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Home Resource Center In the News Home Greenbelt Alliance in the News |
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Greenbelt Alliance In the News
February 26, 2006 San Mateo is dreaming in green Council aims to make city eco-friendly with checklist By Tara Ramroop, STAFF WRITERSAN MATEO — Maybe Kermit the Frog was wrong. Maybe it's actually easy being green. Officials are hopeful that increasing emphasis on energy-saving developments and environmental consciousness will be cheaper in the long run. That's why creating a San Mateo-specific sustainable development strategy is one of the City Council's 2006 priorities, and will be discussed before the summer. San Mateo already has started using a countywide checklist of sustainable guidelines, provided by RecycleWorks of San Mateo County, to design its new Main Library and police station. Bay Meadows Phase II, a private, mixed-use development slated to replace Bay Meadows Race Course on the Caltrain line, also is being heralded already by such environmental groups as the Sierra Club and Greenbelt Alliance for its proximity to mass transit. The RecycleWorks checklist suggests building more mixed-use developments, minimizing paving, increasing bike and pedestrian access and optimizing building architecture to make the most of natural lighting and shading. Councilman Brandt Grotte, an environmental manager for an electronics company, said he and his council colleagues hope to take these ideas and create a citywide set ofguidelines for every proposed development, not just public buildings. A "green points" checklist is a trend that started in Brisbane and Pacifica, and is also picking up speed in Portola Valley, according to a draft report from Build It Green, a Bay Area nonprofit that encourages cities to go all-green in building projects. Build It Green recently audited 46 government agencies' environmental ordinances and buildings, and found that San Mateo is already among the leaders in this county for green practices. The city is one of 17 Bay Area agencies examined that have construction-and-demolition ordinances, said Bruce Mast at Built It Green, which is collaborating with RecycleWorks on the report. San Mateo's ordinance makes builders pay a deposit, the size of which depends on the project. If 60 percent of the debris is recycled, the company gets its deposit back. Another environmental issue on the city's priority list is an ordinance that would require environmental retrofitting for wood-burning fireplaces. Though most of the council was keen on the ordinance's intent — to reduce air-quality damaging emissions — most members were concerned about being too strict. "Several of us thought it was a good practice to encourage," Grotte said. "But we obviously don't want to ban people from using their fireplaces or make them do costly upgrades if it's not necessary." As the city looks toward the future, budgetary impacts are still a small issue. Officials were concerned about the short-term cost of going green — using energy-saving photovoltaic panels, among other technologies — with the new police station. But Grotte believes that the long-term energy savings make it worthwhile. A lot of sustainability practices, like asking a developer to use more recyclable materials, don't cost money, Grotte said. The police station and new Main Library join a handful of other green buildings in San Mateo County, including the Edgewood County Park and Natural Preserve Interpretive Center near Redwood City, the San Mateo County Forensic Lab and Coroner's Office, and the Gap Building in San Bruno, according to Diane Anderson from RecycleWorks.
Staff writer Tara Ramroop covers San Mateo. She can be reached at (650)
348-4302 or by e-mail at tramroop@sanmateocountytimes.com. ### |
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