Growth » sprawl smart growth

Drum solo 4

admin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:08:04 +0000

me playin a song from band on drum set well…

Duration : 0:1:54

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Davos Annual Meeting 2010 – Rethinking Energy Security

admin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 04:14:11 +0000

http://www.weforum.org 27.01.2010
Shifts in supply and demand, as well as challenges posed by climate change, will exert ever greater pressure on both corporate and national energy planning over the next decades.

What is needed to tackle the interlinked issues of energy security, economic growth and climate change?

Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency, Paris; Global Agenda Council on Energy Security
Robert D. Hormats, US Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs
Lars G. Josefsson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vattenfall, Sweden
Jim Leape, Director-General, WWF International, World Wide Fund for Nature, Switzerland; Global Agenda Council on Climate Change
Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce and Industry of India

Moderated by
Armen Sarkissian, President and Founder, Eurasia House International, United Kingdom; Global Agenda Council on Energy Security

Duration : 1:22:12

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Atlee Mercer, Osceola County Property Appraiser

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:10:07 +0000

Hear a candid discussion about population growth in Central Florida, our options, and a smart alternative to urban sprawl.

Duration : 0:5:58

[youtube q0EAQE4XQuM]

Bob Wieckowski for Fremont City Council

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:19:15 +0000

Fremont is a great city. I’ve called it my home for 49 years. I love our city and have established my business and home here. I will work diligently to maintain Fremont’s unique character as the best place in the country to raise a family. My priorities include creating a strong sense of community within our neighborhoods and preserving our precious natural assets, such as our hills.

Cities are organic and must change over time in order to survive. Fremont has developed within a template that emphasizes a single type of suburban growth. Given the demands of our increasing population and the needs of our businesses, we must direct our growth in a way that responds to those needs within the context of local, regional, and global changes. Climate change and the warming of our environment demands local land use planning attention. That means we must act wisely to increasing traffic demands, energy costs, and climate change. If Fremont doesn’t adapt its growth policies to meet these challenges in a positive way, we will end up with heavier traffic congestion, longer commutes, a diminished sense of community, greater crime, and a commercial base that is diluted by suburban sprawl.

We must do better. I have championed clean technology and green regulations for the city of Fremont to make our city buildings more energy efficient and environmentally responsible, to encourage clean, responsible businesses to locate here with good paying clean & green jobs, and to promote an ecologically friendly residential lifestyle. I have publicly supported growth policies that would require new construction projects to adopt green building principles.

Additionally, I’m concerned about resource use, especially how we use our water and how we organize our streets. I urged the city to adopt the Ahwahnee Water Principles designed to spearhead conservation and drought resistant landscaping and aggressive actions to improve groundwater runoff and water quality. As your council member I’ve joined the national Local Government Commission recognized as a leader in formulating plans for smart growth to meet the needs of our society. Transit oriented development is one of its leading elements, and I believe Fremont must implement these policies in the coming years.

I’m dedicated to changing the development style of Fremont so that new residences are affordable, new construction and industries are clean and green, and Fremont remains a safe, livable, and prosperous home for its citizens and its commercial neighborhoods alike.

I have three Priorities for Fremont:

1. Public Safety
2. Economic Development
3. Transportation

Duration : 0:0:31

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Hanlon Creek Business Park Update jan 23 2020 @ Hamilton Skydragon 1 of 5.MOV

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:35:33 +0000

ANOTHER SITUATION WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO STAND UP TO THE DEVELOPERS AND THEIR ALLIES, BY OCCUPYING LAND THAT IS TO BE DEVOLPED-CODE FOR DECIMATED I’DE SAY. THERE LOTS OF BROWN FIELDS THAT COULD BE CLEANED UP AND USED BUT THE CITY’S AND DEVOLPERS DONT WANT TO ICCUR THE COSTS SO OUR FUTURE WILL, OUR CHILDREN WILL, OUR EARTHS ECOLOGY WILL. WHEN ARE THE SO CALLED LEADERS GOING TO GET IT-BUSINESS AS USUAL IS DEAD…… THE NORM MUST BE CHANGED….AND THESE ARE SOME OF THE PEOPLE AT THE FOREFRONT OF THE CHANGE! SUPPORT THEM-EVEN IF IT MUST BE FROM THE SHADOWS SUPPORT THESE INITATIVES.
PLEASE RESEARCH THEN SUPPORT PEOPLE LIKE THESE THAT ARE ON THE FRONT LINES.
THE SIMILARITIES TO MY BELOVED REDHILL VALLEY IS UNBELIEVABLE-THE SYSTEM HAS A HANDBOOK OF TOOLS THEY USE AGAINST US ACTIVISTS, WE WHO ARE WILLING TO PUT ALL ON THE LINE FOR OUR BELIEFS. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WAS ARRESTED 30 TIMES BY THE POWERS OF HIS DAY, THE SUFFERGETTES WERE ARRESTED WHILE THEY TRIED TO CHANGE WOMENS OPPRESSION. I FIND IT ODD THAT IN A DEMOCRACY THE SYSTEM USES ALL ITS RESOURCES GIVEN BY THE PEOPLE TO FIGHT THE PEOPLE, I THINK? THEY SHOULD HAVE TO GIVE THE PEOPLE ACCESS TO THE PEOPLES MONIES TO ENSURE AN EQUAL DEBATE.

