Sustainable Community: March 2008 Archives

Sustainable communities are sometimes billed as "smart communities" and they face the new reality that the majority of people now live in urban areas.  That is a change as recent as 2006!  Along with that change, the US is now a consumer-based economy, with 70% of the economy dependent on consumers. That affects our balance of living spaces to work spaces.  Sustainable community design is thriving as urban in-fill reclaims used spaces and upgrades crumbling buildings.  Green building is part of this shift, but social concerns are also part of making communities more livable.

One example of the new vision of sustainable community development is VMWP, a San Francisco, CA based architecture and community design firm.

The driving mission behind Van Meter Williams Pollack LLP (VMWP) is community development. Their goal is to enhance the physical nature and identity of buildings, neighborhoods and cities, mending communities and creating memorable places in an environmentally responsible way. They achieve this by focusing their architecture and urban design practice on affordable housing, urban design, town planning and mixed-use development.

This sustainability-focused design firm chooses to serve clients who have a similar focus. They are committed to going the extra mile to create quality, both in the creative designs they put forth, and in the quality of service they offer to like-minded organizations and individuals.

One VMWP project that exemplifies their services is the  California Avenue Overlay District. You can download a PDF presentation with details about this development to savor the sustainable details for balancing resident concerns with community density challenges.

Involving the nearby residents in the design criteria phase of community development leads to a better end result that maintains livability standards, property values and neighborly feelings. The concerns identified in the California Avenue project are somewhat typical of resident concerns whenever a large development is inserted into a community.

Resident Concerns

Residents are concerned that high density development adjacent to their property will decrease their property values and lower their standard of living.

Transitions to existing low density neighborhoods cause political tension. Regulating transitional zones to higher densities can ease community concerns

Large site developments often cause community stress. (No one wants a large development in their
backyard) Requiring multiple housing types for large sites creates the sense of finer grain development and provides opportunities for transitional densities.

Regulation of building façade elements creates a positive public realm and pedestrian experience.

Early identification of  design criteria that are sorted and shaped to meet the local situation are part of the architect and developer's job before design of buildings and landscapes begins:

Context Based Design Criteria

1. Pedestrian and Bicycle Environment - promote walkability and connectivity.
2. Street Building Facades - promote a strong relationship with sidewalk and street.
3. Massing and Articulation - minimize massing and provide articulation.
4. Low-Density Residential Transitions - respect scale and privacy of adjacent properties.
5. Project Open Space - provide usable open space.
6. Parking Design - design parking subordinate to the character of building.
7. Large (multi-acre) Sites - building patterns consistent with surrounding neighborhood.
8. Sustainability - sustainability and green building design should be incorporated

Site-Specific Design Guidelines for this project included…

• Maintain View Corridors
• Restrict Mass along Tracks with daylight plane
• Require Landscaping
• Limit length of mass along tracks

VMWP  includes  some general development guidelines in their downloadable presentation to help other communities start the sustainable community process.

Making Zoning and Design Guidelines work for your community:

• Develop Regulations which support your Community’s greater Comprehensive Plan Policies.
• Work closely with your community to educate as well as demonstrate the positive aspects of TOD and higher densities.
• Promote Design Guidelines which support quality development and insure appropriate context based design responses.
• Develop Regulations which are clear for the Development Community and provide for feasible developments.
• Create a Review Process which is clear concise and does not require to great up-front cost to development while allowing appropriate community review.

VMWP Partners

Tim Van Meter, Architect | Partner

Mr. Van Meter’s experience has ranged widely from buildings, to landscape designs, to urban designs for districts and neighborhoods. As a partner in Van Meter Williams Pollack, Tim has focused on mixed use developments, urban infill projects and affordable housing.

Rick Williams, Architect | Partner

Mr. Williams’ work has been on the forefront of mixed use pedestrian and transit-oriented planning and urban design. The scale of projects range from residential developments, mixed-use neighborhoods and urban infill to community plans and new town proposals.

Fred Pollack, Architect | Partner

As a partner in Van Meter Williams Pollack, Mr. Pollack has focused on affordable housing, and mixed-use developments. Fred has been the Partner in Charge of VMWP’s larger projects, guiding the projects from design through construction and post occupancy.

CONTACT info:

Why is it that personal hygiene is such a forbidden topic?  Sexual functions are part of practical living and most families have both girls and boys in them -- so gender topics should be of concern to all adults.  But history has shown that women's reproductive health care ... and hygiene ... have been embarrassing and ignored.  Hopefully times are changing, and we can care for our daughters' needs in a more sustainable way.

Most sanitation programmes are silent about women and adolescent girls’ need to clean and change menstrual towels and menstrual management tends to be ignored in latrine design and construction and excluded from hygiene education packages. Even reproductive health and preventive health programmes in developing countries often do not address this sensitive issue. A recent article in Source Bulletin describes how WaterAid has tackled this issue in Bangladesh.

In Africa, one of the activities of the QUEST programme (1998-2006) involved research in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda on the links between life skills, sexual maturation and school sanitation. One of aspects looked at was how poor menstrual management negatively affected girls school attendance.

