Rebuilding for the Future....

A Guide to Sustainable
Redevelopment for
Disaster-Affected
Communities

U.S. Department of Energy
September 1994

NOTICE

This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the United States Government. Neither the United States nor the United States Department of Energy, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors nor their employees makes any warantee, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.

Photographs by Kathy Fairchild

Photograph on page 22 by Eileen Schoville

Publication design and layout by Roberta F. Stauffer

Rebuilding for
the Future...

A Guide
to Sustainable Redevelopment
for Disaster-Affected Communities

Written by
William S. Becker
U.S. Department of Energy

With the assistance of
Roberta F. Stauffer
National Center for Appropriate Technology

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: Why Sustainability?

Chapter Two: Soldiers Grove

Chapter Three: How to Begin Planning

Chapter Four: Citizen Involvement

Chapter Five: Making a Master Plan

Chapter Six: Sustainable Design Choices

Chapter Seven: Financing Relocation

Chapter Eight: Real Life Problems

Epilogue

Resources

Table of Contents

Soldiers Grove found that a strong citizen participation program was critical in the success of its redevelopment project. As practiced by the village, citizen involvement was a two-way process. People were encouraged to express their fears and ideas to village officials and consultants involved in the project. At the same time, village officials and consultants made an effort to keep the citizenry educated and informed.

There were at least two major reasons why this interchange was important. Education helped dispel the myths usually surrounding solar, and calm the apprehensions about relocation in general. This made people feel more secure with innovation and equipped them to give quality feedback on the project. Secondly, because they understood the project and knew their input was valued and used, the villagers developed a sense of ownership and control.

Too often local plans are drawn by "experts" from outside a community. Such "top-down planning" often meets considerable local resistance. Hirsch called the village's public participation program "bottom-up planning." In other words, grass-roots decisions guided the project rather than decrees from outside government agencies or professional consultants hired by the community.

It was clear to every government official, consultant and technician brought into the project that he or she would take direction from the people, rather than give direction to them. Outside participants would serve as resources in the community decision process, not directors of that process. There was also "bottom-up decision making," with village officials liberally consulting citizens before key votes. The many benefits of this strategy include the following:

Strengthens local support. A project which people have helped conceive and guide is much more likely to enjoy broad public support. When community sentiment is behind relocation, many potential sticking points -- the negotiation over purchase prices for floodplain property, the willingness of property owners to take part, the likelihood of property owners reestablishing themselves within the community -- are not as difficult to overcome.

When relocation is perceived as a community-wide undertaking rather than the brainchild of a few planners or property owners, a spirit of "co-creation" develops, a mixture of cooperation and creativity rather than resistance and resentment.

Participation gives citizens a feeling of ownership of a project and, more importantly, responsibility for its success or failure. People work harder, look less for problems and more for possibilities.

Increases state and federal support. A plan with a strong foundation of local support is much more stable. Therefore, it's more likely to win support from state and federal agencies and politicians worried about controversy.

Makes plan realistic. A strong public participation program makes planners and local officials aware of problems and possibilities they might not have thought of themselves. It helps make a relocation plan that truly reflects the concerns and goals of the people affected. Such a plan is far more sound and far more likely to succeed than one formed in a distant committee room.

Solves problems early. The best way to identify problems in advance so they may be avoided or solved is to involve local people in planning. No one knows better than citizens themselves how a relocation plan might help or harm them and how such harm can be prevented.

Eliminates surprises. Public participation allows people to know in advance the potential pitfalls of moving. They can prepare for them, economically or emotionally. Forewarning of foreseeable problems keeps alive a feeling of goodwill and trust -- and that feeling is critical in the relationship between officials, planners and citizens as the project progresses.

Avoids misinformation. Misinformation may run rampant if facts are not regularly reported to the community. Unless rumors are counteracted or prevented early by liberal doses of public information, they can take root and grow into troublesome sources of unnecessary opposition. Rumors are a kind of attitudinal weed. It is much easier to prevent them in advance than it is to repair the damage once a rumor has taken root.

Spreads responsibility. The risks of relocation are likely to be felt by everyone directly affected by disaster, and in some cases, everyone in the community. So, everyone must be given the opportunity to take part in planning such a project and making the key decisions about it.

