Menlo Green Ribbon Citizens' Committee

Residential Green Building Summit in San Jose

  The city of San Jose, along with several cosponsors, is organizing a Residential Green Building Summit on Thursday, June 7, 2007 from 7:30 am to 2:00 pm at the San Jose City Hall Rotunda. The $100 cost includes continental breakfast, lunch and parking validation. The Summit's target audience is builders, developers, designers, architects, brokers, and financiers according to conference organizers.  

Conference sessions specific to residential development include:   

 

• Sustainable rating systems;
 
• Green building financing; and
 
• Methods of incorporating green building products and practices

  

Register by June 1st at www.sanjoseca.gov/esd/greenbuilding.html. For more information email GreenWorkshop@sanjoseca.gov or call (408) 535-8550.

 

Transit and Transportation Working Group, 5/22/07

Attendees: John Morris, Steve Schmidt, Charlie Bourne, Jim Calhoun, Elizabeth Lasensky, and guest Patty Boyle

Patty Boyle presented on mixed use/mixed income transit oriented housing.  Patty is the Chair of the Menlo Park Housing Commission and has been an affordable housing advocate for many years.

The combined housing and transit costs in the Bay Area has been around 63% of income, is higher now with higher gas costs. That leaves little income left for other things.  In order to preserve our open space and agricultural land, Menlo Park should develop the land already disturbed and recycle areas close to transit that no longer serve the original purpose – infill development of empty car lots, etc.

The further one drives the more affordable housing becomes; hence long, costly work commutes which increase the CO2 and traffic congestion, at the same time there are health and family costs to these long commutes. By providing affordable housing near train and bus transit, people will reside closer to jobs, which may aid in worker retention.  The expansion of Stanford Hospital, new hotels and offices will increase the number of jobs, which will also increase the commute and the demand for housing.

Well designed housing within 1/2 mile of a transit hub also creates a walkable/bikeable neighborhood which benefits local merchants as well as the residents and their families. Many of the transit-related condominiums are one and two bedrooms, more likely to inhabited by singles or couples rather than families, thereby having less impact on schools. Transit-oriented housing is a good option for seniors who want to downsize or move into affordable senior units and want to give up driving.

In order for transit to be cost effective there has to be a baseline of transit users (chicken or the egg).

A good transit system and a variety of housing options provide vitality to a city.

Some suggestions:

Do a zip code survey of/by Menlo Park employers, including the City, of their employee’s commute patterns. Could be done by the Chamber of Commerce or other entity.

Develop an improved system for connecting riders from one type of transit to another with frequent runs during peak times and include non-peak times. Expand current shuttle service, provide user-friendly printed schedules and route maps.

Create a statement of support for 40 units per acre for transit-oriented housing developments.

Further discussion:

Questions included what is a desirable height, units per acre? What would we support as a committee? An excellent example was Glenwood Retirement Inn, which has 40 units per acre, is very attractive, has good setback and landscaping, is unobtrusive.

For height, it was noted that MP already has a 4 story building on El Camino  (Charles Schwab) that no one complains about because it is at an angle and is well landscaped. Another example of height is the Park Forest apartment building that is 3.5 stories high and further up El Camino. We weren’t sure of the density of the Park Forest.

Patty will draft a statement of support for the 40 units per acre suggestion for our group to vote on. What other policy statements are we willing to make for the final report on this topic?

DUMBARTON RAIL

We noted that this topic was on the City Council agenda twice for later in the evening so our discussions were somewhat curtailed. Members who will attend will report back to the subcommittee on the presentation at Council by the Dumbarton project lead and subsequent Council deliberations. This will be a very preliminary presentation, as there is much that is unknown yet. The next meeting of the Dumbarton Rail Commission is June 19th on the Peninsula. Meetings are open to the public.

Jim had some interesting facts: SamTrans owns the entire Caltrain track from San Francisco to San Jose and both Muni and VTA owe SamTrans millions of dollars for Caltrain. And SamTrans is about to get those millions - $11 million from Muni and $38 million from VTA. Rights on the Dumbarton Rail line are fine from Redwood City to Newark. The problems with the rail rights are from Newark to Union City.

So far, the Wildlife Refuge has been ignored in discussions and they need to be included, early and often. We acknowledged there were some other environmental concerns as well. The issue of freight trains using the rail was discussed.