The Source article  gives a link to a report published last year, called “Menstrual hygiene: a neglected condition for the achievement of several Millennium Development Goals”.

SanitationUpdates.wordpress.com

“Adequate sanitation to protect health is considered a fundamental human right.”

Unfortunately, for roughly half the developing world, safe and reliable water is not accessible. The result is the daily tragedy of waterborne disease, which claims thousands of lives each day.

“Safe water and sanitation are vital to human health and are critical for the stability of nations around the globe,” said AWWA Executive Director Gary Zimmerman. “In North America, clean water is often taken for granted, but World Water Day creates an opportunity to think about the extraordinary value of our precious water supplies and advanced water treatment and delivery systems.

“World Water Day asks us all to become more aware of how our actions affect our water supplies, and encourages the development of a culture which recognizes the life-giving value of water,” Zimmerman added.” AWWA encourages all its members and water customers to support organizations like Water for People, which work to improve water sanitation and prevent the tragedy of waterborne disease across the globe.

More information on World Water Day 2008 can be found at www.worldwaterday.org

The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

More information on Water for People can be found at www.waterforpeople.org 

Water For People helps people in developing countries improve their quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities and health and hygiene education programs.

Our vision is a world where all people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation; a world where no one suffers or dies from a water- or sanitation-related disease.

A leader in membrane research and technology, Andrew Benedek founded ZENON Environmental to develop cost-effective membrane solutions for water treatment, which are being applied to wastewater, reclaimed water, industrial uses, home appliances, and desalination, as well as drinking water.

During a brief period in the petrochemical industry, he came to see the effect of pollution on the environment and decided to specialize in environmental engineering for his post-graduate work.

In 1978, Dr. Benedek coordinated the internationally recognized Wastewater Research Group, an organization known for its excellence in research in the field of water treatment technologies. Recognizing that overuse and contamination seriously threatened the world's water sources, he founded ZENON Environmental Inc., a company dedicated to solving water quality problems, through the use of advanced membrane technologies.

ZENON Environmental Inc. was formed in 1980 on his vision of a world where cost effective membrane technology could ensure humanity's survival, with safe and superior quality water. Under his leadership, ZENON has grown steadily and become a global leader in membrane technology for water and wastewater treatment.

Dr. Benedek was among the first to believe that membrane technology would one day become a practical way to treat water; many did not hold his view. Today, with an ever-increasing array of microbial parasites not treatable by conventional means, increasing numbers of people are convinced that membranes are the critical technology to safeguard the world's water supply. A growing number now subscribe to the belief that cost effective and simple membrane technology is also the key to reusing water, thereby alleviating water shortages.

Noted as a leading authority on global water related issues, he has written over 100 scientific papers on different water and wastewater treatment technologies and lectured extensively as keynote speaker to learned societies around the world.

Benedek serves on several corporate and advisory boards and is a research associate at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego.

ZENON's "Water for Humanity" employee program, in 2003 donated a drinking water treatment plant  to a community in Vietnam that was built by ZENON employees who volunteered their time.

In June of 2006, ZENON became a member of GE Water & Process Technologies to enhance GE’s current water scarcity platform by providing pre-treatment technology for reverse osmosis desalination and water reuse.

www.zenon.com

Book Publishers Bullish on the Economy — As a Subject (LAT)

As the U.S. economy deteriorates and millions wrestle with questions about their faltering 401(k)s and when — or if — to cash out long-term stock investments, major publishers are scrambling to cash in. They're working feverishly to find the next "big book" that reflects a more sobering view of the economy and offers solutions to help Americans survive the current fiscal woes.

I've been in and around the media since I worked at a radio station in 1969, I believe it was.  (I've slept since then and dates are getting fuzzy)... :-)  BUT, what I do recall during this time is that the economy has been on a tear.  Population has been on a tear.  Greed has been on a tear.  Wealth has... you get the picture.

Our American economy has been an unsustainable concept and process...and our main export to nations around the world who wanted "just a piece of that delicious pie".

When you look at nature as a pretty enduring model of growth, you find that invasive species run rampant in growth (look at kudzu or zebra muscles for example) -- until they crash the system!  Not just crashing their own species, but the entire habitat and neighboring species.  And we have history of empire crashes, as well -- British, Roman, Soviet...

That's a good metaphor for continuous, invasive, economic growth.

What's the solution?  My solution, if any publishers are listening...

Bring common sense back. Bring balance back. Harmony.  Slow growth.  Value.  Limit growth, focus on quality and human scale commerce.  Local concern.  Family concern.  Safe neighborhoods and less people in prison.  Care for one another rather than see them as victims for blood sucking...uh, I mean consumption.

Book publishers are in an interesting battle for growth.  They are suffering the results of invasive growth by a competitive species -- the Internet.  Paper is so yesterday -- or last century.  It uses trees.  It costs fuel and time to ship around.  Untenable return policies make book commerce a battle between publishers and retailers....etc, etc, etc.  For book publishers to be seeking solutions to lower growth is a matter of self preservation! THEY need a solution.

