in its second year.

Its community impact also has been impressive – 38,000 volunteer hours to deliver the food, which raised funds for a variety of local causes; more than three tons of produce donated to neighbors; 22,000 boxes delivered to more than 1,500 members; $320,000 to family farmers and artisans, and $40,000 contributed to community schools, churches and organizations for hosting a gathering site.

Core Sound Seafood on Harkers Island, N.C., is a community-supported fishery (CSF). The group buys from other fishermen in the community, assembles “shares” (four pounds of fish from two species per week over 10 weeks) and sends them to subscribers. Direct sales – as with farmers’ markets – results in more money to producers. In 2012, the prices averaged $450 per share ($225 per half share), or $11.25 per pound. The fish are caught, cleaned and filleted within 48 hours of delivery, and shareholders receive information about who caught the fish and how, photos and stories from the coast, and recipes.

Slow Money North Carolina provides peer-to-peer lending to finance small businesses. Loans are made at very modest rates of interest, typically 2-5 percent. As of December 2012, more than 60 loans were made to more than 30 Slow Money North Carolina food entrepreneurs and/or local food businesses around the state, totaling more than $600,000. Nationally, $35 million has been invested in more than 300 small food enterprises around the United States through 19 local Slow Money chapters and 10 investment clubs.

Shi Day’s husband, John Day, is program coordinator for CEFS. He worked on a number of different local food initiatives as the former manager of Cabarrus County in North Carolina, near Charlotte, from 2007-2012. Back then, the county of about 168,000 residents was seeing a decline of manufacturing and large job losses, and rapid, sprawling development at the expense of farmland.

“Our approach was trying to find the sweet spot between community engagement policies and programs,” Day said. “We tried to hear the concerns people had and develop projects that would improve the quality of life.”

In 2007, the county invited a variety of stakeholders to participate in development of land use plans and regulations. In 2009, the Lomax Incubator Farm was launched on 30 acres of county-owned and bequeathed land, funded by a local grant. Managed and maintained by county staff, the NC Cooperative Extension trained program participants who paid $240 a year to learn to farm. The products were sold in the Lowes Foods grocery chain and farmers markets.

A local food policy council started in 2010 to identify and strengthen connections between food, health, natural resource protection, economic development and the agriculture community. Made up of community members from across all sectors, it developed a county food purchasing policy that calls for local sourcing of at least 10 percent of all food served at county catered events and small departmentsponsored meetings from food producers within North Carolina. The following year, the council rolled out a locally-grown certification program to foster stronger connections between residents and farmers.

The county also invested in a variety of local food development projects.

Cruse Meats, a public/private partnership, operated a 4,545-squarefoot processing facility to support meat grown in and around the county (including more than 7,000 head of livestock) for local markets. Grants and local sources paid for about half of the $1.2 million project.

In the end, however, a change in local elected leaders after Day left his post brought budget cuts that ended many of the initiatives.

“As a manager, you often have the ability to push something through if you think it’s needed,” Day said. “Sometimes, a slower approach can build deeper roots that don’t depend on the government to keep operating. We’ve built that into our processes now at the CEFS.” n

[ 29 ]

®

PURPOSE. PERFECTED.

DUAL PURPOSE ( O R G A N I C S SOLID WASTE)

40” LIQUID TIGHT HOPPER

liquid-tight hopper allows you to fill up to 40” high.

UNMATCHED COMPACTION

First mobile compactor of its kind to offer 23,000 lbs. of torque in a screw-type auger.

HOPPER BODY DISPLACEMENT

ROTO PAC™’s hopper displacement ranks 20% higher than any other ASL system.

BEST LEGAL PAYLOAD

Easily handles up to 13 tons of Organic or MSW payload.

MOST MANEUVERABLE AUTOMATED SIDE LOADER Get into, and out of, the tightest spaces with ease.

ROTO PAC

™

JOIN THE REVOLUTION with ROTO PAC

™

The first automated, auger-driven Organics and MSW collection vehicle in the world.

SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT. PurposePerfected.com/x2

· newwaytrucks.com · 14-0420