Sept. 10
By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly
Within six months, Philadelphia will have a plan guiding its efforts to become the nation's greenest city, the new director of sustainability said Wednesday.
The plan will set goals about retro-fitting buildings with green technology, Mark Alan Hughes said – and that could include using the sun's energy to heat water for the prison, for example.
The city already buys wind-generated power from PECO, Hughes said, and the plan will outline bigger alternative fuel goals. It's good for the earth, he said. But it's also vitally important for the city's budget.
"We will have a $15 million increase in our energy bill when there are no longer electricity price caps," he said.
Hughes announced the plan at Wednesday's Zoning Code Commission meeting.
Philadelphia's green blueprint will be modeled largely after New York City's, which is called PlaNYC. "I'm going to rip it off," Hughes said, candidly. Even the name tips its hat to its inspiration: He's going to call it PHLan.
New York's plan outlines 127 initiatives, and in its first year, 118 were launched, Hughes said admiringly. He said his self-imposed short deadline is possible because PlaNYC is such a great model. Getting PHLan done quickly would also mean it could guide the city through, optimistically, seven years of the Nutter administration, he said. New York's document came into being with just two years of Mayor Bloomberg's last term to go.
Hughes told the ZCC members that the new zoning code they are working on will need to work in tandem with PHLan. Open space will definitely need to be addressed, he said – and not just because parks make people happy.
Philadelphia is out of compliance with the Clean Water Act, Hughes said, because when heavy rains deluge the sewer system, it overflows. "We're far behind the curve," he said. But in this case, that might be good. Instead of spending lots of money on bigger and bigger pipes, the city can make strategic use of open space – bio swales and such – that will lessen the runoff that causes the problems. "Every gallon that does not end up in the pipes is a gallon for which we do not need to add capacity for to be in compliance," he said.
Hughes encouraged the ZCC to think of farmers when it reworks the code. Urban agriculture is a hot topic now, and when people in other places talk of the local foods movement, they often talk about Philadelphia, he said. Yet, the zoning code doesn't have an agriculture category, he said, so "we have lots of gardens, but not farms."
Urban farmers also need more land to grow more food, he said.
While PHLan, which is being paid for with a grant from The William Penn Foundation, is newly underway, the city has already been working on green goals, Hughes said.
There's already an action plan to reduce emissions related to climate change, he said. And the city has a new Sustainability Advisory Board, 21 people representing environmental advocacy groups, public agencies such as the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and City Council, and the corporate community.
The ZCC members also met their incoming chairman and planning commission director, Alan Greenberger.
Greenberger said he had interviewed four finalists for the ZCC executive director position – he didn't go into details except to say that two of them were in the room. He was reviewing his notes, and by this time next week would make a recommendation to Mayor Nutter, he said.
It was likely, Greenberger said, that the ZCC could confirm the appointment at its Oct. 8 meeting, that the hire would be made next month, and the new person would start the following month.
Contact the reporter at kelliespatrick@gmail.com
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