Congratulations to the winners of the Tipping Points for Sustainability Competition! And thank you to ALL who submitted entries.

Participants were challenged to identify a major tipping point having occurred within the last ten years that accelerated this region along its path toward sustainable development. Winners were announced at the 10th annual Southwestern Pennsylvania Smart Growth Conference – Regional Collaboration: Investing in Sustainable Communities on Friday, October 15, 2010.

The Top Ten Winners Are...

#1 - David L. Lawrence Convention Center
While Pittsburgh has made dramatic environmental improvements in recent decades, one significant turning point was the Gold LEED-certified David L. Lawrence Convention Center (DLCC) – the world’s first and largest green convention center.  There’s no doubt that the DLCC placed Pittsburgh on the world map as an environmental champion – and did much to help change outdated perceptions about the city.
Submitted by: Lynne Glover

#2 - The Allegheny Land Trust Green Print provides an agenda for land conservation, identifying and mapping 71 square miles of high performance natural infrastructure throughout the county.  The GREENPRINT guides conservation efforts, increases public awareness about the benefits of green infrastructure, and promotes community participation in land conservation.  It has increased recognition and public awareness of conservation’s role in addressing regional threats of flooding, landslides, loss of scenic character and biodiversity.  From this we learn that progress and growth can continue without negatively impacting the public benefit provided by high performance natural infrastructure through strategic land conservation practices.
Submitted by: Roy Kraynyk  

#3 - A Stream, a City, a Region, a Future
The re-engineering of a 50 year slag heap into a completely new city neighborhood and the environmental reclamation of Nine Mile Run is a model for the region.  It provides a new chapter in land use and community design and is part of the ongoing integration of a new neighborhood, Summerset, into the fabric of the City of Pittsburgh.  It took imagination by the community, matched with unprecedented risk-taking on the part of local, state and federal government officials to allocate resources to such a novel idea.
Submitted by: Christopher Briem

#4 - Pro-Active Transit Oriented Development Planning
Over the past ten years the City of Pittsburgh and Port Authority of Allegheny County have pro-actively advanced transit-oriented development (TOD) bringing benefits of community revitalization and investment, improving access to goods and services, lessening the need for automobile use, etc.  The key lesson for the region is that the emergence of markets for TOD, in combination with government and transit provider initiatives, has increased quality and amount of development along the region’s transit lines. The region can further advance TOD through taking advantage of renewed interest in revitalizing older core communities, provide incentives for developers to build at and near transit lines and excite the public about TOD.
Submitted by: David Wohwill  

#5 - 2007 EPA Consent Decree
The EPA consent decree has educated the public about the state of the region’s sewer infrastructure and has the potential to be a mechanism for change in the areas of conservation, stormwater management, and land use.  The amount it will cost to repair the aging infrastructure has given value to ecosystem services that were once taken for granted.  Planting trees, landscaping with stormwater best management practices, and designing communities around streams and wetlands keeps stormwater out of the sewers, saves money, and has numerous other community benefits.  The EPA consent decree provides an opportunity for the people of Southwestern Pennsylvania to reflect on how things were done in the past, work together, and move forward with greener development for a more sustainable future.
Submitted by: Jamie Eberl

#6 - Reclaiming Vacant Properties
Allegheny County, through its Redevelopment Authority, has operated the Allegheny Vacant Property Recovery Program (AVPRP), acquiring hundreds of parcels since 2000 and conveying them to applicants who demonstrate a viable reuse plan, ranging from side-yards to playgrounds and urban farms to affordable housing.  With tools and programs like AVPRP, the region has learned that we can turn abandoned properties and community nuisances into tremendous assets. AVPRP works in conjunction with the local communities who participate in the program, which today includes 24 municipalities, to review and approve applications. It is agencies like these that have the vision and the expertise to create and implement sustainable development in partnership with AVPRP, furthering our goals of turning what at first appears to be a detriment into a community asset.
Submitted by: Cassandra Collinge

#7 - Economic Crisis Leads to New Capacity, Diversity, and Innovation
The economic shake out that struck our region over the years has been impetus for systemic change.  It changed how individuals saw their future and began to redirect our local system which resulted in new technology being merged with rustic ideas in a rust belt communities.  For example new Brownfield policy allowed Pittsburgh to emerge from the ashes of the steel mill era; catapulting old communities to the forefront of change. These sorts of paradigm shifts have begun to break barriers that further accelerate sustainability in our region and healing processes that promoted self-sufficiency.  Drawing correlations between the healthiness of a community and the ideas its able to generate, focusing on diversity, equity, and practices of inclusion are now linked with attracting new businesses and taking risks and catalyst for change.
Submitted by: Fred Brown
 
#8 - The Green Building Alliance's Green Building Products Initiative is a strategy to promote green jobs and economic opportunity, creating a complete green building supply chain and to promote the "greening" of Pittsburgh by assisting both private and government entities to embrace green building practices.  For the region, best business practice should include the goal of a greener supply chain and green practices should be incorporated into any and all development plans.
Submitted by: John Stolz

#9 - PNC FirstSide
Another highlight for the region's green building prowess came in September 2000 when PNC Firstside Center first opened its doors. It both literally and figuratively marked the point where Pittsburgh, Western Pennsylvania and one of the country’s largest financial institutions could no longer deny the correct path for sustainable development.  The Firstside green building established the corporate approach for PNC to require all its new and renovated facilities to achieve the LEED Certification status.
Submitted by: Elmer Burger

#10 - Brownfield Reclamation within Allegheny County
Over the last 10 years, Allegheny County has committed to the reclamation/redevelopment of brownfield sites achieving redevelopment of more than 2,000 acres – focusing development within existing communities and preserving greenfields throughout the County that assisted in the creation or retention of more than 5,000 jobs throughout Allegheny County. Though brownfield reclamation can be a very time-consuming effort, the ability to redevelop a site allows for the utilization of existing infrastructure (including repairing of such), creation of jobs within potentially impoverished communities, and the preservation of greenfields throughout the region far exceed the initial upfront costs.
Submitted by: Nathan Strum