Decatur City Commission to Vote on New “Green” Policies
Decatur Metro | July 19, 2010Not “purple”. Or “blue”. Or heaven-forbid “orange” policies. No, we’re talking “green” policies. (I guess “green policies” is a bit more flexible and sounds better than “chlorophyll policies”.)
Anywho, at tonight’s Decatur City Commission meeting, the commissioners are scheduled to vote on two new policies as part of the application process for the Atlanta Regional Commission’s 2010 Green Communities Certification program. Decatur is currently certified “Bronze” by the ARC, while both Cobb County and Roswell are certified “Silver”.
The two new policies are:
- No net loss of tree canopy for city-owned & maintained properties.
- Green building incentives, which will give expedited plan review and public recognition to buildings that include one or more the following components: “green building” certifications, solar energy for new construction and Watersense certification for new homes.
For more info on these policies, see Stevens’ note on page 13 of the meeting materials.
Now here’s a question for all you environmental types: don’t solar energy incentives encourage cutting down more trees?
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I don’t think solar encourages trees to be cut — that would be wind technology, I think with windmill farms …. then again, I guess you could cut down some trees to make sure your panels had maximum exposure to the rays, but then again, you would be increasing the heat on your home because the natural cooling of the trees would be gone, so maybe it would be a net zero result …. that’s just my two, uninformed cents ….
My thinking was just that in order to have effective solar panels on your house, you can’t have trees around. So inadvertently, don’t solar panels promote the clear-cutting of lots?
Just an interesting dichotomy.
DM — Even though it appears this would apply to single family homes, it’s clearly got larger projects in mind. These are incentives that really only matter to big developers — in terms of application review time, if they’re sitting on a big loan, and in terms of the potential marketing advantage you might get from an award.
Since the larger projects are typically taller and located around downtown, they probably wouldn’t have an issue with trees blocking solar.
No, just a problem with blocking out the sun period.
My comment wasn’t directed at this specific Decatur policy, but more toward solar power incentives in general. And I’m not saying that it’s a causal relationship, that encouraging solar power means more cut trees.
However, I do find it sort of interesting that the promotion of solar power COULD lead to more downed trees under the right sort of circumstances.
And then what? What’s the modern day “environmentalist” looking to save energy and trees suppose to support?
Saving trees and non-renewable energy may be lumped together in the modern-day concern about “the earth”, but in some ways they conflict.
I’m sorry. Could someone explain to me how the color of our Green Community Certification (or whether we are even certified or not) makes one bit of difference in anyone’s day to day experience?
For clarity purposes, I like trees, and sidewalks, and bike paths, etc. as much as the next person, but I can’t see how a thrid party scoring of our city affects anyone. Why do we care about what hthe ARC thinks of us?
Grant Funding (i.e. free money)
Say that again in 2011 when tax rates go up.
“Free” – for lack of a better term – to the city, not the taxpayer.
It always surprises me when states don’t take federal funding that they could use or, even worse, take it but then don’t spend it because the supposedly “accountable”, supposedly “business-oriented” state government can’t purchase, contract, or hire anyone in less than 8 months. I realize that some take the high road that those are taxpayer dollars and they shouldn’t be spent unless absolutely necessary….but where do they think those unused funds go? That rejected federal funding doesn’t go back to the taxpayer in the form of lower taxes. It doesn’t even go back to the agency that awarded it, e.g. DOT or CDC. It goes back to the U.S. Treasury to get sucked into the infinite black hole of the federal deficit, never to be seen again. If Georgians pay federal tax like the citizens of any other state, why shouldn’t they get the benefits of their federal taxes like the citizens of any other state. Some federal funds come with all sorts of strings and restricitions that don’t make them worth spending, but many do not and Georgians deserve them as much as any other Americans. If the problem is that the federal funds should never have been committed in the first place, then that’s where the problem should be fixed, not by looking a gift horse in the mouth and letting funding lapse.
I fail to see how approving these measures will cause tax rates to go up.
They’re already going up on the federal level on 1/1/11 and there are additional increases from there, I believe, on certain income (dividends, rental properties) in the health care bill. So no, these grants alone aren’t necessarily causing increases. It was a more general point.
ARC’s website lists the benefits of the Green Communities program as:
-Fosters civic pride
-Creates a positive image of a place to live or conduct business
-Sets an example for businesses and organizations seeking to reduce their environmental impact.
-Leads to greater quality of life
To find out more about the program, visit: http://www.atlantaregional.com/environment/green-communities
I applaud Decatur for their forward thinking on “Green Building” projects.
Unfortunately, for 2010 the Georgia Incentive Tax credit has reached its funding cap of $2.5 Million. This means that solar projects will not receive the 35% tax credit which pretty much puts the payback of the project out too far for most folks. HB1069 puts a first-come first-serve reservation system in place for FY 2011 and 2012 so that you can have your project on the list when the funding opens back up for those years. (http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2009_10/sum/hb1069.htm)
However, to Decatur’s credit, if you can’t necessarily allocate dollars/funding to the initiative, you can at least make the process much easier for folks. There is some value in that.
Furthermore, Georgia has approved the concept of PACE which Decatur could adopt. From the DSIRE website (http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=GA54F&re=1&ee=1) a PACE is a “Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing effectively allows property owners to borrow money to pay for energy improvements. The amount borrowed is typically repaid via a special assessment on the property over a period of years.”
So, as a community, progress is being slowly made. Hopefully, more will come. My biggest recommendation is to support representatives that support “green” policies.