Class notes/September 30

Fossil Fuels

• U.S. is responsible for half of the worlds CO2 emissions
• Transportation
• Coal Powered Power Plants
• Deforestation
• Electricity
  

What's the Evidence?

• 1988: Shrinking Glaciers
• 1998 global warming a likelihood

Stern Report UK 2006

• Cost 1% of the world GDP a year (currently %350 billion)
• Failing to act would cut the world GDP by 5% to 20% a year
• Calls for a carbon tax
• Stern Report: The world must cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2100
• 550ppm is all C02 the world will be able to sustain

Climate Change CO2 Emissions
US CO2 emissions fell by 1% in 2006 from 2005 but they were up i17.9% from 1990
China overtook the US as the leading emitter of c02

Global Warming Threats

• Rise of 1.8 degrees F on average since 1900
• Glaciers moving faster
• rise in sea level
• coastal flooding and ice melts
• in 21C temps could rise by 2-10 degrees

Effects

• Increase in ocean temperatures, more frequent and violent storms: see hurricanes
• More open water means earth absorbs more heat, less ice (white) to deflect rays
• Droughts
• Cut off of Gulf Stream current to Europe
• as Greenland melts and fresh water dilutes to sale sea water
• Invasive species; moving north in US

What do we do?

• Kyoto Agreement: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Solutions

• Real pricing
• 2007 Supreme Court Ruling: EPA can regulate emissions of GHGs
• Why is a tax better than a Cap and Trade System
• Cap and trade system is more efficient
• allows the consumer to decide what they are going to do
• inspire innovation
• tax
• pass the cost to consumers
• sometimes too low
• organizational issue
  
• money goes into government
• Prevent and prepare, and repair
• get farms to reduce the use of ammonium nitrate which breaks

• California Passed a law in 2004 to cut greenhouse gases from cars and trucks
• Starting in 2009 carmarkets must reduce CO2 by 30% on they 2016 models
• 2006Cal and 9 Northeastern States setting up a cap and trade system for CO2
• Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)

Pay someone (The Conservation Fund ) to plant trees to offeset your emissions
Set carbon emissions standards
US Supreme Court case June 2006: 12 states sued EPA to limit CO2 emissions from motor vehicles

• 100 million a year and growing
• planting trees is a good offset
• but an unregulated industry
• carban neutral is hip
• average US resident generates more than 20 tons of CO2 a year
• Lifestyle changes

Get Indians and Chinese to install scrubbers on coal fired
sunset the US coal fired plants from pre1970
invest in renewable energy
invest in mass transit
plant trees
approve no sprawl, require mixed use developments; growth boundaries; ban on site septic

China and cars
6 million in 2000, 20 million in 2006
10,000 miles of highway in 2001, 23,000 in 2006
Goal is 53,000 miles of freeways by 2030

James Lovelock: the Gaia Hypothesis
The earth is a single organism
Kenneth Boulding: spaceship earth
Recall the first law of ecologyL Everything is connected to evverything else
Cornucopians and energy companies; denial

Comprehensive Plan
Environmental Sensibility Analysis
Subdivision and Land Use regulations

• zoning
• balance between density issues of run off and
  
• identify environmentally sensitive areas

Capital Improvement Program

• planned investment

Environmental Action Plan
8 steps:

1. 
   
2. 
   
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. Vision statement
6. Action strategy
7. adopt
8. evaluate performance

Columbus Ohio- Get Green Columbus
6 Priority Areas

• Indoor and outdoor air quality
• improving recycling
• set up benchmarks
• put out progress reports

Better Development Layout

• Future Land Use map

Urban Villages: Seattle
residential urban village and neighborhood village, ten to five units per acre/limits density
Integrates design policy and

Loudon County (VA)Natural and cultural resources goals

• growth management goals
• community design
• encorporating environmental planning into their general plan

Denver

• Design guides for rehab
  

Chicago

• 2030 Metropolis Plan Concept
• Transportation Plan
• Creates more mass transit
• Decreases Emissions
• Decrease driving time
• multimodal
• TOD
  
• People live closer to work
• Farm land is preserved and protected
• integrates land use, transportation planning, finance, reduce reliability on property taxes

Oil

• Really bad for suburbs
• Peak oil
  
• peak is where we've reached the peak of cheap oil
  
• afterwhich we have to start drilling deaper and oil becomes more expenses and less cost-effective

Alternative Energy

• Clean Renewable Energy
• California and Texas have high capacity
• Solar
• passive
• active
• Solar Access Ordinance
• make it legal in building codes

Water

• impairment
• agriculture
• storm water runoff
• Philadelphia is at the downstream end of the Del and Skulyk
• Wildcat Sewers
• Discharge from sewer goes straight into the river
• desired development is concentrated in the middle
• Overlay districts
• you can constrict your zoning
• on a local level you want to prepare for the worst
• flood plane maps
• fema
• old maps
• innacurate
• even so, don't build there

