Events

Sustainable Communities 500 - "A project designed to collect sustainable development examples from every municipality in the 10-County region, over 500!"

The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, and Sustainable Pittsburgh partnered to invite each municipality in Southwestern Pennsylvania (over 500) to identify one example of sustainable development happening in their municipality.

The Sustainable Communities 500 project features an on-line searchable website to catalogue and highlight information about the examples. In order to collect these submissions, each municipality should have received a letter of invitation to submit at least one example and a "Sustainability Checklist" for use in identifying projects that hit high on sustainability criteria.

A handful of great examples are already in and featured on-line at: http://www.sustainablepittsburgh.org/SC500.html

Readers of 3E Links are urged to consider their home municipalities - what sustainable projects spring to mind? Please contact your municipal manager/secretary to make sure your municipality is represented and help demonstrate Southwestern Pennsylvania as an emerging sustainability leader nationally and internationally. The website has both on-line and downloadable submission forms. If you prefer Sustainable Pittsburgh contact your municipality simply let us know the project you have in mind. For more information please visit the SC 500 website or call us at 412-258-6642.

.

Resources

Energizing the Future - Bringing Wind Energy More Prominently into the Mainstream

Sunday, June 4 – Wednesday, June 7
David L. Lawrence Convention Center
Downtown Pittsburgh
More

The WINDPOWER 2006 Conference & Exhibition will focus on what needs to be done to bring wind energy more prominently into the mainstream electric market. Experts will share their knowledge and interact with participants in education sessions organized around the following 4 tracks, Business, Policy, Technical, and Utility/Homes, Farms, and Community Wind. The program will also feature approximately 150 visual poster displays, along with three special pre-conference seminars focusing on specific topics. Thousands are expected to gather in Pittsburgh next week for the country's largest-ever conference on wind power, an energy resource that has undergone a significant revival in recent years. Federal and state officials and company executives will join more than 4,500 at Windpower 2006 Sunday through Wednesday, said Christine Real de Azua, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06152/694802-53.stm

Mapping Pennsylvania Communities: An Introduction to GIS and Community Demographics Workshop - One Day Workshop

Tuesday June 6 or Wednesday June 7
8:30 am – 4:30 pm
New Horizons Computer Center
Five Parkway Center , Suite 200
Pittsburgh
Cost: $399
Register or call 1-877-241-6576

This fast paced, hands-on workshop teaches the fundamentals of how to use a Geographic Information System (ArcGIS 9.1) in a way that is particularly relevant to social service providers, planners and researchers. Participants learn to make thematic maps of their community, geocode addresses and perform spatial queries and analysis. Participants also learn to extract and map Census variables such as race, poverty, language, education, health and many other demographic variables. Exercises are designed for beginners. Intermediate Excel skills required. Each students is assigned a computer on which to work for the day.

Finding Value in Recovered Building Materials

Thursday, June 8
Construction Junction
4 pm
514 N. Lexington Street
Pittsburgh
Contact: Deb Elliott, 412-243-5025

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) in Washington D.C. in partnership with Penn State’s Hamer Center for Community Design Assistance has been conducting market development research to assess barriers and opportunities for reusing recovered residential building materials in southeastern Pennsylvania. The Market Study focuses on: the need for an infrastructure that can produce a consistent, steady supply of materials and incentives and promotion to encourage demand for materials by designers, builders, and homeowners.

Construction Junction, Western Pennsylvania’s largest retail warehouse for used and surplus building materials, will provide examples of the operation’s successes and challenges in both securing a consistent supply of recovered building materials and marketing that material to homeowners, architects, and contractors.

The presenters include: Neil Seldman and Linda Knapp of ILSR; Brad Guy, Penn State’s Hamer Center for Community Design and Mike Gable of Construction Junction

Collecting Difficult Money: Protecting the Public Interest in Bankruptcy, Liens and Foreclosures

Friday, June 9
9 am - 12 noon (registration 8:30 AM)
Borough of Green Tree Municipal Building
West Manilla Avenue, Pittsburgh
Register/MoreInfo

As demands for public services increase and municipal budgets remain constant, public officials are forced to consider alternative sources of revenues to meet public demands. For many communities, however, raising taxes is a last resort, and not an idea that is likely to be met with public approval. This workshop will provide municipalities with alternative methods of raising revenues without raising taxes. By introducing strategies to collect monies that are often difficult to obtain such as; delinquent taxes, personal bankruptcy cases, and sheriff sales. Fee includes handouts, light refreshments and certificate of attendance. Members of the NEOC Alumni Association receive a $10 discount. Include an additional $25 if you would like to receive CPE or CLE credit for your participation.

