The Council’s Third Highest Ranked Priority
As residents of San Luis Obispo we again ask: What would it take to actually see physical evidence of the important impact your decisions might make regarding climate change?
For example, San Luis Obispo now has an implementation plan for carbon neutrality by 2035 but the plan won’t be ready until next year. You may not know this, but there are already six U.S. cities that are powered entirely by renewable energy1 and 52 U.S. cities have targets set at 2035 or sooner 2. SLO has an implementation plan for a community choice aggregation (CCA)
program that is projected to be in operation a year from now. But as of today 881 U.S. cities have CCA’s up and running. SLO is a late comer to installing electric vehicle charging stations.
Similar-sized California college towns such Santa Cruz, Davis, Palo Alto and Isla Vista have approximately the same number of charging stations as San Luis Obispo. Among the top 10 U.S. cities leading the way in the per capita number of charging stations, three of them are located in California and none of these include San Luis Obispo. And finally we know we have
a “Green Team” and a Sustainability Coordinator but what are they doing?
In the meantime, the City is proceeding to approve developments which involve the unnecessary removal of our precious urban forest. Urban trees improve air and water quality, provide habitat to endangered species, reduce energy costs, improve human health and, perhaps most importantly, offer the benefit of storing carbon.
Additionally we are seeing in San Luis Obispo the proliferation of dark buildings and dark pavements which in the long term accelerate climate change and in the short term exacerbate summer temperatures. We are providing an insufficient number of parking spaces causing vehicles circling in traffic to emit more heat. With reduced building setbacks, we are seeing too much concrete and asphalt absorbing and radiating the sun’s rays. Urban canyons are being formed between tall buildings, trapping heat at the street level.
Are there solutions out there? Instead of authorizing the wholesale removal of trees why can’t we, like Austin, Texas or King County, Washington, offer carbon credits for planting and protecting urban trees3? City officials in Los Angeles are reducing the effects of climate change
by painting their streets with a light-colored, heat-reducing sealcoat. Regarding dark wall surfaces, it would be helpful if the City of San Luis Obispo simply followed its own Design Rock Port, Aspen, Burlington, Kodiak Island, Greensburg, Georgetown 1 2 Cincinnati, Ann Arbor, Abita Springs, Angel Fire, Atlanta, Berkeley, Boulder, Breckenridge, Cambridge,
Chula Vista, Columbia, Cornish, Cottonwood Heights, Del Mar, Denton, Denver, Eagle Nest, East Hampton, Edmonds, Enciinitas, Fort Collins, Eureka, Goleta, Haverford, La Mesa, Lafayette, Largo, Longmont, Lowell, Menlo Park, Minneapolis, Moab, Nederland, New Brunswick, Park City, Pueblo, Questa, Red River, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Solana Beach, South Lake Tahoe, Southampton, Spokane, St. Louis, St. Louis Park, St.Paul, Taos, Taos Ski Valley, and Grand Rapids (see: https://www.sierraclub.org/ready-for-100/commitments)
See: https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/08/carbon-offsets-for-urban-trees-are-on-the-horizon/ 3 568378/
As residents of San Luis Obispo we again ask: What would it take to actually see physical evidence of the important impact your decisions might make regarding climate change?
For example, San Luis Obispo now has an implementation plan for carbon neutrality by 2035 but the plan won’t be ready until next year. You may not know this, but there are already six U.S. cities that are powered entirely by renewable energy1 and 52 U.S. cities have targets set at 2035 or sooner2. SLO has an implementation plan for a community choice aggregation (CCA) program that is projected to be in operation a year from now. But as of today 881 U.S. cities have CCA’s up and running. SLO is a late comer to installing electric vehicle charging stations. Similar-sized California college towns such Santa Cruz, Davis, Palo Alto and Isla Vista have approximately the same number of charging stations as San Luis Obispo. Among the top 10 U.S. cities leading the way in the per capita number of charging stations, three of them are located in California and none of these include San Luis Obispo. And finally we know we have a “Green Team” and a Sustainability Coordinator but what are they doing?