Soldiers Grove found that keeping the public involved in planning sometimes required a proactive effort by leaders. The daily responsibility for tending the project fell upon one or two officials acting on behalf of the community. Most villagers were only partially active in the project; others were virtually inactive. To keep them in touch with the project, village officials made an effort to deliver information to the community. At the same time, they encouraged villagers to supply feedback.

While the prospect of a solar development at first caused some fear and skepticism, solar eventually became a source of excitement and identity within the village. Villagers were willing to support the project politically and felt more secure about the involvement of outside technicians whose role in the undertakings of small communities often is viewed with suspicion.

Citizen involvement is not simple. It is sometimes a noisy and messy process. It is also abhorrent to those practitioners of imperial planning who want to see their visions remain clear and uncluttered by the fears, opposition and uneducated demands of the people affected by a project.

But by carefully keeping the two-way process in balance, offering education and receiving input, Soldiers Grove found that too many cooks did not spoil the broth. In fact, citizen participation became truly exciting, a process in which many minds and hearts worked together to improve an idea. It was important in maturing the village's proposals and readying them for implementation.

Spreading the Inspiration

As often happens in such projects, the idea of a solar downtown at Soldiers Grove began in the minds of one or two local people. The challenge was to spread inspiration and commitment to the idea from this small nucleus to village leaders and to all those people who would be affected. It was important that the villagers become involved in the project before substantial opposition crystallized. Once such opposition forms, it is difficult to dispel and requires a great deal of time and energy to counteract. So, active citizen participation in the development was a priority from the project's beginning. Citizen participation in Soldiers Grove took three forms: structured involvement, non-structured involvement and education.

Structured Involvement

A Citizen's Planning Committee, appointed by the Village Board in 1975 to help advise officials on the relocation program, provided one means of structured involvement. Its 10 members included many of the community's key opinion leaders and representatives of the most important sectors of village life -- business, service organizations, the county board, the local newspaper, the elderly. Subcommittee membership was open to any villager who wished to become involved.

The village's relocation coordinator found that although he maintained an open-door policy, people tended to follow their traditional lines of communication. Most apprehensions and ideas about the project continued to be exchanged in social situations, among small groups of people.

The Citizens' Planning Committee was considered an important means of infiltrating this communications network. The opinion leaders serving on the committee were kept informed about the project and were able to spread that information in their social contacts. They were able to bring back to the CDO comments that citizens were reluctant to deliver personally to village officials or outside consultants.

For their part, the coordinator and later the CDO made sure that both the Citizens' Planning Committee and the Village board were consulted before any policy decisions were made. In fact, the CDO most often asked that decisions be made by the board and the committee. The CDO staff became facilitators and resources rather than decision-makers.

Another form of structured involvement was periodic "town meetings" called by the coordinator and Community Development Office to present the latest ideas or information about the relocation project. If architects, engineers or consultants had been involved in generating new materials, they were asked to be on hand to hear how people reacted to the ideas. Attendance at town meetings ranged from standing-room-only to pitifully small, but the meetings were retained as a public involvement mechanism anyway. It was important for citizens to know they had the opportunity to comment, even if they chose not to.

Another device used periodically by the coordinator and Community Development Office was formal surveys. Because the village is small, its surveys often not only sampled the population, but reached most of it. The surveys took several forms -- questionnaires in the village's weekly newspaper, returned by mail; door-to-door interviews guided by a carefully designed questionnaire and carried out by volunteers from the Citizens' Planning Committee and service organizations; and a Delphi survey carried out through the mail by a University of Wisconsin graduate student using the poll as part of her research for a master's degree.

The surveys helped guide the Community Development Office and the various technicians who worked on the project. They helped ease the discomfort of village leaders when decisions had to be made about the solar commitment. And they helped identify key concerns of villagers -- among them energy costs -- so they could be incorporated into planning.

Nonstructured Involvement

The coordinator and Community Development Office used a number of nonstructured tools for citizen involvement: posting models and exhibits in the post office or the community building; actively seeking out people on the streets or in business buildings to learn about their attitudes; and encouraging people to drop into the office anytime to air their fears and inspirations. In addition, the relocation coordinator wrote a weekly column for the village newspaper. The column reported new developments, floated ideas and addressed fears that had come to light.

Education

Education also took several forms. When it became clear that business owners wanted to know more about the economics of energy efficiency and solar heating systems, the University of Wisconsin-Extension Engineering Department was asked to conduct an evening workshop on those subjects.

