Task force pushed ahead environmental agenda in Burlingame
By: Will Reisman
Examiner Staff Writer
March 28, 2009
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| Accomplishments of the Green Ribbon Task Force include persuading the city to waive its fee for installing residential solar panels. (Getty Images file photo) |
BURLINGAME — Economic incentives to buy solar panels, mandates for constructing environmentally sound buildings and increased development near central transit systems are some of the proposals Burlingame is refining to reduce carbon emissions 15 percent by 2020.
The goals are outlined in the city’s Climate Action Plan, created by a task force launched in early 2008 that also works to move Burlingame toward its environmental benchmarks.
Among recent successes, the Green Ribbon Task Force recently persuaded the city to drop its $416 fee for residents who wish to install solar panels on their homes.
The group also conducts outreach in the community and last year organized a Green Street Fair, which will be reprised May 17, along with authoring a green-building guidebook to highlight the potential cost-savings in sustainable development.
However, many of the group’s big-picture tasks remain in planning stages, according to Kathleen Gallagher, an environmental consultant counseling the task force.
The Climate Action Plan could include mandatory certification standards to ensure that residential and commercial construction is energy efficient — a process, though, that could take a few years to implement — Gallagher said.
The group is also aiming to change city residents’ transportation behaviors, she said. “We’re very lucky in some regards, because we have a city that is easy to walk and bike in,” Gallagher said. “A major emphasis of our plan is to cut down on single-person car trips.”
Transportation accounts for 60.3 percent of Burlingame’s greenhouse gases, and 70 percent of that total comes from car trips on highways, Gallagher said.
In order to reduce car use, and thus emissions, the city needs to establish benchmarks for housing and development near transit hubs like Caltrain, she said.
