The Carbon March Visits Moosehead Lake, Maine

 

A few posts back, I depicted climate change concerns within urban planning as becoming the ‘new civil rights movement’. It was a stark metaphor, illustrating the degree to which greenhouse gas emissions within real estate development has become a defining issue for our industry.

The Christian Science Monitor has just devoted lengthy column space to a development dispute in Moosehead Lake, Maine, where environmental groups raised concerns over the potential negative carbon impacts from the proposed 2,300 housing and apartment units. By their calculations, the development would produce 9,500 tons of carbon dioxide annually – putting an additional 1,850 vehicles on the road. A representative from one of the groups cites their concerns as several and interrelated – not only are they unhappy with the the size of the development, but also with its location being far from town and only accessible by car, encouraging lots of driving.

Particularly timely for the Green Journey was the article’s update on states’ efforts to formally tie real estate development activities to climate impacts and state emissions reductions targets.

“Climate change has kind of permeated everything with regard to land use”.
-Scott Morgan, senior planner with the California Governor’s Office, as quoted in the Christian Science Monitor.

Carbon March Status: Regions That Formally Connect Real Estate Development to Climate Impacts

• 35 states have climate action plans or are in the process of developing them.
• Of the above, 17 states have set emissions targets for greenhouse gases. However, far fewer have laws that presently allow direct action on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions.
• California is seen the nation’s leader in pushing towards the inclusion of greenhouse gas assessments within local development plans and taking legal action against municipalities and/or companies, which it believes are not taking sufficient action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
• Across the US, only California, Massachusetts and King County, Washington have established climate change analysis into the state environmental review process that applies to land development.

In previous posts, we recommended that real estate investors learn about a) any climate change plan in effect in jurisdictions where they develop and operate investments and b) proactively managing the carbon footprint of their assets as the regulatory environment evolves.

So far, there is no need to change that suggestion.

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Photo credit: Flicker/Jonathon Brennecke - Moose