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City and Regional Planning 3840: Green Cities Final Paper Affordable, Green Housing in Ithaca, New York Clayton Richard Munnings 11/04/08 America is in the midst of multiple crises, the magnitude of which is portrayed by the manifestation of our economic situation. We are in urgent need of durable, robust and sustainable communities. There is a dire housing crisis, an apocalyptic environmental crisis and a dissolving sense of connectivity and community. America is at a crossroads. Affordable green housing is sustainable, addressing environment, economy and equity. Strong urban residential sectors support well-funded education sectors by increasing available property taxes, creates an intrinsic sense of community, provides a concentrated work force, treads lightly on the Earth and mends the style community we are in such need for. Climate change has been talked about over and over to the point that it almost becomes fatiguing. Even in our class, even among our most zealous colleagues, climate change is introduced in the following manner: “I know we’ve all heard what will happen if global warming continues…” or “I know we’ve heard this before…” The topic is brought up with more than a hint of bashfulness. Let’s be clear and honest with eachother, what Al Gore showed us with “An Inconvenient Truth” is sugar-coated, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reports are extremely conservative. They are based on linear models that are incapable of properly accounting for positive feedbacks. For example the IPCC reports estimated that the Arctic ice pack would completely disappear in the summer by the end of the century. It turns out the Arctic ice pack will completely disappear in the summer within the next couple years. The IPCC models didn’t properly account for the Albedo effect, one of the most simple and wellknown positive feedbacks. The IPCC is also plagued by a stringent and tedious scientific process which makes it difficult to keep up with the latest science—papers must be submitted years before reports are made. The predictions of emissions increase were underestimated by the IPCC, numbers that we’re supposed to be the “worst-case” scenario. The truth is such. The IPCC underestimated emissions, feedbacks and severity related to climate change. We’ve warmed the Earth 0.8 degrees Celsius. If we stopped all emissions today the Earth would still warm 0.4 degrees Celsius. Jim Hansen says we definitely cannot go over 2 degrees Celsius of total warming. We cannot warm the Earth 1.3 degrees Celsius more. If we don’t cut emissions to this level, if we warm the Earth 3 degrees Celsius we fill “face billions of deaths,” according to Dan Miller. Since suburban life (auto transit, extravagant houses, large lots and consumer comatose) is so inextricably tied to emissions, our only sustainable option is to encourage energy efficient housing in or near an urban center. The affordable housing techniques of yesteryear, the “drive until we find cheap housing” mentality is not an option. As seen on television, the United States is in the midst of an absolute housing disaster. Paying off mortgages or paying for rent consumes 30 percent of our income—we are burdened by the structures that are supposed to support and nurture us. A similar percentage is paid towards transportation—the car, an American sign of freedom, enslaves us. In more than half of the housing markets in the United States housing prices are rising faster than income creating great inequity. Affordable housing is the backbone of a community and by failing the masses, the lower-middle class and poor, we are dissolving our nation’s vitality. The marriage of green housing and affordable housing births sustainable housing. This marriage may be reciprocally essential for the success of both movements. A solely green housing movement will alienate lower and middle class citizens, potentially derailing the political viability of any green movement. A solely affordable housing movement will produce swaths of suburban development withno regard or foresight of environmental issues, ultimately these developments will contribute to the collapse of civilization. For my project I wanted to focus on organizations in Ithaca so I could work with actual people in real world settings. Therefore, I had to research Ithaca’s housing situation extensively before really delving into the issues. Ithaca is upstate’s crown jewel… it is the exception to all of the rules. While Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo are dying as their industrial centers are exported, as the remainder of the jobs are moved to suburbia and as property value drops Ithaca has a growing population, growing employment, rising property values and two academic institutions that provide vision and stability. As a result housing prices in the city are 40 to 60 percent higher than they are in the suburbs. The two academic institutions insure high concentration of students in the area so that Ithaca has a unique housing situation which puts student tenants versus non-student tenants. Comparatively, students are willing to pay higher prices for rental properties and care less about the long-term quality and care of a property. Therefore, renters may have a preference towards students as opposed to non-students even though this may seem counter intuitive. One incentive for favoring students is that renters can get away with passing down energy costs to tenants as opposed to increasing energy efficiency. So the housing market in Ithaca is already very competitive, inflating the market prices of housing and creating inequality. Unfortunately, development and/or redevelopment within the city is nearly maxed out—at least under current conditions. There are many barriers to further urban development, some within the realm of political control and some within the realm of institutional control. The rising prices in the city limits are making it more difficult to develop or redevelop properties within city limits. If you’re a non-profit organization working to rehabilitate or build new houses, you are already taking a loss on the final selling price of the house—taking additional losses usually isn’t a sustainable business model. If you’re agovernment the same applies, it would be hard to explain to tax payers why you picked a site for development that was twice as expensive in the city if you could have picked a


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