Urban Parks

• key for revitalization
• urban waterfronts

Buildings in the US account for:

• Energy
• Material Use
• Waste
• Water
  
• Air quality
  

Air Quality

1950s and 60s

Manufacturing
Wood burning
agricultural
road building/dirt roads (sand)

Coal/Power Plants
Nitrous Oxide
Sulfur Dioxide
Particulates
Carbon Dioxide
Methel Mercury (bio cumulates in fish)

Vehicles
CO2
lead
CO
NOx

1970 Clean Air Act

• Establishes National Ambient Air Quality Standards
• 6 Criteria Polutents
• NOx
• SOx
• Lead
• Carbon Monoxide (CO)
  
• Particulates
• Ozone
• This was about public health
• EPA sets the standards
• State Environmental Agencies
• Command and Control Approach
  
• can fine the company
• compliance
• cost on industry
• obvi resistance from industry
• Carbon Dioxide
• EPA got sued to count CO2 as a pollutant
  
• EPA can now regulate CO2 though they choose not to
• Cap and Trade
1. You set a limit (Cap)
2. Reduce cap over time
• Coal Fired Power Plants
• Pre 1970s plants are exempt from the 1970 Clean Air Act
  
• Producing 50-60% of our air quality problems
• Vehicles
• gas was so cheap. dirt cheap. renewable source of pollution?
• fuel efficiency standards (CAFE 1977)
• problems
• average of your fleet rather than case by case
  
• classify SUVs as their own sector
  
• Catalytic converters (1975)
• Speed limit 1973: 55 speed when car is most efficient particularly for pollution emissions.
  
• 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments/1991 ISTEA
  
• Last truly major environmental piece of legislation passed in this country
• Created MPOs
• get a say in how that money is going to be spent
• recognized the link between transportation and air quality
• do 3 plans
• 20 year plan
• TIP (Transportation Improvement Plan 3-5 years)
• Projects
  
• State Improvement Plans SIPs
• create by 1990 Amendments
• MPO plans must be consistent
• don't have control over zoning
  
• SIPs must be approved by EPA
• non-attainment areas
• use sanctions
  
• main pollutants keeping them out of compliance
• Ozone/O3 (poison) -->comes from cars
  
• increase in VMP is greater than your increase in population -->indicator of sprawl
• emissions budgets
• EPA works ut a budget for the Metro area to follow and if they don't...SANCTIONS
• Air Pollution permits
• BACT/LAER
• Offsets
• Cap and trade
• lead:
  
• NOx : regional, used in the region until a few years ago
  
• SOx : they met their target 9 years ahead of time and at a lower cost than what was anticipated
• Chicago Central Exchange
• Kyoto
• took an American idea (cap and trade) and applied it to CO2

• attainment areas
• Denver is the only state to come into compliance
• Denver
• Attainment Report
• PM-10
• Particular Matter of 10 Micromillemeter
• PM-2.5 is the new reg
• State Agency dealing with air quality
• AND regional agency
• Mention no transportation control measures are going to be taken
• weird cause they are dealing with supa sprawl
• Denver just got light rail (T-Rex)
• 56 stations
• graduate of this program is in charge of finding out where these stations are going to go

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What is Air?

• 80% Nitrogen, 16% Oxygen, traces of argon, neon, carbon dioxide
• 10,000 feet up
• Air has the ability to assimilate pollution
• an airshed is the local air supply

Air Quality in the City of Los Angeles

• 15 million people
  
• 20 million by 2030
• 80% drive
• mountain range holds smog in
  
• breeze from ocean side
• desert

Current situation
2nd smoggiest in the nation
90% of californians breath unhealth polluted air
78 days

TOD is their only hope

• ozone levels go down as pop rises
• LA region has a deadline of 2010 to meet all federal and state air quality standards. If they don't they don't get money federal highway funds
• the gap between what is needed for federal attainment levels and what is possible with current technology is 450 tons of pollution per day.

Present Responses

• Three government agencies with direct authority to address air quality concerns in the LA region:
• California Air Resources Board
• South Coast Air Quality Management District
• Souther Cal Association of Governments (SCAG)

California Air Resources Board

• Within Department of California EPA
• 11 members appointed by the governor
• Created by State Legislature in 1967; 3 goals:
• Attain and maintain healthy air quality
• What the ARB Does
• Sets and enforces emission standards for motor vehicles, fuels, and consumer products
• health based air qual standards
• conducts research
• monitors health
• AQMD
• 9 eleted members out of 12
• makes regulations
• must be approved by air resources board
• SCAQMD
• budget of 86 million
• funded by fees to industrial polluters
• Does not have authority to estalish emission standards but does issue permits
• SCAG
• Functions as the MPO for 6 county LA region. Covers 15 million people and 38,000
• make plans
• identify projects
• Responses
• San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District (located next to South Coast AQMD) is imposing air pollution impact fees on new development
• CAFE and emissions standards are the toughest in the nation
• Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) Program:
  
