Via Council member Mark Kleinschmidt’s ‘blog, it appears we’re well on the way to Chapel Hill getting a carrot to entice developers to adhere to better environmental standards.
The new law :
“Sec. 5.19. Ordinances permitting density bonuses and other land‑use development incentives for development projects agreeing to meet energy conservation carbon reduction standards.
For the purpose of reducing the amount of energy consumption by new development, and thereby promoting the public health, safety, and welfare, the Town of Chapel Hill may grant a density bonus, make adjustments to otherwise applicable development requirements, or provide other incentives to a developer within the Town and its extraterritorial planning jurisdiction if the developer agrees to construct new development or reconstruct existing development in a manner that the Town determines, based on generally recognized standards established for such purposes, makes a significant contribution to the reduction of energy consumption.“
When Council first proposed this quid pro quo type approach I was excited.
Sure, smart developers would already be pursuing state-of-the-art strategies to lessen energy consumption. Savvy business folks recognize that reducing the energy footprint of a building is now a key market differentiator – that many environmentally-sound design practices actually are inexpensive. Nothing like building a premium into ones property with no negligible impact on the bottom line.
For those developers not quite as sold on the economic and ecological benefits, Chapel Hill would have this new carrot.
My excitement, though, has been tempered by recent history. With poor Council leadership, this law could allow for greater abuses in land management. Look how Strom and company forced through a new planning zone – TC-3 – allowing more than double the density and %33 more height in the Downtown area. They used Greenbridge, a development adhering to the highest environmental standards, as cover for their sleight-of-hand approval of a new policy that, I believe, many in Chapel Hill would not agree with.
In the hands of the “rah rah” growth crowd,this energy miser ordinance could be used as a bludgeon to hammer our Town into rough conformity with their “density at any cost” vision.
To protect against abuse, it is key that a mechanism be created to adopt the highest objective standards for measuring energy reductions and to design in future flexibility for adopting other “best in class” metrics to keep our local ordinance “evergreen”.
Further, there should be NO in lieu provision (something which has been greatly abused in the affordable housing arena). A developer either adheres to these objective standards to get their “carrot” of increased density or not get a variance.
Without these additional provisions, we’re facing the great possibility of more poor public policy “greenwashed” and cloaked in the rhetoric of environmental remediation.
Will,
While I disagree with your analysis of the Council, (and risking putting the horse before the cart), I look forward to your input on what the ultimate ordinance will look like. Developing the standards will an important community exercise.
Although it’s hard at this point to understand how a payment in lieu could work, I disagree with your characterization of how the Town has used payment in lieu in the affordable housing realm. While it has been used a couple of times (the only one I can think of at this moment is the McCorkle condo conversion), it is extraordinarily rare. Note that we refrained from using this tool with Greenbridge and several other developments where this idea has been proposed. The only circumstance in which I see it becoming anything near a common practice is in the case of rental communities. We’ve been struggling with rental properties for a long time and haven’t been able to develop a policy that matches the economic differences between rental projects and for sale projects.
Mark, your support for square footage over money has been commendable. I agree, the success of this strategy hinges on picking measurable standards and making sure folks deliver. Beyond that, as technology and understanding advances, we need a mechanism to incorporate the best-thinking at that point in time to determine reasonable requirements.
I understand you differ with me on Council but as a close observer of what they do I believe there’s been a distinct sea change. For instance, somewhere along the way some folks stopped leading and started commanding. And getting your political way, as some of your colleagues have, through sleight-of-hand is something we should reserve for the national arena.
I expect our local government to rise above the average and act to the best of the public interest. Part of that is going beyond informing our citizenry to educating them. Look at the difference in the level of debate between setting the height limits for Nationsbank and setting the TC-3 zone. Huge! And the Council that decided Nationsbank, as near as I can tell, did not profess a commitment to bring an informed public into the process as our current Council has…
Thanks for responding. I will volunteer for a task force to draft those standards if we get that far.