316 research outputs found
The Future of Abandoned Big Box Stores : Legal Solutions to the Legacies of Poor Planning Decisions
Big box stores, the defining retail shopping location for the majority of American suburbs, are being abandoned at alarming rates, due in part to the economic downturn. These empty stores impose numerous negative externalities on the communities in which they are located, including blight, reduced property values, loss of tax revenue, environmental problems, and a decrease in social capital. While scholars have generated and critiqued prospective solutions to prevent abandonment of big box stores, this Article asserts that local zoning ordinances can alleviate the harms imposed by the thousands of existing, vacant big boxes. Because local governments control land use decisions and thus made deliberate determinations allowing big box development, this Article argues that those same local governments now have both an economic incentive and a civic responsibility to find alternative uses for these “ghostboxes.” With an eye toward sustainable development, the Article proposes and evaluates four possible alternative uses: retail reuse, adaptive reuse, demolition and redevelopment, and demolition and regreening. It then devises a framework and a series of metrics that local governments can use in deciding which of the possible solutions would be best suited for their communities. The Article concludes by considering issues of property acquisition and management
The Future of Abandoned Big Box Stores : Legal Solutions to the Legacies of Poor Planning Decisions
Big box stores, the defining retail shopping location for the majority of American suburbs, are being abandoned at alarming rates, due in part to the economic downturn. These empty stores impose numerous negative externalities on the communities in which they are located, including blight, reduced property values, loss of tax revenue, environmental problems, and a decrease in social capital. While scholars have generated and critiqued prospective solutions to prevent abandonment of big box stores, this Article asserts that local zoning ordinances can alleviate the harms imposed by the thousands of existing, vacant big boxes. Because local governments control land use decisions and thus made deliberate determinations allowing big box development, this Article argues that those same local governments now have both an economic incentive and a civic responsibility to find alternative uses for these “ghostboxes.” With an eye toward sustainable development, the Article proposes and evaluates four possible alternative uses: retail reuse, adaptive reuse, demolition and redevelopment, and demolition and regreening. It then devises a framework and a series of metrics that local governments can use in deciding which of the possible solutions would be best suited for their communities. The Article concludes by considering issues of property acquisition and management
Tigard Microgrid Feasibility Study
68 pagesThe information presented in this report was collected through interviews with significant stakeholders from the City of Tigard, Portland General Electric (PGE), real estate developers, business owners, and specialists from the Energy Trust of Oregon (ETO). The University of Oregon, in partnership with the City of Tigard, has synthesized this information to build a feasibility study for the deployment of solar microgrids in the city.
This project seeks to answer the fundamental question: How can Tigard deploy microgrids using distributed renewable energy generation and battery storage at both the building and district scale to provide equity, resiliency, economic, and sustainability benefits to the public, local businesses, the city, and the utility company and its grid?
Across the world, renewable resources are being deployed at ever increasing rates to replace fossil fuel generation sources in the race to achieve net‐zero carbon emissions. This adoption has been encouraged in the United States by a rapid decrease in technology costs and favorable policies at the federal and state levels.
Solar power’s low cost, limited maintenance demands, and infinitely renewable energy source make it a perfect solution for building resilience in preparation for emergencies. Tigard and the rest of the Pacific Northwest are under the constant threat of wildfires and face the possibility of a massive Cascadia earthquake, which was famously reported on by The New Yorker magazine in 2015 (1). To prepare for this possibility, Tigard is exploring the case for creating a single user microgrid (SUM) that would provide energy to the public library, which will serve as the emergency operations center in times of need.
In an effort to achieve Tigard’s sustainability objectives and transform the city into a clean energy leader in Oregon, the team is also exploring the expansion of this microgrid to include the Hunziker Core, a light industrial and manufacturing district located just north of the library. The core is dominated by warehouses and large commercial buildings with vast surface parking lots that provide opportunity for rooftop and ground mounted canopy solar.
The district scale application of microgrid technology creates benefits for the grid, the utility, the owner of the generating assets, the City, and local businesses, particularly those that value resilient power. This multi‐user microgrid (MUM) is, however, the most complex system to fund and manage because of the potential number of generating facilities, owners, and user profiles. The implementation of the district scale MUM could be facilitated by the City’s enthusiastic endorsement and extensive cooperation from the utility, PGE
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Commonwealth of Massachusetts Mill Building Repurposing Pilot Project (Twist Mill - Athol, MA)
The purpose of the UMass Amherst Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning’s participation in this project is to establish a redevelopment action plan that incorporates the ownership’s clear vision for reuse of the site, proposes solutions to various obstacles that have hindered progress, and serves as a guiding model in terms of improving the feasibility of similar projects throughout the state.
