A very green New York
New York Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement on Earth Day in 2007 listed an initiative 127 aimed at making ‘New York greener and bigger’. Some of the ideas will involve making any new construction more environmentally friendly, they will involve helping New Yorkers with their existing homes and upgrading them to be more energy efficient. It will also help existing buildings, such as hotels, condos, and businesses, be more energy efficient as well.
The New York Department of Environmental Protection allocated more than $ 34 million for water conservation efforts to reduce water use by 5%. The new program will provide rebates to replace washers, urinals and toilets with more efficient next-generation models. Refunds will also be provided in an effort to make green building more affordable. Many eco-friendly features, such as improved ventilation, rainwater harvesting, grassy and landscaped terraced roofs, and white roofs that reflect heat rather than absorb it, all of these new applications will be added to codes of ‘new construction’; all new apartments and houses will adhere to a more stringent standard. The city plans to offer a property tax reduction for any building that installs solar panels.
It is not just the wealthy who will benefit from green building, some of the 55,000 units financed under Bloomberg’s plan is to create and preserve 165,000 homes by 2013. But, a radically new approach will still be needed to secure and convince the New Yorkers that going green is not only environmentally sustainable and affordable, it is worth the effort. For example, the new Via Verde apartment complex located in the Bronx has been touted as an eco-friendly model with features such as the ability to capture rainwater, space to grow fruits and vegetables, a Christmas tree farm, and solar panels and all land was donated for this project.
Currently, city buildings emit 79% of global warming gases, which represents 1% of emissions nationwide; that’s more than Ireland and Portugal put together. Experts believe that the construction of new buildings in New York City using less energy and water is paramount and also necessary, because the demands on the use of natural resources will exceed their current use by 2012.
Earth Day is coming again, and for the past three years, New York has made steady progress in achieving its ambitious goals. Not only have they implemented Initiative 127, but they have gone beyond simply ‘going green’, they have created a new model for sustainable economic development and growth by embedding the goal of a sustainable future deep within each agency involved.