Philly’s New Director of Sustainability
After announcing that both Andy Altman and Mark Allan Hughes were stepping down from their respective positions as Director of City Planning and Commerce and Director of Sustainability for Philadelphia, I have to admit that I was feeling a bit deserted. I had high hopes that both of these men would be leading this city into greener pastures. I realize, though, that it is not the individuals who will get us to the next phase, but the city working together as a team, led by our great Mayor and his team.
Mayor Nutter has appointed the next Director of Sustainability to replace Hughes. Click on the link to read more. My high hopes will be transferred to her!
http://greenworksphila.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/nutter-names-new-sustainability-director/
10Year Tax Abatement Debate- Could Going Green be the Common Ground?
If you have been following Philadelphia’s budget crisis and/or the local real estate market, I am sure you are aware of the tax abatement argument. Those in favor argue that the abatement (which is applies to both majorly rehabbed properties and new construction and the purchasers of those properties are either taxed on the unimproved land or previous unimproved structure- paying those lower taxes for 10 years and can transfer this abatement once to another buyer) spurs development and improvement in this city where there would otherwise be none. Those against argue that it’s unfair to the rest of the homeowners in the city who have to pay their existing taxes and those benefiting all fall in the higher economic brackets of wealth.
Neither side has shown any evidence of a desire to meet somewhere in the middle, but recently a few bills have been proposed by Councilman Darrell Clarke to keep the abatement, but increase the purchasers taxes annually by 10%, and some variations on that idea. I have read the bills. I guess there is common ground in there, but still just more of the same. Councilman Curtis Jones Jr, though, has stolen my hear with his answer to the tax debate! In order to stay on track, in these tough economic times, to be the greenest city (Michael Nutter), Jones says, why not keep the full 10 year tax abatement but apply it only to structures that meet strict sustainable guidelines such as those set forth by the US Green Building Council for LEED Certification. This way, the onus is on the developers to step up their game and start building more eco-friendly buildings. In the end we all benefit. Attention to our city. Cheaper bills for the residents of these homes. More “green” homes on the market will most likely result in lower price tags. The list goes on!
Anyway, I would like to applaud this proposal and urge you all to write letters is support of such legislation to your local councilman. Frank Decicco can expect a letter from me!
Feel free to contact me if you have questions about green building, LEED certification, or anything else that exists in the real where real estate meets environmentalism!
The Litter Summit- Citywide cleanup on April 4th
Yesterday I got up extra early, rushed to the United Way building at 8 in the morning, and paid $24 to park for 3 hours and attend the Litter Summit hosted by Keep Philadelphia Beautiful. It was well worth all the trouble.
Keep Philadelphia Beautiful (KPB) is a non profit, local division of the national Keep American Beautiful organization. I would go into their mission, but it’s spelled out in their name. The board of directors includes the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of the streets department, a representative from Philadelphia Green, the director of Project NEAT, and a few others. The Executive Director, the face of KPB, and the woman behind much of the progress made in the last couple of years is Phoebe Coles.
Phoebe, besides the help of one intern, is more or less a one woman show, as many pointed out yesterday. Her main goal is to reduce litter and keep the streets clean. My favorite Mayor, Michael Nutter, also attended as well, and accepted an award for Philadelphia for our success in last year’s citywide cleanup.
It’s important to understand that just cleaning up other people’s litter will not keep the city clean. It’s most important to understand why people throw trash on the ground and educate people on the issues that arise from such behavior.
There are three major reasons that people litter, Mayor Jenny Stultz of Gastonia South Carolina explained at the Summit. The first is that he or she has no sense of ownership of the place they are littering. This would refer to someone who doesn’t take any pride in their own yard, neighborhood, or city let alone responsibility for the way it looks. The second is that he or she assumes there is someone who’s job it is to pick up the trash. A good example here would be people that leave their trash at their seats in a movie theater or sports arena. The third is that there is already existing trash there so instead of feeling like they are causing a problem, instead they are just adding to a problem that already existed.
In Philadelphia I believe we suffer from all three of these.
On April 4th we have our 2nd annual Citywide clean up. I urge everyone to come out and help. I will be at South Philly High School painting the fence and planting trees from 10-2 if you would like to join me.
If you have any questions or concerns about litter in your neighborhood, send them along.
In addition, there is proposed legislation about banning plastic bags and Styrofoam from our great city. Talk about a great solution to reducing litter. I hope you will all support!
Weekly Recycling PLUS Fun Recycling Facts and Tips!
Happy New Year, everyone! Good news for everyone- Mayor Michael Nutter announced this week that recycling will now be picked up every week! I know that this won’t tickle everyone’s fancy as much as it does mine, but you can all admit it will simplify the process! And for those of you that do little or no recycling, weekly pick-up combined with a change earlier in 2008 that allows single stream (we can put glass, plastic, aluminum, and paper all in one container), there is no longer an excuse. Get to it!
I know that the bi-weekly recycling was tough in my household. There are three adults in my home that, let’s say, appreciate your occasional glass of wine or bottle of beer. That’s not going to change, but the recycling buckets were overflowing and I have had to purchase additional containers. I can only imagine what my trash men think of us! I have made some positive changes, though. First of all, when purchasing products such as detergents, cheap wine, and cat litter, buy the largest container available. It saves money and reduces waste. If you buy sodas or beer, buy in cans when available as cans are easier to recycle than glass or plastic, and can be recycled and infinite amount of times. Remember you can recycle most bottles for shampoo, dish washer and laundry detergent, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, junk mail, and more.
Here are some fun recycling facts:
- A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf as a new can, in as little as 60 days. That’s closed loop recycling at its finest!
- Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours — or the equivalent of a half a gallon of gasoline.
- Used aluminum beverage cans are the most recycled item in the U.S., but other types of aluminum, such as siding, gutters, car components, storm window frames, and lawn furniture can also be recycled.
- More aluminum goes into beverage cans than any other product.
- There is no limit to the amount of times an aluminum can be recycled.
- We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum soda cans every year.
- To produce each week’s Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down
- If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year!
- The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years.
- Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution!
- The 17 trees saved (above) can absorb a total of 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Burning that same ton of paper would create 1500 pounds of carbon dioxide.
- Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!
- Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year!
- American throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam coffee cups every year.
- Every month, we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper. All of these jars are recyclable!
- The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.
- A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose, and even longer if it’s in the landfill.
Save the Libraries!
I have been feeling and overhearing a lot of negativity around our great city of Philadelphia since Mayor Michael Nutter announced his budget cuts last week. I know we cannot blame him, alone, for these choices, but he not just the spokeman, so for the first time I am writing a disapproving blog post about my favorite local politician.
Why the libraries, Mayor Nutter? The community pool, we can deal with. The street cleaning? Easy fix- let’s just have a few more citywide resident clean-up days planned! The first one was a huge hit, brought neighbors together, and helped recycled thousands of pounds of bottles and cans that were probably headed for the sewers! The libraries, though. Just awful. Could you not find any private schools or corporations to sponsor the libraries? As a colleague of mine said at dinner the other night, “Who cares if it’s the Comcast Library of West Philadelphia?” At least kids would have a place to go on the internet and read for free!
All I can hope is that his time spent in Washington may result in some federal assistance, so we can keep this city on the right track. In the mean time, there has got to be a better place to cut funding!