The project team gathered information from a variety of resources, and conducted three distinct phases of analysis in order to complete this redevelopment action plan. The Phase I: Inventory examines the physical, regulatory, and financial context surrounding the current site in order to gauge its condition as a viable location to foster desired economic development for the region.
The Phase II: Assessment utilizes these inventory findings to identify clear challenges that impact the redevelopment potential of the site in an effort to reduce overall project roadblocks. The Phase III: Implementation provides strategies to alleviate these challenges moving forward, in the form of clear recommendations for local, regional, and state level regulatory improvements.
Phases I and II were conducted in the fall of 2013, and Phase III was conducted in the spring of 2014.
Particular thanks for guidance on this project are extended to L.P. Athol Corporation ownership, Dr. John Mullin of the UMass Amherst Center for Economic Development, State Representative Denise Andrews of the Franklin County Second District, State Senator Stephen Brewer, State Senator Stanley Rosenberg, Congressman James McGovern, and the Town of Athol
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The Deerfield Street Initiative (Greenfield, MA)
The goal of the Master of Regional Planning Studio is to develop a student’s techniques for collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing spatial and non-spatial data and then presenting that collective data in a manner (i.e., report, video, presentation, and charettes) that is understandable to academics, professionals, and the public. Planning Studio allows students to integrate knowledge from coursework and research, and apply such knowledge to resolving representative planning problems. At UMASS Amherst, these problems are found in neighborhood, rural, urban, and/or regional settings.
For the fall 2018 Planning Studio, the Town of Greenfieldtasked the Masters of Regional Planning Studio to prepare a vision plan that focuses on improving Greenfield’sRoute 5 Southern/Deerfield Street Corridor. Greenfield’s Deerfield Street neighborhood serves as the southern gateway to the Downtown. This area has been in transition for several years as the City has invested in housing and infrastructure along this stretch. The key projects have been upgrade of sidewalks, creation of a small riverside park, renovation of distressed housing. Recently, the neighborhood has seen investment in new housing. The Arbors (constructed in 2007) is an upscale assisted housing residence thatalso has low-income housing units. The Green River Commons (2018) consists of eight newhigh performance (energy) modest-sized condominiums with units as fourlow-income housing. In addition, there are several multifamily homes have been or are scheduledfor rehabilitation under the City\u27s Housing Rehab Program
Teho-optimoidun hissijärjestelmän taloudellinen kannattavuus
This master’s thesis ultimately frames a business case for Demand Optimized Elevator System and proposes a strategy of implementation that maximizes the economic performance of such system. The demand optimization in mid-rise and high-rise elevator systems is approached by two demand control strategies: through optimal elevator scheduling and by utilizing an energy storage. These two approaches are mutually non-exclusive and one can be implemented without another. The study suggests that demand optimized elevator system would achieve the greatest cost savings in building power system assets due to smaller feeder cables, reduced supply transformer sizing and reduced capacity requirements for back-up generators. Demand optimization would lower the load volatility of the elevator group and thus create less overall strain on the building power distribution system. These capital cost savings would primarily benefit the building constructor/developer as a result of decreased construction costs. Contrary to initial hypothesis, demand charge reductions can be only seen as a secondary benefit of Demand Optimized Elevator System. This is because the integrated demand metering that most of the utilities have in place does not encourage decreasing few second long transient power peaks. Furthermore, analysis showed that coincidence between building power demand and time-varying electricity costs can have a significant impact on the profitability of energy storage investment. In the studied case building, reducing transient peak power through elevator scheduling yielded capital cost savings of roughly 400 000€ in building power system assets. On the other hand, energy storage was estimated to achieve 18% higher transient peak power reduction than elevator scheduling and also to provide additional electricity cost savings, but these increased benefits have to be valued against the capital cost of an energy storage system. On average, the small-sized (30kWh) energy storage turned out to have the best combination of cost savings and low enough investment costs to be profitable.Tämä diplomityö käsittelee teho-optimoidun hissijärjestelmän taloudellista kannattavuutta ja analysoi sen kautta muodostuvia liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia. Työssä käsiteltävän teho-optimoidun hissijärjestelmän toiminta voidaan jakaa kahteen päätasoon: ryhmänohjaukseen perustuvaan tehopiikkien leikkaukseen ja energiavaraston avulla toteutettavaan kysyntäjoustoon. Nämä menetelmät eivät ole toisiaan poissulkevia, vaan molemmat voidaan implementoida myös erikseen. Työn tulokset osoittavat, että teho-optimointi tuottaa suurimmat kustannussäästöt