The meeting adjourned at 6:00 pm

The next meeting will be at 5:00 until 6:30 on Tuesday, June 5 in the upstairs conference room in the Administration Building. Please note new start time.

Agenda items:

Discussion and consensus on transit-oriented housing proposals

Continued discussion of the Dumbarton Rail, and attendees of the City Council meeting will report back to the rest of us.

The General Plan

Agenda topics for future meetings, the Plug-In project, bike storage lockers, making Menlo Park more pedestrian friendly, other???

Green Building Summit in San Francisco

On Tuesday May 29 the 2nd Annual Builder-to-Builder Green Summit is being held at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

Sessions provide information on energy efficiency and green building for multi-family projects:

• Heather Larson, project manager of the California Multifamily New Homes (CMFNH) program sponsored by PG&E, will present case studies and analysis of qualifying highrise and lowrise projects, in Climate Zone 3, with and without Air Conditioning.  The California Multifamily New Homes Program  offers cash incentives and technical design assistance towards exceeding the code by at least 15%. Achieving this threshold opens the door to additional opportunities including ENERGY STAR® marketing benefits, the New Solar Homes Partnership and Green building certification. 
• Tenaya Asan of Build it Green will cover the GreenPoint Rated program,  a third-party rating system providing an evaluation of green practices  within the multifamily project.  She will discuss what it is, how it works and the benefit to the builder and community.  She will give some  case studies of GreenPoint Rated projects.

The 2nd Annual Builder-to-Builder Green Summit
9:00am - 6:30pm Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco
http://www.pcbc2007.com/main.aspx?websiteid=07PCBC&mainsectionid=2&pageid=125

 

Amory Lovins lectures available online

Amory Lovins' lecture series, Advanced Energy Efficiency: Concepts and Practice, is now available online. In March, Mr. Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute and the fifth MAP/Ming Visiting Professor for Energy and the Environment at

Stanford

University

conducted an evening lecture series at Stanford. The lectures are now available online in audio and video formats

1. Downloadable video: iTunes (http://itunes.stanford.edu).  

 

2. Downloadable audio: Center for Social Innovation, Stanford Graduate School of Business (www.gsb.stanford.edu/csi) Available soon

3. Streaming video: RMI (http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid1260.php

Green building policy workshop at Adobe Systems

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Build It Green and the Northern California Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council on the     morning of June 27^th at Adobe for a workshop on green building policy.  What are other cities doing?  How have they structured their policies?  And how can your city appropriately encourage green building ?

For details, see: www.svlg.net

   

Coordinating Committee, May 16, 2007

Menlo Park Green Ribbon Citizen’s Committee May 16, 2007 – 3:30 to 5:00 pm

Coordinating Committee - Menlo Park City Hall

These comments come directly from the participants at the May 16^th, 2007 coordinating committee of the Menlo Park Green Ribbon Citizen’s Committee - MPGRCC. 

In attendance: Patti, Mitch, Elizabeth, Chris, Randy (Ken, Heyward, Michelle, Kristi – later on)

3:33

Start

What is the process for us to create, edit, review and complete the letter to the council considering that we are doing this by email? How do we accept the edits or recommended changes?

Patti

Any wording edits or changes on actual recommendation items should come from the subgroups.

Elizabeth

We just don’t have the time for the full participation of the entire group.  How do we make the most use of people’s time?  We could be creating a sense of a burnout

Agenda Items:

Review of the Council Letter.

An agenda ready for Kelly on Wednesday.

How do we make the most use of people’s time? 

The Green Business Subcommittee is having a difficult time

3:44-Ongoing

Review the council letter

3:57

Heyward and Ken join the meeting

Heyward

To be in the packet the letter has to be in staff’s hands by tomorrow mid-day.

It has to be submitted at least 72 hours before the council meeting.

Are we going to even review it on Tuesday?

Mitch

It was to get it into staff’s hands.

Heyward

We don’t meet on the 29^th,

The 12^th is the budget.

Elizabeth

If this was placed as written communication then it could get agendized.

Heyward

The first time it could get agendized is for the 6-12 meeting.

Randy

Is there value is discussing it at the Tuesday session?

