Greener Buildings For Jersey City - What Will It Take ?

SJC is deepening it's focus on Greener Buildings this season, both residential and commercial buildings, in an effort to share actionable information and help JC stakeholders connect-the-dots to transform our built environment toward a more climate resilient city.  The opportunity to retrofit existing buildings and set new standards for new construction, will not only provide substantial ROI for owners and occupants, but avoid continued negative impacts to our environment. It can also be a fabulous way to ignite an economic boon for local green economy construction and building professionals, if Jersey City takes on a plan to retrofit our urban landscape with advanced technologies now available, being implemented all around us.  There are already substantial training and apprenticeship programs that have been underway by trade unions, who have recognized this market imperative for some time - why not put a stake in the ground here and now as we endeavor to make Jersey City one of the best mid-size cities in America ?

Quick Context -

• While global warming and greenhouse gas emissions are terms that are generally associated with industry and transportation, the BUILDINGS where we work, shop, eat, go to school and live, significantly compromise the integrity of our natural resources by the effects of daily heating, cooling, ventilation and water use, all of which require the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal.  BUILDINGS account for 39 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.
• BUILDINGS in the United States also account for 40 percent of total energy use, 12 percent of total water consumption and 68 percent of total electricity consumption.  Am fond of saying you can't manage what you don't measure, so in my view these are useful benchmarks.  Now what ?  While these metrics (which are growing in the wrong direction) and the behavior that drives them, cannot be reversed overnight, it seems to me that GREENER MORE ENERGY EFFICIENT BUILDINGS, is a no brainer - not to be disrespectful.  (some references to these stats - US EPA, US Energy Information Administration, NRDC, US Green Building Council)

In partnership with Councilwoman At Large Joyce Watterman, SJC supported a June Public Forum on Enhancing JC's Construction Division.  There will be a follow-up to this discussion scheduled for some time in September.  That meeting was very positive and the HEDC is working very hard to enhance the process of getting good building projects done, but we have to go further.  We must  begin to address the policies, ordinances and municipal recommendations that are all on record here; some are either not current or allow lowest end of standards range to persist, and some need implementation or amendments to close gaps - frankly, these guideposts are sometimes even at odds with one another.  We must institutionalize a Jersey City best practices framework for a sustainable and climate resilient built environment, and it must include changes to our building code.

I would say Jersey City is in the 'somewhat camp' - we have thought about this SOMEWHAT, but . . . THERE ARE NO INCENTIVES OR MANDATES IN PLACE WHICH WILL MAKE GREENER BUILDINGS IN JERSEY CITY A SIGNIFICANT REALITY ANYTIME SOON.  Fact is, this can change dramatically if folks worked together.

While those following our work know where we are headed on this - amped up education, new partnerships and working groups to help develop supportive policy proposals - this is a big conversation and would be great to know more of you who care about this topic.

Consider attending our next EAT, MEET, TALK! event on September 2nd, which is SJC's Monthly Meeting held at City Hall in Caucus Room #204.  Here's the link for more details -

http://sustainablejc.org/wordpress/ai1ec_event/sjc-monthly-meeting-eat-meet-talk/

Please consider digging in with us and joining this effort - it takes a great amount of collaboration and collective action to have something like this actually track successfully. Your engagement is very much appreciated, and everyone has something to offer that can help move this agenda forward.

What About Trees ?

Can't help but posting this as I read through what other cities are doing to manage stormwater surge impacts and some of the very costly proposed designs outlined in this article http://newjersey.news12.com/news/jersey-city-holds-meeting-to-lay-out-flood-prevention-proposals-1.8930223 While upgrades in our underground systems are needed and new ideas to redirect river surges may have merit, seems we can also include MORE GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE into our long-term sustainability planning efforts to make Jersey City more climate change resilient.

WHAT ABOUT TREES ? Seemed the approximately 90 trees on the Hackensack River's shoreline promenade of Society Hill's Walkway helped quite a bit during Sandy. In Camden, the newly planted 117 trees planted as a "shelterbelt' around the CCMUA Waste Water Treatment are part of integrated green infrastructure strategy that will help to helps to mitigate the flooding by absorbing stormwater.

Each tree will capture approximately 2,000 gallons of stormwater per year, diverting an additional 234,000 gallons of stormwater each year from the sewer system. AND in addition to absorbing stormwater, the deciduous and evergreen trees planted absorb odors from the treatment plant (other city odors), improve air quality, provide shade, beautify the landscape, and provide wildlife habitat. Seems the cost benefit is a little obvious and can help shave the costs of expensive grey infrastructure, river walls, etal, not requiring all these constructs. LET'S WORK WITH NATURE FOLKS !