• Requires automakers to sell 2% pure SEVs, 2% advanced technology partial ZEVs, and 6% partial ZEVs.
• RGG=northeast states and california's cap and trade
  

Portland, Oregon

• Thousand Friends of Oregon
• stop the proposed highway because there will be more emissions
• LUTRAQ Study
• Transit Oriented Development
• Reduce air pollution and the reliance on automobiles...
• reduced the number of parking spots
• put stations in
  
• worked out

Orenco Station

• one developer
  
• 9 units/acre (you need at least 7/acre for mass transit)
• mixed used

congestion tax


price (getting the prices right), technology, regulation (public health and welfare), spending programs (choosing to spend money on mass trans vs highways), lifestyles (conservation).

Landis' 1st Lecture

• how and where economic analysis and planning fits
• projecting jobs and economic avitivity
• economic development strategies
• balance issues

Economic Analysis and Comprehensive Planning: Key Issues

1. How will changes in the national, regional (metro) and local economy affect the demand for sites (number, size, location) in my community? (passive)
1. what will this look like?
   
2. Which sites should be set aside for economic development? (more active)
   
1. where?
2. what size?
3. how many?
   
3. What can I do in my community to promote job growth and economic development?
   
1. what leverage do I have?
   
4. How much revenue (and resources, more broadly) of which type will future economic development generate for my community?
1. what can I tap into?

Comprehensive Planning Process

1. develop the plan work plan
2. structure the community participation process
3. baseline studies (inventories, past trends, current drivers of change, list of tools)
   
4. engage the community
5. formulate goals and objectives
6. develop the land use program
7. refine goals and objectives
8. develop "future" scenarios/alternatives
9. compare and evaluate scenarios
10. implementation
11. monitoring and updating

Economics belong in steps: 3, 5, 6, and 10

if tightly connected to city then will be impacted by what happens to philadelphia's economy.

Four Linked "economies" of interest

1. Local participation in regional (metro) industrial or jobs economy (-->commuting patterns, household income and wealth)
2. Local industrial or jobs economy (-->community resource base)
3. The retail and tourist economy (-->essential services and tax/fee revenue)
4. Local tax base (-->essential services and tax/fee revenues)

Economic Base model

• sales outside the region--><---Basic or Export Industries <--local inputs-->local-serving industries<--local serving industries--> local recirculation
• multiplier = ratio of total sales (or jobs) to export sales (or jobs)
  
• usually equal to about two or three
• you want to increase your multiplier

BASELINE STUDIES

1. What are the the major industries or sectors in our local economy? How do they compare to the region and nation?
2. What are the major businesses in our local economy?
3. Which local industries and/or businesses are growing/declining adn why?
4. Which if any local factors are constraining local industry performance ad grwth?
5. How equitably are the benefits of economic growth be distributed?

Land Use Class Notes September

RFP for:
Update of a 1992 Comp Plan for county in the Sun Belt: e.g. Prima County, AZ.
• Look at population projections
• Look at the population methods
o Look out for
• 1990 census to project 2010 cohort survival analysis
• cohort survival, look at the likelihood of survival of age groups and derive your population pyramids
 doesn’t take into account migration
• old people are moving there
• Mexicans
 Focuses mostly on women’s fertility is 2.1 kids
• Rate of Growth in U.S. from 1990 to 2000 was 13.2% or a little more than 1.1%/year
• US and Canada are the fastest growing populations in the industrialized world
o Look out for a trend line analysis
• 1970, 1980, 1990 → extrapolate from there
• in-migration is key to taking apart the exponential trend analysis
• Policy Based Method
o Takes into account land use availability
• Doubt they used it
What would our strategy be?
• Design based
• Location
• Carrying Capacity
• Estimated population
o American community survey
o School enrollment
o Housing permits
o Public Utility Co → addresses, households
• Assumptions to project to 2030
o Immigration/out migration
o Land use
o Economic activity
o Aging pop
o Climate
o Scenarios/alternatives: the good, the bad, and the ugly/high, low, medium.
• Does population just happen? Or can you use the comp plan or the projection to control


What is Your Vision

• And how does the current size and diversity and age of your pop fit that vision?
• And how many people do you want and what type in 20 years?
• What is the optimal population?
  
• A number of communities will reach build out in our lifetime.
  
• county can buy land
• make growth boundaries
  

Population current levels and future projections

• The hear ot fht Comp Plan Process
• Key for land use and other

**MAKE CONNECTION BETWEEN POPULATION GROWTH AND LAND CONSUMPTION (for paper)

Population Projection Methods

• Something to consider: are you trying to come up with a single population number for a certain future date?
• Are you looking at a range of possibilities ans selecting the most likely population change scenario?
  