The workshop was so provocative that business owners held follow-up meetings on their own initiative to talk further with one another about whether they should create a corporation to oversee the development of a solar downtown.

Another form of education took place as consultants from outside the village worked individually with business owners. Specialists from the UW-Extension helped each one evaluate how large a new building he or she could afford to construct. The specialists also helped evaluate the regional market for each business's services, another factor in determining the size of new enterprises.

The village's contract with Hawkweed Group Ltd. wisely required that the architectural firm establish an office in the community. The client/consultant relationship which followed was an invaluable form of education for the village leaders on the benefits and techniques of solar heating. Board members felt better informed when it came time to regulate aspects of the project.

A third type of education in the village took the form of working sessions between technicians and small groups from the village. Early in the project's planning phase, Prof. Phil Lewis of the University of Wisconsin Environmental Awareness Center and a group of his landscape architecture students helped business owners figure out how their buildings might be arranged at the new downtown site. Lewis constructed a scale model of the site and cut construction paper squares representing each owner's building.

In one exercise, business owners shuffled the squares around the cardboard landscape, trying to fit their buildings within the space available while, at the same time, finding the locations most advantageous for their business operations. Some thought it important to be located along the highway on one side of the site; others were concerned about being located next to the post office or the bank; others needed large nearby parking areas, or wanted a location easily accessed by delivery trucks.

The exercise looked like a kindergarten art period, a bit comical with the gruff rivertown business owners pushing colored paper squares around. But important learning took place. Lewis learned about the biases and needs of the business owners and helped the village come up with its first conception of a master plan for the new downtown.

The business owners learned how difficult it can be to take everyone's needs into account and, within a limited space, produce a workable central business district. They appreciated the complexity of piecing together the jigsaw puzzle of a new development. That made them more inclined to cooperate and compromise later in working out everyone's interests during the master planning process.

Hands-On Demonstration

One additional educational tool proved very important at Soldiers Grove: hands-on demonstration. Shortly after relocation was proposed in 1975, a small group of village leaders traveled to Niobrara, Nebraska, a small community relocating because of flooding problems caused by a dam downriver. The visit allowed villagers to see a relocation project first-hand and to talk to its participants. Articles in the village newspaper reporting on the visit helped pass Niobrara's demonstration value along to other people in Soldiers Grove.

Later in the project, the first solar buildings constructed also served as hands-on demonstration tools for businesses yet to move. The village purposely chose for the first wave of construction those business owners most enthused about relocation and the use of solar energy. Five solar buildings were constructed initially -- a supermarket, a medical clinic, a bank, a craft shop and a general office building with an apartment unit above it. They served as models to the rest of the business community. Business owners still unsure about solar could walk through the buildings, talk to their owners, watch the structures perform through a winter and ask about heat bills.

Offering hands-on demonstration of solar heating, such models were an invaluable educational device -- nicely supplementing the theoretical information of classroom situations and models.

Creative Problem Solving

These public participation procedures did not eliminate all of Soldiers Grove's troubles building and maintaining public support and community coherence once the move was underway. Inevitable disputes and rumors grew anyway. But the village's prolonged and thorough public participation effort kept scares and conflicts to a minimum, prevented them from causing significant damage, helped reduce the discomforts of the move, and got the entire community involved in creative problem solving. For example:

A major problem was that the business district would be moved further from many of the village's elderly residents, making shopping and other chores more difficult. This concern led to the construction of housing units in the new business district so that some elderly residents could continue living in or near the downtown. Second-story apartments were encouraged above the new retail buildings, allowing those buildings to produce not only retail but rental income for their owners. One man who owned a commercial building in the old downtown decided to become a residential landlord in the new downtown, and built a housing project for the elderly near the relocated business district.

Businesspeople were worried that after selling their buildings to the village, they would have to remain closed until their new facilities were constructed. That would mean a loss of business and income. The village solved the problem by allowing business owners to lease their buildings from the municipality after they were sold, until their new facilities were ready for occupation.

