CT Green Scene

What Is Smart Growth and Why Should You Care?

By now, you probably get the idea that our planet's resources are finite, but many people are beginning to catch on to the fact that our need to design, plan and build communities that are "smart" and conserve our limited natural resources, while creating a strong sense of community is imperative.  On the financial side of the coin, developers, architects, builders and real estate agents are seeing great investment potential in smart growth, even in a slowed up economy.

So what is Smart Growth?

Smart growth as defined by experts at CT Smart Growth:

Mixed land use: "Our post World War II land use decisions have separated and compartmentalized the various aspects our lives.  We live in one place, work in another, and venture to still another place for shopping and entertainment.  This separation has created a car-centric society and taken away from the vitality of the traditional town center or Main Street. Smart growth supports the integration of mixed land uses into communities as a critical component of achieving better places to live. By putting uses in close proximity to one another, alternatives to driving, such as walking or biking, once again become viable."

Compact Building Design: "Compact building design suggests that communities be designed in a way which permits more open space to preserved, and that buildings can be constructed which make more efficient use of land and resources. By encouraging buildings to grow vertically rather than horizontally, and by incorporating structured rather than surface parking, for example, communities can reduce the footprint of new construction, and preserve more greenspace."

Housing Opportunities: "Providing quality housing for people of all income levels is an integral component in any smart growth strategy. Housing is a critical part of the way communities grow, as it is constitutes a significant share of new construction and development. More importantly, however, is also a key factor in determining households' access to transportation, commuting patterns, access to services and education, and consumption of energy and other natural resources."

Walkable Communities: "As the personal and societal benefits of pedestrian friendly communities are realized - benefits which include lower transportation costs, greater social interaction, improved personal and environmental health, and expanded consumer choice -- many are calling upon the public and private sector to facilitate the development of walkable places."

Other elements include: Strong Sense of Place, Preserve Open Spaces, Infill Development, Wide array of Transportation Choices, Fair and Predictable Development Decisions, and Community Collaboration. To find out more about the other 6 elements of smart growth, as well as valuable resources, visit CT Smart Growth. Also, check out this incredible Smart Growth project slated for Georgetown.

 

 

Green Summit II Energy Fair: November 8th

via New Britain Herald

Mark your calendar for the second annual Green Summit Energy Fair in Wethersfield, Connecticut! The summit will take place at the Wethersfield High School, from 11 am to 2 pm.

Town Councilor, Matthew Forrest, set up the Green Summit last year in order to respond to the ever growing energy and gas prices in Wethersfield and to have his residents come up with ideas on living a greener life. The second annual event will include vendor and community booths giving more information concerning renewable energy and showcase experiments created by Wethersfield students. Key note speakers will talk about sustainability issues, fossil-fuel dependence, and energy conservation funding.

Attendees can also take part in workshops that will go over recycling, rain barrels, composting and describing various renewable energy sources. Attendees will also have the opportunity to give feedback back to the town on whether the town is headed in the right direction towards a greener future.

83 Trees Cut Down to Make Better View for Billboard

Via The Green Vibration

Action is needed to protect trees in our very own state! We need to stop companies like LAMAR not only littering our landscapes but destroying our trees to achieve their goals. Send letters of support to Blumenthal and please visit www.scenic.org to send a letter to Jodi Rell stating your support of her bill to ban new billboard contracts in CT, including digital billboards.

Article Written By
BY ROBYN ADAMS REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

WATERBURY-- Nancy Voghel grew up on a "little piece of heaven," but she said Friday that the land near her childhood home has been destroyed.

Last year, Lamar Advertising of Hartford got a permit from the state Department of Transportation to trim and remove undesirable growth on state land off Sidney Street to increase the visibility of one of its billboards.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed a lawsuit against the billboard company and Long Hill Tree and Lawn Care Services of East Hartford for cutting down 83 trees that included birch, maple, oak and white pine that were between 85 and 200 years old. Long Hill Tree was hired by Lamar to do the work.

