Although the official deadline for input into the MNCPPC budget has passed, I understand that since the budget request is still under development, you might still entertain suggestions.
The environmental imperatives that we face, both locally and globally, call for a comprehensive look at where and how our communities are built or rebuilt and how all our land is used. That is, a comprehensive look at our zoning, building codes and requirements, forest and sedimentation laws, and transportation. The threat of extremely unpleasant global climate change actually simplifies the task, because it focuses our attention and provides the criterion by which all these things should be judged.
As we move in the right direction with more energy and water efficient buildings and better stormwater management, we find what serves one purpose often also serves another. For example, a vegetated roof for indoor climate control serves also to contain stormwater. Similarly, trees offer stormwater as well as temperature control and as an extra bonus, they absorb CO2 and pollutants.
Conversely, infill development has been allowed to destroy the protective shade cover of older communities. Mansionization is doing the same. Yet energy efficiency demands that we design our communities more compactly to preserve precious local agricultural and forested land and to reduce the need for cars. An urban tree ordinance appears to be needed. Some of our road building standards negate good environmental practices, for example, grade requirements mean eliminating the natural contours of the land and disrupting the flow and infiltration of surface water, not just for the road, but for houses built along it.
Meshing all the complex systems and laws that have evolved over decades to fulfill this or that purpose or respond to requests by this or that developer is already difficult and is likely to become even more so.
The Sierra Club therefore recommends that the MNCPPC request funding for additional staff to perform a comprehensive sustainability evaluation and determine what regulatory changes are needed. We are clearly entering a new and challenging era, one in which more changes will be necessary than when the Clean Water, the Clean Air, and the National Environmental Policy acts were enacted. But change is difficult. A coordinated and systematic approach by Montgomery County’s planning authority would facilitate these changes. Time is running out on standard operating procedure.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
Anne Ambler, Chair