Open Source Planning Paradigm & Climate Change: Walking the talk: Central City Concern's building water reuse report

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Walking the talk: Central City Concern's building water reuse report

Last night, I met a recent Rose Fellow who has been doing exactly the kind of thing that we're talking about: building tools for rapid, scale-able change. While working on a 200-family affordable housing building in the Pearl district of Portland, Ben Gates found that in order to do 100% recycling of water on-site, he and his team needed to figure out what the regulatory roadblocks were and at what particular aspects of the system they applied to. Rather than just plowing through with just the one project in mind, he coordinated an effort that produced a guide (soon to be available free online) that documents not only the hurdles specific to Oregon, but is designed to be adapted by other builders in other States. Listen to a quick interview with Ben (Or download the interview - 2.7 MB mp4), in which he describes the project and talks about the challenges & benefits to going "copy left":

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About the bloggers

Adam Szlachetka worked for the New York State Assembly in Manhattan for a number of years before returning to school to focus on urban planning at Rutgers. That experience in government led to a recognition of the built environment's impact on peoples' livelihoods and resource usage. His current research focuses on standard land use practice principles, valuation of green buildings, and the development of green standards for local and state governments.

Alison Novak is a tree hugging real estate developer who appreciates the intersection of sustainability, social justice, urban form, and bricks-and-mortar that can be found in sustainable real estate development. She came to real estate by way of the public sector, where she worked on the revitalization of commercial districts. Alison took her Master in City Planning and Master of Science in Real Estate Development from MIT where she found even more sustainably-minded folks than in Northern California. Now she endeavors to bring sustainability to The Hudson Companies’ projects, by way of its first green building project, as well as to other New Yorkers via GreenHomeNYC.

Bomee Jung is Green Communities Program Director at Enterprise New York, where she manages the design,
delivery, and assessment of Enterprise's initiatives to improve the energy and environmental performance of affordable housing in New York. Before joining Enterprise, she founded GreenHomeNYC, a nonprofit environmental education organization that promotes green building through volunteerism. Because she spent her first career developing Internet-based applications, she believes that data should roam free. Bomee received a Master in City Planning from MIT.

Timothy Terway is an environmental planner and urban designer (and internet addict) at EDAW in New York, where he is constantly pushing for a better understanding of the differences between reducing unsustainability and sustainability. Prior to joining EDAW, he had worked on large scale urban design plans and sustainability reports in China, Brazil, Italy, the Bahamas, and various cities in the U.S. He is interested in urban information systems that facilitate the collection of citizen-generated urban environmental data to better inform decision-making and ultimately inspire behavioral change. Tim received a Master in City Planning from MIT.

Frank Hebbert is a data enthusiast and recent graduate in planning from DUSP at MIT. He works on maps and GIS analysis for Regional Plan Association.