Green Building Law Blog : Green Building Lawyer & Attorney : Shari Shapiro: Calliope Communications, LLC

I have posted on many occasions about the importance of place in green building--green buildings on unsustainable sites are simply not green.  But it is never really true until the Grey Lady--The New York Times--says it is.  Today, on the Times' Freakonomics blog, James McWilliams had a nice little piece on the fundamental issue of building LEED buildings in an unsustainable, car-based infrastructure. 

Take the long view. From the moment of European settlement onward, American faith in Manifest Destiny has inspired aggressive development driven by land acquisition and individual choice. Sprawl started to become ingrained in the American character over two centuries ago and, as a result, middle America has inherited cities that value expansion over intensification.  To an extent, this vexed inheritance turns our cork floors and compost bins into empty expressions akin to the sun-starved solar panels adorning the Merritt Center.

What McWilliams does not acknowledge is the role that regulation and tax policy has had in developing the infrastructure the way it is. Two give just three examples--the mortgage interest tax credit encourages homeownership outside of the urban core. For many years, urban neighborhoods, the most sustainable, were red-lined--you simply couldn't get a mortgage.  Funding highways over mass transit means that more highways are built, making it possible to move further from the urban nodes.  Finally, funding schools through property tax assessments mean that inner cities with multi-family housing and greater rental concentrations will have less money to provide excellent education, driving families with children to the suburbs.

McWilliams uses the passive voice--" Sprawl started to become ingrained in the American character over two centuries ago "--as if sprawl simply appeared, like a cancer on the landscape.  Not so.  Regulatory and monetary policy implemented by elected representatives caused the unsustainable circumstance Americans now find ourselves in.  

 We have seen the sprawl, and it is us.

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Guest Post: Seth Shapiro, Director of Planning and Urban Design, Barton Partners

So, just as green building approaches mainstream acceptance, the economy tanks. Does this mean that the environment will once again have to take a back seat?  The answer is an emphatic no.   While the building construction and development industries are indeed in for some pain (for those who peddled unsustainable development, deservedly so) the current downturn provides for an opportunity to address some land planning and urban design issues, especially as they relate to sustainable design.

I have often been skeptical of green building as a panacea, especially independent of specific land use policy reform. Selling a building as “green”, even as it continues the development patterns associated with sprawl, is utterly ridiculous. With the release of LEED ND, the USGBC goes a long way in addressing this issue. But I wonder if it goes far enough. What if no building could be LEED certified (Homes, NC, Retail, etc) if it did not achieve at least a minimum of a LEED ND certification as a perquisite?

Clearly, this pause in building activity is the right time to address how we can redevelop the sub- and ex-urbs in a more sustainable fashion. Thankfully, this is exactly what seems to be occurring, independent of any greatly needed government stimulus or public policy shift.

At BartonPartners, where I serve as the Director of Planning and Urban Design, the projects that are making their way to my desk almost exclusively involve repositioning conventionally designed suburban projects for a more sustainable, and often mixed use future (usually independent of existing zoning regulations). Whether these projects eventually achieve a LEED certification or another green building designation is somewhat irrelevant as they, by there very location within already developed areas and often adjacent to transit infrastructure, are being repositioned in more sustainable patterns for future markets.

Indeed, the smartest of our developer clients are investing small sums of money now in specific project planning and urban design studies. In today’s environment, entitlement may be 12 to 18 months down the road anyway, especially in more established communities. While full architectural services are out of reach for many developers and property owners in this economic climate, up front urban design services, which are a fraction of standard architectural fees, can go a long way to position the smart projects for the future upturn in real estate, whether that be in early 2010 or (sigh) beyond.  

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Kaid Benfield and the Smart Growth group at the NRDC introduced a neat visual tool for reimagining sprawl development into multi-purpose places. Using photo-editing software,

the visionaries of Urban Advantage have transformed pictures of communities from all over the country to show how they could become more pleasant, walkable neighborhoods.

There are reimagined designs for 70 communities nationwide available for browsing.

The new tool and conversations I have been watching on Twitter got me to thinking about how Obama can use the stimulus plan to stimulate smart growth development.

1. Invest in transit--One conversation on Twitter was discussing whether Detroit can be retooled to produce mass transit instead of single occupancy vehicles. While I think this might be a stretch, before WWII, the United States retooled many of its plants to make the articles for war very quickly.  I would love to hear more comments about this idea.

2. Invest in cities--The stimulus money should be invested in our urban centers, making them safer through improved infrastructure, more beautiful and sustainable through urban greening projects and more livable through pedestrian and bicycle improvements.  Beyond the built environment, Obama could also invest in schools and libraries, making these amenities rival their suburban counterparts.  This would not only make for smarter growth, but also provide jobs for women and minorities not directly benefitting from the green jobs major sectors like construction and engineering.

3. Invest in planning-- New Urban News has a great idea. Obama should invest in planning projects which would support jobs now and plan for smart growth into the future.

Some federal dollars presently used for transportation and other purposes could pay for regional planning that promotes tight-knit development and preserves open land.

4. Invest in smart code drafting--Redrafting building and zonign codes is an expensive and labor intensive process.  But, by reforming codes to make them more energy efficient and smarter, like investing in planning it would support jobs now and plan for smart growth into the future, not to mention creating a more green built environment.

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