Sustainable City Network Magazine Vol. 24

FOR LEADERS IN GOVERNMENT, EDUCATION & HEALTHCARE.

SUSTAINABLE CITY NETWORK

VOLUME 24 July 2017

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BEST OF

e City SustainaWbl ORK NET

NASHVILLE DEALS WITH ALL ITS ROWDY FRIENDS LEADERBOARD SERIES SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.

10 BITTER REACTION AS TRUMP BAILS ON CLIMATE ACCORD 14 URBAN DESIGN WITHOUT DISPLACEMENT 21 IOWA STATEHOUSE DEFUNDS SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE RESEARCH

www.sCityNetwork.com

10TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OCTOBER 3-4 2017

PRESENTED & HOSTED BY:

Grand River Center | Port of Dubuque | Dubuque, Iowa

A two-day sustainability conference for municipal and business professionals.

Ideas, plans and best practices.

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contents Bitter Reaction as Trump Bails on Climate Accord

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Urban Design without Displacement

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Report Outlines Best Urban Mobility Solutions Worldwide

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Iowa Statehouse Defunds Sustainable Agriculture Research

21

Saving America’s Public Housing

23

Growing Sustainable Communities Conference

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Researchers Study Parking Needs at TODs

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Photo: Imgimage

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VOLUME 24 July 2017

cover story

NASHVILLE DEALS WITH ALL ITS ROWDY FRIENDS

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Lean Urbanism Recalls a Simpler Time [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 or WoodwardBizMedia.

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Sustainable City Network magazine is produced by WoodwardBizMedia, a division of Woodward Communications, Inc. GROUP PUBLISHER Karen Ruden PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR Randy Rodgers

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ASSOCIATE EDITORS Kathy Regan Michael Manning

Creating a Sustainability Strategy for Your Organization

BUSINESS MANAGER Maggie Vetsch CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Christopher Alexandrov Jessica Chapman Julianne Couch Smart Growth America CREATIVE DESIGN Eric Faramus Cover Photo: Ingimage Unless otherwise noted, all images used throughout © 2017 Ingimage, all rights reserved.

Sustainable City Network 801 Bluff Street Dubuque, Iowa 52001 Visit Us On The Web sCityNetwork.com Printed on recycled paper

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6-Hour Online Course – July 11-13, 2017 Sustainable City Network will present a webinar series in July for any personnel who are responsible for developing sustainability plans, greenhouse gas emission inventories, climate action plans or any sustainability strategy for a community, business or institution.

The 6-hour online course will be delivered live on July 11-13 and recordings will be available for purchase thereafter.

Learn more at http://sCityNetwork.com/Strategy

Sustainability in the City of Nashville, Tenn.

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Aug. 3, 2017 Erin Hafkenschiel, director of transportation & sustainability, will describe Mayor Megan Barry’s new three-year transportation plan, which includes an improved bus system, sidewalks, bikeways, car-sharing, synchronized traffic signals and a new light rail system, as well as other Nashville sustainability initiatives.

Register now at http://sCityNetwork.com/Nashville

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 by profiling the city of Nashville, Tenn., which is working hard to reduce its carbon footprint despite experiencing explosive population growth. Nashville, the “Music City,” boasts one of the most robust tree canopies in America and is planning to add 4,500 acres of new parks and 53 miles of new greenways, with the goal of ensuring everyone in the city’s core lives within a 10-minute walk to a park.

In our cover story, you’ll meet Erin Hafkenschiel, director of transportation and sustainability for the city of Nashville, who will describe Mayor Megan Barry’s new three-year transportation plan, which includes an improved bus system, sidewalks, bikeways, car-sharing, synchronized traffic signals and a new light rail system. Don’t miss our Aug. 3 webinar featuring Nashville. Register or download the recording afterwards at www.sCityNetwork.com/Nashville.

In other top stories: President Donald Trump is taking steps to roll back federal support of sustainability wherever possible. From slashing the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency and pulling America out of the Paris climate agreement, to rescinding former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan and Climate Action Plan, Trump is aggressively cutting environmental and social programs across the board.

But, his actions have not come without resistance. Mayors of more than 300 cities, representing a combined population of 63 million Americans, are fighting back, pledging to uphold the emission goals established by the Paris accord.

Other articles in this issue focus on urban design without displacement, innovative mobility solutions, Lean urbanism, the defunding of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, a plan for saving America’s public housing, and the latest research on how much parking is really needed in a transit-oriented development.

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.

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NASHVILLE

DEALS WITH ALL ITS ROWDY FRIENDS CITY PLANS TO REDUCE EMISSIONS DESPITE EXPLOSIVE GROWTH

BY RANDY RODGERS, PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR

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“I’ve tried to talk to folks down there about switching to draft beer, and that has been a non-starter.”

MEGAN BARRY is mayor of Nashville, Tenn.

ERIN HAFKENSHIEL is director of transportation and sustainability, Metro Nashville.

SHARON SMITH is special projects manager at Metro Nashville Public Works.

Like the country music that made it famous, the city of Nashville, Tenn., has been through some changes in recent years.

Just as the “Nashville sound” of Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline gradually gave way to the more raucous and glitzy contemporary country music of Garth Brooks and Taylor Swift, so has the city itself gone from a quiet little town of less than 180,000 in 1960 to one of the fastest growing urban centers in the South, now with more than 650,000 people and an estimated 85 to 100 more arriving every day.

Add 13 million tourists per year, and “Music City, U.S.A.” begins to look a little less country and a little more rock ‘n’ roll.

“Everyone jokes that Nashville five years ago was a 20-minute town,” said Erin Hafkenshiel, director of transportation and sustainability.

“You could get anywhere you wanted to go in 20 minutes; and that is definitely no longer the case. We’re starting to see a lot more congestion and longer commute times as we grow,” she said.

As the traffic has increased, so has the pace of development, the volume of waste and the emitting of greenhouse gases. In Nashville’s entertainment district, it has also meant more honky-tonk bars and a lot more long-neck bottles.

■■ That’s a Lot of Long-necks

Nashville’s explosive growth in population and tourism has created an increase in honky-tonk bars downtown. As a result, trash collection in the entertainment district has grown by 80 percent in the past five years. Up to 70 percent of that waste consists of glass beer bottles, prompting the city to initiate a new recycling program exclusively for honky-tonks.

LAUREL CREECH is assistant director of sustainability, Metro Nashville General Services.

The Nashville Business Journal reported that in the city’s previous fiscal year Metro Public Works collected a record 12.53 million pounds of garbage in the entertainment district alone, almost 80 percent more than five years ago. The department estimates glass bottles make up 65 to 70 percent of that waste stream.

“Glass beer bottles are a staple at the honky-tonks,” said Sharon Smith, special projects manager at Metro Public Works. “I’ve tried to talk to folks down there about switching to draft beer, and that has been a non-starter,” she said. “It’s a cultural thing with the honky-tonks. So, we’re going to start a honky-tonk glass bottle recycling program later this year. We’re in the process of purchasing the equipment right now, and that program will divert thousands upon thousands, probably millions of bottles that currently are going to landfill.”

The city’s restaurants are also generating more food waste than ever before. Earlier this year, Nashville Mayor Megan Barry initiated the Mayor’s Food Saver Challenge with the support of 21 of the city’s most illustrious chefs and restaurants. The program trained and challenged the restaurants to measure their food waste, set a reduction target, and work to reach that target over a three-month period. The challenge was part of a larger Nashville Food Waste Initiative, a pilot program begun in 2015 through a partnership with the James Beard Foundation and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

One of the food venues involved in the project was the Country Music Hall of Fame, which “over the three months of the challenge diverted through composting about 28,000 pounds of food waste and donated 7 or 8 thousand pounds of reusable food,” Smith said. “It was really exciting to hear the chefs say how much they had learned through this program. We’re just trying to remove barriers so there are options out there for food waste.”

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Nashville has also been recognized for its green building policy, which requires new municipal buildings to meet LEED-Silver standards or better. In June, the city received a 2017 Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award for building the state’s first LEED-Platinum certified fire station. In all, the Metro Nashville Department of General Services has 21 LEED-certified facilities, said Laurel Creech, assistant director of sustainability.

Still, Nashville’s latest greenhouse gas inventory showed emissions heading in the wrong direction. Although per-capita emissions have gone down a bit, efforts to keep its emissions below its overall growth trajectory have fallen short so far. Creech said setting a good example and encouraging green behavior with a concerted outreach and education campaign is a big part of Nashville’s strategy, but officials know they have to get more creative, especially when state and federal politics get in the way.