The impact of strong citizen participation was evident in the village throughout the relocation process. For the most part, the community was happy with its plan for the new downtown. Soldiers Grove came to be known in the area as "Solar Grove," and the project brought the villagers a new and welcome sense of community spirit and identity. Travelers crossing the village limits to the north or south along U.S. 61 were greeted by two signs painted by the community's young people. One showed a group of houses with smiling faces crossing the Kickapoo River, moving from the floodplain to the new site. It was captioned: "Soldiers Grove -- The Little Town that Could." The other sign was a large sun, also with a smiling face and sunglasses, captioned "Soldiers Grove -- Growing in the Sun."

Table of Contents

Having identified a mechanism by which master planning for the new downtown could take place (the Planned Unit Development, or PUD, procedure) and having found that villagers supported a master planning effort, the Community Development Office and Hawkweed Group Ltd. began the work of fashioning such a plan. Again, the purpose of the plan would be to assure that the new development fulfilled goals identified in months of public discussion -- self sufficiency, high aesthetic quality, low environmental impact, architectural consistency, and protection against the uncertainties associated with fossil fuels.

The task was similar to traditional planning efforts undertaken in any community development project. But the CDO, acting as a lens which focused the values and needs of the villagers, determined that the process at Soldiers Grove would go several steps further.

Holistic Planning

First, the office would engage in what Hirsch and Swiggum called "people planning." Again, that meant that villagers themselves would be intimately involved through citizen participation programs. The CDO insisted that technology serve the needs of people rather than the other way around, that specialists from within and outside the community act not as decision-makers, but resources in helping the villagers shape their own future.

Secondly, master planning would go beyond the needs of people to consider the needs of the environment. Soldiers Grove had proposed its relocation initially as a national demonstration of how the needs of people and environment could be balanced so that there was cooperation rather than competition between them. By moving from the floodplain, the villagers had decided that rather than trying to tame the river, they would simply move out of its way, giving their village an opportunity to live like a normal community and the river the space to behave like a river.

That desire for cooperation with the environment carried over to the design of a new downtown and was instrumental in decision-making.

Thirdly, the master planning process would go beyond the needs of people and environment within the community itself and would consider the well-being of the region, the nation and even the planet. Thus, the village would engage in what later would be called "holistic" planning and what today is being called "sustainable development." That implied a project which was not only environmentally benign, but also resulted in minimum consumption of nonrenewable resources. The village would "think globally and act locally."

As in a traditional planning process, the CDO and Hawkweed had to consider people's needs, desires and capabilities, finding ways in which those sometimes contradictory factors could be reconciled. Much of this work had already been done in relation to the relocation project. As far back as 1975, the village had worked with the University of Wisconsin to determine how citizens wanted the business district designed.

This work had shown, for example, that the village newspaper wanted a location near the post office, since it dealt with large mailings each week. The IGA supermarket wanted a location near the highway for visibility and easy access by trucks delivering produce. One of the local gas station owners was particularly concerned about a location along the highway because he hoped to change his business into a truck stop.

These locational needs based on advertising, logistics, parking requirements and a variety of other factors all were blended into a plan each business owner and the villagers in general could support.

Each business owner's budget restrictions and regional market factors also had a role to play in what kind of businesses were opened and how large they would be. Not all business owners wanted to recreate their old enterprises at the new site. Relocation had given them opportunity to modify or completely change the services they provided. Some of the work needed to determine those factors had been done by UWEX in its consultation with the individual business owners after the 1978 flood.

Hawkweed and the CDO took the raw materials from these various studies and added some research of their own.

The architectural firm first wrote a set of design objectives, based on conversations with the CDO, village officials and citizens. The objectives were:

The firm and the CDO resolved that the new development would make maximum use of natural forces at the site -- wind currents to help with summer cooling; the earth as an insulator; plantings of native vegetation to help shelter buildings from winter winds and channel summer breezes; and solar heating. In addition, each building would be extensively weatherized and would be designed to capture and reuse waste heat.

With these objectives in mind, Hawkweed carried out a detailed analysis of the microclimate at the site. The energy-related portions of the analysis included development of a sun chart showing exactly what portions of the site were exposed to sunlight during the heating and cooling seasons, given hillsides, existing vegetation and other obstacles; winter and summer wind patterns; and the influence of topography on the microclimate.

Next, the firm guided business owners in the selection of suitable building materials. The most desirable building materials would be those which were locally available, made from renewable resources, easily handled with local skills, had some value as thermal mass or insulation and used little energy to produce, transport and install.