Methods

• Simple extrapoalation of population trend
• linear extrapolation: oppulation will change by the same number of people in each future year as the averagae annual change during the previous
• linear extrapolation ain't good

• Actual population change vs. projected
• risk and uncertainty: catastrophic events
• faster growing communities have larger estimate errors
• larger pop have smaller errors
• the more migration is a factor, the greater errors are likely to be listed above
• the farther you go out in time the greater the errors of your projections

More methods

• complex extrapolation: regression, times series data
  
• structural models: Impact of employment growth, household size, land use
  
• note: simple population projection methods can be just as accurate as complex methods
  

Range of Forecasts and Implication sfor Land Use

• 1%,2%, 3% growth rates over 20 years: and the Rule of 70 (in 10 years your pop will double if you grow at ten percent)
  
• if your pop grows at 5% for 20 years
• Dominant development form: urban suburban infill and limited expansion, new villages, sprawl
• Water quality impact: impervious surface and on-site septics-water supply
• land consumption
• infrastructure costs
• when build-out will be reached
  

September 16th Class Notes

Economics is about allocating resources so Environmental Economics is about allocating natural resources

• Choices:
  
• price and markets
• accessibility (limit accessibility-->queue)
• e.g. Oklahoma--first come, first got the land.
• Merit/Public good
• Lottery
• Problems faced in Enviro Economics
• Rationing system (willingness to pay)
  
• pollution clean up
• public vs. private resource
• externalities
• subsidies for the kind of development you want
• valuation
• property rights/access
• biological issues that markets do not pick up on.
• markets are short term oriented but the environment is about longevity.
• market failure--a matter of degree
• Public's price of a good is equal to the private price
• market failure occurs when these aren't equal
  
• Some ways of dealing with market failure
• Raise price- tax
• Lower price- subsidy
• Regulations->technology, raise standards across the board
• The economics looks something like this: http://marketpower.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/05/31/beermarket2.jpg
• Increase price of oil
• income effect: it's a big impact on peoples' income
  
• substitution effect: people drive less
• OPEC: Just reduced the production of oil so people will use less (cause price is increasing). We will have oil for longer because of the glorious OPEC cartel. God Bless.
  
• Inelastic demand: you are dealing with a good you have to have. Reduce supply-->increase demand-->make more monehhhh
• Common Property Resource
1. Entry
   
2. Technology
   
3. Population growth
• I=PAT
• e.g. Oceans and fish
• global fisheries are not in good shape
• difficulty limiting entry--limiting boats
• technological advancements in fishing make the fish not stand a chance
• demand increase?
• Safe havens (Australia)--> sink the ships of those who fish Pategonian tooth fish
  
• if it is a luxury good it has an elastic demand curve which allows you to make more money by increasing price
• Valuation
1. ANWR
1. Ask public how they value ANWR/Public WTP
2. Option Demand-->6 months of oil compared to how much we would pay to go to the ANWR and visit--as if!
2. Glennon and water
1. What is the price on groundwater?
1. nothing. it is free.
2. extraction costs
3. distribution
2. Who owns the water?
   
1. water as a public trust-->VT and Hawaii (government has the responsibility of managing goods for society: yet still issues between public trust and private resource)
3. National water policy?
1. None. Blasphemous.
4. Water charge per square acre makes California farmers consume shitloads of water because hey! they are paying for it anyway! (not a great conservation policy).

Ethics and Ecology

• Ethics-Standards and Philosophy to Live by
• Ecology-the study of interaction of plants and animals and humans in an ecosystem
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
  

Environmental Ethics

• Preservationists-keep pristine; wilderness for the sake of nature
  
• Conservationists-stewardship, manage resources
• John Muir (preservationist) vs Gifford Pinchot (conservationist)

Preservationist Examples:

• National Parks--Yellowstone 1872
• 1964 Wilderness Act
• 2000 Clinton "roadless order"
• NY Adirondack Park, Catskill Presere
• NY State OPen Space Plan
• Trustees of Reservations 18902 Mass
• Scenic Hudson--Storm King
• Open Space Institute- Sterling Forest

Wise Use of Natural Resources

• 500,000 abandaoned minds
• 500,000 brownfields
• Importing 20 billion in oil each year
• half the topsoil in Iowa eroded in 150 years
• 40% of waterways "impaired
• 80000 dams
• Economic prosperity: living off capital vs living off interest
• physical growth vs the steady state economy (John Stewart Mill)

Wise Use of Natural Resources

• Natural Resources Conservation Service
• County Soil Conservation Districts
• NEPA
• Recycling in 9,000 cities and towns
• Renewable Energy
• Farmland Preservation: Fed, State, Local
• Greenways

Environmental Justice

• The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color or income with respect to the development implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policy-EPA
• Every American hs the right to a clean environment
• LULUs

Four Schools of Thought Today

Cornucopians-

• We are in no danger of running out of natural resources. The market system rations natural resources to their highest and best uses. Advances in technology and human ingenuity will work wonders.

