# Presentation: 170576

## “Tools for Community Design and Decision Making”

**Ken Snyder**
**Denver Regional Office, US Dept of Energy**
**Please do not distribute this show without prior consent.  I want to make sure all of the people who contributed to the development of this show get credit where credit is due. (303)275-4819 ken_snyder@nrel.gov**

## Dept of Energy Program1-800-DOE-EREC  

**Clean Cities**
**Bright fields**
**Rebuild America**
**Cool Communities**
**NICE3**
**Motor Challenge**

**Building America**
**Industrial Assessment Centers**
**Weatherization Assistance Program**
**State Energy Program**

**www.eren.doe.gov**

## Clean Cities
Bright fields
Rebuild America
Cool Communities
NICE3
Motor Challenge

**Bright fields**
**Rebuild America**
**Cool Communities**
**NICE3**
**Motor Challenge**

**Building America**
**Industrial Assessment Centers**
**Weatherization Assistance Program**
**State Energy Program**

**www.eren.doe.gov**

**Dept of Energy Program****1-800-DOE-EREC  **

## Sprawl
Urban Disinvestment
Resource Intensive Life Style
Social/Economic Inequities

**Urban Disinvestment**
**Resource Intensive Life Style**
**Social/Economic Inequities**

**Challenges Facing Metropolitan America**

**Sprawl**
**Urban Disinvestment**
**Resource Intensive Life Style**
**Social/Economic Inequities**

**Sprawl**
**Urban Disinvestment**
**Resource Intensive Life Style**
**Social/Economic Inequities**

**Sprawl**
**Urban Disinvestment**
**Resource Intensive Life Style**
**Social/Economic Inequities**

**Sprawl**
**Urban Disinvestment**
**Resource Intensive Life Style**
**Social/Economic Inequities**

**Notes:**
Our reliance on cars, and on petroleum to fuel them, are also a major cause of the nation’s trade deficit. About $50 billion each year leaks from the U.S. economy to pay for imported oil. Each day, Americans use 4 million more barrels of oil for transportation than we produce.  We now import more than half the oil we use -- more than we did during the Persian Gulf wars of the 1970s -- and the # is rapidly climbing.

Transportation is also the major cause of greenhouse gas pollution,blamed for global warming. Vehicles in the U.S. contribute 78% of the CO2, 45% of the nitrogen oxide, and 37% ofVOCs found in the air in major metro areas. This isn’t just a global warming problem - it’s a public health problem. More than 125 million Americans breathe unhealthy air and 15,000 die from it each year (TIME /Dec. 15 ‘97).

Car costs 15% of average family’s income; Average worker spends 9 hrs/wk in car; and traffic congestion costs $100 billion/year in lost productivity.  There are also resource costs. The city of San Jose studied development pressures with and without a greenbelt -- a type of urban growth boundary.  It found that without a greenbelt, 13,000 homes would be developed outside the city, rather than inside the downtown area or along existing transportation corridors. The new homes would require at least 200,000 more miles of auto commuting, 3 million more gallons of water and 40% more energy for heating and cooling - every day.  (Source: “Taming Urban Sprawl”, Northwest Report, Jan. 1996. )

How Sprawl is Subsidized: In Oregon Public facilities/services = $25,000 per home in new subdivisions while Developers pay only $2,000-$6,000.
In Tallahassee, Florida - Sewer hookups cost $4,000 downtown and $11,000 in outlying subdivisions and yet everyone is charged same $6,000 fee.

And today’s transportation systems are a social equity issue.  Insofar as lower income families can’t afford the costs of car ownership, and insofar as their city’s mobility is designed around cars, families are cut off from vital opportunities and services.  Cars may be the most preferred mode of transport, in terms of flexibility and speed, but let’s not forget that 80 million American’s do not have a car.

## “We make dozens of decisions each week on projects and issues where the information presented to us is incomplete. We need ‘executive decision making’ tools that help us quantify and visualize, in real time, the true impacts of decisions.”
	-- David Crockett, Chattanooga City Council 

**	****-- David Crockett, Chattanooga City Council **

## In our Efforts to Create Healthy, Sustainable Communities:

**How Can We Help Communities Make Better Decisions?**

## How do we get there?

**How do we get there?**

**Sea of Knowledge**

**process**

**tools**

- Decision Support
- Systems

**Notes:**
Uninformed Planning Image: Peter Katz, Urban Advantage (katzoid@earthlink.net)

## Place Based Decision Support Systems

**process**

**tools**

## Information Resources
Visualization Tools
Impact Analysis
GIS Modeling
Community Process Tools

**Information Resources**
**Visualization Tools**
**Impact Analysis**
**GIS Modeling**
**Community Process Tools**

**Decision Support Tools**

_**Information Resources**_
**Visualization Tools**
**Impact Analysis**
**GIS Modeling**
**Community Process Tools**

**Notes:**
The purpose of these tools is to give local people -- ranging from elected and appointed leaders, to the leaders of neighborhood and nonprofit groups, to corporate executives, to the average stakeholders on the street -- to give them the power to make good decisions and to take good action.

