View source for Green Zoning in Massachusetts - 11/11/2020

This presentation was sponsored by the Massachusetts Climate Action
Network.

The first presenter is Dan Bartman, who's a planner with the City of
Somerville.

Somerville recently overhauled it's zoning code.  The process took
approximately 7 years, and was the city's first major zoning rewrite
in 30 years.

Zoning divides a municipality into districts, and regulates real
property within those districts.  Zoning is a police power of the
state.

Under Herbert Hoover, the US Department of Commerce published the
standard zoning enabling act in 1922.  This was model legislation
intended to be adapted and passed by state legislatures.  The enabling
legislation delegates police powers needed for zoning to
municipalities.  Chapter 40A is Massachusetts Zoning Enabling Act.  It
contains some restrictions on what cities and towns can do with their
zoning.  For example, cities and towns can't pass zoning laws that
conflict the state building code.  This is one of the reasons why
Brookline's town meeting was unable to pass a local ban on fossil fuel
infrastructure in new buildings and significant renovations.

Several planning efforts preceded Somerville's zoning rewrite.  They
performed a greenhouse gas inventory (buildings and automobiles are
Somerville's biggest carbon emitters).  They also performed a Climate
Change Vulnerability Assessment (rain flooding, heat islands, and sea
level rise/storm surge are the main vulnerabilities).  Somerville
Climate Forward was a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
address climate change vulnerabilities.

Parking is the first thing you have to talk about when using zoning to
address climate change.  The biggest determinant of the number of cars
on the road is the number of free spaces available to park them.  Each
parking space required under zoning will result in 4.6 tons of
CO2e/year.  Abolish parking minimums and charge market rate for
off-street parking.  Somerville repealed its parking minimums and
turned them into parking maximums.  Donald Shoupe has written two
books about parking (as it relates to urban planning).  They're worth
reading.

Somerville added landscaping standards to their zoning bylaws.  All
exposed earth must be landscaped and 50\% of it must be planted.  The
zoning laws give quality standards for trees and other forms of
plantings.  There are standards for street trees: the species must be
capable of growing 30' tall and there must be 1000 cubic feet/tree
available to the root system.

Somerville adopted bonuses in exchange for environmental performance
standards.  Different GFA thresholds trigger LEED rating
requirements.  There's a density bonus available for residential
buildings that are net zero ready (meaning there's no on-site
combustion for heating or cooking equipment).

Somerville incorporated a sustainability and resilience questionnaire
into site plan review and approval.  The goal was to get builders
thinking about how to minimize the environmental impact of their
buildings.  They also require LEED checklists and narratives.

Builders must submit LEED certifications in order to get a certificate
of occupancy.

Somerville considered a set of requirements for EV charging stations.
They ended up omitting these requirements, due to concerns about
conflicting with the state building code.

The next speaker is Renée from Green and Open Somerville.

Green and Open Somerville tries to improve green and open spaces in
the city.  They advocate for ecological restoration and use of native
plants.  They discourage the use of artificial turf and promote native
plants as a food source for birds and pollinators.

During the zoning overhaul, Green and Open Somerville worked with the
planning department to create the "Somerville Green Standard".  They
discovered that several of their goals couldn't be address through
zoning, so they worked on a "green score" instead.  The standard
incentivizes things like solar panels and green roofs.

Renée suggests that people organize, get to know their elected
officials, attend public meetings, and apply to serve on committees
and commissions.  Get to know developers that work in the city;
identify progressive developers and try getting them to lead by
example.  It's important to have allies.

Green and Open Somerville occasionally does projects like planting
pollinator gardens and clearing invasive plants.

The third speaker is Katherine, from the Urban Sustainability
Directors Network, https://www.usdn.org.  USDN has a group of
member communities that are trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Zoning is a tool in this effort.  It can be used to push for more
compact sustainable development.

Many communities are realizing that they're not on track to meet GHG
reduction goals.  Some cities are imposing performance standards on
new development (e.g., NYC, DC).  Others are requiring retrofits to
existing buildings (e.g., Philadelphia).

In general, newly-constructed buildings will have less GHG emissions,
but it's important to lock in standards.

Municipalities are becoming interested in influencing the building
code.  Push for the adoption of stretch codes where possible.

New buildings should be ready to accommodate improvements in clean
energy technology.  You can incentivize things like EV charging
stations, energy storage ready, solar readiness, and all-electric
buildings.

Watertown requires solar in new commercial buildings.  Vancouver
requires specific energy efficiency targets during major
rehabilitations or use changes.

Time for Q&A with the speakers.

Question: has Somerville done any studies on landscaping as a way to
reduce urban heat islands?

Dan Bartman says they did some work when developing the green score,
but not any formal studies.

Question: How do you decide what tree species to recommend?

Dan says Somerville developed a scoring index.  They made a list of
tree species and a list of categories, then scored each tree species.
The 30 species with the highest scores are the ones they recommend.

Question: did you consider incorporating white roofs in your
performance standards?

Dan says they require high albedo roofs.  They precise color isn't as
important as whether the roof reflects or absorbs heat.  Dan says
performance standards are a way to achieve sustainability goals.

Question: Why is the stretch code called the stretch code?

Katherine says that stretch codes go beyond what's required in the
national building code.  In Massachusetts, communities can opt in to
requiring the stretch code.  Katherine says it's important to work
from the strongest base code possible.

Question: What does "storage ready" mean?

Storage Ready means that a building has facilities to accommodate
batteries, or some other device to store power.

Question: how do you get people excited about zoning?

Dan says that Somerville used to provide pizza at their public events.
Conversations about zoning can be heated and complex, but we've only
found success after engaging with the public.

Renée says that zoning is hard to grasp, and not all that
exciting.  Zoning can be a vehicle for getting what you want; it's
exciting when you can tie them together.

Tori (also from Green and Open Somerville) says that zoning becomes
interesting once you realize it's a way to achieve progressive goals.

[[Category:Notes]]