• Fact: The US consumes less water today than in 1980

Alarmists

• The US and the World are in serious trouble from depletion of natural resources, global warming and pollution, Action must be taken as soon as possible.

Cautionaries

• Precautionary principle
• Some situations warrant action, others warrant study
• Some environmental situations are improving
• Fact: US air and water quality are better today than 38 years ago. Population growth proses long term concerns.

Deep Ecologists

• Nature has a right to exist separate from benefits to humans
• Nature is sacred

Conservation
Aldo Leopold- A sand County Almanac: the realtionship between humans and the land
land as a community not acommodity
masters over nature or stewards of the land

Ecology I
Ecology and ecnoomics both are from the Greek, oikos, which means "household." Ecology is the study of the household or one's surroundings. Economics refersto the management of the household.
Ecology is the science of how plants, animals, air, water, soil, and climate interact in a specific...

Ecology II
An ecosystem consists of individual organisms, a pop of each type of species, and a community of several types of species,
the diversity of plant and animal species defines the health of eco systems
ecos are thought to evolve through the state from immaturity ot a more stable climax stage. the greatest amount of species diversity and reilience is thought to occur at the climax stage. this ecosystem is most able to maintain a closed loop of growth, death, decay, and reuse.
key: maintianing "biodiversity" in a community or region

Frogs are an indicator species--> indicate toxins in water

Ecology III
Ultimately, humans depend upon ecosystems for food, water wuality and wuantity, air wuality, and the absorption of waste. Thus humans have a cery real interest in making a sustainable environment

three lawseverything is connected to everything else
first law of thermodynamics-matter cannot be created or destroyed everything has to go somewhere
there is no such thing as a free lunch
every action has a a cost
you can't fool mother nature.

Natural Cycles

• Hydrologic- rainfall and evaporation
• dams, raising the level of humidity
  
• carbon-atmosphere, plants, fossil fuels
  
• acid rain, green house effect
  
• oxygen- humans inhale and plants exhale
• air pollution makes it harder to inhale (childhood asthma is on the rise)
• using up the ability for lakes to hold oxygen
  
• nitrogen-plant and animal nutrient
• algae blooms that choke out other forms of aquadic life
  
• phosphorus-plant and animal nutrient
• nutrients are building blocks of amino acids so everyone needs them to sustain life
  
• pollution disrupts these cycles

Legal Issues in Environmental Planning

• Different types of Law
• Constitutional Law
• Legislative
  
• Judicial
• Quasi-Judicial
• Administrative
• Common Law
• Common Law-inhereited from English Law
• No one can use their land so as to harm another person-common law
• (freedom only has meaning within limits, otherwise it is chaos)
• Public Trust Doctrine- Mono Lake
• LA was sucking water out of Mono Lake, lowering the water in the lake so the cayotes could get to the islands and eat the birds so a judge ruled that they have to keep a certain amount of water in the lake
• Federal Environmental Laws
• National enironmental Policy Act
  
• Required a review
• Lead Agency coordinates review

1. Determine whether an Environmental Impact statment is need or issue a FONSI
2. Public comment is allowed
1. EIS elements
1. Current conditions and impact of action
2. Unavoidable adverse environmental effects
3. Alternative to the proposed action
4. The relationship between local short term uses and maintaince and enhancement of long term productivity
5. Any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources in the proposed action and;
   
6. Ways to minimize the negative impacts of proposed action.

• An EIS can be a very long doc
• Can be challenge d in fed court
• most EIS Statements are for highways
• EPA exempt from...
• reactionary

NEPA Court Cases

• Calvert Cliffs'Voordinating Committeev. Atomic Energy Commission
• Chelsea Neighborhood Associations . U.S. Postal Serice
• Named Individual Members of the San Antonio Consercation Society v. Texas Highway Department

Should Trees Have Standing

• Mineral King Case (sierra Club v. Morton)
• Disney Wants to build a Ski Area in a national forest
• Won the Case but ever built
• Should nature have a representative?

EPA Can:

1. Present testimony on Environmental Impcat Statements through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
2. Block large development projects that EPA feels would do irreversible damage
3. clean up hazardous waste sites
4. ban the production of hazardous substance
5. require states to link land use planning and management of air quality
6. withold federal highway funds from states and metro regions that do not meet national ambient air quality standards and
7. conduct research on toxic substances and set safety standards for air and water quality based on "good science."

State Environmental Policy Acts

• 22 states have SEPAs
  
• Covers all public and some private actions by state and local governments
• eis process (or neg dec)
• fox guarding hen house problem
• SEPAs, like NEPAare reactive not proactive
• what about developments of regional impact
• NY example?

Attitude L a make it do b do without c use it up or d wear it out (minimize waste)

Where is the Community in Space and Time?

