Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris announced a proposal for a greener Charlottesville yesterday at Northeast Park.
The plan includes several suggestions for making the city more environmental friendly, like growing the city’s tree canopy, encouraging the construction of green roofs, converting areas of asphalt into green streets and green parking lots, and purchasing and preserving green space and new park land.
To achieve a greener city, Norris suggested increasing the city’s tree canopy, or the area of trees that covers the ground when viewed from above. He said in 2008, the city’s tree canopy covered 32 percent of the city’s land. He hopes to raise the figure to 40 percent by engaging school children, garden clubs and other community groups to plant trees throughout the city. He also suggested requiring developers to plant more trees than they cut down.
The increase in Charlottesville’s tree canopy “doesn’t make an immediate impact, but it is important for the future of the community and blends in with the priorities of city council in terms of neighborhood preservation,” Vice Mayor Julian Taliaferro said in support of Norris’ plan.
Norris also said he hoped to “take barren parking lots and add green amenities” like trees and gardens.
He said changing asphalt into green streets and green parking lots not only improves the city’s aesthetics, but could reduce the city’s carbon footprint and decrease the heat produced by black tops, which is known as the “heat island effect.”
Norris also suggested that the city convert parking lots and some existing streets into “pedestrian throughways and community gardens.”
“This is the first year in many, many years that the city had included money in the budget to buy land for green space,” Norris said.
Taliaferro said City Council debated the green initiative plans for the past three years. Norris said the city, however, has not “done a very good job of balancing talk and action.”
At least one Council member also saw room for additional suggestions. Council Member David Brown also recommended creating a storm water utility.
Brown explained that the less permeable a surface is, the greater the amount of storm water run off.
“Our priority for the city is to convert impervious surfaces to pervious surfaces” by decreasing the amount of asphalt and increasing the amount of green space and green roofs, he said. One way Brown suggested to effectively manage storm water run off “is to have people pay a fee based on how much impervious surface their property has,” which would in turn be an incentive for businesses and community members to have more green space on their land.
Brown said other Council members have not heavily supported or endorsed his suggestion because they would like to keep the costs of fees and taxes on residents down in light of the recession.
Norris explained that to encourage green construction, the City decided to give tax credits to citizens with green roofs to encourage environmentally friendly construction. Although he and several other Council members support the idea of a greener Charlottesville, Norris said his plans for a greener city are not in opposition with urban development.
“We can grow our city’s green space while helping our city’s economy,” Norris said.
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