Case Studies & Examples

In many cities across the world, innovative initiatives and accomplishments show that energy and environmentally smart strategies have begun to take root in every aspect of city planning, management, and operations. Initiatives vary by size and scale including, programs like; green buildings, energy efficiency, supply and reliability, green and renewable power, alternative fuel vehicles, city greening, green government purchasing, alternative recycling, consumer rebates, eco clubs, consumer education, and others.

Metropolitan Planning Organizations – Process for Long-range Plans

In the United States, the State Department of Transportation (DOT) and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs do most of the land-use/transportation development planning around U.S. cities), use common methods in transportation planning. Most long-range transportation planning efforts follow a sequence of several steps to arrive at a Plan. At each step, certain information is incorporated and decisions are made. While these typical practices may not be explicitly mentioned in federal planning statutes and regulations, they are conventional applications that are common across regional and state boundaries.

The framework below is an example of such a process suggested by the Federal Highway Administration in a recent report on ‘Integrating Climate Change into the Transportation Planning Process’. The figure below illustrates the basic steps in the long-range transportation planning process of state DOTs and MPOs to integrate climate change. The steps are organized to reflect the typical metropolitan transportation planning process. Most MPOs will go through each of these steps in drafting their transportation plans, although the order of steps may vary slightly. In addition, state DOTs use many of the same steps in drafting statewide transportation plans. The stakeholders involved, the information

considered, and the decision-making structure at each step of transportation planning influences the eventual outcome of the plan.

New York City’s Long-Term Sustainability Plan

On Earth Day 2007, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg released PlaNYC, which puts forth a strategy to reduce the City’s greenhouse gas footprint, while also accommodating a population growth of nearly one million and improving New York’s infrastructure and environment.

The Plan brought together over 25 City agencies to work toward the vision of a greener, greater New York. New York has set the goal of reducing its citywide carbon emissions by 30% below 2005 levels, by 2030.11

Since then, New York has made significant progress towards our long-term goals. In just four years New York City has built hundreds of acres of new parkland while improving our existing parks, created or preserved more than 64,000 units of housing, built whole new neighborhoods with access to transit, provided New Yorkers with more transportation options, enacted the most ambitious laws of any city in the country to make existing buildings more energy-efficient and reduced greenhouse gas emissions 13% below 2005 levels. Over 97% of the

127 initiatives in PlaNYC were launched within one year of its release and almost two-thirds of its 2009 milestones were achieved or mostly achieved.

Chicago: Energy Policy

Chicago developed an energy policy in 2001 and has set up a Climate Change Task Force, which is preparing a long-range plan. Apart from various green buildings, energy efficiency, renewable energy, alternative fuels, and alternative recycling programs, the city has undertaken some specific initiatives, including; establishing a Green Business Strategy program which works with Chicago companies to help them save money by becoming more sensitive to the environment, pledging to organize Olympic 2016 with zero carbon footprint and partnering with the Clinton Foundation for building retrofits, in addition to retrofitting 15 million square feet of its own buildings.

San Francisco and Treasure Island

San Francisco Aims to become a 100% Renewable-powered city by 2022. Treasure Island project participated in the Clinton Climate Initiative’s (CCI) Climate Positive Development Program. It aims to be one of the most sustainable developments in the country as well as to have a LEED-ND Platinum certification with building performances that exceed the LEED Gold equivalent of the San Francisco Green Building Ordinance.

Arup evaluated a broad range of design strategies with a goal to identify strategies that are proved to be technically and economically feasible; help improve the community’s environmental performance; and improve the experience of those living on the islands. Strategies that were included for further design and development were wind and solar power, development of a central plant to service the island, stormwater attenuation and wetlands treatment, on-island wastewater treatment, grey-water reclamation, and a variety of alternative transportation options for residents and tourists.

The carbon impact of various strategies was also evaluated using the Clinton Climate Initiative's Climate Positive Framework. By starting with a “clean slate” for the Treasure Island project master- plan, energy demand was reduced and the quality of supply for building energy and transportation was improved substantially. Use of public transit is also encouraged by designing a dense, mixed-use, transit-oriented development; all leading to significantly reduced GHG emissions.

FortZed, Fort Collins, CO

Fort Collins aspires to be the model community for a replicable net Zero Energy District. FortZED's mission is to transform the downtown area and the main campus of Colorado State University into a net Zero Energy District through conservation, efficiency, renewable sources, and smart technologies. It includes over 7000 Residential and commercial consumers. Around 20 Distributed Renewable Energy projects are planned to be integrated into a smart grid that will feature advanced controls and inverters. These measures combined with Demand Side Management and Energy Efficiency measures have the potential to bring down peak electricity demand by around 20-30 percent.

UC Davis, West Village

UC Davis West Village is one of the nation’s largest planned zero-net energy communities. It is situated on 130 acres just west of the main campus. It was opened in 2011 and has around 800 students living in 315 apartments. It aims to expand to 4,200 residents in 343 for-sale homes for faculty and staff.

 The main highlight of this community is that it has been designed to produce as much energy as it consumes in a year. The campus has an extremely high energy-efficient design, photovoltaic solar panels, and a planned waste-to-energy bio-digester. UC Davis West Village also makes use of bicycles and bus transportation, has high residential density, and on-site drainage, which reinforces sustainable development.

Performance Evaluation and Improvement Frameworks: Case Study of New York City PlaNYC2030

Released in 2007, PlaNYC2030 was an unprecedented effort undertaken in New York City to prepare the city for one million more residents, strengthen the economy, combat climate change, and enhance the quality of life for all New Yorkers.

Implementing this Plan required the collective action and resources of the city government, the City Council, the State Legislature, State agencies, public authorities, the private and non-profit sectors, and individual New Yorkers. The Plan brought together over 25 City agencies to work toward the vision of a greener, greater New York. Since then, NYC has made significant progress toward its long-term goals in the Plan.

In the four years since PlaNYC was released, the City tracked annual progress on all initiatives. Although this Plan addresses long-term challenges, there is much that must be done in the near term to achieve goals. Keeping eyes on that twenty-year horizon, the City also needed to measure how they are doing year-by-year.

By 2011, in just four years the City had (as outlined in graphic format on the next page):

• built hundreds of acres of new parkland while improving existing parks,

• created or preserved more than 64,000 units of housing,

• built whole new neighborhoods with access to transit,

• provided New Yorkers with more transportation options,

• enacted the most ambitious laws of any city in the country to make existing buildings more energy-efficient, and

• reduced greenhouse gas emissions 13% below 2005 levels.

Over 97% of the 127 initiatives in PlaNYC2030 were launched within one year of its release and almost two-thirds of its 2009 milestones were achieved or mostly achieved. The updated plan in 2011 had 132 initiatives and more than 400 specific milestones to be achieved by December 31, 2013.