Office of Sustainability a Good Start — Umar Farooq

The effort to create a sustainable future for Baltimore has been under way for quite some time, but has received a significant boost after the creation of the City’s Office of Sustainability in May. The idea of forming a comprehensive office began in 2006 with a recommendation from the Green Building Task Force that City Councilman James Kraft called together. Although originally proposed to be a part of the Mayor’s Office, the office was made part of the Department of Planning in the final legislation authorizing its creation in August of 2007. The office is tied to two other institutions resulting from the City’s sustainability initiatives: the Commission on Sustainability and the future Environmental Sub-Cabinet. Mayor Sheila Dixon appointed the 21-member Commission on Sustainability to a four-year term in April. It consists of representatives from businesses, development companies, community organizations, and other City departments.

“One of the main functions of our office is to serve as staff to the Environmental Sub-Cabinet, which is the heads of all the departments of the city, and to take a look at how to integrate sustainability into their mission. [In other words,] as a city municipality and as an organization, how to walk the talk,” says Sarah Zaleski, the Coordinator for the new office. The commission has been given the task of developing and implementing a citywide Sustainability Plan to be submitted to the City Council in early 2009.

Some funding for the Office of Sustainability staff of 56 currently comes from the Department of Planning, although in the future it may be a represented by a separate line item in the City’s budget. Some of its funding also comes from grants from the Baltimore Community Foundation, which has representatives on the new commission. Councilman Kraft has also introduced legislation to divert environmental fines to funding the sustainability effort, but as Beth Strommen, the Manager of the Office of Sustainability says, “It’s our strategy that we will do everything we can to raise the funds ourselves. I would personally rather help everyone find money than be a draw on the budget.”

Operating on a six-month mandate to gather community input on sustainability, the Office formed six Working Groups to address various issues: Energy and Air, Water, Waste, Green Infrastructure, Built Environment, and Transportation.

Each working group is headed by a chair appointed to a four-year term, and it holds open meetings to gather concerns at a grassroots level. The working group meetings will continue to take place until the end of the summer, and the Commission’s Sustainability Plan will be presented to the public in late October before being given to the City Council in early 2009.

A number of major environmental issues in the city has already been studied extensively. The City of Baltimore spends more than $5 million a year on cleaning the streets. Thus one of the first projects Mayor Dixon’s administration established was the Cleaner Greener Baltimore program, which is working on waste management, recycling, and greening the city. The Cleaner Greener program has a close working relationship with the Office of Sustainability. “They’re already working on a very specific issue, and Sarah and I are still sort of plotting out: (a) what are the issues people tell us, and then (b) how to deal with them,” says Strommen. So far, the Cleaner Greener program has landscaped street medians, provided additional public trash cans, and created new zoning for parks and open spaces. It has also attempted to facilitate the removal of graffiti, cleaning of dirty alleys, backyards, and lots, and the boarding up of vacant houses by reducing the City’s maximum response time for such complaints.

The Cleaner Greener program is cooperating closely with the Office of Sustainability on greening issues such as increasing tree cover. Much of this work is focused on the Tree Baltimore and Growing Home programs, which provide residents with free or subsidized trees. Although last year the program doubled the number of trees it planted, much of it has been in public spaces, and meeting the City’s goal of doubling the tree canopy will require planting 80 percent of its trees on private property.

With vehicles constituting the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state, the availability and usage of public transportation is a top priority for the office. “From a sustainability perspective, if we don’t move away form a car to transit and other forms of transport, we will not succeed…. So the Red Line [Metro] is so important, fixing any issues with the buses, [and] implementing the bike plan are key,” says Strommen. In the long term, the city hopes to begin the task of tackling greenhouse gas emissions with a citywide inventory of sources, and cutting its own municipal contributions to the problem.

Comprehensive sustainability policies will require strategic planning, and as Strommen points out, issues like recycling will require cooperation across departments: “Not only is recycling a product a waste issue, it’s also a jobs issue…. But if we don’t get the trash off the streets it becomes a water quality issue.”

Baltimore’s sustainability effort is currently trying to focus on listening to the community, engaging, and proposing a comprehensive plan with a triple bottom line of environmental, social, and economic policy. The office’s symbol features the words “People, Planet, Prosperity.” As Zaleski points out, “Many cities have experts coming up with a plan, and then taking it to the community and trying to get ‘buy-in,’ and we want to do the reverse.”

Some previous efforts by the Department of Planning for gathering community input have been criticized for lack of such outreach, and the current sustainability effort follows the model used in 2006 for gathering public commentary on the proposed Comprehensive Master Plan for the City. The first comprehensive plan for Baltimore to be put forward in more than 30 years, it was presented to the public for review in several public hearings over the course of three months, submitted to the City Council soon after, and approved within six months. Thus, the Office of Sustainability is encouraging concerned community members to attend its upcoming meetings, which have been publicized through environmental groups, various City newsletters, and brochures that are being sent to churches and community organizations.

Alan Cohen, an environment advocate from the Baltimore Climate Action Network, has attended most of the working group meetings held so far. “The meetings seem to have a number of people who are well informed, [and] the staff seems to be making a real effort to keep the discussion at a level everyone can understand,” he says about the public hearings. Cohen would like to see the plan address additional issues such as sea level rise due to global warming, the health effects of lead paint, asbestos, questionable water quality, and reducing the cost of old and low-income housing by making it more energy-efficient. On the oft-touted issue of job-creation, Cohen says, “It is vital to generate as many green jobs as possible for low-income people, so they [too] can afford sustainability.”

Sustainability legislation has already been put forward to deal with certain issues. Councilman Kraft put forward bills during Green Week to cut the use of plastic bags and Styrofoam containers by businesses, as well as to create a 10-cent deposit for glass bottles sold in the city, but none has been approved as of July. If the recommendations for legislation from the Sustainability Plan are broad and ambiguous, the Plan may take a back seat to future development, as a recent case in Allegany County illustrates. Despite violating sustainability guidelines set forth in Maryland’s Smart Growth plan, the 935-acre residential development of Terrapin Run gained authorization from the local zoning board, and the Maryland Court of Appeals rejected an appeal, effectively making such comprehensive plans non-binding.

Any outcome from the current sustainability effort could have profound implications for those living in the city. Thus, it is imperative for communities to continue to stay involved, providing the input and crucial oversight necessary for policies that move everyone toward a brighter, more sustainable Baltimore.