Heyward

It might be worth having it to give staff guidance on the budget for what to and give a placeholder for proposals that will come from the GRCC.

We can go back and modify the budget mid-year.

4:02

Patti

Ask staff to consider the impact on the budget and then we’ll come back to it later.

Heyward

If Kelly, Kent, and Andy want to put something on the agenda, they can. It’s an appropriate thing for us to discuss what to do with the short term recommendations

Some of these have direct cost savings to the city.  City facility energy audit, LED lighting initiative.

November report will have higher level executive summary with the recommendation in a matrix that show the benefits

4:26

Heyward

Needs to be reference for the potential benefit for each recommendation item. This is something that we really need by June 14^th.

Patti

State up front that we will provide more information related to the benefits.

Agenda:

5:04

Leave the majority of the time to IDEO. The bulk of the meeting.

Do we want to keep doing one or two headlines?

Group

Yes

5:08

Kristi

At the last meeting, I didn’t “time for the minutes”; what about the networking exercise? I have an event on the 24^th at Flea Street Café, can I send out an email to the group?

Group

Yes

Elizabeth

I’d like to hear more from the groups about what they are working on…

Ask for people who are attending if they have any interest in joining; we are fragmenting I think;

Patti

Might be ideal after the IDEO session

5:13

Ken

After the networking session with Kristi in two meetings then more formal sharing by groups at our plenary meetings, with cross referencing and overlap review makes more sense…

5:16

Patti

Who needs to get the letter and when? How do we get a placeholder in the agenda for the city meeting?

This has to be approached as though it has to be done by noon tomorrow.

Menlo GRCC plenary meeting, May 9, 2007

Menlo Park Green Ribbon Citizen’s Committee
Fifth Plenary Meeting - Menlo Park Library
May 9^th, 2007 – 4 to 6 pm

These comments come from the participants at the May 9th, 2007 fifth plenary meeting of the Menlo Park Green Ribbon Citizen’s Committee - MPGRCC. 

4:10

 

Start

Welcome from Kelly Fergusson

Welcome, welcome, MPGRCC, do we have any newcomers?  There are a few people who are here for the first time.  Please do a quick introduction.  New participants in the MPGRCC: Rhoda, Carol, John

We are going to dive right into headlines today. I’m very proud to report that the MP city council on May 1^st unanimously approved the US mayor’s climate protection agreement. It was very much a process to get where we are today.  We also allocated $35k to do a community wide greenhouse gas emissions survey to create a baseline to do a climate protection plan. 

Headlines

Chris

Planet Week/Earth Watch section of the Saturday Chronicle describes the much faster melting of the Arctic ice cap that earlier models had projected.  The Arctic could be free or nearly free of summer ice nearly 30 years earlier then predicted – by 2020 instead of 2050.

Mitch

With materials and energy.  Heartening news about national legislation to reduce America’s global warming pollution by 2060.  Here’s what the coalition is agreeing to: to support legislation that is cutting greenhouse gases by 60 to 80 percent.  6 criteria; to account for the global dimensions of climate change – the us is essential; the effectiveness of energy efficient technology; mandatory requirements; create economic opportunity and advantage; be fair; must account for disproportionate impact; encourage early action; every effort should be made to reduce emissions.

Whose involved (partial list): Alcan; American International; Conoco; Deere; PepsiCo; Shell; Siemens; Alcoa; Duke Energy; General Electric; PG&E; National Wildlife Federation; Nature Conservancy; NRDC. 

Kelly

I’d like to introduce our guest speaker.  Talk about a man who needs no introduction in Menlo Park.  A year and a half ago Kepler’s closed its doors, and because of an outpouring of sentiment in the community, Kepler’s was "rebirthed" and this makes us all so proud.

Clark

I want to talk about our Go Green series that we are introducing that is part of our awareness of participating with our community.  For years we’ve been an organization that changes with the environment, to adapt with technologies and to serve our customers.  When I closed the business we had not done a good job of adapting with the changes that were going on.  When we reopened it was with a new awareness and sense of gratitude of what we owe the community.  We’ve redoubled our effort s to give back to the community.  With the awareness of global climate change and believing in our community and in collaboration, and feeling the urgency of global climate change, we put together this series that Christie Breish is managing.

We are doing this with many other community partners and organizations. 