Duration : 0:10:3

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ABC6 On The Record

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:16:09 +0000

Interview with Grow Smart Rhode Island Exective Director Scott Wolf

Duration : 0:2:47

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Ignatieff and Brison on Trade with China and Sustainable Infrastructure

admin — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:27:09 +0000

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and MP Scott Brison speaking at Kwantlen University, responding to a broad question about trade with China and concerns about the impact of the Asia Pacific Gateway strategy and the local highway infrastructure in the Vancouver lower mainland area (close to where they were speaking).

Sorry about my hands being shaky with the camera, next time I will bring my little steady cam thingy.

This is an interesting video, its both concerning and hopeful which I guess compared to Harper is a step in the right direction but we need more than baby steps we need real leadership that will take us into a new sustainable economy that must be built from the ground up in Canada.

The question is does Ignatieff want to be a world leader in addressing climate change or does he want to pass the buck and point the finger. If Gateway means a pipeline to get more of our oil over there or if it means sprawling development built around the car instead of smart growth communities then it is truely a gateway to global warming.

Brison’s comments are hopeful but its yet to be seen what the Liberals would do. Personally I think a coalition would be the best case scenario because it would ensure that Iggy would have to “play well with others” and it will definitely produce the best social policy we have seen from our government for a while and hopefully a sense of ecological reality.

Duration : 0:7:58

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Refuting Liberal Talking Points: Urban Sprawl

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:20:12 +0000

Is urban sprawl a problem as the Sierra Club and other envirokooks say it is? Not hardly.

http://www.tinyurl.com/3arenr (see table GCT-PH1)

National Resources Conservation Service, 1997 Natural Resources Inventory, table 1

As cited in The Best Laid Plans by Randal OToole, p. 97-98

Duration : 0:3:38

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Liveable Landscapes (Bullfrog Films)

admin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 08:19:13 +0000

Produced by Melissa Paly
A Production of Cross Current Productions

LIVABLE LANDSCAPES explores the connection between landscape and community in northern New England, focusing on how growth and sprawl affect quality of life.

http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/ll.html

Duration : 0:3:7

[youtube -GNDhtvyIFE]

Chris Daggett on Affordable Housing

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:24:12 +0000

TRENTON—Chris Daggett, independent candidate for Governor, today unveiled a comprehensive plan for overhauling New Jerseys affordable housing policies to prevent sprawl and to more closely align the goals with the objectives of the State Plan.

In unveiling a detailed housing policy, Daggett said affordable housing needs to be located in centers and along transit corridors with ready access to jobs, transportation and recreation opportunities. The creation of affordable housing units should not conflict with other state policies, such as smart growth, open space preservation and infrastructure investment.

“After 35 years, the landmark Mt. Laurel doctrine requiring municipalities to provide a fair share of affordable housing remains sound, but conditions are very different today,” Daggett said. “It is time to develop affordable strategies that can be seamlessly woven into the fabric of State Plan policies and promote, rather than undermine, its goals.”

Too often, the states current affordable housing regulations are driven by false assumptions and fail to account for new population trends, he said. The state Council on Affordable Housing projects 52,000 new jobs will be created every year when, in fact, 65,700 jobs have been lost in New Jersey in the last five years, Daggett said.

To ascertain the real housing needs, Daggett would convene a Housing Policy Task Force, comprised of all housing stakeholders, to gather facts and accurate, updated data on housing trends, foreclosures in New Jersey, and other information needed to address the needs of workforce housing.

His plan would also mandate that once fair share housing obligations are met, a communitys zoning could not be overridden by court decisions. An appellate court decision regarding a case from Easthampton in Burlington County last month affirmed that affordable housing must be deemed an “inherently beneficial” use when local governmental bodies consider applications for zoning variances. The ruling has led many local and state officials to be concerned that such a ruling will lead to zoning being overturned to accommodate affordable housing even in COAH compliant communities.

The housing policy recommends restoring Regional Contribution Agreements, a practice where towns satisfied their affordable housing obligations by paying other communities to build housing units, on the condition it results in new housing units in the host municipality.

“These agreements can fuel urban reinvestment and allow opportunities for affordable housing to be built in mass transit served suburban communities,” Daggett said. “RCAs for new units should be permitted statewide.”

The plan also proposes that government should take advantage of current declining housing values to increase the supply of affordable housing before the next housing market upswing. Such market-driven strategies could include conversions of single-family homes to two-family homes. Single family conversions make more efficient use of existing housing resources and public infrastructure.

In addition, families who are in foreclosure prevention programs and in danger of losing their homes should be deemed exempt from COAHs affirmative marketing obligations, not forced to move out and participate in a lottery for their own homes, as is the case today, Daggett said.

Finally, the plan recognizes the increasingly important role passenger rail will play in achieving smart growth goals. His plan proposes New Jersey invest in improving and expanding passenger rail service along existing commuter lines and reactivating lines that were discontinued during the time when the sprawl trend took hold.

Duration : 0:6:18

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