New Project Fundraiser On SJC's ioby Platform - Go 'FROGS ARE GREEN' !

Sustainable JC has a wonderful crowd resourcing partnership with ioby.org, which we established for Jersey City community stakeholders as a vehicle to get neighborhood projects funded.  Some of these are turning into citywide initiatives and some have no borders, like the newest project Susan Newman, founder of FROGS ARE GREEN, just posted. Her Amphibian Education and Artistic Expression initiative is a fabulous portal which welcomes kids to learn about the environment in tactile and very fun ways.  In addition to learning about how cool and beautiful the vast array of these are, FROGS are a very important healthy eco-system indicator and unfortunately, they have become another canary in the coal mine and are at risk.

To donate to this project go here.

More about this project here -

Frogs, Amphibians and Their Threatened Environment: Discovery and ExpressionThrough Art, K-3.

Check out SJC's ioby Partnership page to learn more about this fundraising platform and to resource other tools that will help make your community project successful.

Crowd-sourced Rain Garden Installed

The long awaited post about the Rain Garden installation at St. Paul's is here! On May 31st, 2014, the NJ Tree Foundation arrived at St. Paul's Lutheran Church near the 5 Corners, to create a beautiful, natural stormwater infiltration system aka a rain garden. The 5 foot by 50 foot garden will collect rain runoff from the adjacent parking lot. It will capture about 700 gallons per storm or about 25,000 gallons a year. That is a lot of water they are keeping out of Jersey City's ancient, and regularly overflowing combined sewer system!

Here is the rain garden with the installation team and members of St. Paul's and SJC. During excavation and planting, NJ Tree Foundation educated community volunteers both orally and through hands-on experience on creating and planting the rain garden. It was a fun filled day with the DJ spinning tunes and shovels in the ground. See more pictures here.

St. Paul's Rain Garden - Compost + Plant List

SJC couldn't be happier about how this project turned out. This was the first time crowd-scourced funding on ioby.org was used to get our grass-roots efforts physically into the ground. The over-arching idea of using green infrastructure to reduce our flooding and CSO problem is really gaining traction both around the country and in Jersey City. In fact, SJC has partnered with P.S. 5 to turn some of their great rain capturing ideas into reality. Please help us reach our goal of raising $6,000 to install 80 feet of rain garden planters in front of the school and a 300 gallon rain barrel collecting water from the roof.

This is a great learning opportunity for the students and larger community. It opens the conversation up as to what individuals can do to help solve these water management problems.

PS#5’s work has also earned them the Bronze award with National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Schools USA program which supports and recognizes schools efforts to integrate sustainability into the curriculum and school grounds. Also, PS#5 Eco-Cougars were named National Finalists in the Siemens' "We Can Change the World" challenge. They were one of three schools in New Jersey to be awarded this honor.

Additional resources on how you can partner with SJC and ioby to fund your project check out our ioby Partnership page.  Lots of information about rain gardens, green infrastructure and a whole lot more can be found on our Resources page.

Great Model For Collaboration in Jersey City !

$1,600 to get us to the finish line.  And while we were going to end this campaign tonite at midnite, we're going to keep going until we hit our target !  Let's wrap this up Folks - partner with your business neighbors to bring more of these sleek bike racks into your neighborhood. Yesterday we had folks Sponsor ($150 each / serves 2 bikes) bike racks for community centers, parks and pools - THAT'S THE SPIRIT !!  We can do this Jersey City and remember the next initiative might be yours - get in the swing of community crowdsourcing the changes you want to see in JC ~

HOMESTRETCH FOLKS ! We raised $35,690 and we have $1,796 to go - campaign ends this Wed August 6th - we can do this JC !!

This campaign was extended an additional week so some promised checks can come in to get us to the finish line - it ends next Wed August 6th and we're almost there !  More community groups and individuals need to support this as is YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO VOTE on where you want to see bike racks in Jersey City.

This will put close to 300 of these cool bike racks on the streets of Jersey City - YES !!! Please consider donating what you can and encouraging others to do the same. EVERY DONOR GETS A VOTE to indicate their preferred location for a bike rack, SPONSORS can reserve locations, and then come September, the City will install these beauties ~

BTW . . . this is an unprecedented partnership with JC City Hall and COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS!   Has never been done before in the state of New Jersey and along with those green miles of new bike lanes being implemented all around the City, and the coming Bike-Share program with Hoboken & Weehauken (largest regional Bike-Share Program in the U.S.), this campaign helps to transform us FROM A CAR CITY TO A BIKE CITY !!

SUPPORT HERE ~