Tools empower  people to act intelligently. They minimize the need for regulations that strive for involuntary action.

Many tools make it easier for lay people to become informed and involved in local decisions.

Tools make the costs and benefits of our choices more transparent. They can help us reveal and understand costs we never counted before because we didn’t know how -- costs like the public health problems that stem from dirty air, or the air pollution being created by different transportation patterns or building designs.

And tools help educate stakeholders about the overall impact of their choices.

## DOE Website

**DOE Website**
**www.sustainable.doe.gov**

**www.livablecommunities.gov**

## For an up to date overview of the tools that were presented at the TCSP conference go to
http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/toolkit/TCDDM/

**For an up to date overview of the tools that were presented at the TCSP conference go to**
_**[http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/toolkit/TCDDM/](http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/toolkit/TCDDM/)**_

**Decision Support Tools**

**Notes:**
The purpose of these tools is to give local people -- ranging from elected and appointed leaders, to the leaders of neighborhood and nonprofit groups, to corporate executives, to the average stakeholders on the street -- to give them the power to make good decisions and to take good action.

Tools empower  people to act intelligently. They minimize the need for regulations that strive for involuntary action.

Many tools make it easier for lay people to become informed and involved in local decisions.

Tools make the costs and benefits of our choices more transparent. They can help us reveal and understand costs we never counted before because we didn’t know how -- costs like the public health problems that stem from dirty air, or the air pollution being created by different transportation patterns or building designs.

And tools help educate stakeholders about the overall impact of their choices.

## Place Based Decision Support Systems

**process**

**tools**

## Bringing it all Together

**Bringing it all Together**

**DANGER!**
**STRANDED INSPIRATION**

**Body of Knowledge**

**process**

**tools**

- Decision Support
- Systems

## The PLACE3S Planning Process

**Step 1:****	****Start Up and Identify Existing Conditions**
**Step 2: ****Establish Business-as-Usual Alternative**
**Step 3:****	****Analyze Alternative Futures**
**Step 4:****	****Create Preferred Alternative**
**Step 5:****	****Adopt, Implement, Monitor, and Revise**

**Notes:**
4 step process - each community directed.  Net outcome: well understood and supported plan.  Lots of documentation (quantification) of the tradeoffs made.
Step 1:  Start-up- Development of a BAU scenario
Identify the geographic area to be studied -- project site and affected region = best.  
Document existing conditions = BASELINE against which compare all alternatives.
Stakeholders get together and work through critical items NOW to reduce haggling later.  These factors are: basic numerical assumptions (e.g.. average car emissions or gallons of water used/household/yr); evaluation criteria and ranking method (e.g. % residents w/in 1/4 mile to a park that would constitute a hi, med,  low ranking for criteria.)  
Use PLACE3S to measure energy use, cost, air pllts and CO2 emissions of existing conditions. 
Play out adopted policies to end of planning horizon -- generally 15-20 years = B.A.U. Alternative or the “Do nothing Alternative”.  Create maps and gererate estimates for evalution criteria.
Step 2:  Analyze Alternatives
Through a visioning process with stakeholders, develop and evaluate alternatives that improve upon business-as-usual conditions.  One alternative needs to focus on maximizing energy efficiency = Advanced Altenative.  Generally get attention of community + great opportunity to dissect where the benefits come from and teach communty about the integrated nature of sustaianble development. Use PLACE3S to compare energy use, costs and air pollutants  
Step 3:  Create Preferred Plan
Work with the community to hybridize the prior alternatives into a Communty Prefereed Alternative.  In process: Community makes INFORMED choices, tradeoofs (e.g. less density at transit means about $200 more per household in gasoline costs, and these dollars leave the local economy).
Step 4:  Adopt, Implement, Monitor, and Revise
Adopt the Preferred Plan.  Use data to track implementation.  Evaluate short-range development proposals and plans against the longer-term goals of the plan to ensure that incremental efficiency improvements are occurring.  Give community and elected officials justification for staying the course.

## Regional Resource Centers

**Regional Resource Centers can improve both the process and outcomes of decision-making... **

## Regional Resource Centers

**Interoperability/**
**Interdisciplinary**

**Regional**
**Resource**
**Center**

**Regional Resource Centers**

## Slide 18