|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Two recent approvals of development projects by Menlo Park’s City Council — and the headaches that ensued when council members tried to figure out how to craft green building regulations from the dais — have made the city’s need for a “green” building code very clear.
But setting climate change-related policy when it comes to new development projects won’t be easy.
In approving an 110,000-square-foot development for 1300 El Camino Real at their Oct. 6 meeting, council members stipulated that the operation of the structures be “carbon neutral.” City staff members and the site developer say they’re still trying to figure out exactly what that means; Councilwoman Kelly Fergusson and the city attorney spent several minutes hashing out the exact wording at a subsequent council meeting.
In approving a two-story, 10,100-square foot office building for 1706 El Camino Real at its Oct. 20 meeting, the City Council opted not to impose the same requirement.
“These things are tough to do up here on the last, final approval,” Mayor Heyward Robinson said. “It was OK on 1300, that was a bigger project, but I want to keep this one fairly clean.”
Ms. Fergusson dissented in the vote, in large part because she wanted the council to stipulate that the operation of the buildings be carbon-neutral.
While current council members have repeatedly stated their commitment to addressing the issue of climate change, they have not set goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the city. Nor have they discussed setting policies related to new real estate development projects, perhaps the arena where the city can make the most impact in terms of climate change.
“Menlo Park has not set a mandate for developers to reduce the emissions their projects generate. Shouldn’t we do that now?” Mitch Slomiak, head of the volunteer Green Ribbon Citizens’ Committee, said in an interview. “Once the buildings are already in place, it’s much harder to do so.”
New policy?
In January, the council is scheduled to discuss adopting the state’s green building code. That code will become mandatory for all development projects in late 2010, according to Community Development Director Arlinda Heineck.
The code sets standards for water use and greenhouse gas emissions, but it does not call for carbon neutrality — the condition the council imposed on the 1300 El Camino Real project. If the city wants to set its own code, “it would take some research to look at what other options are out there, both the beneficial and adverse impacts of them,” she said.
Even a demanding green building code would not regulate greenhouse gases generated by new traffic, which typically accounts for the great majority of emissions associated with a single project. About 86 percent of the projected greenhouse gas emissions for the 1300 El Camino Real project will come from vehicles going to and from the site, according to the environmental impact report. Despite the council’s carbon-neutral specification, the project will increase annual emissions by 1.4 percent citywide over 2005 levels.
“We can build green all day long, I think it’s a good thing to do … but the transportation impacts are a real challenge to mitigate, because in general, they’re things that involve multiple jurisdictions,” Mayor Robinson said at the Oct. 20 meeting. “They’re regional, if not broader, issues.”
Mr. Slomiak suggested the city require developers to offset climate impacts by either funding projects to reduce emissions elsewhere in the city, or buying annual carbon offset credits through a PG&E program.
While the City Council could impose additional “green” requirements as a condition of approval for projects that come before it, doing so on an ad hoc basis would be dangerous, Mr. Slomiak warned.
“When climate change gets thrown into the fray in politically controversial decisions, it’s awkward,” he said, noting that it can be convenient for people to wave the flag of climate change when they oppose a project on other grounds. “If Menlo Park had guidelines in place, it would be cut and dried.”
Former council member Paul Collacchi sent a letter to the city in September, urging the council to set a policy before it considers David Bohannon’s proposed “Menlo Gateway” office/hotel project in east Menlo Park, slated for a council decision in spring 2010. The environmental impact report for that project estimates that it would cause citywide greenhouse gas emissions to rise by 3 to 4.5 percent over 2005 levels the bulk of that from transportation to and from the site.
Getting a policy in place before then will be a tall order. For the city to even set a threshold of “significance” on greenhouse gas emissions, as it relates to environmental laws, would be a serious undertaking, Ms. Heineck said. And the council has not asked city staff to do so.
“It’s not a project for us right now,” she said.
While it’s great that Menlo Park’s Council unanimously adopted a Climate Action Plan last spring, our City is far behind other communities on green building incentives and requirements, as well as setting standards of significance for projects that need formal environmental review.
For example, the County of San Mateo has pilot Green Building incentive program that applies to significant commercial and residential projects and provides expedited planning reviews and building inspections for projects designed to certain measurable standards.
There is no need to wait for the State Building Code’s green building efforts to be completed for Menlo Park to start moving forward, as has been shown by dozens of other successful Cities, as documented in the Green RIbbon Citizen’s Committee’s comprehensive Report on Best Practices which was received by the Council way back in November 2007.
In the meantime, because it is clear that we need to reduce our community-wide carbon footprint, it is reasonable to condition major projects to mitigate the harmful externalities they cause — including their net CO2 emissions increases — whether due to the construction process, the energy use of the buildings themselves or the traffic they newly generate.