Sandra Steingraber Lecture

Thursday, June 8
7 pm
Katharine Dean Tillotson School
4900 Girard Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15227 (Whitehall)

Friday, June
12 Noon
Healthy Black Family Project
Hosanna House
Highmark Learning Center
807 Wallace Avenue
Wilkinsburg, PA 15221
No fee to attend
RSVP
About Sarah Steingraber

Ecologist, author, and cancer survivor, Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized expert on the environmental links to cancer, reproductive health, and developmental disabilities. She received her doctorate in biology from the University of Michigan and master’s degree in English from Illinois State University. She has taught biology at Columbia College, Chicago, held visiting fellowships at the University of Illinois, Radcliffe/Harvard, and Northeastern University, and served on President Clinton’s National Action Plan on Breast Cancer.

Regent Square Gateway Project

Saturday, June 10th
9 am - 1 pm
Center for Creative Play
1400 S. Braddock Avenue, Pittsburgh 15218
Info

It's the unveiling of design alternatives for the Regent Square Gateway Project! The international design team of Cahill Associates, Atelier Dreiseitl, and Rolf Sauer and Partners has been incorporating the ideas gathered from last winter's public design input event into two schematic designs. Join us as we present these designs and ask for your input once again.

The World Is Flat

Wednesday, June 14
11:30 am - 1:30 pm
Omni William Penn Hotel
Cost: Members $25. Non-Members $35, Students $15
Reaction Panel:
Moderator: Court Gould, Sustainable Pittsburgh
- Ken Cuccinelli, Chairman, Quest Fore, Inc.
- Maxwell King, President, The Heinz Endowments
- Brian Rabe, Director Global Customer Support, Kennametal Inc.
(Please pay at the door, by cash or by check made payable to “The Economic Club of Pittsburgh.”)
Video presentation of Thomas L. Friedman, Foreign Affairs Columnist, The New York Times and author presenting his best-selling book "The World Is Flat"
Followed by local reaction panel and audience Q&A. Video presentation of Thomas L. Friedman, Foreign Affairs Columnist, The New York Times and author presenting his best-selling book "The World Is Flat"

Followed by local reaction panel and audience Q&A.

Space is limited - reservations required: Please make your reservations by email to reservations@econclubpgh.org by June 9 . If you discover you cannot attend or arrange for an associate to attend, please cancel by June 13 or you will be billed for the cost of the luncheon. Call (412) 762-2671 for cancellations.

Presented by: Economic Club of Pittsburgh in cooperation with the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, Sustainable Pittsburgh, and the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh

Nations, regions, and cities the world over are just beginning to comprehend the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to step up as leaders in the global economy. Their role in the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, is creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization. And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner? What is the Pittsburgh region's play in this fast changing environment? What must our business, civic, and government leaders do to ensure our relevance and competitiveness in the fast changing global economy?

Join in viewing a video presentation of Thomas Friedman presenting the key insights from his brilliant new book as he demystifies the brave new world, making sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before our eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt.

After the video presentation, a reaction panel of local business and civic leaders will provide insights on what's at stake and steps the Pittsburgh region can take to compete in leveled economic world where Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda are next-door neighbors.

Linking The Comprehensive Plan with the Municipal Budget Through Multi-Year Financial Planning

June 21, 2006
6:30 - 9:30 pm
University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Smith Hall, Room 205
Registration Fee: $25.00
Info

Each year municipal governments prepare budgets that define how they will deliver the services to their municipal residents. These budgets include capital projects such as repairing roads and bridges, improving sanitary sewer systems and building new storm water infrastructure. A comprehensive plan is the tool municipalities use to define and implement the community’s goals and objectives. These goals and objectives will include the same types of capital projects as well as other community and economic development projects. The biggest question that municipal governments face each year is how to pay for these projects. All of these projects cost money and some of them can require a significant financial commitment. Municipal governments may need to budget for some of these projects over a multi-year time period. Linking the municipal budgeting process with the comprehensive planning process is very important.

Becoming a Transit Oriented Community: A Toolbox Approach

Friday, July 14
9 am - 3:30 pm
Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building
710 Washington Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15228
Register/Info

Increasingly, communities in southwestern Pennsylvania are capitalizing on the asset that access to transit provides. As part of its 2020 Transit Vision, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) has prepared a "toolbox" for municipalities to use as they develop transit oriented communities. At this day-long program, participants will learn to use this toolbox approach. Lunch and a certificate of attendance are included.

Forget Gas; We Need A Plan to Keep Passenger Trains Rolling

Here we go again — blaming everything on the oil companies for the spiraling cost of gasoline. How about we try something positive for a change, say, restoring our passenger trains? For decades, Europe has paid double what the U.S. pays for gas, and just look at the trains they have. Every day, thousands of passenger trains — conventional and high-speed — whisk tourists and business people across the continent.