■■ Nashville Fire Department Station 19

is the first LEED Platinum certified fire station for new construction in the entire Southeast. The station’s eco-friendly design resulted in a 60 percent diversion of construction waste from a landfill, one-third less water use and a 44 percent reduction in energy costs. The building gets 15 percent of its electricity from a 33kW solar panel array, and in 2016, it saved over $11,000 in electricity costs compared to a traditional building. In June, the city was recognized with a Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award.

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“We have such a very, very, very conservative state government that if we tried to mandate on a local level they would definitely intervene,” she said. So, the city has to work harder than most to build partnerships and appeal to the public’s natural tendencies toward economic, environmental and social sustainability.

While the city of Nashville has been a Democratic stronghold since the end of Reconstruction, the Tennessee General Assembly and executive branch have been overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans in recent years. It’s an understatement to say the two parties have different ideas about how to deal with the threat of climate change.

Rules regulating the regional electric grid give Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) exclusive rights to power generation, making it illegal for local power companies, or any third-party provider, to distribute renewable energy. This makes large-scale renewable energy generation a rarity in the region, Hafkenshiel said. But, the city has recently partnered with TVA, Nashville Electric Service (NES) and The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee to launch Music City Solar, the city’s first community solar program. The 2MW solar array is expected to generate approximately 2.8 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, which is enough to meet the average annual energy needs of 210 households, according to NES. The system is expected to start generating solar power by spring 2018, and Hafkenshiel said the city has a goal of reserving one-third of that power for low-income residents through donations administered by the community foundation.

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Hafkenshiel said residents will be allowed to “subscribe” to one of the array’s 5,966 solar panels for 20 years and any power generated by that panel will be automatically deducted from their electric bill each month.

“We think once we get this 2MW solar farm up and fully subscribed, there will be opportunities for more. So, we’ll push that path as far as we can take it, Hafkenshiel said.

Finding paths to push has been especially perilous since the contentious election of U.S. President Donald Trump. After Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement in late May, Nashville’s Mayor Barry was quick to join more than 300 of her peers in vowing to meet the goals of the historic accord anyway.

agreement by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, and working with corporations and citizens to do the same, even if the President is not. There’s too much at stake for cities not to lead on this issue, and Nashville will,” she promised.

“It was really exciting to hear the chefs say how much they had learned through this program.

We’re just trying to remove barriers so there are options out there for food waste.”

“The United States of America should be a global leader in addressing the dire impact of climate change on our civilization, and it is very disappointing that President Trump does not see that,” Barry said in a statement. “As a member of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, I am committed to meeting the goals of the Paris

In April 2016, Barry organized a Livable Nashville Committee comprised of leaders from Nashville’s public, private, environmental, academic, and philanthropic sectors. Earlier this year, the committee released its draft recommendations across five focus areas: Climate and Energy, Green Buildings, Waste Reduction and Recycling, Mobility, and Natural Resources.

“There’s been a long history of caring for environmental issues in Nashville, and we want to make sure that we continue to grow in a way that is sustainable and preserves the quality of life and the unique character of Nashville that people know and love,” Hafkenshiel said in explaining why the city’s sustainability plan focuses on livability.

Photo: Metro Nashville

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“A lot of low-hanging fruit came out of the Livable Nashville process,” said Hafkenshiel. She said improving energy efficiency in the city’s lowincome housing stock is a key example.

“Tennessee just adopted the 2008 energy code in February of this year, and we were the last state to do that,” Hafkenshiel said. She said in many areas of the state these codes have been viewed as optional, and as a result many impoverished residents of Davison County spend as much as 26 percent of their income on utility bills.

“So, there’s just a tremendous amount of opportunity for us to begin ensuring that our low-income housing is being built to at least the energy code, if not better, and then retrofitting homes to lower utility bills.”

Hafkenshiel said NES is planning to enhance its “round-up” program, where ratepayers have the option to round their monthly bills up to the nearest dollar and donate that amount to help increase the energy efficiency of lowincome housing. The utility will convert its existing program from an “opt-in” to an “opt-out” model, meaning that ratepayers who currently have to take action to participate in the program will now be automatically enrolled and must take action to opt out. She said other Tennessee cities that have made this conversion have seen participation rates grow from about 5 percent to more than 60 percent.

Davidson County, which has a consolidated government with the city of Nashville, no longer has its own landfill, so Hafkenshiel said all the county’s trash is trucked to a landfill near Murfreesboro, 34 miles away. For that reason, diverting waste from the landfill is one of the city’s top priorities.

The Livable Nashville committee has recommended increasing the city’s landfill-diversion rate to 35 percent by 2020; 50 percent by 2030; and all the way to zero waste by 2050. Smith said the public works department is now in

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the process of develop a 30-year solid waste plan that will attempt to achieve the committee’s vision.

Nashville is proud of its tree canopy, which at 47 percent is among the best in the nation. But, development in the city’s core has caused significant tree loss in recent years, Hafkenshiel said, and a new campaign has been launched to strengthen the city’s tree ordinance and stop net tree-loss by 2020, adding 500,000 new trees by 2050. That would increase the overall canopy to 50 percent, she said.

Nashville is also investing $500,000 in matching grants to help privatesector investors conserve, restore, and sustainably manage public and private lands throughout Davidson County. And, in March, the Metropolitan Board of Parks and Recreation officially adopted Plan to Play, its parks and greenways master plan, which calls for adding more than 4,500 acres of new park land and 53 miles of new greenways over the next 10 years.

Hafkenshiel said, “There is a big equity focus in this plan,” which commits to developing a park within one-half mile (a 10-minute walk) of everyone living within the urban core of the city.

Nashville may not be a “20-minute town” again any time soon, but Hafkenshiel said the city sees sustainable mobility as one of its highest priorities. The mayor’s Moving the Music City plan, updated in May, is a three-year transportation strategy that lays out a vision for an improved bus system, more sidewalks, new bikeways, a car-sharing program, synchronized traffic signals and a new light rail system, among other initiatives.

Hafkenshiel will be featured in a free 1-hour webinar hosted by Sustainable City Network on Aug. 3. To attend live or download a recording of the event later, visit http://sCityNetwork.com/Nashville. n

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

Bitter Reaction as Trump Bails on Climate Accord 313 U.S. Mayors Beg to Differ

BY RANDY RODGERS PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR

The sustainability community erupted with nearly universal dismay, outrage and resolve in the face of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement in late May. But few were really surprised.

After all, Trump was merely making good on another campaign promise, pitting his administration against the 71 percent of U.S. citizens who believe climate change is a clear and present danger, and joining only the countries of Syria and Nicaragua in defiance of the accord, which was signed by nearly 200 nations.

The administration’s official website at WhiteHouse.gov claims the Paris deal “created a taxpayer funded U.N. climate slush fund,” an idea made popular by conspiracy theorists who believe the United Nations’ effort to combat climate change is a veiled attempt to erode American sovereignty. Citing disputed facts about the cost in jobs and the “negligible” environmental benefits of the pact, Trump said the Paris accord was “negotiated badly” by the Obama administration and imposed unrealistic carbon reductions on the U.S. “while giving countries like China a free pass for years to come.”

In justifying his decision, Trump famously said, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” That statement ignored two important facts: 1) In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton won 75 percent of the vote in the city of Pittsburgh; and 2) Pittsburgh and Paris are actually on the same planet, which is really what the Paris accord was all about.

“Donald Trump said he was elected by the voters of Pittsburgh, but his misguided decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement does not reflect the values of our city,” said Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat. “Pittsburgh will not only heed the guidelines of the Paris agreement, we will work to move towards 100 percent clean and renewable energy for our future, our economy, and our people.”

“We will intensify efforts to meet each of our cities’ current climate goals, push for new action to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target (for maximum average global temperature increase), and work together to create a 21st century clean energy economy,” the mayors announced in a joint press release.

“We will continue to lead. We are increasing investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. We will buy and create more demand for electric cars and trucks. We will increase our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a clean energy economy, and stand for environmental justice. And if the President wants to break the promises made to our allies enshrined in the historic Paris agreement, we’ll build and strengthen relationships around the world to protect the planet from devastating climate risks,” the statement continued.

