Final Presentation

Sustainability and the Built Environment

1. Eco-Municipality: Madison, WI
2. Company: Sabre Holdings
3. Residential Development: Wheatley Choice in San Antonio, TX

Sandy Bauman, Sustainability Coordinator UNT Health Science Center

image from http://web.unthsc.edu/info/200563/
sustainability/908/contact_us

Our last guest speaker was Sandy Bauman, who has served as Sustainability Coordinator at UNT Health Science Center for the past year. She spoke about what UNTHSC is doing to promote sustainability, and lessons that she has learned as a sustainability coordinator.

The Office of Sustainability, an office of one, is trying to reduce the Health Center's environmental impact while saving revenue, educating the campus, and tracking environmental impact. Bauman believes that these activities fit into UNTHSC's mission to improve "health and quality of life." Promoting sustainable practices is especially important for UNTHSC since it has run out of land and they are continuing to grow.

The university has announced a LEED silver goal for its buildings, and one of its buildings has been LEED Silver certified. They have spent a lot of time working on the "basics" like windows, light sensors, and recycling programs, and have saved over $5 million in revenue as a result. They have also incentivized green practices by giving a 20 percent parking discount to LEFE vehicles and e-pass public transit discounts. They also promote tryparkingit.com as a ride share program.

The Office of Sustainability itself has put together a campus-wide sustainability committee and has put together several sustainability initiatives of its own. It helped expand the school's recycling program to include batteries, lamps, and inkjet cartridges, funds from which helped it procure prizes for some of its other activities. The office was also responsible for a large Earth Day initiative this year. Over 5000 pounds of electronics were recycled at the event. Their food event was a zero waste event, meaning that almost none of the materials used in the meal ended up in a landfill. Some other events included green booths, a repurposing photo contest, and a faculty office spring cleaning.

Bauman shared five lessons she has learned as sustainability coordinator. First of all, one should start small and prioritize so that progress is made. Secondly, a sustainability leader needs to celebrate successes and people so that the community sees the good in sustainable practices. Since sustainability is a nascent field that requires skills sets ranging from science to marketing, an effective sustainability leader needs to be a life learner. Related to marketing, one must frame sustainability appropriately and in meaningful ways so as to not turn off potential community leaders who may see sustainability as a far left ideology. Lastly, sustainability is a collaborative field, so networking cannot be overemphasized.

Ms. Bauman's presentation was a good way to wrap up the course. A lot of the initiatives that she brought up were similar to ones that previous guest speakers had mentioned, and her lessons learned, which were really suggestions for how to be a good sustainability coordinator, were spot on.

Chad Giese, Plantation Homes

This afternoon my REAE 5304 class drove to Marine Creek Ranch near Lake Worth to see an affordable LEED-certified home being built. Chad Giese spoke to us about the features included in a LEED certified home, some of the benefits, and some of the obstacles a builder faces when constructing green homes.

Surprisingly, a home does not need a lot of expensive equipment like solar panels to classify as LEED certified. In fact, a lot of the "upgrades" that help with LEED certification are only a few dollars more than standard building hardware. Some of these affordable green features include thermal ply, cement based siding, hurricane straps (rafter fasteners), upgraded insulation, low flow faucets, and single filter

heating and cooling systems.

The sum of these green upgrades allow Plantation Homes to be certified as both Energy Star compliant and LEED certified. On the average, Plantation Homes' LEED-certified homes have Home Energy Rating System (HERS) scores about 30 percent lower than an average new home of the same size on the market. For LEED certification, though, Planation also needs to ensure that their homes exhibit durability, longevity, and innovation in design.

While I enjoyed Don Ferrier's talk last week about his custom built green homes, I am not sure that I would be able to afford one. I could see myself buying a Plantation Home, though. The LEED certification is a tremendous selling point, especially with the prevalence of greenwashing nowadays. It is nice to know that a third party is inspecting the homes to make sure that their green features truly are green.

Susan Yowell, Partnership for Sacred Places

from sacredplacestexas.blogspot.com

Partnership for Sacred Places is an organization that assists historic churches to provide usable space for the community. Susan Yowell talked at length about PSP programs that promote more sustainable practices for the community.

One program is called space sharing partnerships, where churches lease space to area organizations. Of course, this has always been done on a small scale (churches allowing civic organizations to hold meetings in their church Sunday school classrooms, for example); however, PSP tries to employ this strategy on a larger scale to help churches secure necessary funding to keep afloat. Ms. Yowell used the First Christian Church of Fort Worth as an example. Before PSP got involved, this congregation in downtown had fallen to only 80 members or so. The church seriously faced having to close its doors until PSP was able to help them lease their second floor to a community eye clinic. In addition to helping their finances, the church's membership has risen by over 40 percent in the last year. While this project was successful, it was not easy to convince the congregation that this lease was in their best interest.