Judged by these standards, wood was selected as the recommended main material in the new buildings, although concrete slab floors and strategic applications of brick and block would be used to provide thermal mass to help store heat for night-time use. Because a specially treated plywood was on the market and accepted by state building codes, even foundations could be made of wood at the new site.

Next, the CDO met with villagers in a series of town meetings to discuss the architectural implications of solar heating systems and to determine the villagers' preferences for traffic patterning. Technical advisers recommended that the new central business district be a courtyard, pedestrian-oriented development to minimize gasoline consumption. At first reluctant to part with their traditional Main Street, villagers agreed to a courtyard after they were shown artists' conceptions of how it would look.

Layout and Architecture

As for architecture, villagers were willing to accept the aesthetic implications of solar heated buildings -- earth berming around foundations, earth-sheltering where possible, a minimum of north-facing windows and maximum of south-facing windows, and southern orientation of all the structures. But they also wanted to retain some of the flavor of the old downtown, with its clusters of common-wall buildings and mixture of one and two-story structures.

Given all these factors -- the aesthetic biases of the villagers; the needs, desires and abilities of business owners; the microclimate of the site; the decision on traffic patterns -- Hawkweed began modifying earlier site design work, synthesizing it into an agreeable master plan.

The new buildings would be arranged in two east-west rows, separated by a pedestrian court. The southernmost row would contain one-story buildings, the northernmost row two-story structures. Thus, no two-story building would block a shorter structure from solar access.

As the villagers desired, the buildings would be arranged in jagged rather than straight rows, some clustered in common-wall construction. The buildings would be pushed to the northernmost border of the development site, out of the way of the shadows cast by the hills on the southern border. The space opened to the south would be used for parking lots. Hawkweed added directions for placing trees and shrubs to provide winter windbreaks, summer shading and strategic channeling of summer breezes.

To assure solar access in the future as well as minimize the need for business owners to spend money for purposes other than construction, the CDO opted for a novel approach. Rather than selling each business owner a lot for his or her new building, the village would retain ownership of all land at the site, with the exception of building footprints -- the property actually circumscribed by each building's foundation. All other land would be held in common, with the village providing walks, parking areas and vegetation while retaining control of future building placement and landscaping.

All these provisions, in addition to more specific standards for building design, would be made part of the PUD ordinance, some as requirements and some as recommendations. In the meantime, the CDO asked each business owner to initial a map showing placement of the new commercial buildings, a consensus document which served as an informal agreement.

All the business owners complied. Swiggum, feeling an important milestone had been passed, treated the map as though it were the village's own Declaration of Independence, and hung it on the wall of the CDO office for display.

PUD Planning

Soldiers Grove found the PUD process to be an ideal solution to the often sticky problems associated with large-scale, high-density development. Considering the jigsaw puzzle dimension of master planning a development site, where many concerns must be satisfied, the choreography can be challenging. Using the PUD process allowed this detailed master plan to assume the force of zoning once it was approved in public hearings and by the Village Planning Commission.

The village developed two PUD documents and passed them into law -- one detailing design standards for the commercial district, and another for the "industrial park" across the highway.

The PUD documents mandated that all curbs, doorways, and slopes within the new downtown be designed to accommodate the handicapped. The use of signs for advertising was severely restricted to avoid clutter, as were the choices of colors for exterior walls and roofs. The PUD ordinance required the "colors must be carefully selected and generally subdued so as to enhance the colors of the natural landscape."

PUD requirements and recommendations related to energy, virtually identical for the commercial and industrial districts, included the following:

Renewable Resources

"All buildings requiring heat must be at least 50 percent solar heated. Although both active and passive systems in suitable combinations will be allowed, the use of passive systems is encouraged."

Energy Efficiency

"The thermal performance of each building shall be such that external space heating energy shall not exceed 4 Btu per square foot per degree day, of which at least 50 percent must be supplied by solar gain." Lesser efficiency was required for certain spaces, such as service areas, in the industrial park.

Building Heights

"Buildings shall not be of a height which would cast a shadow during daylight of 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. of the winter solstice on any portion of another building or parcel if no building exists."

Building Materials

"Exterior siding materials (for commercial buildings) are limited to wood, a renewable resource. The wood may take the form of clapboards, tongue and groove siding, smooth or rough sawn plywood, T1-11 plywood, smooth or rough sawn battens."