The National League of Cities supported the Paris agreement and led the largest delegation of city leaders at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, where the accord was adopted. NLC President Matt Zone, a councilmember from Cleveland, released a statement calling Trump’s decision “a flagrant disregard for the safety and prosperity of American cities who are already dealing with the devastating effects of climate change.

“With or without federal support,” Zone said, “…cities will continue to advocate for ambitious policies that address this global crisis, and will lead by example at the local level.”

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

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Peduto was not alone. In fact, on the day of Trump’s announcement, 246 U.S. mayors pledged to uphold the emission standards agreed to in the Paris accord. As of mid-June, the total number of mayors endorsing the pledge has increased to 313, representing cities with a combined population of 63 million Americans.

The global urgency to mitigate the worst effects of climate change is gradually becoming less of a partisan issue. A recent survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found 71 percent of

BEST OF

Photo: MNCAA

sCityNetwork.com

■■ Climate Mayors

Some of the 313 U.S. mayors, members of the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, who recently released an open letter to President Trump to oppose his actions thus far against climate action.

Americans – 57 percent of Republicans, 87 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents – favored the country’s participation in the Paris accord.

Meanwhile, other developed nations are quickly stepping in to take leadership roles in fighting climate change. China, the European Union, even India, have expressed their commitments to the pact, despite the U.S. exit. The Guardian reported that China and the EU have formed a new alliance in response to Trump’s decision, quoting EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete as saying the two nations “are joining forces to forge ahead on the implementation of the Paris agreement and accelerate the global transition to clean energy.”

Within the U.S., many of the organizations that supported the Paris accord feel cheated.

“Trump just confirmed his total contempt for our planet’s future,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Trump’s foreign policy seems aimed strictly at appeasing coal companies and the oil industry.”

“With our world speeding toward a climate catastrophe, Trump just stepped on the gas,” Suckling said. “But the rest of America will keep fighting global warming and this reckless president. We’ll battle his dangerous agenda in the courts, in the streets and at the state and

local level across the country. We won’t let corporate power and this corrupt administration condemn our planet to disaster.”

The Nature Conservancy’s CEO and President Mark Tercek called Trump’s decision “short-sighted.”

“For decades, the U.S. has demonstrated leadership on international environmental issues from President Reagan’s efforts to create the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer through President Obama’s efforts to advance the Paris agreement and drive it to enter into force,” Tercek said. “That U.S. leadership has been essential to stimulate the necessary actions by all countries to solve these global challenges.”

Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp said Trump’s decision “will live in infamy” as a course of action that “defies logic, ignores overwhelming scientific evidence, and disregards the advice of more than 1,000 business leaders who urged him to stand up for climate action and our clean energy economy.”

Among the businesses that urged Trump to stay in the agreement were some of the nation’s most prominent, including 3M, Apple, Dow Chemical, General Electric, Pacific Gas and Electric, Disney, Google and Intel. CEO’s of 30 major companies wrote an open letter to Trump, published in a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, urging him to stay in the accord. [ 11 ]

Even some of America’s largest oil companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron backed the Paris deal, if only to make sure the U.S. was positioned to influence the global response and stay competitive in the world’s energy market. ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods sent a letter to Trump in April calling the Paris agreement “an effective framework for addressing the risks of climate change.”

Ken Berlin, president and CEO of The Climate Reality Project, released a statement saying, in part, “the amazing progress we’ve made cannot and will not be bulldozed by one man sitting in the Oval Office.

States, cities, towns, and businesses are moving forward at full speed on the transition to clean energy.”

Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called Trump’s decision “a grave and grievous mistake that hurts our country.”

degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. That is a temperature target above which the risks of severe and potentially irreversible impacts from rising seas and more extreme weather increase dramatically,” Frumhoff wrote.

Not surprisingly, environmental activist groups were outraged. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune called Trump’s withdrawal from the pact “one of the most ignorant and dangerous actions of any president.” Jonathan Church, a lawyer for ClientEarth, called it “global environmental vandalism,” and Susann Scherbarth, climate justice and energy campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said, “The fossil fuel industry and climate change deniers have set up shop in the White House, and they’re putting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people on the line.”

Keya Chatterjee, executive director of the U.S. chapter of the Climate Action Network, said, “Trump has no mandate from the U.S. public to weaken the Paris agreement, and should not be making big decisions while under investigation.

This cowardly failure to lead will only make us stronger as a movement as we push harder for just and equitable climate action.”

Trump did receive at least one ringing endorsement: Energy Secretary Rick Perry praised his boss for backing out of the agreement, releasing a statement that said, “President Trump’s decision will prove to be the right course of action and one I fully support.”

Since his inauguration, Trump has been dedicated to rolling back the country’s advances toward clean energy, reductions ■■ Mayoral Endorsement in carbon emissions, social equity and A map showing the cities of 84 U.S. mayors who have pledged their support for a community-wide transition to 100 resilience to climate change. From appointing percent renewable energy.. administrators who are hostile to the missions of their agencies, to rescinding executive orders on environmental protections made by previous administrations, Trump has made it very clear where his loyalties lie.

“Trump’s extremism has isolated us from the global coalition we helped to create — with China, Germany, India, Japan and 190 other In March, as promised throughout his campaign and in the early countries — to fight the central environmental challenge of our time,” months of his administration, Trump’s first budget proposal to Suh wrote in a June 1 statement. “He’s sidelined American workers in Congress marked a dramatic shift in national priorities. the clean energy boom that’s remaking the global economy. And he’s abandoned our children to climate catastrophe.”

Citing his convictions that America is under siege by illegal immigrants and foreign terror groups, riddled with violent crime, Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy for the Union of and treated unfairly by its global trade partners, Trump said he Concerned Scientists, decried Trump’s plan as “shamefully reneging instructed his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, “to craft a budget that on our nation’s commitment to join with the world community of emphasizes national security and public safety.” nations in fighting climate change.”

“The Paris agreement’s long-term objective is to limit the rise in global average temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 [ 12 ]

The blueprint calls for a $54 billion increase in defense spending and more investment in immigration enforcement, the border wall, and criminal justice programs, while balancing the books with deep cuts

to sustainability, climate action, environmental protection, public transportation, domestic social programs and aid to foreign nations.

The cuts are intended to keep federal debt in check while significantly shrinking the size of the federal government, reducing regulations on businesses and shifting financial responsibility for many social programs to the states, local governments and the private sector.

• A 2015 memorandum “Mitigating Impacts on Natural Resources from Development and Encouraging Related Private Investment.”

“The American people elected me to fight for their priorities in Washington, D.C. and deliver on my promise to protect our Nation,” the president wrote in the budget’s introduction. “I fully intend to keep that promise.”

• A 2014 report “Climate Action Plan Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions.”

The proposal entitled “America First – A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” calls for a $2.6 billion cut in money allocated to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, eliminating 3,200 employees and slashing its budget by 31 percent. Additional cuts would gut environmental and social equity programs in the departments of Agriculture (-21%), Commerce (-16%), Education (-13%), Energy (-5.6%), Health & Human Services (-17.9%), Housing and Urban Development (-13.2%), Interior (-12%), Justice (-3.8%), Labor (-21%), State (-28%), and Transportation (-13%).

On March 28, Trump issued a sweeping executive order to reverse course on the federal government’s response to climate change, rescinding numerous environmental protections implemented by the Obama administration.

Trump framed the order as actions intended to promote U.S. energy independence and economic growth. Key among the policies targeted were Obama’s climate action plan, clean power plan and restrictions on the fossil fuel industry.

He ordered every agency in his administration to review and report on any actions it could take to remove policies and regulations that “potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy resources.” The order specifically defines the word “burden” to mean any regulation that might “unnecessarily obstruct, delay, curtail, or otherwise impose significant costs on the siting, permitting, production, utilization, transmission, or delivery of energy resources.”

Presidential and regulatory actions rescinded include: • Obama’s 2013 order “Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change.”

• A 2013 presidential memorandum “Power Sector Carbon Pollution Standards.”

• A 2016 memorandum “Climate Change and National Security.”

• Obama’s 2013 report “The President’s Climate Action Plan.”

• A Council on Environmental Quality guidance entitled “Final Guidance for Federal Departments and Agencies on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the Effects of Climate Change in National Environmental Policy Act Reviews.”

Trump’s executive order calls for the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately review its “Clean Power Plan” and related regulations to determine whether to revise or withdraw them. Applicable rules include: • Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units.

• Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New, Modified, and Reconstructed Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units.