The cost of mitigation of net CO2 emissions can be very reasonable (as little as $10 per metric ton for independently verified California-based projects of the highest quality). For a project like Gateway, with net emissions of 15,000 – 24,000 tons per year as shown in the DEIR, the annual cost could be as low as $150,000 per year, which is a drop in the bucket for a project that could yield hudreds of millions in overall revenues.
It would be far more expensive for the City to wait and then have to foot a much heftier bill to deal with the severe consquences of inaction on Climate Change.
Let’s hope the Council will continue to find its way forward on this pressing issue, and keep it a priority. We owe it to the next several generations to do so now.
It isn’t enough to neutralize the greenhouse gas emissions of a new project. Every part of Menlo Park has to actually reduce our community’s GSG emissions and deal with impacts on schools, roads, jobs/housing imbalance. Major new projects that require special approvals shouldn’t get by if they only neutralize what they add in terms of C02. They should be tasked to address all the externalities, like traffic congestion, housing, water.
On a local level development projects may generate traffic for the purposes of analyzing traffic flow. However, on a global level these projects do not generate any traffic at all. The vehicles and people in them exist and are used anyway. Therefore counting vehicle emmissions as part of a new buildings footprint is an invalid assumption and an unnecessary burden on a development.
The assumption that a tax is a ‘drop in the bucket’ for a project that ‘could yield hundreds of millions’ is also invalid.
What about a credit for all the smaller buildings that are not built because the larger buildings meet the demand? Smaller buildings are less efficient.
There are many more questionable assumptions in the statement above.
Our city is one large development created by private individuals willing to take large risks for small gains. It was not financed or constructed by government (except the goverment center, public schools and federal buildings). The lack of new building in our commercial areas for the last twenty years is primarily the result of governmental restrictions. We need development. Always have. Always will.
Global warming is a very serious and urgent issue. Many environmentalists believe, and there is evidence, that higher density development in areas like Menlo Park will lead to shorter commutes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Calculating a carbon footprint is a process full of questionable assumptions and should not be used as an anti development tool. Remember the incentives as well as requirements.
I encourage MP to wait for the State to issue their Green Building Standards for a broader, balanced view of this problem that is much bigger than Menlo Park.
I agree it’s important to question assumptions. One biggie is the assumption that our community, region, or even our state MUST grow a certain amount, and MUST grow faster than the rest of the country. Higher density only reduces sprawl elsewhere if there are restrictions in those elsewhere places. Otherwise, there still will be sprawl.
Another assumption to examine: higher density will result in shorter commutes and less traffic. Isn’t that only true if each resident is hired by and stays hired by a company near home? Their partner, too? Isn’t it only true that there will be less traffic if there is adequate transit? In Menlo Park, even the north/south transit is infrequent (and HSR won’t stop in MP)and there is almost no east/west transit. It’s a real leap of faith to think that increasing density on El Camino or along the train tracks will help. Using that logic, perhaps there should be a lot more density along Willow Road, Sand Hill Road, and Santa Cruz Avenue? Traffic congestion will increase with more density. Period.
Need to neutralize has revealed the problem with a local action plan to fight fight global warming through a reduced carbon footprint. He quickly digresses into anti development nimbyism and away from the topic.
The problem is not about increased traffic on El Camino.
Need to neutralize confirms careful about assumptions concerns that this effort could become an anti development ploy.
Throwing out labels like NIMBY is off topic also. There could be a fruitful discussion about ALL assumptions and what those mean locally. I was just pointing out some other important ones that are related to the issue of how our society could address climate change and the fact that there are many interrelated quality of life issues involved.
I support more dense development if it deals with its CO2 externalities even if other externalities still exist because I believe we can grow and still deal with climate change if we do it in smarter ways, but I disagree about waiting for the State or Feds.
There is a long history of Bay Area cities leading the way, and then later California leading as well, and (sometimes decades) later the Feds. But the consequences of not leading on the fight against climate change is an “extinction opportunity” for our species. We simply can’t continue business as usual. So we need to grow in ways that are “business as enlightened.” Actually those that take early action are getting CO2 reductions that are the low hanging fruit. Early action is critical.
This is a moral imperative, and taking action will bear economic fruit for Menlo Park. We will attract the kinds of businesses and creative people who understand this.
Our Menlo Park address is already associated with innovation — we need to figure out how to take it to a new level and become a clean tech green tech center whose policies reflect that as well. This should be seen as a pro development and economic growth move. There is no flourishing economy without a healthy natural environment in which to do it which has adequate potable water and healthy air and lack of dislocational events like rapid sea level rise aroudn the Bay, which BCDC is projecting.