Hal Kilshaw, vice president of governmental relations for Lamar, headquartered in Baton Rouge, La., said the attorney general got it wrong.

"We got permission from the landowner and a permit from the state. We hired Long Hill and met with the state's landscape person, who was on site and agreed to everything that was cut," Kilshaw said in a telephone interview.

Many of the trees that were planted on the land in question were planted by Margaret Casey's grandfather.

"In less than one day, less than an hour, Lamar Advertising came in and changed our lifestyle," said Casey, of 56 Sidney St. "The noise -- we cannot open the windows anymore. We cannot hear the television because of the noise. It is unbearable."

The trees provided a buffer to highway traffic and noise, and soaked up water that spilled down the hilly terrain.

"Last year, I had five feet of water in my basement," said Jerod Voghel, 30, who is Karen Voghel's son. He bought the house that his mother grew up in four years ago; she now lives in Wolcott.

With the open swath of land in the background, Blumenthal and Rep. Selim Noujaim, R-75th District, talked to residents about the lawsuit.

Blumenthal said Lamar "clearly and disgracefully broke the law" by cutting 83 trees that provided a buffer to I-84. The state is suing for unspecified monetary damages to replace the trees.

Cycling Activity vs. National Gas Prices

Thanks to Design New Haven  and Mark Abraham for this post!

Looks like the number of posts per day on the ElmCityCycling listserv, a forum for making New Haven more accommodating to bicyclists and pedestrians, is highly correlated with the national price of unleaded gasoline (click on chart to enlarge). Who would have thought?

With gasoline predicted to hit $6-10 per gallon as soon as a few months from now, the number of nonmotorized trips to work in New Haven is only likely to continue to increase. As a relatively flat and compact city, Downtown New Haven is already perfect for bicycling and walking, as evidenced by the fact that the city has one of the highest percentages of bicycle commuters in the United States (1.8%, versus 1.2% in Boston, 0.9% in Providence, 0.6% in New York City, 0.4% in Hartford, 0.1% in Bridgeport and 0.0% in Waterbury, according to the Census Bureau's 2006 ACS). During rush hour, there are already occasional bicycle "traffic jams" on the popular Orange Street bicycle lane. New Haven was also recently named one of the 20 most walkable cities in the United States.

However, improvements to the city's bicycle-friendliness are needed before the average area resident will choose to ride to work, or even use his or her bicycle for short trips (e.g., a 4-block run to the corner store). Considering that bicycles are already widely-owned (and very inexpensive), the most frequently given reasons why Connecticut residents don't bicycle more often - infrastructure and safety - are fairly easy to solve. According to numerous studies, infrastructure such as bicycle parking, bike-friendly street design, multi-use greenways like the Farmington Canal Trail and accessibility at train stations raise land values by an amount much greater than the investment put into them (in part because they tend to calm traffic). Reckless and high-speed driving and driver education can be addressed through community-wide efforts and traffic enforcement, and through measures such as anti-dooring ordinances like those found in Chicago.

WAHOO! New Train Line Coming to Fairfield County!

But will it work? Will people give up their cars? What do you think?

Via Danbury NewsTimes

THUMBS UP to the progress being made in establishing a commuter bus route between New Fairfield and the Southeast, N.Y., train station. The Connecticut Department of Transportation and the New York Department of Transportation have agreed to share the $300,000 annual subsidy needed to operate the service. It will be operated by Housatonic Area Regional Transit. The goal is to get the buses on the road in October, but first a parking lot for commuters must be developed in New Fairfield. The commuters who buy tickets to use this service will save parking and fuel costs. By funding it, both states will ease traffic congestion on their roads.

Lighting the Path with Solar and LED Technology

EARTH TALK
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I notice occasional solar panels on roadsides, powering individual streetlamps or signs. Is any research being done to expand on this idea and implant solar collectors in roads, parking lots or sidewalks to generate power in a similar but bigger way? -- Emily Eidenier, via e-mail

The concept of using road surfaces to generate clean solar power is actually already moving beyond the idea stage. Roads absorb heat from the sun every day and are usually free of sightline obstructions that could otherwise block the transmission of light rays. And if the roads built for cars and driving are partly to blame for global warming, why not make them part of the solution too?