• Federal Plan Requirements for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Electric Utility Generating Units Constructed on or Before January 8, 2014.

• Legal Memorandum Accompanying Clean Power Plan for Certain Issues.

• Estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon, Nitrous Oxide, and Methane for Regulatory Impact Analysis.

The president also disbanded the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases and pronounced that six of its documents “shall be withdrawn as no longer representative of governmental policy.” He also specified that when estimating the monetary impact of changes in greenhouse gas emissions, agencies use cost-benefit formulas developed in 2003, seven years before the U.S. government published its first estimates of the benefits of reducing CO2 emissions.

Trump’s order also called for the lifting of a moratorium on using federal land for coal mining, a review of regulations related to emission standards in oil and gas development, and the possible relaxing of rules regulating hydraulic fracturing. n

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

Urban Design without Displacement Experts: Focus on the Needs of the Neighborhood

BY JESSICA CHAPMAN

KATHLEEN KING is a landscape architect with the Design Workshop firm in Denver.

Gentrification has changed the composition of a number of urban areas in the United States and internationally. In the U.S., this has sometimes meant the displacement of poorer communities of color by wealthier white populations moving in and pricing them out of the market.

King and Curran were participants in a panel discussion titled “Designing Without Displacement” presented earlier this year at the New Partners for Smart Growth Conference in St. Louis.

Often, the phenomenon results from profit-driven developers seeking cheap land in neighborhoods that have a history of disinvestment. Cities like Portland, Chicago, San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C., among others, are often identified in tandem with gentrification.

“These kind of conditions and factors and elements of community need to be ingrained in the process,” said King. “For one thing because it’s the right thing to do but, for a project like a resort, if you do a little give, where you have affordable housing as part of project or something like that, you will get through county approval processes easier, faster and with more community support than if you didn’t do that. There are ways to make some of these issues and some of these strategies a win-win.”

How is a landscape architect or urban planner to approach community design that meets the needs of a city, developer or other client but also with appropriate sensitivity to the needs and desires of a community? A lot of it comes down to communication.

The landscape architecture profession’s governing body, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), has taken note of the shift in orientation of members like King. In response to a successful panel King put together at an ASLA annual meeting on the role of social justice in their profession, the organization established an Environmental Justice Professional Planning Network in 2015. King was its first co-chair.

DR. WINIFRED CURRAN is an associate professor of geography at DePaul University in Chicago.

“What we constantly try to do is educate our clients and work with our staff,” explained Kathleen King, a landscape architect with the Design Workshop firm in Denver. King said community input and support are key to their approach with cities, transportation authorities, resorts, golf courses or other clients. “Design Workshop invests in community engagement and integrates community design throughout our process,” she said.

Dr. Winifred Curran, an associate professor of geography at DePaul University in Chicago, agreed with this approach. “It’s great if a planner can act as an advocate for people who don’t necessarily have a voice,” she said. If that intent is present, Curran said, a little can go a long way. Often times, the attractive qualities of a neighborhood have been built on years of perseverance and activism of long-time residents. When developers come in without recognizing that, there is often push-back she said. [ 14 ]

“In my experience, what community members are most resentful of is that they are seen to be kind of obsolete, with no place in their own neighborhood and in some ways as barriers to development,” Curran said.

The term gentrification merits some unpacking. British sociologist Ruth Glass is credited with introducing the word “gentrification” in the 1960s in the context of a then rapidly-changing London, though the process is thought by some to extend back as far as Roman times.

The term builds on the word “gentry,” which refers to upper class citizens, and, for Glass, referenced the process by which working class Londoners were “invaded” and “displaced” by the middle class. Today, over 50 years later, Glass’s term persists.

However, there are a number of different ways researchers pinpoint the existence of gentrification and there is no broad consensus on how to do so. Most identify it as areas with median incomes and housing prices increasing at the swiftest rates over a certain period of time, but some single out only neighborhoods in the lowest-income areas to begin with, and others isolate varying periods of time. Some include education levels.

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■■ Equitably Restoring Neighborhoods

The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership is one organization that helps equitably restore neighborhoods. It is a collaboration of the Urban Institute and local partners in 30 cities to further the development and use of neighborhood-level information systems for community building and local decision-making.

Where there is consensus is that no matter how it is measured, very few U.S. neighborhoods have actually experienced it - less than 10 percent. Still, unwanted displacement of large numbers of people is cause for concern, and in cities where gentrification is occurring, community development and planning professionals are taking note, shifting their lenses to the issue and developing strategies to minimize negative impacts or even head it off from the get go.

Curran coined the phrase “just green enough” several years ago to explain a strategy for communities to prevent gentrification. This means keeping any design efforts - new parks, for example - less flashy and less expensive. This will, in theory, minimize the attention of developers on the neighborhood.

“If a project is supposed to be green and sustainable, it’s not necessarily about high design,” said Curran. “Green doesn’t have to mean luxury. It doesn’t have to mean the High Line,” she said, referring to the elevated New York City park that has driven up surrounding property values and proven expensive to maintain. “You can have benefits without flashy projects and displacement,” Curran said.

Responsible planning and design work must go hand in hand with other efforts like affordable housing and zoning. “In areas that are already industrial, if you can preserve industrial zoning, that is a way to discourage real estate speculation,” said Curran. She also mentioned demolition fees and de-conversion fees as resources. Others could be social equity co-ops and community land trusts. Both Curran and King noted that neighborhoods with high rates of home ownership are much less vulnerable to gentrification.

Some urban planners have taken stands when their projects have evolved in ways that diverge from the original intent and plan of community inclusion. Ryan Gravel, the urban planner behind Atlanta’s BeltLine did just that, over concerns of a lack of equity and affordability being taken into consideration with the multi-use trail project.

Community engagement must not just be a box to check off on a list.

It’s not easy, and there are a lot of moving parts. “You have to want to do it,” said Curran, “genuinely.” n■

King, who agrees with the philosophy, described it succinctly as, “avoid the shiny and make it meet the needs (of the neighborhood) but don’t meet someone else’s need or your needs as a designer.” [ 15 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Report Outlines Best Urban Mobility Solutions Worldwide Europe Still Leads, While U.S. Cities Improve

BY CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDROV

According to a recent report on urban mobility trends, San Francisco is the North American city that has made the most progress toward operating a zero emissions transportation system.

The report, published by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), also shows that Oslo, London and Amsterdam are the cities worldwide that offer the most advanced, sustainable city transport solutions.

Jack Coy is one of the research economists at CEBR who created the study, which was co-sponsored by the U.S. technology firm Qualcomm.

He said the purpose of the report was to examine and assess how cities across the globe are approaching the goal of sustainable urban mobility and achieving zero emissions transportation solutions.

“We’re trying to capture how people navigate the city, now and in the future. We looked at 35 cities around the world and examined three separate indicators.”

• The status quo considers current performance in transportation and emissions, this includes measures of outdoor air pollution, congestion, the share of journeys made in a personal vehicle and CO2 emissions.

• Conditions for change examines how a city is encouraging its residents to adopt low emission or electric vehicles (EV), or how it offers sustainable travel alternatives. Indicators include financial and non-financial incentives for buying and operating EVs, low emission zones, and the relative price of fuel to electricity.

• Preparedness for the future looks at what visionary measures cities are implementing to ensure they minimize or eliminate emissions from transportation in the coming years.

Coy said the CEBR research team wanted to identify leading cities in the movement to sustainability, while examining larger cities from each continent.

Graphic: CEBR

So what have the top cities done to earn laurels on the road to building a better urban mobility future?

■■ City Rankings

With Oslo, Sweden at the top and Cairo, Egypt at the bottom, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) ranked the sustainable mobility of 35 cities around the world. The top-ranked U.S. city, San Francisco, came in 14th on the list..

[ 16 ]

“They have created a set of incentives and regulations to support their commitments including offering easy access to EV charging points, operating low emission zones, and providing citizens with a reliable transportation infrastructure,” Coy said.

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As a result of all these changes to infrastructure, supported by policy and regulations, new trends are forming in the Norwegian capital.

“When we began writing the report almost a quarter of new cars sold (in Oslo) were electric vehicles. Now it’s almost 40 percent of cars sold are hybrids or plug ins. It’s amazing how fast things can change,” Coy said.

In London, Coy and his fellow researchers were a bit skeptical when their data showed the British capital ranking very high.