To see the economic value that churches bring to a community, the PSP can conduct economic valuation studies for churches. They use 50 factors such as parking lot space, recreational space, and spinoff services (think Salvation Army) to see the true dollar value of a church. Their findings consistently show that churches create a lot more economic value to communities than people tend to give them credit for.  For example, Saint Mary of the Assumption in Fort Worth creates about $2 million in value to the community per year even though it only brings in about $500,000 from the offering plate.

For abandoned churches, the organization tries to find new uses for them. They have successfully converted abandoned churches into recreation centers and business centers. If such reuse is not possible, the organization documents the church in a database so that it will not be forgotten by history before it is destroyed.

I never really thought about the economic value that a church brings to a community before. I with Ms. Yowell that churches take on a lot of social services that government simply cannot handle, or cannot handle as efficiently.

Shanna Cate, Trinity River Vision

This morning we visited Trinity River Vision in downtown Fort Worth, where Shanna Cate gave a powerpoint presentation TRV's master plans for Fort Worth. The TRV was created by the Trinity River Water District specifically to address the water needs of Fort Worth (and not its many other projects in the water district). Ultimate, the TRV seeks to work with the city, the Army Corps of Engineers, and other entities to pool resources and use Trinity River water projects to fuel mixed use development throughout the city.

Of the many projects that TRV is involved in, the most intricate is the Panther Island project, which seeks to create a new channel near downtown Fort Worth. This channel will divert water in the case of a flood and allow the city to develop closer to the existing levee, since it will not be as necessary for flood control. After the channel is built, the private enterprise will develop the area into a mixed use urban center, and it is hoped that canals similar in appearance to the San Antonio Riverwalk will be built, both for further flood control and to improve the aesthetics of the district.

The entire project won't be completed for about ten years, so the TRV has come up with some creative ways to use the Panther Island space in the meantime. They have created Panther Island Pavilion, a paddle boating, swimming area, and event center that holds concerts and other events. They have also brought in Coyote Drive In Theater, a theater with a screen that can be moved as land in the area is developed. In addition to being temporary community centers, these temporary uses help advertise the Panther Island development.

Another important project is Gateway Park, where the TRV feels it has a lot of land that is not being utilized. The plan is to first develop this land for flood storage and then further develop the area as a park.

One of the more ambitious projects is the Trinity River Vision Experience, which seeks to put more trails in neighborhood parks that are along the Trinity River. Such development has been shown to reduce crime, as in the case of Cobb Park, and increases property values.

If I had money to invest, I might consider investing in a Panther Island area business. The plan seems perfect for the downtown area as it allows for better flood control and creates a whole new space that can be utilized for mixed use development. I am sure that property values will soar in the area when the project is completed and will spur more tourism for the greater Fort Worth area.

Don Mauro, Parking Vault Ltd.

Don Mauro of Parking Lot Ltd. spoke about his company's innovative solution for urban parking: an automatic, multi-level, and scalable parking system that costs about the same as a traditional parking garage. The system consists of device called a mule that automatically lifts a car and places it on a shelf.

Mr. Mauro sees five main advantages of a parking vault. The first advantage is speed. A properly configured parking vault can park 4 cars a minute-- much faster than the 5-15 minutes that one might spend parking a car in a busy lot or garage. Secondly, a parking vault only uses about 60% the space of a traditional parking garage, space which could be used to park more cars or for other development. Mauro even argues that a parking vault can be cheaper than a traditional parking garage since its shelves are modular and require less engineering. Because people do not have access to the parking shelves, parking vaults are much safer and more secure than parking garages or parking lots. Lastly, a parking vault is just as convenient as a valet, perhaps even more so since one does not have to wait as long for a valet to retrieve a vehicle.

This technology could revolutionize urban centers by saving time and reducing crime. In both downtown Dallas and Fort Worth, you see a lot of surface parking lots. These spaces could provide more spaces along with mixed use development. It's unfortunate that most cities have not updated their city codes to allow for this innovative technology.

I can also see industrial applications for this technology. It would not take much to modify the parking vault shelves into automated loading docks for trailers. Pallets could be loaded into trailers automatically while the trailers are on the shelves. The trailers could then be lowered and then hooked up to semi trucks. This would make loading freight much faster, cheaper, and safer.