Higher mercury rates found near power plants

Sample results from Pennsylvania's two longest-running mercury collection sites reinforce other state and national studies that show the toxin tends to concentrate around local emission sources, creating "hot spots" of contamination.

Sign-On Letter for Assisted Housing Inventory

On September 30, 2006, legislative authority for HUD’s Mark-to-Market (M2M) mortgage restructuring program expires. Without action by Congress to extend the program, units with HUD-approved rents that exceed comparable market rents face an uncertain fate. The M2M Program allows for the restructuring of mortgages on HUD projects with above-market rents. Why is this necessary? The problem is that even if HUD’s ability to restructure these properties’ loans to supportable levels is not extended, HUD is obligated by law to lower above-market Section 8 rents. If this happens, many property owners won’t have sufficient revenue to cover operating costs and mortgage payments after their rental assistance is cut. The result will be a loss of affordable housing because of property deterioration and foreclosures. HUD is expected to announce its position on extending the program very soon. The National Housing Trust (NHT) has joined more than a dozen housing groups in signing a letter supporting reauthorization. They are asking other organizations to sign on as well.

Budget Notice from Port of Pittsburgh

The House protected the President's $63 million budget on the Lower Mon and $17 million on Emsworth Emergency Repairs. It added $1.3 million for the Upper Ohio EDM study. It did not add the extra $8 million needed for Emsworth emergency repairs and was short on the $3 million needed for the EDM study. The next step will come out of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Energy and Water, which should report out in the next couple of weeks, where we hope they will add the $8 million for Emsworth and the full $3 million for the start of the Upper Ohio EDM study. Jim McCarville, Port of Pittsburgh

Region takes lead role in wind farms

And Pennsylvania has become a wind energy leader, ranking 13th-largest among the 34 states with electricity-producing windmills, and second behind New York east of the Mississippi River...The increase is due to numerous reasons. They include a federal tax credit for production, actions by states like Pennsylvania to mandate that a percentage of in-state power be generated from renewable sources like wind, plus the influx of big companies with big money. Another is the nation's need for more electricity, which is forecast to increase by 1.6 percent per year through the year 2025, according to the Energy Information Administration...Colleges, universities and some progressive businesses earlier this decade got involved with wind. Carnegie Mellon University decided 5 percent of its energy needs in 2001 would come from wind. The percentage has since increased to 7 percent. "Our decision prompted 30 other colleges to make commitments for wind energy," said Dave Dzombak, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon. Western Pennsylvania's prominence in the wind power industry is a major reason Pittsburgh was selected to host Windpower 2006 Conference & Exhibition, the industry's premiere convention-trade show. Slated for June 4-7 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown, the convention will bring to town some 4,500 attendees from around the world, along with 300 exhibitors, 25 percent more than 2005's convention, said Steve Minor, Windpower 2006's director.

Smart Growth in Action: Nine New Project Summaries

Smart Growth projects offer a wealth of information on how to create solutions for growth issues. It's not always necessary to come up with new ideas for each development decision; there are literally dozens of projects throughout the United States that can provide perspective and show how other communities have dealt with similar challenges. The projects listed here draw from a range of possibilities. Each project is ranked on Smart Growth Principles for each reference.

Hercules City Council Uses Eminent Domain to Reject Wal-Mart Big-Box Store; Historic Waterfront Slated for Redevelopment

Cheered by some 300 residents in the audience, the Hercules City Council became the first nationwide to use eminent domain against a planned Wal-Mart big box, just months after Wal-Mart rejected the city offer to buy its 17-acre lot near the San Pablo Bay waterfront -- the unanimous vote letting the city begin the condemnation process and save the historic waterfront for redevelopment into a mixed-use pedestrian-friendly village.

PA Preservation Campaign Seeks to Catalogue and Save Pennsylvania's Small Old Schools for Renovation

Their fate often threatened by the wrecking ball, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has launched a year-long "Educate Yourself About Preservation: Preserving Pennsylvania's Historic Schools" campaign, to highlight the indelible values of small old schools, catalogue those built before 1969, and place some on the National Register of Historic Places, which could qualify them for a 20 percent federal tax credit if converted to offices, apartments or other uses.

IssuesPA - Government Reform

Inside This Issue… A closer look at local government: Providing municipal services, Pennsylvania’s mind-boggling local taxation ‘system,’ local government structure, and the state’s role in local government (and what it should be)

Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility Lists Drive Improved Performance

"Corporate citizenship is a complicated and fairly abstract notion--by applying metrics and ranking companies and putting names to the concept of corporate citizenship, we help create a framework for what corporate citizenship is about, not just in theory but in particulars," Mr. Connor told SocialFunds.com.