“From a personal point-of-view as a Londoner I was quite surprised that the city came in second. That shocked all of us a bit because when you live here you don’t think of London as a green commute, but when you dig deeper you see how many positive changes the city has made,” Coy said.

For example, London residents generally rely on public transport by bus, train and the famous London Underground, rather than private vehicles.

In addition, London is accelerating plans for an ultra-low emissions zone where polluting vehicles will be restricted and the city plans on purchasing only hybrid or zero emission buses after 2018.

So, what about closer to home? The top U.S. city ranked in CEBR’s report is San Francisco, which is the recognized center of an area known for innovation in a state that has long been on the cutting edge of energy and transportation advances. The “City by the Bay” is doing many things right, such as, San Francisco residents have a wealth of green space in the city, second only to New York in the U.S. The city also has some of the lowest outdoor pollution levels of any urban area examined in the report – this is due in large measure to its green policies fostering public transport with a higher number of EVs and hybrids on the road than any U.S. urban area.

San Francisco also has a large and growing public transportation infrastructure, including rail, light rail and subway, but it has not ignored smaller efforts as well. In 2009 the city council passed an ordinance requiring all businesses with more than 20 employees to incentivize public transport or carpooling to staff. Other policies, such as a city law requiring all new construction projects to install one EV charging station per four parking spaces, will likely pay off in years to come. In addition, the city has purchased EVs not just for its transport fleet, but also for fire trucks, maintenance vehicles and ambulances, among others.

Other North American cities ranked in the top 20 by the CEBR report include Toronto, New York, Los Angeles and Boston. Each has robust

Graphic: NACTO

For example, Oslo plans to ban all cars from the city center by 2019 and cut emissions from taxis entirely by 2023. Coy said, “Oslo has invested heavily in low emissions as an ethos for the city. Starting in the 1990s city leaders began examining ways to foster low emissions. They massively subsidized the construction of an electric charging infrastructure and the purchase of electric vehicles, which are exempt from Purchase Tax and VAT. EVs can also use bus lanes and are exempt from charges on toll roads.”

■■ Sharing the Pedal Power

Encouraging citizens to bike more often is a key strategy for reducing emissions and traffic congestion in urban environments. The National Association of City Transportation Officials has observed a steady increase in the use of bike-sharing services over the past seven years..

public transport systems, but according to Coy, one of the main reasons the U.S. cities did not rank higher is the continued reliance on private, gasoline-fueled vehicles. Unlike many European cities, which made up the top five, no U.S. cities have adopted any penalties-based incentives, such as low emissions zones, to encourage the adoption of more efficient vehicles. Working to boost the popularity of EVs through not just “carrots,” but also “sticks,” is an approach that U.S. lawmakers have shied away from.

But policy and regulation are not the only tools cities can use to implement a more sustainable transportation system. Commerce is driving innovation as well, through car sharing services like Zipcar. Late last year Zipcar released its first ever Urbanite Study, which polled more than 1,200 city dwellers about their attitudes toward transportation and other relevant topics.

The study found that “the majority of urbanite car owners plan to drive less or give up their cars altogether. And urbanites are open to future transportation innovations – the vast majority consider automated vehicles to be futuristic, but expect to see them within their lifetime and plan to experience them first-hand.”

Beyond ride-sharing apps and public transport, one of the other key ways urban dwellers are building a more sustainable commute is on bikes. Through bike sharing services like Divvy in Chicago and Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C., more and more people are getting on a bike that they don’t own. According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, more than 88 million trips have been made on a bike share bicycle in the U.S. since 2010. In 2016 alone, American riders took over 28 million trips using bike sharing. As of the beginning of 2017, 55 U.S. cities had a bike sharing program with at least 100 bicycles.

So whether looking at zero emission vehicles, better public transportation infrastructure, commercial ride sharing, or bike sharing systems, there are numerous ways that cities can encourage greener, more sustainable futures while improving mobility for all residents. n■ [ 17 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Lean Urbanism Recalls a Simpler Time Making Small Possible in a Red-Tape World

BY JULIANNE COUCH

Over the last several decades, real estate developers and urban designers have watched building code books swell from the size of small booklets to the size of dictionaries.

ANDRÉS DUANY is an American architect, urban planner and a founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Some say the increase in regulations has been essential to protect life, limb and property. Others think politics, special interest groups and neglect have supplanted common sense to create a hopelessly complex array of outdated, expensive and unnecessary mandates that serve to push small developers out of the marketplace altogether.

The Project for Lean Urbanism, created by a nonprofit group of architects, engineers, planners and policymakers, is trying to reverse that trend. The group is launching pilot projects in four U.S. cities with the goal of stimulating entrepreneurship and economic growth by cutting red tape and providing BRIAN FALK free tools that make the development is director of the Center for process less intimidating for beginners.

Applied Transect Studies and the Project for Lean Urbanism.

The four cities - Lafayette, La., Chattanooga, Tenn., Saint Paul, Minn., and Savannah, Ga. - were chosen for their commitment to lowering the barriers to small-scale economic development.

One of the groups behind the effort is the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU), which works to advance the concept of New Urbanism to guide public policy and create “vibrant and walkable cities, towns, and neighborhoods where people have diverse choices for how they live, work, shop, and get around,” according to the organization’s charter.

A key figure in the CNU is Andrés Duany. In an address at a conference in Dallas, Duany explained that New Urbanism was once a revolutionary approach to replicating the pre-1970s way of urban development. Today, he says, the movement needs to be reconsidered.

[ 18 ]

Many builders, planners, architects, financiers and other decision makers are young enough that they don’t remember the days when it was possible to easily get things done without what many feel is excessive red tape. Therefore, they don’t have the knowledge of what it was like to simply decide to get a project done, work on it incrementally and with care, and finish with a product that was both useful to a community and profitable for a developer, in the absence of onerous regulation.

Duany and other New Urbanists embrace the emerging approach known as Lean Urbanism. It is a movement working to lower the barriers to community-building, making it easier to start businesses, and to provide more attainable housing and development. It is especially suited to younger entrepreneurs and developers who have never known an environment where regulations were minimal.

The Project for Lean Urbanism is managed by the Center for Applied Transect Studies, led by Duany and Hank Dittmar, and managed by Brian Falk. According to LeanUrbanism.org, the project is open-access, allowing people who might otherwise be excluded to participate in the building of their homes, businesses, and communities. It is smallscale, incremental community-building that requires fewer resources to incubate and mature. It is focused on developing areas of the city in need of renovation and reclaiming sprawling suburbs as more community-focused neighborhoods.

The Project for Lean Urbanism is studying and promoting seven “platforms” around the Lean concept, a management philosophy developed by Toyota in the 1990s. These platforms are: Lean Building, Lean Development, Lean Business, Lean Green, Lean Governing, Lean Infrastructure, and Lean Learning.

Falk said Lean Urbanism emerged from the urban planning and design fields, and that core group reached out to developers, nonprofit community building organizations and government officials. As with New Urbanism, the desire was to move away from a car-centric way of living, where the urban core suffered from disinvestment, the suburbs were places mostly reachable by car, houses were set far back from streets discouraging neighborliness, and workplaces were far away.

Lean Urbanists wanted to develop walkable neighborhoods with narrower streets, mixed use residential and commercial buildings, and landscapes that were inviting. But that type of building was expensive

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and therefore could only be accomplished when the resulting properties could command high prices to rent or purchase. Falk said Lean Urbanists realized the best way to overcome these obstacles was to change and greatly reduce the rules restricting small developments.

This doesn’t mean constructing buildings with inadequate fire sprinklers, for example, or being inaccessible to individuals with disabilities. Instead, Lean Urbanism tries to discover a common sense approach to renovation or building that is suited to the location and situation, and “daylighting” that approach so others can use it, too.

Falk said an unintentional consequence of large scale commercial development is that many people are excluded from participating in economic development. He said the current system requires subsidies in the form of tax breaks, public-private partnerships of some kind to make them happen, because they are so big. “A generation ago that wasn’t necessary, but now it is. If this is difficult for experts, what about non-experts?” Falk asked.

Falk said Lean Urbanism began in part because small enterprises were disproportionately burdened by the system they had to navigate.

“Think about economic development burdens for the small actors such as permitting, zoning, construction, licensing and financing. You will realize that while it may not be easy for larger projects or actors, it is more difficult for smaller ones,” he said.

Lean Urbanists identify four groups of “non-experts” who they want to help create smaller scale projects. The first group is young people.

