Meeting Minutes 2009_12_14

Meeting Minutes: 2009_12_14

Participants: Jeanette, Aaron, Awie, Cooper, Kathleen, Leah, Pam, Megan, Beverly, Lisa

Time: 2-4pm

INTRODUCTIONS AND SKILLS:

Jeanette: news group for green roofs for san francisco:other life is a business analyst for AAA

skills: researching, writing reports, networking

Pam: Roof Living general contractor in SF for residential projects for the past 8 years. Career change for personal and professional reasons now would like to be the GC or project manager for green roof installations. Is interested in botany and habitat restoration.

Skills: Research, Writing, Contacts a Resourceful Bright Girl!

Awie: Habitat Gardens as of the last 4 months. Interest sparked as has been involved in landscaping with own house and returning to training in Entomology and plant pathology.

Skills: contacts. architects and business development side of things

Cooper: Habitat Gardens for 2 years, previously was the nursery manager at Rana Creek. Love of ornithology, plants, habitat and natives. Also has nan interest in water catchment, water recycling and best practices.

Skills: Contacts, networking, practical knowledge, naked skiing;)

Lisa: Evo Design, environmental designer, works in Colorado and California. Founding member of Growwest. similar group based in Colorado

Skills: contacts, networking, practical knowledge, cutting edge in formation

Kathleen:Landscape Architect student at UC Berkley. Interest began in balconies, small roof gardens, green walls

Skills: data collection, contacts,networking, problem solving

Tad: Bay localize intern. Has created a video on green roofs, survey of different living roofs, energy savings, food production, his interest is in gaining knowledge.

Skills: video, information gathering.

Aaron: Founder of Bay Localize. We provide more of our own resources and use our own resources. EX Rainwater catchment and solar. Bay localize has many pilot projects, urban core, POWER in mission district. east oakland. middle school nutrition. interests policy an legislation: build on one each other and looking at how to leverage the network to see what we can move forward.

Skills: organizer, contacts, political positioning

Leah: Project Intern for Bay Localize. First interested through a green building class at Merritt college. They began a small green roof project on green house. she completed it. interests: policy on green roofs

Skills: research, PUC, initiatives

Megan: recent Landscape Architect graduate from Cornell. Interested in policy, and design.

Skills: research, design

Beverly: Native plants person, active community member, active with government

Skills: contacts, writing

SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION:

What is our intention? what do we want to get out of it green roofs? San Francisco has an opportunity to lead california in green roof policy. How do we set the standards, policy and education components?

Barriers:

1.lack of information, cost/ benefit. regulation, knowledge

2.perception of quality benefits

3.residential/commercial differences, Codes, Regulations

4.cost-lack of monetary support from government/rebates

We now have this great opportunity with the Storm Water Ordinance. We do not need to reinvent the wheel as we can piggy back on other municipalities and city leaders such as chicago, toronto, portland. We also want to look at what other communities are doing in the state such as San Diego.

Strageties:

1. education awareness

2. technical performance

3. policies and programs

These first two are very important. Education seems to be the key piece and the rest follows. How do we provide this? possibilities include resource website and symposiums. Policy is also a key piece as it can enforce the awareness.

what is our mission?

what are we choosing to focus on? where do we start? are we localized in just san francisco or the bay area. Is the focus storm water, bio diversity, aesthetic value?

Current status of policy:

The train that has left the station, there is already movement in the direction just needs to be presented as a viable option. The Storm Water Ordinance has sufficient ground to be modified. We have a strong environmental ethic and policies in place. What are incentives to jump start the industry?

If we choose to build upon the train: what is our agenda? we can work with sarah mince? with PUC and help to push through and survey interest. We can also work with the Green Ordinance to showcase green roofs as a viable option for mitigation and increase awareness of the benefits.

We discussed the Neuva School cooper was one the design team. What is the opportunity for hands on, on the ground and school education?

We can also act as a Resource( a clearing house for information). There is a lack o f knowledge of where to find resources, information and training and we can direct people to already existing sources.

Incentives:

1. Green points for development projects and other opportunities similar to "reduce energy and water on remodeling" in Richmond

2. paid for up front with customer payback with property taxes

3. rebates

we discussed the urban core: berkley first finance model where the cost of solar panel is paid for up front and then the customer pays for it on the property taxes. The bay area association of governments: 9 bay area sailor system, energy efficiency retro fits. What policies or programs would provide financial support? coordinate the incentives and provide and aggregate of demand?

SFPUC:

We discussed the importance of aligning ourselves with the storm water ordinance and green ordinance. we can they provide recommendations and changes that support green roofs. Leah shared with the group about the SFPUC meeting last week and the Green Ordinance. They were looking at all remodels with a foot print of 5000 sq/ft whether it was construction modification, additional change or replacement of permeable surface having to comply with low impact design: there is a suite of options to facilitate this such as better street plans, rainwater harvesting, and green roofs. In the Bay View and Treasure Island they are on a different systems than the other 90% is on a combined sewer system. Each project needs to hit certain targets: existing permeability of >50 % they have to improve <25%>

In this case makes sense to align ourselves with SFPUC and other groups as well as take a look at other cities. There are many resources and contacts we have a s a group to pull together examples and get direction from. We should also think of other political contacts we have as well,

RESOURCE SHORT LIST:

contacts:

Lisa-Tom Lipton /Portland, Charlie Miller-Philadelphia, Brad Bass,Growers in Austin, Growwest-Denver, Toronto, Chicago, DU and CSU research, Guelph Univ. Research, Seattle utilities connection guy

Beverely-Astrid-Mayor Newsome's Office

Cooper- Gabe, other contacts, Kurt-intrinsic, Nigel Dunnet

Aaron-City officials

Pam- City officials, Architects

Information/ data:

-FLL

-IGRA

-Brad Bass

-GRHC

-GIF

-Capitol Green Roofs

ACTION ITEMS:

1. prioritize recommendatios to sarah

2. schedule a meeting with sarah the latter half of the first week of january

3. schedule a conference call the first part of that week

4. meetings/ focus of sub groups:

-sarah SFPUC Task force: Aaron, Awie, Jeanette

-mission statement: Jeanette, Beverly

-resource list- Cooper, Lisa

-research: Megan, Kathleen, Awi, Pam