kiinteistön rakennusvaiheessa johtuen mahdollisuudesta mitoittaa talon sähköjärjestelmä matalamman huippukuorman perusteella. Säästöjä syntyy tällöin muun muassa pienenevistä kaapelipaksuuksista, muuntajien kapasiteetin laskusta sekä vaadittavan varavoimakapasiteetin vähenemisestä. Toisaalta vastoin alkuperäistä tutkimushypoteesia, voidaan kysyntäjoustolla saavutettavia säästöjä sähkölaskussa pitää ainoastaan toissijaisena hyötynä. Tämä on seurausta useimpien sähköyhtiöiden käyttämästä integroidusta kysyntämittaroinnista, joka perustuu tyypillisesti 15-, 30- tai 60-min aikana mitattuun keskimääräiseen sähkötehontarpeeseen, eivätkä näin hetkittäiset vain sekunteja kestävät tehopiikit näy sähkölaskussa. Kysyntäjoustolla saavutettavat säästöt ovat toisaalta myös hyvin riippuvaisia kiinteistön kuormaprofiilin muodosta sekä hyödynnettävissä olevan energiavaraston koosta. Molemmat tekijät pitävät sisällään epävarmuustekijöitä, jotka tulee huomioida investointipäätöksessä. Työssä tarkastellun rakennuksen kohdalla, ryhmänohjaukseen perustuvalla hetkittäisten tehopiikkien leikkauksella oli saavutettavissa noin 400 000€:n kustannussäästöt rakennusvaiheessa. Toisaalta energiavaraston avulla olisi saavutettavissa vielä korkeammat kustannussäästöt, mutta johtuen korkeasta investointikustannuksesta voidaan sitä pitää kannattavana vain pienen energiavaraston kohdalla
Trends in Mandatory Municipal-Level Energy Benchmarking Policies for Large Commercial Buildings in the United States
Mandatory municipal energy benchmarking for commercial buildings are a novel form of policy
emerging across cities in the United States. These benchmarking policies require the owners of covered
buildings to report on energy consumption to a targeted group of stakeholders with the goal of attaining
a variety of benefits including reduced greenhouse gas emissions, more efficient real estate markets,
and energy savings for rate-payers. Energy benchmarking policies are rooted in new governance
literature in which non-state actors adopt some or all of the decision-making authority of government,
and targeted information disclosure literature which seeks to stimulate specific policy outcomes by
incorporating new information into the decision-making process of both the targeted company and
information consumers.
Early research on municipal energy benchmarking policies for commercial buildings has focused on the
underlying reporting frameworks for benchmarking and minimal research has yet to examine the
interplay between the many components of an energy benchmarking policy—everything from the size
of building that is covered by the policy, to the disclosure trigger and penalty for non-compliance. The
primary objective of this study is to assess whether the design of benchmarking policies conform to the
expectations of new governance and targeted information disclosure theories. The principal approach
employed within this thesis is that of comparative policy analysis with documentary analysis of seven
active municipal benchmarking policies in the United States. This study concludes with an analysis of the
gap between theory and practice, refinement of the theories that explain benchmarking, and
highlighting of opportunities to improve the practice of early adopters.
This study finds that while differences in design exist between the individual policies, energy
benchmarking policies do largely align with the expectations of new governance and targeted
information disclosure theories
Understanding and Incentivizing Workforce Housing: A Professional Project for the City of San Luis Obispo
Adding workforce housing to the City of San Luis Obispo Zoning Regulation is a needed component to successfully begin, and promote, the development of housing in the City to those making between 121 and 160% of the Area Median Income. This regulation would ensure eligible households are provided with housing choices within the community, preferably the community in which they work. The addition of Workforce Housing has been a large phenomenon throughout the State of California, and the County as a whole, as housing market prices increase and most salaries maintain at a steady rate. It is important to note that the State of California Housing and Community Development Department currently does not officially categorize workforce housing, effectively banning any funding, subsidy or mandatory incentive to be required by jurisdictions.
This professional project provides initial step to the development of a workforce housing ordinance with the needed introductory research and outreach analysis of the current conditions facing our community with regards to workforce housing. It examines case studies of jurisdictions throughout the County who have taken the initial step to acknowledge workforce housing and create successful, and unsuccessful, programs which assist developers and community members with developing workforce housing. An extensive review of scholarly literature was 5 completed to understand the need of workforce housing in both an economic and health and safety need. Outreach was then conducted with local stakeholders to understand the range of barriers, opportunities and recommendations regarding workforce housing, and how City of San Luis Obispo policy could benefit or harm the community.
The project concludes with the compilation and analysis of outreach and research to develop incentives and recommendations, found in the Recommendation Analysis, to overcome barriers of workforce housing and begin increasing the supply of quality workforce housing within San Luis Obispo
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