I wish them the best as they seek the next megastar authors that feed their own visions of high growth and grandeur at the expense of the "native species" who are stamped out by the invasive practices of high growth strategies.

Books have been the in-depth watertable for our shared cultural knowledge.  A resource we could all tap into for information, wisdom, strategy, history and common understanding.  By eschewing the middle of the author's ranks for the lowest and highest common denominators (crass humor to lofty political achievement) ... we  have turned the life-supporting heart of book publishing into a cottage industry that is benefiting from self publishing in print and on the Internet.  (Yes, that's me, too).

I hope book publishers find the solutions they are looking for -- but I doubt that another high profile author has much understanding of the real problems that need solving to make this a solvent nation, a wise people and a balanced civilization.  

But I can hope, can't I?

We can't live the same way we've been living and expect different results! We are facing mass extinction of many of the millions of species that weave our natural systems and biosphere. This is serious business and only by facing the pain can we understand deeply enough to change what we are doing TODAY.

What do you do when you see the scope of the damage happening around us today? Getting past denial is step one. This short film will help us face reality.

This is a preview from "Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction," a feature documentary now in production.

This is a preview from "Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction," a feature documentary now in production. The loss of biodiversity on earth has become so acute that scientists are now calling it a "mass extinction event." The crisis has many causes, all of which are related to human activity. Through interviews with eminent biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, historians, and many others, the film not only presents the facts of the shocking decline, it also explores the ways in which culture and psychology have conspired to determine our collective and individual response to this situation, and how the latest insights into natural systems could help us turn back the tide.

The film weaves biology, psychology, and cultural history into a clear and accessible story of our changing world. The audience is taken into the depths of the human psyche, through the toughest problems of our times and into the cutting edge of what nature has to teach us. The mass extinction is quite possibly the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced. Those of us alive today have been given a choice—one last opportunity to save the diversity of our planet. The decisions we make or fail to make in the next few years will affect the habitability of earth for millennia to come. This is the greatest adventure of all time—with the future of life itself in the balance.

Species Alliance

Ray Anderson, citizen and corporate leader, has come face to face with his role in today's industrial role in unsustainable business shares his thought process and his solutions in this excerpt from "The Corporation".

The book Ray Anderson credits with opening his eyes to the free-fall to earth that is better known as "business as usual" is "The Ecology of Commerce" by Paul Hawkins.

He calls for a paradigm shift of how we view business. That we look at how we are plundering our natural resources and natural processes and leaving a mess for our grandchildren. And we need to create a new revolution -- moving beyond the industrial revolution to a new revolution. One that could be called a "productivity revolution" or a "sustainability revolution."

A new Web-based portal developed at the University of California, Berkeley, provides consumers with specific, personalized information they need to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. Virtually everything we do results in the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide.

The new portal, found at http://www.CoolCalifornia.org , is the only "carbon footprint calculator" that can be used to evaluate both direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases related to individual lifestyle choices.

It provides localized emissions estimates for transportation, housing, food, goods and services, as well as resources that can help users make more climate-friendly choices.

The calculator was designed by researchers at the Berkeley Institute of the Environment, in partnership with the California Air Resources Board, the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the California Energy Commission, and the independent, nonpartisan organization Next 10.

Researchers expect the tool to play an important role in changing the way Californians think about, monitor and address their personal climate footprints. For more information, contact director of public affairs for the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources Cyril Manning, (510) 643-1722, cyril@berkeley.edu.

An increase in consumption of water, or energy, or any commodity associated with increases in efficiency is supported by economic theory and studies in specific sectors. Debates remain over how important the effect is in different circumstances. In developed countries, the rebound effect is small to moderate, ranging from roughly 5% to 40%, depending on the type of energy used.

The Rebound Effect isn't theory any longer.  People in California are beginning to notice that developers are allowed to build bigger and more projects as conservationists reduce their water usage. Their sacrifice is not being applied to reinforcing the natural systems of the  environment -- it is being used to fuel more rapid development of wildland incursions and massive, high-end development that is not sustainable -- or efficient.

SOURCE: The Rebound Effect in California Water

It's all about the SYSTEM! Engaging individual action depends on a feeling of fairness and results that can truly make a difference. Self-sacrifice for one's principles just doesn't cut it any more...the world has become a giant networked "self-interest" system.

...when I sacrifice and struggle and change my habits and compromise my life to save water, what will happen? The developers and politicians will immediately approve more housing tracts as far as the eye can see.

And the numbers are large: the Pacific Institute think tank estimates that if all traditional washing machines in California were replaced with the more efficient models, the savings could amount to 33 billion gallons of water a year.

That's enough water, the report states, to provide for the total household needs of more than 600,000 Californians annually.

SOURCE: Pardon Our Dust

Cities, counties and states must look at how they are penalizing and rewarding conservation behaviors if they want to provide a fair system that truly becomes an environmentally sustainable community. Bias isn't sustainable. We're all in this together and must sacrifice equitably, and benefit equitably. That's the basis of a democracy...and a republic, for that matter. And green is about shared responsibility.