• Community Profile
• location, geography, and history
• SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats
• Needs Assessment Survey: What do residents like or dislike about the city, community or county.
• Collect facts, not just opinions

-------------------------------------------------------

• Vision
  
• can create a framework for the rest of the process
• needs assessment survey*** super important
  
• charette
• builds trust and confidence in the incoming consultant
• this is the particular reason/value of starting with visioning.
  
• Facts (maybe you want to do one first)
• Analysis-->Goals and Objectives
• SWOT can get embarrassing to elected officials
• it is good to run this by the elected officials first

Sources of Info-Public

• Federal-Cenuss Bureau: American Fact Finder: POp, Housing, Econ Activity
• Topographic Quad maps from US Geological Survey
• Floodplain maps-FEMA (badly out of date)
• State-GIS data layers, Economic bse Natural Resources, Geology, Aerial Photos
• Water Resources Board
• Economic Development Department
• Regional Planning Commission-pop econ base, transportation, housing
• MPO-transportaiton, land use air quality
• county-GIS data layeres, soils, econ base, transportation
• County Extension, local college, natural resources, studio class
• Community-history, housing (visual survey), community facilities, economic base, land use.

Current Land Use Patterns

• Mix of existing uses
• potential to accommodate growth
• infrastructure and transport (location and problems)
• potential for natural areas (parks, greenways, trails), working landscapes (farms ad forestry)

GIS Example from Lancaster County, PA

• County "flown" for ortho photos
• Property boundaries (poperty tax maps) superimposed on orth photos
• Property tax assessment keyed to each parcel by land use and buildings
• Soils layer, waterways layer
• Street and road networks
  
• Sewer and water lines

Land Suitability, Water Suitability and Infrastructure
land suitability: idenify constraints to development: steep slopes, welands, and floodplains, waterways, prime farm and forest lands

soils land
class one (slope of 0-3%) is good for development
class two (slope 4-15%) slope
class three--> needs engineering but possible for development

Water Suitability

• Identify Water Sources and Capacities: surface and ground-State Environmental Agency, Water resources Board
• Cities that depend completely on ground water-->sole source aquifer-->Schenectady, Miami; used faster than it can be recharched, contamination, difficult to clean up.
• Water quality and potential threats
• Identify impaired waterways: state 303 (d) report -Total Maximum Daily Loads
• Treatment facilities: State Environment Agency, PA Public Utilities Commission
• Water Lines
• Climate-recent trends
• NYC spent about a million dollars fixing their water system, then had to spend more

biggest threats:
agricultural farm run-off
sewer overflows

Devise a Suitability Rating Sstem

• No building on slopes over 15%
• No construction in known floodplains
• Wetlands: CSOs Duany comment about how we need more regional control
  
• How will landowners react to this system?
• Rating syste

Note Problems with Current Lan Use patterns

• Traffic Congestion
• poor drainage
• lack of pedestrian access
• areas with substandard housing
• parking
• site distance
• empty buildings and vacant lots
• flood probe areas
  
• brownfield areas
  

Calculate the Current Land Uses in acres

• Is this a good mix of land uses
• What is the problem with zoning lots of land for industrial? It's not happening.
• do we need more or less of certain uses
• total developed land, total vacant land
• is densification needed? in-fill potential?
• should the city be looking to annex land?

Calculate Current Land Uses in Acres

• is it a good mix o land uses
• Do we need more or less of certain uses?
• Total developvel
  

Readings for September 16th

Newman, Peter and Isabella Jennings. 2008. Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems: Principles and Practices. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Chapter 1: Visioning

This chapter focussed on the importance of vision in the success of sustainability. When people are involved in the process of thinking about their future, and engaged in the formulation of the steps that will get their city from point a to point b, they are far more likely to feel committed to those steps.

The vision statement should define the citizen's values towards the three e's, recognize the constraints of the community, and identify the priorities of the citizens. This will help in the implementation process.

In the first two stages, the people and planner should identify the ecological and social assets and constraints to help guide the visioning process.

Steven Ames' book suggests these elements for visioning:

• Involve key institutions in the community, including government and private sector groups
• Attract the support of key opinion leaders
• Formulate clear goals and objectives for the process itself
• Allocate sufficient resources
• Engage people authentically

Sub Chapter: Strategies for Visioning

Ask:

1. What do we value?
2. What are human needs?
3. What are our ethics? How should we treat each other and the natural world?
4. What is the role of technology?
5. What is the role of place in sustainability?