“People in longer careers have seen this regulatory burden increase slowly and can adapt,” Falk said. “Young people entering the field just see a big wall in front of them and find it difficult to overcome and so they don’t get started. They have little know-how to navigate the system.”

The next group of non-experts is immigrants who work in the construction trades. “When we see construction crews out working, made up of immigrants, we assume that’s the extent of their skills. But some might have been developers or engineers in their home country.

And yet here they’re laborers because they can’t navigate the system... so they don’t reach the extent of what they could contribute,” Falk said.

The third group of non-experts is broadly described as makers.

These are people who work with their hands in various ways such as mechanics or skilled craftspeople. Falk said they are very skilled but are not accustomed to the paperwork. “Our tools will be available for all of them,” he said.

“When thinking about who was affected we realized the cost is huge when all these people are excluded,” Falk continued. “Not just to them but as a society when people can’t participate in the economic development of their communities.”

The Lean Urbanism Project is developing tools that will be made freely available to governments and organizations seeking to get things done,

to entrepreneurs without the know-how to overcome hurdles, and to small builders or homeowners who could build well in an economical, low-tech way.

In each of the project’s four pilot cities, the project team will work with city authorities, entrepreneurs, activists, and nonprofits to select a neighborhood, identify impediments to small-scale projects, create an action plan of projects to begin the revitalization, and develop a custom kit of tools to make them possible, Falk said.

These pilot projects will identify viable, short-term, incremental improvements and the talent and resources needed to make these improvements, develop mechanisms for getting past blockages and barriers, and develop an action plan for implementation by local people.

Falk said the idea is to have projects “out of the ground” within a year to 18 months. Project partners will include real estate developers, construction firms, new businesses, land banks or other nonprofit groups such as merchants associations and main street organizations.

“It could even mean a market to incubate retail or a shared commercial kitchen for people who want to start food service businesses,” Falk said.

The primary outcomes of the pilot projects will be the Lean Scan, a Pink Zone, and a Toolkit, which will be widely available for free once the projects are completed: The Lean Scan will be a tool for finding latent opportunities in a town, a district or a corridor and leveraging underused assets in a way that unlocks synergies between built, financial, social and natural resources. The final, refined and publicly released Lean Scan will be for those people who already have the energy but have been impeded.

A Pink Zone is described as an area where the red tape is lightened.

A Pink Zone may be an overlay zoning category where new protocols are pre-negotiated and experiments are conducted, all with the goal of removing impediments identified in the Lean Scan. The focus will be on issues related to zoning, building and business.

The Toolkit will be a set of resources based on a survey of ways to restore common sense to the processes of development, building, starting small businesses, community engagement, and acquiring the necessary skills. Falk said these tools will include the Zoning Code Repair Tool, which shows people how to analyze their local zoning codes to see how they address these issues. “Based on that they will see how to tweak the code on a small number of issues to enable lean urbanism to succeed, rather than having to overhaul the entire code,” Falk said.

Another tool to watch for is A Beginners Tool Kit for Lean Development.

“We hope to encourage and recruit small-scale developers,” Falk said. “A lot of people who are capable should be participating in realestate development. That’s the case whether it is as a business or for [ 19 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

additional income on the side or to lower their own living expenses, developing their own homes, or a small business owner developing the building her business will be in. This is about decreasing expenses, creating wealth for the future. We’re creating a toolkit for people interested in doing that themselves.”

Falk said Lean Urbanism has a message to decision makers within cities and counties. “This is one way for them to diversify strategies for economic development. Often efforts are focused on the home runs. Some economic development offices would rather get one single 500-person company, rather than attract or encourage fifty 10-employee companies or 250 two-employee companies. Many

■■ What Have We Done?

A traffic jam in Miami suggests to some that modern urbanization needs a reboot.

[ 20 ]

financial institutions prefer a single $500 million project rather than 500 million-dollar projects. If you look at that angle you see lots of ways in which the system is unintentionally set up to encourage that scale,” Falk said.

Lean Urbanism takes a smaller approach. “When we look for solutions we focus on scale as a way to get things done. If you stay small you stay below triggers for onerous requirements. That is useful if it is small actors we are trying to help,” Falk said. n

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Iowa Statehouse Defunds Sustainable Agriculture Research Governor Vetoes Closure of Leopold Center, But Diverts Funds Elsewhere

BY RANDY RODGER PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad vetoed a bill that would have shuttered the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, but left intact provisions of the legislation that will eliminate all state funding for the 30-year-old center at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Without that funding, the future of the center is uncertain.

Supporters of the center were hoping one of Bradstad’s final acts as governor would be to veto the closure and keep the funding intact. After all, it was Bradstad himself who signed the 1987 Iowa Groundwater Protection Act into law, providing funds to establish and maintain the Leopold Center.

Soon after leaving the Leopold Center in limbo, Branstad was confirmed as the Trump administration’s U.S. Ambassador to China and has since resigned as governor after nearly six terms, making him the longesttenured governor in American history.

“While we appreciate that the name and the center will remain, the loss of all state funding severely restricts operations and our ability to serve our many stakeholders,” said Leopold Center Director Mark Rasmussen in a statement released May 12.

An endowment will generate about $200,000 per year, which might keep the center open at least part time, but won’t be enough to fund much, if any, research.

“More than 30 new grant projects were approved to begin in February and their management will transfer to the ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, which has been charged with winding up the center’s affairs by the end of 2017, according to the center’s official statement. Over the past three decades, the Leopold Center sponsored more than 600 grants involving research, education and demonstration on a wide range of agricultural topics as outlined in its educational mission in the Iowa Code,” the statement pointed out.

“Researchers investigated many of the practices years before being enshrined in Iowa’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy, including: buffer strips, bioreactors, prairie strips, cover crops, payments for ecosystems services, integrated pest management, early spring nitrate tests, crop rotations, and rotational grazing. Local foods systems were just getting started in Iowa as the Leopold Center promoted farmers markets, grape production for wineries, food hubs, and immigrant garden projects.

Thousands of investigators, graduate students, farmers, community members, agency staff and interested Iowans have participated in Leopold Center research and outreach,” the statement said.

In an article published May 15, the Des Moines Register quoted Branstad as suggesting that the Leopold Center could find other funding.

“They have already received significant bequests and other sources of funding, so they do have some other sources of funding,” Branstad told reporters at his weekly press conference. “But the Legislature had to make some tough decisions this year.”

In his veto message, Branstad wrote: “The veto of these particularly specified items will preserve the existence of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture while also maintaining the sections transferring funding to Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to continue valuable research into environmental and water quality issues.” That research will be administered by the Iowa Nutrient Research Center at the college.

The center’s mission is (or was) “to identify and develop new ways to farm profitably while conserving natural resources as well as reducing negative environmental and social impacts,” according to its charter.

Its four primary areas of focus – ecology, marketing and food systems, policy and cross-cutting – were funded by the state along with fees on nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides required by the groundwater act. [ 21 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

That 1987 legislation was enacted after pollutants from agriculture, industry and other sources caused widespread concern about the quality of Iowa’s groundwater resources. “All persons in the state have the right to have their lawful use of groundwater unimpaired by the activities of any person which render the water unsafe or unpotable,” the act states.

Many of those concerns still exist today, and the Branstad administration had recently wrangled with the legislature over how to pay for mitigation efforts. More than $340 million in state and federal funds were directed to programs with water quality benefits in Iowa last year, and in March Branstad announced 12 urban water quality demonstration projects that will provide nearly $1.18 million in matching funds.

But, the fate of the Leopold Center has national implications.

Bryce Oates, writing for the Daily Yonder, a publication of the Kentucky/ Tennessee-based Center for Rural Strategies, called the Leopold Center “sustainable agriculture royalty” and said its death will be a loss to all of rural America.

“Those of us from other states, at least those of us who think it’s necessary to grow food and have drinkable water at the same time, often look to Iowa and the Leopold Center for research and data. Their track record is impressive,” Oates wrote. He listed these examples: • Key research that links filter and buffer strips, crop rotation, and cover crops on riparian pockets of crop fields to large reductions in nitrate pollution and runoff in waterways.

• Popularizing the “food miles” concept, which posited the average distance of 1,500 miles traveled by food products from farmer to purchaser.

• Facilitating research, knowledge sharing, and cost-benefit analysis of hoop house and deep-bedding livestock production methods that form the backbone of meat companies that supply Whole Foods, Chipotle, and thousands of natural food stores across the nation.

