Recommendations from the First South Florida Sustainable Building Conference

by Harrison Bright Rue

...urban design principles that create safe streets and high quality of life...	This agenda was created by listing suggestions and impediments at each conference workshop and filtering them through a prioritizing consensus process at the final session. We used "green" and "sustainable" interchangeably, as shorthand for "development without growth beyond environmental carrying capacity, where development means qualitative improvement and growth means quantitative increase." In the design and construction practices outlined below, this includes favoring urban infill over suburban greenfield development; reusing existing buildings; planning for a mix of uses; following urban design principles that create safe streets and high quality of life; choosing natural (free) processes rather than energy-intensive ones (stormwater flowing by gravity rather than pumps; solar water heating and lighting); using and recycling local, renewable, and resource-efficient materials; highly energy-efficient building systems; and non-polluting construction and operations practices (among many others). Most suggestions were rooted in participants' knowledge of successful demonstration elsewhere.
	Demonstrate the Principles: Create Green Demonstration Projects Using Existing Resources
	Build a "Parade of Green Homes" on public land. Identify available public land and/or buildings for recycling (six to twelve unit site). Contribute land cost to project. Waive or defer impact and permitting fees. Recruit/encourage production builders, developers, and interior designers to build one or more model homes in competition. Include a CDC/nonprofit and/or Habitat home in the mix. Setup separate "Good Shepherd" combined and expedited building, zoning, and environmental review and inspection process. Waive restrictive codes if intent of codes and safety requirements is followed. Use demonstration projects to discover code changes required for sustainability. Create project lending pool from funders to spread risk and educate loan committees. Market the projects as a Green Home Show.

Incorporate green principles into existing planned public projects. Select a prominent public project in the planning stage to demonstrate Green Principles. Require that it follow LEED checklist (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, from the US Green Building Council) and strive to qualify as a LEED Pioneer; require that it follow appropriate urban infill design principles, and that it be commissioned (performance-based energy-efficient design and systems testing). Require all new public buildings to at least run LEED checklist and consider appropriate urban design principles and commissioning in planning stages. Phase in over 10-year period (10% first year, 20% second). Require all public buildings to meet minimum LEED standards, incorporate building commissioning, and follow urban design principles.

Include public works and infrastructure projects. Build a demonstration solar/aquatic sewage treatment plant. Institute the "Adopt-a-Bus-Stop Program." Encourage private developments and existing businesses to design and build comfortable bus stops in good locations (since there is not enough room in public right-of-ways on arterial roads). Require for new projects. Let asphalt drives and lots age to lighten color and reduce heat gain; don't keep coating dark black. Modify Florida Department of Transportation public participation process to include upfront citizen input into roadway design. Coordinate public investment. Plan infrastructure projects together; involve urban designers.

	Take advantage of projects "in-the-works" that already demonstrate key principles. Implement the Arch Creek Community Action Master Plan (North Miami) for stormwater and neighborhood improvements. Continue support for implementation of Jordan Commons (South Dade), Homestead Habitat for Humanity's model affordable housing neighborhood. Implement the Urban Forest Master Plan; modify as required to meet current standards.
	Facilitate the projects: Make it easier, quicker, and cheaper to build a green project. Combine and expedite the building, zoning, and environmental review and inspection process for green projects that meet or exceed specified criteria. Set up and train separate interdisciplinary review team that will follow the project through inspection and C.O. , with an attitude of "how can we help make this happen?" Waive excessively restrictive or conflicting codes if intent of codes and safety requirements are followed. Waive or defer impact and permit processing fees. Issue faster permits.
	Review construction and zoning codes and ordinances with a sustainability overlay. Incorporate into recommendations for code (county or possible state-wide code). Use incentive-based policies, rather than prescriptive or punitive. Mandate appropriate urban design principles for infill development. Amend codes to encourage mixed use projects. Give preference to sustainable products in the product approval process. Amend codes to allow use of recycled materials. Encourage use of traditional materials and design principles from other cultures with similar climates. Allow a credit on energy calculations for strategic plantings. Eliminate use of VOC's (volatile organic compounds) in paint products (zero tolerance). Create more flexible stormwater codes to allow experimenting with alternative designs. Maximize use of existing infrastructure. Institute a standard for measuring individual homes compliance, like Austin's Green Builder program.
	Finance change. Require sprawl to pay true total costs (both capital and operating) and infill development. Attach "truth in labeling" to project costs. Require application of green design principles to all publicly financed housing development. Change point systems for awarding affordable housing financing to favor green infill projects. Require public utilities to finance home improvements that reduce their need to increase capacity. Remove incentives to holding lots empty and undeveloped; research higher tax on vacant lots; strictly enforce cleanup and property maintenance codes. Reduce or defer impact fees for infill/green development that follows approved standards. Reinstate tax credits for solar products. Encourage location-efficient mortgages (near transit, so first or second car not needed). Allow for reduced life-cycle costs in funding ratios (lower operating and maintenance costs). Finance green systems (that may exceed standard initial cost ratios) with add-on green mortgages based on projected savings (e.g., Barnett in Sarasota). Everyone should pay to park anywhere (expose true cost of auto use).