Landscaping

"Landscaping shall be designed to promote energy conservation and temperature control. Vegetation, preferably native to the area, will be used to buffer buildings from prevailing winter winds, to promote building insulation by creating dead air space, to furnish shade for summer cooling, and to provide ground cover which moderates temperature extremes. Earth berms will be used to provide additional wind control. In addition, energy is to be conserved by selecting plants that do not need high energy maintenance -- for example, ground cover plants which substitute for grass and do not require mowing."

Exterior Lighting

"Each building may have exterior lighting for pedestrian functions at entrances and exits only. Lighting for building exteriors is not allowed. The Village will make provision for lighting parking areas and common areas...."

Before they could begin construction, business owners were required to obtain zoning permits from the Village Planning Commission and had to demonstrate compliance with applicable provisions.

Applicants had to agree to create and record a restrictive covenant permanently binding each property to the provisions of the PUD document.

The PUD plan set forth these standards to assure consistency within the development, yet stressed that "individual expression is expected and encouraged." The official document's opening statement makes clear "it is not the intent of these principles to establish a 'style,' but rather to promote a quality of design which is consistent with the goals of the Soldiers Grove community."

Rather than creating a climate of over-regulation in the village, the PUD plan had the opposite effect. Several months after its adoption, the Village Board, at the urging of its Citizens Advisory Committee, passed two additional village-wide ordinances. The first required the 4 Btu thermal efficiency standard for all new non-residential structures within the community -- even those outside the PUD district. The second guaranteed solar access throughout the village, prohibiting any new construction or planting from blocking another property's exposure to the sun.

Table of Contents

In the years since Soldiers Grove planned its new village, many more techniques have been better understood to carry out sustainable development. Communities can successfully achieve long-term sustainability by restructuring priorities. Many conventional development problems associated with land use, transportation, and pollution can be solved through sustainable planning, an approach that aims to address problems before they arise, and to create ways to reduce their effects when they do occur.

Sustainable planning takes into consideration the cumulative effects of land use changes, as well as the site's natural features, such as climate, water and energy resources, wildlife, and native vegetation. Development is structured so that it works with, rather than against, these features. And, because sustainable planning strategies are developed at the grassroots level, citizens can participate in determining the agenda and policies of the community.

Successful sustainable planning calls for specific design strategies for site development, buildings, and the infrastructure that serves the community.

Site Development

The first step in achieving community sustainability is to develop the site in such a way that it remains in balance with its natural environment and resources. To accomplish this, each community must conduct a thorough survey of the site's terrain, water flow, plants, wildlife, climate, and historic natural events, such as floods, severe storms, earthquakes, wildfires. Such a survey not only defines resources and potential obstacles, but also helps provide direction.

Planners must also consider how to best accommodate the community's people, as well as its cultural and economic activities, within the limits of the site's resources and while still maintaining harmony with the environment. This can present certain design challenges, including:

Providing for changes in water drainage resulting from new roof and paving areas, using the natural topography and soil absorption capacity.

Since sites vary, these challenges will have different priorities within each community. A successful sustainable community site development plan also calls for approaches that reduce consumption and costs of energy, water, and other resources, and minimize pollution and transportation needs. Most often, the architecture of such a community includes mixed-use zoning, high-density development, with residential, commercial, and community buildings within walking and biking distance of each other. Planners may want to consider a campus-like setting with the fire, police, and medical response teams sharing a building, and City Hall, schools, the library, senior center, and child care center sharing facilities and common grounds.

When Soldiers Grove relocated its central business district, community planning and development involved painstaking efforts. However, computer technology and software developments during the last decade have significantly streamlined this process. For example, a collaborative project by the Oregon Department of Energy, the California Energy Commission, and the Washington State Energy Office has produced a tool kit to assist community designers achieve a more sustainable site development plan. This project, which is listed in the resource section at the back, utilizes CAD/GIS computer software, technical and public participation guidebooks, case studies, and policy models. Created to achieve integrated community energy and resource efficiency, the project is called PLAnning for Community Energy Environmental and Economic Sustainability, or PLACE³S. Another great tool is a computer visualization program operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service. It's listed in the resource section as well.