These numbered suggestions will correspond with the above listed numbers:

1. Relate vision to ideas of progress
1. "human needs are essential characteristics associated with human evolution and thus are constant across ass cultures and time periods. While needs remain constant, satisfiers, which are the ways in such needs are met, can vary across cultures and over time. "
2. Relate vision to Human needs
1. Max-Neef's forty cell matrix can be used to find symbiotic relationships between needs and satisfyers.
2. Nussbaum
1. This approach emphasizes "the possibilities for human unfolding, the qualities that allow us to fully express our humanity..."
3. Relate Vision to Ethics
   
1. Anthropocentric ethics
1. See humans as the locus of all value and the non human world only as a resource
2. Deep Ecology
1. movement founded on the concept of self-realization and biocentric equality.
3. Newman and Kenworthy developed ethics for sustainability; they suggest that the elements of environmental spirituality associated with indigenous ethics can also be found in Western spiritual traditions.
4. Relate Vision to Technology
1. "The current direction of modern technological development seeks to find escape from "the constraints of body, nature and place"
2. "the technocratic agenda is driven by the desire for security but, in the process of creating a thoroughly technological world, undermines the possibility of a sustainable world, a world worth caring for.
3. Develop technologies that facilitate intimate engagement with the world.
1. technology that fosters bioregional and community connections
5. Relate Vision to Place
1. A city should not try to be the most creative city in the world but the most creative for the world.

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Daniels, Thomas, John Keller, Mark Lapping, Katherine Daniels, and James Segedy. 2007. The Small Town Planning Handbook (3rd ed.). Chicago: APA Planners Press.

Chapters 5, 6, and 7

Chapter 5: Information Resources for the Town Plan

Identifying Info and Resources: The planning commission should always know where the data is coming from.

Human Resources

• A planner will need good Technical Advice
• Ask local professionals (a banker about the economic situation, a business person about trade, a demographic contact, etc).
• Vlaunteer Labor is valuable

Equipment (outlined in book--pg 59)

Info to Collect

• Population info
• Census
• Regional Planning Agency
• Individual state and federal agencies for data on water quality, floodplain hazards, or major highway projects.
• league of municipalities for technical assistance
• one of the first things a planner should do is contact the LOM and ask for a list of publications available at little or no cost.
• Natural Resources Conservation Service
• Soils
• maps
• soil survey
  
• electronic GIS database

After these steps are completed it is time to contact local information sources such as tax assessors, engineers, surveyors, town and country clerks, building inspectors, etc.

• Published data
• US Census of Population and Housing
• National Association of Counties, Towns and Townships
• Legislative research service
• Secretary of State
• government documents section of your state's library
• Visual data
• google earth
• Base Maps
• Community clerk
• County engineer
• State highway commission
• more listed in the book page 62
• You need
• a housing base map
• land use maps
• community facilities
• soils
  
• transportation
  
• floodplain maps
  
• Visual Graphics

_____________________________________________________________

Chapter 6: Community Profile, Geography and History

Write your community profile last because it is a summary.

• Geography and History Overview
• highlight community on state reference map
• local chamber of commerce or tourism groups
• provide descriptions of features and locations
• History
• Particularly detailed around buildings important to tourism

--------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 7: Population Projections and Characteristics

Population Characteristics

• several simple tables
• types and numbers of households (average household size included)

Comparing Pop Trends

• Is my community's population increasing faster, more slowly, or about the same as the pop in the county?
• Is the population in my community declining faster, more slowly or about the same as the population in the county and nearby communities?
• Identify the median age over the decadesA median age under 32 indicates a high number of young people

Interpreting the Population Info: Why do Small Towns Grow, decline or Remain Stable?

• 
  

class notes 9/9- "What are they going to do in Vegas? That's one of the major issues you are going to have to face."

what is planning?
problem solving
organizing resources to achieve goals and objectives
avoiding problems
another name for communism

What is environmental planning?
How to make choices about:
Natural environment: wildlife, wetlands, coasts
Working landscapes: farmland forests, mineral and aggregate resources
Built environment: redevelopment of cities and suburbs, greenfields development
Public health: air and water and toxics pollution clean up, pollution prevention.


The triple bottom line/Sustainability
3 types: economic, social and economic.

Environmental Sustainability: Intergenerational equity, stewardship, durability, waste management. Trying to match population size with ecosystem (carrying capacity/environmental damage).


social justice, economic opportunity, income equality----> environmental protection-------> overall economic growth and efficiency ==>i.e. green, profitable, and fair.

Why Plan?
*anticipate the change and shape it
*orderly growth and change
*save money
*sustainable economy and environment
*social issues
*future generations

We have a lot of people coming. How are we going to move towards greater sustainability while we add 3 million/year.

Getting the prices right--> getting the right type of environmental incentives. Not just regulating.

Three events that brought sustainability to the forefront:
Hurricane Katrina
Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth
Recent spike in energy prices

Read Elizabeth Colbert's book on how the scientists are in agreement on the affects of global warming.

More frequent extreme weather
Decrease in bio diversity
Sea level rise
Drying out in the great plains

US oil peaked in 1970.

Every year the Economist prints the reserves in each country and the number of years a country has left--the US has 11 years.

The Death of Environmentalism-->STOP BEING COMPLACENT!