In the meantime, the City is proceeding to approve developments which involve the unnecessary removal of our precious urban forest. Urban trees improve air and water quality, provide habitat to endangered species, reduce energy costs, improve human health and, perhaps most importantly, offer the benefit of storing carbon.
Additionally we are seeing in San Luis Obispo the proliferation of dark buildings and dark pavements which in the long term accelerate climate change and in the short term exacerbate summer temperatures. We are providing an insufficient number of parking spaces causing vehicles circling in traffic to emit more heat. With reduced building setbacks, we are seeing too much concrete and asphalt absorbing and radiating the sun’s rays. Urban canyons are being formed between tall buildings, trapping heat at the street level.
Are there solutions out there? Instead of authorizing the wholesale removal of trees why can’t we, like Austin, Texas or King County, Washington, offer carbon credits for planting and protecting urban trees3? City officials in Los Angeles are reducing the effects of climate change by painting their streets with a light-colored, heat-reducing sealcoat. Regarding dark wall surfaces, it would be helpful if the City of San Luis Obispo simply followed its own Design
1 Rock Port, Aspen, Burlington, Kodiak Island, Greensburg, Georgetown 2 Cincinnati, Ann Arbor, Abita Springs, Angel Fire, Atlanta, Berkeley, Boulder, Breckenridge, Cambridge, Chula Vista, Columbia, Cornish, Cottonwood Heights, Del Mar, Denton, Denver, Eagle Nest, East Hampton, Edmonds, Encinitas, Fort Collins, Eureka, Goleta, Haverford, La Mesa, Lafayette, Largo, Longmont, Lowell, Menlo Park, Minneapolis, Moab, Nederland, New Brunswick, Park City, Pueblo, Questa, Red River, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Solana Beach, South Lake Tahoe, Southampton, Spokane, St. Louis, St. Louis Park, St. Paul, Taos, Taos Ski Valley, and Grand Rapids (see: https://www.sierraclub.org/ready-for-100/commitments)
3 See: https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/08/carbon-offsets-for-urban-trees-are-on-the-horizon/568378/ Guidelines. Chapter 4 of the Design Guidelines discuss how color can be used to enhance reflected light in public spaces. Or the City could follow ASHRAE’s recommendations that new green requirements be established for vertical surfaces – a “cool” wall as the analog of a “cool” roof. In fact, solar reflectance index requirements for walls are contained in section 5.3.2 of ASHRAE’s “Mitigation of Heat Island Effects”4.
Apart from the verified science these negative effects cause by increasing temperatures, recent research has pointed to the finding that higher housing densities and the canyon effect of tall buildings increase stress levels. If you have ever traveled to Europe, including old coal towns, just remember how you were emotionally affected by the darkness in those cities. Finally try to recall the emotional impact of a treeless desert town (which we hope will not be in our future).
Please accept the responsibility of encouraging the kind of responsible development that will add to the pleasures of life in a City we love. Please put a stop to the disastrous development we have seen growing around us.4
Guidelines. Chapter 4 of the Design Guidelines discuss how color can be used to enhance reflected light in public spaces. Or the City could follow ASHRAE’s recommendations that new green requirements be established for vertical surfaces – a “cool” wall as the analog of a “cool” roof. In fact, solar reflectance index requirements for walls are contained in section 5.3.2 of ASHRAE’s “Mitigation of Heat Island Effects”4.
Apart from the verified science these negative effects cause by increasing temperatures, recent research has pointed to the finding that higher housing densities and the canyon effect of tall buildings increase stress levels. If you have ever traveled to Europe, including old coal towns,
just remember how you were emotionally affected by the darkness in those cities. Finally try to recall the emotional impact of a treeless desert town (which we hope will not be in our future).
Please accept the responsibility of encouraging the kind of responsible development that will add to the pleasures of life in a City we love. Please put a stop to the disastrous development we have seen growing around us.
This section contains the requirements for above grade building walls and retaining walls. To comply