• Assisting in the launch of the “Agriculture of the Middle” concept, a national attempt to connect family farmers with value chains that deliver improved market access and better prices for their operations.

Sysco’s ChefEx program is one such outgrowth of this effort.

Some see the center’s loss as another example of the political divide exacerbated by the contentious election of Donald Trump, which has emboldened Republican-controlled legislatures in many states to go after environmental programs.

[ 22 ]

Brian DeVore, editor of the Land Stewardship Letter for the Minnesotabased Land Stewardship Project, wrote in a recent blog, “Since it came to light that lawmakers were gunning for the (Leopold) Center, a lot has been written and said about how Big Ag, commodity groups and their legislative partners were never big fans of having land grant resources devoted to figuring out ways to make agriculture less environmentally destructive. After all, having public dollars devoted to searching out alternatives to the way things are done is an acknowledgement that there are problems with the status quo.”

The Des Moines Register reported that “Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, offered an amendment that would have kept the program open, but it was voted down by the House’s Republican majority.”

In the same article, the Register noted that Democratic Rep. Scott Ourth, “also criticized a reduction in funding to the state’s Resource Enhancement and Protection program, which supports projects that enhance and protect the state’s natural and cultural resources. State money to that program will be reduced from $16 million this year to $12 million next year,” the Register reported.

DeVore, himself a graduate of Iowa State University, believes the college is complicit in the Leopold Center’s demise. He wrote, “The administration at Iowa State University wasn’t exactly thrilled to be hosting the Leopold Center in the first place, particularly at a time when public agricultural universities are so nervous about alienating the corporations and commodity groups that increasingly foot the bill.”

In making his case, DeVore cited a number of controversial decisions in which the university favored the interests of “Big Agriculture” over the protests of the Leopold Center’s advisory board. And, he quoted a 2015 memoir written by Dennis Keeney, the first director of the Leopold Center, as declaring, “The biggest enemy of sustainable agriculture is the agricultural college itself.”

The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture was named after the late Aldo Leopold, an Iowa native who was internationally recognized as a conservationist, ecologist and educator devoted to teaching farmers how to be productive without interfering with natural systems.

He published hundreds of works and is best-known for A Sand County Almanac, a collection of 41 essays published 18 months after his death in 1948. n■

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Saving America’s Public Housing Directors Association Warns of Funding Crisis

BY JULIANNE COUCH

The U.S. government has created a housing crisis by chronically underfunding public housing for years, according to a recent report by the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association.

TIM KAISER is executive director of the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association based in Washington, D.C.

As a result, there is a $26 billion backlog of unmet capital needs in America’s public housing stock, and local housing authorities are receiving only 70 percent of the operating funds they were promised, the report states.

Having a secure place to live is the first stabilizing step for holding a steady job, maintaining health, or succeeding in school. However, many in America struggle with housing security. For more than a million people in the United States today, public housing is an important safety net.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has approached housing security by providing a system of dedicated lowrent housing structures, and in recent decades, housing vouchers in a program called Section 8. These approaches have made a difference for millions of people who might otherwise be homeless.

The public housing program exists as a contract between the federal government and the 3,000 public housing authorities (PHAs) in the United States. A PHA’s role is to provide decent, safe and sanitary apartments at very low rents, which can be met by even the most low-income households. For its part, the federal government’s responsibility is to pay the difference between the revenue brought in by the artificially low rents and the true costs of maintaining the housing units and administering the program. But according to a 2016 report by the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association (PHADA), for many years the government has failed to fill its financial responsibilities.

According to PHADA’s report “Saving America’s Public Housing: Why It Matters and What We Can Do” the nation’s public housing authorities are receiving approximately 70 percent of the amount they should be receiving by contract.

“This chronic underfunding has created a crisis, in which 250,000 units have already been lost from the program and more are disappearing every year,” the report states.

Tim Kaiser, executive director of PHADA, explained that the document was the byproduct of a meeting of 50 housing professionals from around the country at a retreat in late 2015. “We discussed the challenges confronting our industry. These were similar to challenges that others who receive federal funds are experiencing, which is that the feds have cut back significantly for numerous reasons,” Kaiser said.

There are two main components to the public housing budget: operating and capital. According to research commissioned by PHADA, “In 2016, the operating fund of $4.5 billion resulted in an 84 percent proration, while the $1.9 billion capital fund was just half of the $3.79 billion needed. There are fewer capital dollars in absolute terms being appropriated now than 20 years ago. The combined total comes to a 70 percent proration in 2016. That is $2.7 billion less than is required.

This was the 5th straight year of such a similarly low proration.”

The document reports on the problem and presents a proposal for solutions which PHADA calls a “proportionality plan.” That means it is based on the principle that, when the federal government only partially funds public housing, housing authorities should be required to comply only partially with certain regulations. The plan calls for the temporary suspension of restrictive and burdensome regulations in years when operating and capital funds fall below a 90 percent proration.

“Public and assisted housing in the last decade has been death by a thousand cuts,” Kaiser said. “The capital budget is intended to upgrade buildings, to keep housing safe, sanitary and decent. The problems there are astronomical.”

According to HUD estimates, there is a $26 billion backlog of unmet capital needs in America’s public housing. “Much of it is 40, 50, 60 years old and in need of significant repairs,” Kaiser said. Because of age and deterioration, some housing units are almost beyond repair.

It is true that the Section 8 voucher system allows people to live outside public housing “hard units,” but that program is more costly to operate. Kaiser pointed out that a significant portion of the public housing population is elderly and/or disabled. “These are precious units,” he said.

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

Kaiser acknowledged that the PHADA report is intended to provoke discussion through its frank assessments and calls to action. For example, it addresses the funding shortage in this way: “It does not take a genius to realize that the program is going to run into the ground by funding that just exceeds two-thirds of the amount the country’s best minds have concluded is needed to manage public housing.” If this language from the proposal sounds as though it is taking a strong stand, Kaiser said that was intentional. “There’s a lot of frustration because the federal government tries to control decision making of locals,” he said.

Kaiser said one problem with the current public housing program is that it is too often one-size-fits-all. As he pointed out, public housing in places like Iowa and Montana are very different from large concentrated urban public housing developments in places like New York or Chicago. Regardless of the housing unit’s location, the federal government has contracts and federally derived formulas to fund the operating and capital budgets. As Kaiser acknowledged, “Any federally funded program is always subject to appropriations; it is not an entitlement. But in recent years, the formulas are so inadequately funded we’re getting to a crisis point.”

PHADA was interested in more than simply examining the causes of these funding shortages. They wanted to find a way to address them.

Kaiser said their plan allows individual housing authorities to choose from a menu of options that allows them to waive selected regulations to generate income or realize savings in proportion to that housing authority’s funding shortfall. The items housing authorities choose would depend on what works best in their markets and what would have the least adverse effect on public housing residents.

The report includes a proposal for seven specific actions. Local control is at the heart of all of them. “The ideas we advance, if they were to be adopted, would all be optional on the part of the local housing agency, so that’s working with residents, leaders, states and cities who are in the best position to know what works best.”

All of these choices are designed to be triggered when federal funding drops below a certain percentage of what is required, and will revert to previous levels when funding is returned. In addition, they are all designed to increase revenue, in some cases by charging residents more, in other cases by reducing costs and eliminating regulations.

“When I’ve talked to our members, many like these ideas, but some do not,” Kaiser said. “Some of these ideas are controversial. Right now in public housing, people who are poor have to pay at least $50 in rent per month.”

This plan calls for a proportional increase as one approach. “Some say we are hurting the poor by requiring that. But no. The government was hurting the poor going back to the Clinton administration, by not living up to contracts with local agencies.

We’re trying to save the program so it is around in 25 to 30 years. Government is not living up to its commitment. These proposals won’t have an undue burden.

There are hardship exceptions. Nobody would have to implement them, and local public housing authorities would consult with their own local populations before making any decisions. There will be a thorough process in place to protect the resident populations.”

Photo: PHADA

Kaiser said one intended use of this report was that members could share solutions with the new administration and Congress in light of the protracted shortfall in public housing funding and Section 8 Administrative Fee funding.

■■ Crumbling Housing Stock

New York City has 180,000 units of public housing. Authorities say it would be impossible to build that many today. Chronic underfunding has created a crisis, in which the U.S. public housing stock has lost 250,000 units and more are disappearing every year.