Who does environmental planning?
*The Federal Government
*State Governments
*Local Governments
*Businesses (there is going to be some kind of regulation so they are trying to get on board a.k.a. long term business)
*Individuals (transportation modes, location of residence, technologies, recycling, reusing, vote)
*Nonprofit Organizations

Three Key Aspects of Public Environmental Planning
The level of government involved and responsible (federal, state, LOCAL)
the form of government activity*regulation command and control, financial incentive, public goods, ban-moratorium, design)
the degree of government action (what goals and standards, and how rigorously pursued)-clean air act

public good/merit goods-->non excludable and not appropriable.

The Case for a Federal Role:
*Without national standards and controls, a fear that states would lower environmental standards as part of interstate economic competition (currently happening0
*Environmental problems caused by interstate externalities- coal fired power plants and acid rain, water pollution, and nutrients in Chesapeake Bay
*Environmental justice

externality-->result of an economic activity that does now show up in that product.

The Cast for A State Role
*State review of developments of regional impact (DRI)-siting a regional mall
*Responsible for providing clean water to citizens of the state
Urban redevelopment--brownfields.
*Transportation dollars? (Jack)

MTBE-->all you need is a drop of it to pollute 50 gallons of water http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/unregulated/mtbe.html

The Case for a Local Role
*Ecosystems, watersheds (drainage system), and air pollution do not respect political boundaries
*Spillovers from one community to the next
*Land use, transportation, air quality connection (LUTRAC study, greater Portland)
*Land use-water quality connection eg The Chesapeake Bay

New Zealand does planning according to watersheds since 1995.


The Case for a Local Role
*Local governments have control over land use planning and regulation.
*Where development is located (and the type of development) can hae major impacts on the environment (e.g. impervious surfaces, thirsty industries, etc).

Why is Local Planing for the Environment Important?
*Federal government has turned most of the administration of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act over to the states. And state administration varies considerably.
*Local development decisions have major implications for environmental impacts, e.g. South Miami-Dade
*Land use is political and all politics is local.


Steps in the Local Planning Process
*Decision to Plan
*Commitment to money and personnel
*Inventory

Elements of the Comprehensive Plan
1. A brief history and context
2. Economic base analysis
3. Housing
4. Transportation and Circulation
5. Natural Resource Inventory
6. Land Use Suitability and Future Land Use
7. Community facilities

I=PAT (Inventory = Population+ Affluence +Technology)
http://www.eoearth.org/article/IPAT_equation

Adding Environmental Planning into the Comprehensive Planning Process
*Action Plan (SO IMPORTANT)
*Benchmarking
*Annual Report on Environmental Progress, e.g. Columbus, OH, Sustainable Seattle, WA
--> usually there is no progress and officials don't want people to know.

Land Suitability, Water Suitability and Infrastructure
*The layers approach
*Developed by Ian McHarg
*One of McHarg's students founded ESRI, another Itergraph
Land Suitability: identify constraints to development: steep slopes, wetlands, waterways, prime farm and forest lands, wildlife habitats, geological formations, soils with hallow depth to bedrock.

GIS environmentally relevant layers: parcels, zoning, floodplains, wetlands, land cover, soils, reference framework, composite overlay.

Soils map: different soils have different permeabilities, different slopes, and different capabilities.

Problems on the cape: no central sewer system and the population is rising. Ground water is being polluted by septic but the people are too cheap to pay for central sewer out of fear that more people will move in.

Slow growth:http://www.slowgrowthinitiative.com/master.html


Speth-10 Global Environmental Crises: Thick Global, Act Local
*Ozone depletion by CFCs and other gases
*Climate Change-global warming-#1 threat
*Loss of crop and grazing land-soil erosion
*Loss of tropical forests-wildlife, watershed
*Extinction of species
*Population growth
*Freshwater shortages
*Overfishing oceans


*Pesticides
*Acid rain

Six Solutions
*A Stale or smaller world population
-currently 6.2 bullion, going to 9 illion by 2050
*Reduce mass poverty
*Environmentally-friendly technologies
*Environmentally honest prices
*Sustainable consumption energy food materials eliminate toxics
*Environmental education






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Brief Summary of Environmental History

1. 1890-1920
a. Parks and Playgrounds
b. City Beautiful/Hygiene
c. Garden Cities (E. Howard)
d. Wilderness (John Muir) vs. Conservation (Pinchot)
-Teddy Roosevelt sort of went between the two (National Park Service)

2. 1920s-1969
a. Ecological regional planning (Appalacian trail 1921, 1938(+)
b. New Deal: Tennessee Valley Authority clean up
c. Soil conservation service; now Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS)
d. EIA/Environmental Impact Assessment (McHarvy, scientific analysis of what's going on)
e. 1970 NEPA, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Safe species Act (Command and Control approach)
d. backlash (brings in the use of financial incentives) i.e. the cap and trade approach to reducing sulfur dioxide.

3. Sustainability Era --> will probably involve both command and control and incentives.