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Green City, Clean Waters represents the City of Philadelphia's (City) commitment to the protection and enhancement of our regional watersheds by managing stormwater with innovative green stormwater infrastructure (GSI), while also helping to revitalize the City. The Philadelphia Water Department (Water Department) developed Green City, Clean Waters to provide a clear pathway to a sustainable future while strengthening the utility, broadening its mission, and complying with environmental laws and regulations. As the City agency charged with ensuring compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act, the Water Department developed an infrastructure management program intended to protect and enhance our region's waterways by managing stormwater runoff in a way that significantly reduces reliance on construction of additional underground infrastructure. At the close of the 25 year implementation period, the Water Department will have invested more than $2 billion on the largest green stormwater infrastructure program ever envisioned in the United States.
Year: 2014•State: Pennsylvania•Type: Policy Brief or Report•Source: The City of Philadelphia•Policy: Energy, Public Finance and Investment, Land Use, Environment, Water, Transportation and MobilityAustin Resource Recovery Master Plan, a comprehensive plan designed to achieve Zero Waste in the City of Austin while enhancing the services we provide to this community.
Year: 2011•State: Texas•Type: Act or Session Law•Source: City of Austin•Policy: Energy, Public Finance and Investment, Land Use, EnvironmentThe model ordinance sets a standard for the city to make more efficient and sustainable decisions in its procurement. The ordinance requires the city to procure and contract for environmentally preferable products and services whenever possible, defining \'environmentally preferable\' as products and services having less harmful effects on human health and the environment than competing alternatives. The ordinance requires environmental preferability to be assessed under a quantitative system, whereby one point is given for each environmentally preferable characteristic possessed. The ordinance allows the city\'s chief procurement officer flexibility in setting procedures to best meet the standard. The ordinance requires the city to give fair notice to current vendors and contractors of the new. The ordinance requires current vendors and contractors to be surveyed about product characteristics to aid the city in building a database of environmentally preferable products. The ordinance also calls for establishment of an environmental purchasing committee within thirty days of adoption. The committee will consist of seven members: three volunteer representatives of local non-profit environmental organizations, two volunteer representatives of the local business community, the city\'s chief procurement officer, and the city\'s director of property management. The committee will advise the Department of Finance, provide annual reports to the City Council, and offer ongoing assistance to improve the Chief Procurement Officer\'s compliance. The ordinance requires that all materials generated in connection with the policy be made available to citizens as public records.
Year: 2012•State: Louisiana•Type: Model Law•Source: The Public Law Center•Policy: Land Use, Environment, Public Finance and Investment, Energy, Health, WaterThis model ordinance requires that a municipal public fund create a list of fossil fuel companies that match specific criteria and divest all direct and indirect holdings in companies on this list over a 3-year period. This model allows for temporary suspension of divestment actions when financially prudent, as well as requiring efforts to minimize the costs to public funds. This model also urges fiduciaries of local government investment pools to divest from fossil fuel companies. And this model provides a range of policy options, from urging asset managers of participant-directed retirement funds to create investment offerings that are devoid of holdings in fossil fuel companies, to reinvesting funds in socially responsible investments, to urging credit rating agencies to factor climate risks into their ratings of publicly held companies.
Year: 2013•State: All States•Type: Model Law•Source: ALICE•Policy: Public Finance and Investment, Energy, RevenueThis report briefly reviews economic and finance literature on split rate property taxation as well as a case study of the District of Columbia\'s attempt to use value capture to fund a portion of a new Metrorail station. Split rate taxation charges a higher rate for land and a lower rate for buildings and their improvements. Value capture is a type of public financing that recovers value that public infrastructure generates for private land owners. This report compares a combination of these techniques, value capture split rate property taxes, with other techniques for transportation infrastructure finance and concludes that value capture split rate taxation can balance policy objectives for affordable housing, economic development, and environmental protection.
Year: 2004•State: All States•Type: Policy Brief or Report•Source: Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments•Policy: Public Finance and Investment, Revenue, HousingThis local law establishes \"green building\" design standards for certain building construction and rehabilitation projects funded through the City\'s capital budget with the intent of reducing the City\'s electricity and water consumption, reducing air pollution, improving occupant health and worker productivity, and encouraging the development of green building in the private market. Among the types of projects covered are schools, hospitals, libraries, cultural institutions, courts, and administrative buildings, but residential projects assisted by City capital funds are not included. The Mayor is given the authority to exempt up to 20% of the value of the capital work in a given year within the different categories of capital work and accompanying design standards as defined by the bill. Reporting requirements are also established.
Year: 2005•State: New York•Type: Constitutional Amendment•Source: New York City Council•Policy: Land Use, Public Finance and Investment, Environment, EnergyThis ordinance creates an abandoned property registration program that requires deed holders to register with the city within 10 days of transfer from a family to a bank. The deed holder is then required to maintain the house consistent with how other homes in the neighborhood are maintained.
Year: 2007•State: California•Type: Act or Session Law•Source: Chula Vista City Council•Policy: Land Use, Public Finance and Investment, Revenue, HousingWater systems in the United States are among the safest in the world and yet, the fragmented way in which most cities have managed water historically is not viable for handling the serious water challenges confronting urban areas across the nation today and into the future. With climate change driving dramatic changes in the water cycle and rendering traditional approaches to water resources planning obsolete, the time has come for cities to adopt more holistic and resilient water management strategies. Based on the outcomes of an October, 2015 meeting of mayors, municipal leaders and urban water managers, this report encourages the pursuit of integrated water management as a pathway to addressing urban water challenges within and beyond city limits. The report explains the concept of integrated water management; illustrates the potential benefits of pursuing its implementation; and provides practical guidance about steps elected officials, water utility managers, and other municipal leaders can take to get started.
Year: 2016•State: All States•Type: Policy Brief or Report•Source: American Rivers, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, Johnson Foundation at Wingspread, Mayors Innovation Project•Policy: Energy, Public Finance and Investment, Land Use, Environment, WaterBrochure advertising and soliciting participation from citizens in the city's rain water harvesting and rebate program.
Year: 2015•State: Arizona •Type: Fact Sheet or Infographic•Source: City of Tucson•Policy: Energy, Public Finance and Investment, Land Use, Environment, WaterAs vehicles become more fuel-efficient and overall levels of travel stagnate in response to increases in fuel prices, conventional sources of revenue for transportation finance such as taxes on motor fuels have been put under increasing pressure. One potential alternative as a source of revenue is a set of policies collectively referred to as value capture policies. In contrast to fuel taxes and other instruments that impose charges on users of transportation networks, value capture policies seek to generate revenue by extracting a portion of the gains in the value of land that result from improvements to transportation networks. In this report we identify a set of eight policies that contain elements of the value capture approach. These policies include land value taxes, tax increment financing, special assessments, transportation utility fees, development impact fees, negotiated exactions, joint development, and air rights. We evaluate each of the policies according to four criteria: 1) efficiency, which relates to how well the policies allocate scarce resources, 2) equity, which describes the fairness of resource allocation among different strata of society, 3) sustainability, which refers to the ability of the policy to serve as an adequate, reliable source of transportation revenue, and 4) feasibility, which refers to the degree of political and administrative difficulty associated with each policy. Since these policies are targeted toward use at the state and local level in Minnesota, we conclude by examining some legal and administrative issues related to the implementation of each policy with special reference to Minnesota.
Year: 2009•State: Minnesota•Type: Policy Brief or Report•Source: Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota•Policy: Transportation and Mobility, Revenue, Public Finance and Investment