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“On a positive note, there’s a recognition of the need to cut back on regulations,” Kaiser said. He believes the Trump administration’s desire to remove what it believes are excessive regulations, and a philosophy of permitting local flexibility, is “a positive stop in the right direction.” Kaiser is encouraged by talk of an infrastructure-related stimulus package that would authorize infrastructure spending, some of which might be to upgrade the housing stock.

“That’s got a long way to go, to be discussed and debated over the next two years of this congressional session, but it is a recognition of the need for local flexibility, away from one-size-fits-all infrastructure packages,” he said.

On the other hand, Kaiser noted, there has been what he calls “lots of talk about significant increases in security and military spending, potentially offset by cutting discretionary domestic programs. That is of great concern because we’ve been inadequately funded for the better part of a decade.” Kaiser believes what he calls “Draconian cuts” would be harmful to the public housing program, as well as other domestic programs reliant on federal funding.

He said the report is circulating in congressional offices and within HUD. But the proposals will not happen without legislation and HUD rule making.

“This is not going to happen overnight,” he said. “We’re not under any illusions.” However, many of these proposals are not out of line with what is already being considered, he said. For example, the Congressional Budget Office has put out policy options for Congress to consider suggesting raising tenant rents to 35 percent of income.

“The big difference is if there were savings or new revenues generated under the CBO plan, that money would go right back into U.S. Treasury. Our proposal would put savings into preservation of assets, the public housing properties themselves,” Kaiser said.

“It is very simple, actually. If the government wants a deep subsidy housing program for low income people then the government needs to provide deep subsidies,” Kaiser said. “When the government does not do that, it creates problems.” n

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

Growing Sustainable Communities Conference Slated Oct. 3-4 10th Annual Conference Comes to Dubuque’s Grand River Center DUBUQUE, Iowa – The Growing Sustainable Communities Conference celebrates its 10th anniversary at the Grand River Center in the Port of Dubuque on Oct. 3-4.

Registration is now open on the conference web site at www.GSCDubuque.com.

ROY BUOL has been mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, since 2005.

The Growing Sustainable Communities Conference is the largest and longest standing sustainability conference in the Midwest, according to Dubuque city officials, who have hosted the conference annually since 2008. Sustainable City Network, a Dubuquebased trade magazine, has co-hosted the event with city staff since 2011.

The conference includes more than 30 workshops, mobile tours and keynote presentations on the latest developments in community sustainability and resiliency initiatives.

This year’s conference will include workshop speakers with a wide range of expertise, including representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Arbor Day Foundation, the Iowa Economic Development Authority, the Econservation Institute, Great Plains Institute, Green Iowa AmeriCorps, the Iowa Clean Cities Coalition, the Midwest Renewable Energy Association, the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, The

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Nature Conservancy and businesses such as General Electric, HDR, Shive-Hattery, and many others.

Speakers from municipal governments large and small will also present case studies on the sustainability initiatives in their respective communities, from large cities like Minneapolis, New Orleans, Nashville, Kansas City, Charlotte and Des Moines, to Broward County, Fla., and the small and mid-sized communities of Brookings, S.D., Columbia, Mo., Huntington Beach, Calif., South Euclid, Ohio, Madison, Wis., New Lebanon, Ohio, and the Iowa communities of Cedar Rapids, Muscatine, Cedar Falls and Dubuque. Researchers from numerous universities and nonprofits will also present their findings.

Workshop topics at this year’s event include tree canopy projects and programs, watershed and stormwater management, brownfield redevelopment, solar energy, small-town sustainability, biogas conversion, equity, placemaking, livability, climate action planning, education/community partnerships, mobility planning and design, sustainability tools and frameworks, alternative fuel vehicles, green building and sustainable development, local foods, LED streetlight conversions, affordable housing initiatives, green infrastructure, sustainability metrics, training and community engagement, among others.

sCityNetwork.com

Complete workshop descriptions can be found on the conference web site.

The conference will feature three mobile tours, two keynote luncheons, a breakfast plenary session, a networking reception and dozens of vendors and exhibitors. Several hotels are within walking distance of the Grand River Center. See the conference web site for contact information and special room rates.

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More than 500 people from across the U.S. are expected to attend the event. Attendees annually include elected officials, municipal senior management and staff, as well as private-sector business leaders, university administrators, faculty and students.

The conference is supported by Crescent Electric Supply Co. and other corporate sponsors. n

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

Researchers Study Parking Needs at TODs University of Utah Team Analyses Five U.S. Transit Stops

BY SMART GROWTH AMERICA

A new study released by Smart Growth America and the University of Utah helps decision makers determine how much parking is required at transit-oriented developments (TODs) compared to developments without transit or transit stations without development.

To answer that question, many engineers and planners consult the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ (ITE) Trip Generation and Parking Generation guides. These publications represent data collected from mostly isolated suburban land uses — not walkable, urban places served by transit. There are few alternative guidelines for engineers building this other type of development, however, so despite these shortcomings many planners continue to use ITE’s publications.

Photo: Smart Growth America

The land near transit stations is a valuable commodity. Hundreds or thousands of people travel to and through these places each day, and decisions about what to do with this land have implications for local economies, transit ridership, residents’ access to opportunity, and overall quality of life for everyone.

Many communities choose to dedicate at least some of that land for parking. Local codes and zoning guidelines often govern the amount of parking required at TODs. The question is, how much? Too little parking could discourage people from coming to the station, but too much parking is unnecessarily expensive and gets in the way of other uses like homes, shops, or offices. How much parking should transportation engineers build?

■■ Empty Spacesk

Smart Growth America and the University of Utah College of Architecture + Planning recently collaborated on the report Empty Spaces, Real Parking Needs at Five TODs. The full report can be downloaded at SmartGrowthAmerica.com.

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The goal of this study was to determine how much less parking is required at transit-oriented developments (TODs) and how many fewer vehicle trips are generated than standard industry estimates. It is clear that TODs require less parking than development without transit, or transit without development. This study sought to gather information about how much parking is used at TOD to help developers and engineers make more-informed decisions in the future.

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To do that, Professor Reid Ewing and his research team at the University of Utah College of Architecture + Planning selected five TODs across the country, each with a slightly different approach to development and parking: Englewood, Colo. in the Denver region; Wilshire/Vermont station in Los Angeles; Fruitvale Transit Village in Oakland, Calif.; the Redmond, Wash. station in the Seattle region; and Rhode Island Row in Washington, D.C. The research team together with two transportation consulting firms, Fehr & Peers Associates and Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, counted all persons entering and exiting the TOD buildings, and conducted brief intercept surveys of a sample of them. Researchers also conducted parking inventory and occupancy counts.

Consistent with other research, this study found that the five TODs generated fewer vehicle trips than ITE publications estimate, and used less parking than many regulations require for similar land uses.

And in one case, actual vehicle trips were just one third of what ITE guidelines estimate.

The TODs included in this study also built less parking than recommended by ITE. Yet even this reduced amount of parking was not used to capacity: the ratio of demand to actual supply was between 58 and 84 percent. Fewer vehicle trips is one likely reason why parking occupancy rates were lower than expected. Another possible reason is that ITE’s data do not fully account for other travel modes that are available and actively encouraged at TODs. In each of the five TODs studied, at least 33 percent of trips were taken by modes other than driving. Additional reasons for low parking rates is that parking is shared between commercial and residential uses at two TODs, is shared between transit and park-and-ride uses at one TOD, is unbundled with apartment rents at two TODs, and is priced at market rates for commercial users at three TODs.

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is an approach that makes the most of the land near transit stations. TOD means building homes, offices, public services, shops, and restaurants within a short and easy walk of transit. This type of development is in high demand among both homebuyers and businesses, as Smart Growth America’s Core Values and Foot Traffic Ahead research have detailed, and forwardthinking transit agencies across the country are capitalizing on that demand by building or encouraging TOD at their stations. n

Photo: Imgimage

These findings underscore the obvious need for developers, regulators, and practitioners to rethink how they use parking guidelines intended for suburban development not served by transit. Current engineering standards are not designed to accommodate this type of development but in time the authors hope studies like this can help change that.

Better aligning industry standards with current needs can reduce the cost of development near transit, and make it easier to build more homes, shops, and offices in these high-demand locations. More detailed results are available in the full academic version of this study and two peer-reviewed articles, all referenced in the acknowledgments on page 10 of the report.

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