Buildings

Buildings and the equipment within them account for much of a community's demand for energy and material resources. Sustainable design and construction practices can greatly reduce the flow of energy, water, materials, and wastes that make indoor environments comfortable, convenient, and attractive. Building energy efficiency contributes significantly to sustainability by decreasing the environmental impact of energy use. Achieving improved energy efficiency in buildings involves several basic strategies, including:

Increasing airtightness levels of the exterior shell, or "envelope," of the building. This includes installing optimum levels of insulation, selecting energy-efficient windows and doors, and minimizing air infiltration. Airtight construction allows for the installation of much smaller, more efficient heating and cooling equipment to achieve occupant comfort. (It should be noted, however, that high insulation levels and tight construction techniques could lead to the need for a heat recovery ventilation system to ensure acceptable air exchange for good indoor air quality.)

Employing passive solar design strategies to take full advantage of solar heating energy.

Incorporating daylighting design to reduce the need for artificial lighting, and installing newer, more energy-efficient light fixtures to reduce the energy requirement when artificial lighting is required.

Selecting newer, more energy-efficient appliances, electric motors, and space heating, water heating, and cooling equipment that are appropriately sized for the reduced energy requirements.

Installing devices to automatically lower the thermostat setting (or raise it for air conditioning) during times when the building is unoccupied or the occupants are sleeping.

Using building energy analysis software tools to help determine the effect of a building's design and components on energy use.

While achieving energy efficiency is an important feature of sustainable design, selecting construction materials with minimal detrimental environmental effects presents an equally important challenge. This issue has become more meaningful as we become more aware of how purchasing decisions affect both individual human health in the indoor environment of our buildings, and the outdoor, natural environment. Descriptors such as environmentally benign, pollution-free, earth-friendly, resource-efficient, holistic, green, and healthy are often used to signify methods and materials that contribute to long-term sustainability.

Sustainable building materials are those that are:

Durable. They should increase, rather than decrease, the life of the building.

Recyclable. They should lend themselves to being used again as they were intended, or fed back into the manufacturing process.

Efficient. They should perform their intended function with the least amount of energy and resources. The "embodied" energy (energy used to extract, manufacture, and transport the material) should also be considered.

Ecologically sustainable. They should be locally available and renewable to as great an extent as possible, as well as appropriate for the area in which they're being used.

Non-toxic. They should contribute to healthy indoor air quality.

Several organizations have produced books, guidelines, catalogs, and directories to help select materials, methods, and equipment for sustainable building design and construction. Some are listed in the resource section in the back of this booklet.

Water conservation, too, deserves careful consideration, particularly in areas where water is scarce. Even where it is more plentiful, though, conservation makes sense.

The tremendous amount of water consumed in buildings today is largely a result of indoor plumbing. For example, Americans use about 8 billion gallons of water every day just to take showers and flush their toilets -- more than twice as much as necessary. And heating water for uses such as bathing, food preparation, and cleaning consumes a great deal of energy in buildings, second only to space heating and cooling. Additionally, draining this water out of houses and commercial buildings adds to a community's burden to transport and treat it. Water conservation is perhaps the simplest way to reduce water-heating energy costs and, at the same time, lessen the load on sewage disposal systems. Some common strategies to reduce water consumption in buildings include:

Installing low-flow shower heads and faucet aerators. These inexpensive devices can reduce the flow of water to about one to four gallons per minute (gpm), compared to their conventional counterparts, which use about 5 to 10 gpm.

Installing low-flush toilets. These use about 1 to 3.5 gallons of water per flush, considerably less than conventional toilets, which use as much as 8 gallons per flush. Composting toilets, which use no water at all, are another option. However, composting toilets aren't always readily accepted or approved by local health departments.

Using "greywater" drained from showers and sinks for subsurface irrigation of ornamental plants and shrubs. Greywater systems can also incorporate heat recovery, which allows them to capture energy that would otherwise be wasted.

Practicing water-efficient irrigation methods, such as avoiding overwatering, installing

rainwater catchments and sprinkler timers, and using drip irrigation systems. Landscaping should also be done with plants that require little water and match the natural vegetation of the area sur-

rounding the site. Also, gardeners should rely on biological controls to combat weeds and insects, rather than chemicals that can pollute the water supply.

Buildings that make efficient use of energy, materials, and water are not only economical, but also durable and comfortable. Communities that strive to create such structures will have reason to be proud once their project is completed.

Infrastructure

A community's infrastructure can be broken down into four main systems: energy, water, waste handling, and transportation. An infrastructure designed with sustainability in mind will maximize longevity and minimize size (and costs), while ensuring reliable support of community needs.