	Educate and empower public decision-makers and designers. Take advantage of existing locally available training programs: Citizen Planner, Green by Design, Cool Communities, Florida Yard Program. Conduct training for the Development Impact Committee (county department heads). Continue training for relevant departments: Planning, Building and Zoning, Public Works, Transit, Community Development, Housing, etc. Educate new Community Council members, citizen review committees, School Board & staff. Underwrite training and planning sessions for neighborhoods impacted by public projects to ensure informed public participation in project design. Encourage/educate building code officials to be more proactive in promoting green construction. Sponsor local training session for US Green Building Council's LEED designer certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Encourage facilities planners to look at long-term life-cycle costs ($ and environmental) and include appropriate language in design proposals and building programs. Create Green Curriculum for public schools; include take-home sustainability checklist.
	Think big; think fresh: Some modestly radical proposals. Design at a regional scale, of several hundred square miles, based on the biosystem and not on particular political jurisdictions. Require all developers to include 15% affordable housing in any building or development (above six units?) as instituted in Montgomery County, MD. Mandate TND zoning (Traditional Neighborhood Development) as the only way to build on undeveloped land. Smaller adjoining properties could be designed and approved together and developed separately.
	Water resources. Mandate solar water heating and exploit its economic development potential. Take investment that would be required in the future (e.g., water desalinization plants) and buy land now for hydric parks to create large water storage areas for aquifer recharge. Reconnect clean sewage treatment outflow to the Everglades rather than to Biscayne Bay. Research and consider greywater usage; allow and encourage rainwater harvesting (cisterns).

	Transportation Create and train specialized FDOT "Main Street" design teams that would plan and engineer downtown and small town state highway projects to enhance rather than destroy quality of life, pedestrian safety, and economic vitality. Require that 1% of the cost of all FDOT and county transportation projects be used for community-based urban design and neighborhood planning that would guide the project engineering (e.g., location of stops and crossings, connection with neighborhood streets, bike/pedestrian facilities and connections, coordinated planning with adjacent projects.) Encourage local governments to take back their policy-making from FDOT to even out the balance of pedestrian vs. driver accommodations. Allow site-specific street design flexibility. Include current best practice tree standards in roadway design.
	Market the agenda--Sell the agenda and vision: What you can do. Use local success stories for PR; show what's selling. Call news outlets and get interviewed (include small weeklies as well as larger media). Write one letter/week/month; send pictures and examples. Conduct extended multi-agenda public education efforts in concert with other groups. Join Builders Association, Realtors Association, and other trade organizations. Find and enlist local advocates; find hot buttons (local concerns) and make tie-ins. Use the Internet (this Green Agenda is posted at e-design online: http://fcn.state.fl.us/fdi/edesign/news/edo.htm Another good resource is FICUS: http://www.arch.usf.edu/ficus Make subsequent conferences more available to public; bus kids in from schools.
	Harrison Bright Rue, Program Chair and Editor

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