Our goals are awareness, education, to be fun with interactive events for families and children. 

We want to create a call to action and to find new ways to do business.

We are working with a consultant on our visual layout, how we power the store, our energy usage, and finally that it’s about empowerment – things that you can turn around and do.

How do we find a way to adapt and change to our environment?

The topics are sustainable design, energy efficiency solutions, shopping locally – to create our own independent business alliance, organic farming and foods, automobile trends, and preserving open space.

Kick-off event in June 10^th on a Sunday.  We want to tie it into the MPGRCC work and we’d like people on this committee to participate in this event.

We want this effort to continue on into the future.

Kelly

The reason that we chose Wednesdays is that the concert in the park series is at Fremont Park from 6:30 to 7:30 and then people can walk down to Kepler’s.  August 1^st and 15^th we’ve talked about closing down Santa Cruz Avenue.

How can we springboard off of Go Green and capitalize on what is going on in this room?

Q?: are you looking for additional vendors and participants for you events?

Kristi

Yes, I’ll put my email up on the wall – email address is: kristibreisch@sbc.global.net

Q?: can we get a table as our group at the art and wine festival and at the concert series?

Kelly

That would probably be through Fran at the Chamber.

Q?: Just a suggestion, most of the venture people and law firms that live in Menlo Park are not on the list.

Q?: Have a box for suggestions on changes that the city can make.

Suggestions of tie-ins that are city wide that can be presented at the same time as a book are being presented.  Here are some organizations and businesses are doing in our city…

Diane Dryer

We would be happy to provide lot’s of handouts on all environmental topics for the events.

 

 

Kelly

I’d like to touch on a couple of ideas for future sessions.

IDEO is going to come and observe and give advice on our process. 

 

Comment

They are a design firm that does customer centered design and innovation. They have a really strong green and sustainability component.

 

 

Chris

Part of what they do focuses on brainstorming and creativity processes to generate the best thinking and ideas from a group.  During the Palo Alto process, they had outstanding individual facilitators work with each subcommittee to write down creative ideas on sticky notes and then they were organized into categories and themes. 

Any other ideas for speakers?:

Steve Schneider; working with the IPCC, one of the leading world wide experts on climate change.  Have him talk in the council chambers and invite the whole community.

Jim Sweeney; heading up the Precourt? center for energy efficiency.

Eric Freed an organicarchitect.com

Diane – a place opening in Redwood City called the Green Building Exchange, maybe a short presentation on what this resource is

Don Weden; former Santa Clara county commissioner

Next Ten; creating a climate index

Acterra and what they are doing in Palo Alto

Sustainable Silicon Valley

4:50

Randy

A report on our meeting with Kent Steffens – interim City Manager. Discussion on a high level on the top four or five items being recommended by the subcommittees.  It was encouraging to hear what the city is already doing.

Chris

It’s important to know how aware we are of getting everyone’s feedback and buy-in to what will be in the letter and for anything that the coordinating committee or the budget SWAT team is doing.  We are aware of the need to have this be a truly legitimate group effort.

Mitch

How do you envision what will happen with the comments that are going to come from each of the sub-groups?

5 pm

Randy

Maybe we could get the paragraphs together over the next few days and we can send out the intro and conclusions to everyone by Monday and if folks have edits then that information can get posted. 

Chris

I’ll do it.

5:02

Start Subgroup Dialogues

5:53

End of Subgroup Dialogues

5:59

Mitch

Temporary interruption to officially close the meeting to end on time.  An author that I found very insightful is Aldus Huxley – what does it take to put together a society that is very healthy, it isn’t any one thing, it’s everything together, no one thing will do.

Nothing short of everything will really do.

6:00

Close

Joint Venture Silicon Valley

Joint Venture Silicon Valley is organizing Silicon Valley's cities to form a procurement pool to acquire and finance technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from city and county operations. 
KGO TV did a short piece on the project on May 1.

According to Seth Fearey of the project, the group will consider technologies such as methane capture at land fill sites, hybrid/hydrogen/electric/bio-diesel fueled vehicles, air handling equipment, solar panels, and other expensive good.  It will be up to the group to decide which technologies are of greatest interest.