Building a City Within the City of Atlanta

Atlantic Station is not only extraordinarily large, but it is also being built on a formerly contaminated site that was home to a hundred-year-old steel mill, which ceased operation in 1998. Now, the location has become a city within a city on 138 acres with retail, residential, commercial and public space in Midtown Atlanta, the commercial district.

The APA has created 11 (downloadable) model smart growth codes

The American Planning Association (APA) has created 11 model smart growth codes as part of its research project on smart land development. In the first phase of the project, APA drafted 11 model ordinances with commentary. A draft of those model ordinances is available for download. "The model codes are ordinances and regulations that advance smart growth objectives in towns, cities, and counties. These objectives include encouraging mixed uses, preserving open space and environmentally sensitive areas, providing a choice of housing types and transportation modes, including affordable housing, and making the development review process more predictable. In addition, smart growth ordinances, since they involve providing more transportation options and more compact, mixed-use development, inevitably have public health implications; they encourage walking and bicycling, and more human interaction, with the potential to support more active, socially engaged lifestyles that results in better public physical and mental health."

Complete Streets campaign kicks into high gear

A new, wide-ranging alliance has lined up behind a campaign to urge state and local governments to adopt policies aimed at creating streets that are safe and convenient for all users -- motorists or bicyclists, walkers or wheelchair users, bus riders or shopkeepers, young or old. A kick-off reception May 8th brought together coalition members from the major bicycle and pedestrian organizations as well as the AARP, American Society of Landscape Architects, American Planning Association, Institute of Transportation Engineers, the American Public Transportation Association and many others. Directed by Barbara McCann, the Complete Streets campaign now has funds and organization sufficient to begin advocating for complete streets policies in five states and 25 local jurisdictions, McCann says.

Manual from the Institute of Transportation Engineers promotes place-appropriate road designs

For decades, towns and cities have complained that highway designers inflict the same high-speed designs on them that they build in rural areas. Now, just in time for the Complete Streets campaign, the Institute of Transportation Engineers has come out with a manual that helps engineers identify and distinguish among different types of urban places, with design features appropriate to each. ITE's Context Sensitive Solutions in Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities shows how to design roads to support walkable and bikeable communities, compact development, and mixed land uses.

If We Had a Dollar… Mon-Fayette

Proponents argue that you can't put a price on what the Toll Road will bring to the economically depressed Mon Valley region. There is certainly no question that communities lying within the planned route of the road are in dire straits, still suffering from the massive losses of industry and population throughout what once was the world's center for steel production. The uncompleted section of the Toll Road from PA Route 51 to I-376 (the "Pittsburgh section") would run through 11 communities in the Mon Valley and six neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. Seven of those communities have poverty rates in excess of 20 percent, with 41 percent of Rankin Borough's residents living below the poverty level. Even the City of Pittsburgh's poverty rate is at 21 percent. Five communities, including Pittsburgh, are officially designated as economically distressed under the state's Act 47 ("Municipalities Financial Recovery Act") program, and are perilously close to bankruptcy. But so far, all this section of the Toll Road has produced is more poverty, more abandoned and dilapidated property, more young people moving out and degraded local roads and bridges. It is a downward spiral that is very predictable - property owners stop upkeep since their homes and businesses are in the crosshairs of a highway and likely to be taken by the government; both those properties and others become valueless and selling to a private owner becomes nearly impossible; people leave the area as it continues to deteriorate; the tax base becomes nearly non-existent and the local community no longer can provide services...In the meantime, scarce transportation dollars must be invested in what is needed most: a sound, safe road and bridge infrastructure and stable funding for public transportation that are part of a real community revitalization plan.

For information on becoming a Member of Sustainable Pittsburgh, please visit our website.

3E Links is sent as a service to Sustainable Pittsburgh Members and interested parties and is being distributed for informational purposes. The information above was provided by the organizing institution or one of its representatives. Our distribution does not imply endorsement. To unsubscribe, reply to this e-mail and type UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

Click here to access the 3E Links Archive. Use "Search" on SP's homepage for a great resource.

Sustainable Pittsburgh affects decision-making in the Pittsburgh Region in integrate economic prosperity, social equity and environmental quality bringing sustainable solutions to communities and businesses.

Please review SP's regional assessments and vision/policies for the future: SWPA Regional Indicators Report, Citizens' Vision for Smart Growth, and Regional Policy Guidance Document by clicking on the links to our website.

The Transportation for Livable Communities project is a partnership of Sustainable Pittsburgh and the national Surface Transportation Policy Project to advance a sustainable transportation system for Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Sustainable Pittsburgh benefits from support in 2006 from:

Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
Dollar Bank
The Heinz Endowments
Mellon Financial Corporation
The Pittsburgh Foundation
Richard King Mellon Foundation


Special thanks to the SP Members

Sustainable Pittsburgh
425 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1335
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
(412) 258-6642
fax (412) 258-6645
E-mail SP