Idaho-based company Solar Roadways is one of the trailblazers. Electrical engineer Scott Brusaw was inspired to start the company when he heard Caltech solar energy expert Nate Lewis suggest that covering just 1.7 percent of continental U.S. land surface with photovoltaic solar collectors could produce enough power to meet the nation’s total energy demand.

Brusaw put two and two together when he realized that the interstate highway system already covers about that much of the nation’s land surface, so he got to work designing a system that combines a durable and translucent glass road surface with photovoltaic solar collectors that could be wired directly into the electricity grid. Brusaw’s innovative design would also heat the roads in winter, thus providing a important safety benefit.

A Case Study in Open Communication

What happens when 50 people who rarely or never speak come together for an entire day? Miracles.

This fall, the Ridgefield Clergy Association and RACE will co-sponsor a day-long retreat for members of the Ridgefield Board of Selectmen, Planning and Zoning Commission, the superintendent of schools, principals, teachers and students, the League of Women Voters, members of the Chamber of Commerce, Clergymen, builders and developers, business leaders, Rotary, civics groups, environmental groups, banks, and affordable housing to meet with one goal in mind: to identify the things in their community that they love and want to preserve for generations to come.

By facilitating cross communication and giving people an opportunity to discuss the challenges they face in preserving the town that they love, there's no telling what wondrous results may emerge.

Who Says Connecticut Isn't Building Green?

A few years ago, many considered Connecticut one of the least green states in the nation. But thanks to individuals, organizations, and businesses realizing the multitude of benefits to building green, that's no longer the case.

According to a post on Auctor Verno's blog, here's just a taste of commercial green building projects underway in Connecticut.

"Donald Trump got into the green game and announced the Trump Parc Stamford will be built to LEED standards and Naugutuck will get a $700 million green make-over courtesy of a public/private partnership between The Conroy Development Company of Fairfield, Connecticut and the Borough of Naugatuck and the Naugatuck Economic Development Corporation.

Some other green projects recently announced are either just getting started or close to being finished include:

Metro Green, Stamford
Harbor Point, Stamford
Georgetown Land Development, Redding
Fairfield Metro Center
Campus at Greenhill, Wallingford
iPark, Norwalk
Wall Street Project, Norwalk
Mansfield Town Center
L.L. Bean Store, South Windsor
The Henry Lee Institute of Forensic Science, West Haven"

Do you know of a commercial or residential green building project you'd like to share? Contact Us.

Green School in New Haven

It's no small potatoes for a Connecticut school to be the site of the largest solar installation at an educational institution in Connecticut; one of the largest solar installations at an educational institution in New England; the first Leadership in Energy and Design (LEED) Silver certified building in the New Haven school district; and the first school in New Haven to incorporate solar PV into its design. But the icing on the cake is the fact that thousands of students will enjoy learning within the healthy indoor environment associated with a "green" school.

Want to start a green schools initiative in your town? Visit the CTGBC and inquire about their Healthy Schools Initiative, contact Connecticut Clean Energy Fund to learn more about available funding, or start your own!

Entries for Zero-Energy Building Award

Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) is now accepting entries for the Northeast Zero-Energy Building Award. Zero-energy buildings – buildings that produce as much energy as they consume – represent the cutting edge of environmentally responsible construction. These buildings, which require state-of-the-art energy-efficient construction and renewable energy systems such as solar and wind, are challenging to design and build but can offer comfort and amenities while reducing the building’s impact on the environment.

NESEA will offer a $10,000 cash prize for the best building in the Northeast that can document net-zero energy use while offering a high level of comfort, affordability and reliability. For more information about the requirements and submission guidelines, visit the Zero-Energy Building Award website.