Sustainable Silicon Valley to host forum on Sustainability and Climate Action Plans

THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 8:30AM - 12:30PM: Sustainability and Climate Action Plans - Getting Started and Maintaining progress, an SSV Educational Forum, San Mateo City Library, 55 West 3^rd Avenue, San Mateo. Registration is open!

· Effective Planning – Defining the Scope, Engaging the Support: Jennifer Shepherd, Canyon Snow Consulting

· Getting Started and Maintaining Progress in a Corporate Environment – Lori Duvall, Eco Responsibility Program Manager, Sun Microsystems

· Climate Protection in the Context of City Environmental Management – City of Palo Alto, City of San Mateo

Energy and Materials, 5/2/2007

Location:

Cafe Borrone, outdoors, on cooler and damper than expected morning.

Attending:

Sarah Browning, Patti Fry, Tom Kabat, Manfred Kopisch, Mitch Slomiak, Gail Sredanovic, Kathy Switky

Agenda

Green Procurement Policy: Presentation by Tom Kabat

-Tom is using a mind-map style organizational scheme to flesh out a comprehensive view of the Green Procurement Policy issues

-Several municipalities have standards in place for Environmental Purchasing Policies (EPP). Reduction of toxicity has been the traditional focus. Reduction of greenhouse gases is  a newer area of focus.

-Tom has obtained templates of municipal resolutions from one or more of the following: San Jose, Berkeley, Nevada County.

-Key questions:  How to incorporate energy usage and lifecycle costing within EPP? How to measure external costs, such as increased health care spending resulting from certain pollutants?

-Palo Alto is contemplating a greenhouse gas 'adder' of $16 - $20 per ton of greenhouse gases emitted. ($20/ton is simpler, since it translates into exactly a penny a pound.) This adder will be used to calculate the effective cost of items that are being evaluated for spending on a cost basis.

---Rocky Mountain Institute has provided specific recommendations, which Tom is still studying to better understand the underlying reasoning and measurements.

Goal of a Green Procurement Policy: A Policy that Makes a Difference!

Policy Elements:

1) Set specific reduction goals for consumables (i.e. reduce paper use by 30%; office paper must have at least 30% post-consumer waste)

2) Easy to administer.

a) Work from acceptable procurement lists and/or evaluation models to avoid the need for repetitive research***

b) Use of existing standards, such as EnergyStar for appliances.

***Menlo Park has distributed procurement: standards and lists will be even more critical to guide and regulate procurement.

3) Lifecycle costing for capital purchases and improvements

a) Use one or several models that are readily available on-line.

b) As appropriate, draw on models from PG&E or other major municipal service providers

c) Mindset shift from lowest initial outlay to lowest lifecycle cost. (i.e. spend less up front for higher energy emitting product that does not last as long, or spend more up from for lower emissions and longer product life? Standards must be evaluated and established!)

4) Regular update of procurement lists and standards.

a) Address new products coming to market and/or product obsolescence

b) Address changes to standards and/or establishment of new standards.
c) Updates should be on regular basis (annual? bi-annual?) but not so frequent as to be onerous

5) Adopt a carbon adder and/or purchase carbon offsets

a) Create carbon offset example: pay employees to switch from cars to bicycles

6) Design and implement GPP with replication in mind: Menlo Park becomes a shining example that can be readily replicated!

The Energy & Materials team came up with a number of questions and comments. Among these are:

-- a need to better understand how the City shapes, administers, and trains on procurements policies

--identifying a champion within the City for GPP.

--Budget funds to hire a half-time City employee to oversee implementation and maintenance of GPP.

--Establish a reporting requirement and criteria on a periodic (annual?) basis to a City Commission and/or City Council (this enables detection of potential problem in government of employees who do not believe in the policy, find it an inconvenience, and/or are given insufficient resources to comply)

--Identify the specific energy & material areas that will be touched by a GCC and connect with both Building/Land Use and Transportation subcommittees to coordinate efforts and recommendations.

--Bottom line is that we driving toward a policy that will establish mechanisms to significantly reduce GHG emissions AND save the City a lot of money over the long-term

Other Issues/items

1) Meeting Location: Mitch will try and find a regular meeting room in a City building, or will solicit ideas from GRCC for more suitable location.

2) Sarah Browning will present her topic (Compact Fluorescent Lighting) for our May 9 meeting.