Energy

The sustainable approaches to site development and building design described above will reduce a community's energy requirements, allowing for a smaller, more efficient energy infrastructure. Once energy efficiency is achieved (including efficient street lighting), alternative, smaller-scale options may be feasible in some applications. For example, a community may be able to consider generating at least a portion of its own electricity using local resources such as wind or biomass, which is organic matter such as wood waste or agricultural crops specifically grown for energy production.

Photovoltaics, a technology that converts solar energy into electricity, may also be feasible, depending on climate, especially for more remote sites. Another potential option is geothermal energy. Many buildings nationwide can make use of geothermal heat pumps, which use the Earth's temperature to provide warmth in winter and cooling in summer. Some communities, such as Boise, Idaho, and Klamath Falls, Oregon, are fortunate enough to sit atop large reservoirs of hot water. This hot water is tapped with shallow wells and piped directly into the cities' district heating systems. Other communities that have access to cooler groundwater have tapped these resources for use in heat pumps for district heating and cooling.

Communities that continue to meet most of their electricity needs with a traditional utility grid distribution system should strive to ensure maximum generation, transmission, and distribution efficiency. Communities may also be able to "recycle" energy. For example, there may be opportunities to capture waste heat from industrial facilities or methane from sewage treatment plants.

Water

To sustain local water supplies and reduce the environmental impact of this infrastructure system, community planners should thoroughly study water supply options, as well as wastewater treatment strategies. Ideally, a community would be able to use the same water for multiple uses (starting with drinking water and cascading down to fire protection, landscape watering etc.) and then return that water to the environment in a condition similar to how it was when it entered the community.

In larger communities, satellite collection and treatment should be considered for both stormwater and wastewater streams. Capturing stormwater before it combines with wastewater would prevent it from becoming contaminated and allow for its reuse. For wastewater, sustainable technologies to consider include constructed wetlands and other aquatic treatment systems.

Waste

In sustainable communities, wastes will be viewed as the resources they really are. A community's waste infrastructure should be designed so that it's easiest to reuse and recycle materials and most difficult and inconvenient to dispose of them. In smaller communities, a "waste" collection infrastructure may not be economical or sustainable. Rather, communities may find it makes the most sense to locate a drop-off center near a highly frequented area. There, residents and businesses can bring recyclables, such as paper, glass, metals, plastics -- even building materials, textiles, appliances, motor oil, and tires. The center could also serve as a second-hand store and a place where residents can rent or borrow tools and appliances, such as carpet cleaners and lawn mowers. In addition, it could collect hazardous materials, such as batteries, paints, and old pesticides, to keep them out of the landfill.

Community education can go a long way in teaching residents how to minimize excess packaging, emphasize reuse, and buy products packaged in recyclable materials. Backyard composting of food and yard wastes should also be encouraged to minimize waste. All of these measures will serve to reduce the quantity of materials going to the local landfill. Even the landfill, however, can be sustainably designed, with proper siting, liners and leachate collection systems to protect the groundwater, waste compaction to make the most use of the space, and possibly methane collection.

Transportation

Sustainable communities can minimize the need for residents to drive by centrally locating facilities and adopting designs that encourage walking or biking and, in larger cities, mass transit. These efforts will help communities to make the most efficient use of transportation resources.

Sustainable criteria can also be applied to transportation surfaces. Roads can incorporate recyclable materials, such as tires, glass, plastics -- even asphalt itself can be recycled. Where feasible, communities should also consider using permeable road surfaces to minimize runoff that increases the burden on storm drainage systems.

Communities committed to sustainable development can also take the lead in promoting clean, renewable transportation fuels -- like biomass-derived fuels or electric vehicles that derive their electricity from renewable resources -- and the refueling stations to serve vehicles using those fuels. The U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Cities Program was established to help cities make the transition to cleaner-burning alternative fuels, and more information on this program can be found in the resources section.

There can be no question that sustainable community development requires a great deal of forethought and planning. There are many issues that must be resolved, and community needs that must be identified and understood, before a sustainable community design will begin to take shape. However, these initial efforts will greatly enhance a community's ability to sustain itself, improving the quality of life for both current residents and future generations. Soon, sustainable development will be the rule rather than the exception.

Table of Contents

TO --> Chapter Seven: Financing Relocation