Greensboro to apply for Sustainable Skylines grant
Update: I just learned that the city of Winston-Salem is also applying for the grant. The city has already completed its greenhouse gas inventory and the City Council also approved an action plan earlier this year (Greensboro has yet to complete its municipal and community inventories). A community sustainability program committee, similar to Greensboro's, is in the works.
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The city of Greensboro and N.C. A&T have teamed up to apply for a Sustainable Skylines grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The city's Community Sustainability Council will help put the proposal together and will talk about this on Monday during its regular monthly meeting.
The council plans to incorporate recommendations from a November community gathering of local environmental organizations. Check out the full list of suggestions, but council Co-chairman Robert Powell noted that projects relevant to the grant would be:
* A green bike program;
* A home audit/upgrade program;
* Greening the Greenway;
* Water use reduction/lawn reduction
* Intergenerational collaboration for sustainable Greensboro;
* A bus idling program;
* A commercial building educational program; and
* An educational/community based project
The grant would provide up to $125,000 to a city to conduct planning for a variety of projects that would promote sustainability and improve air quality. Applications are due Dec. 17. Grant recipients would have to address one or more of the following activities in at least five of the following areas:
1. Central city livability (i.e. decrease amount of heated surfaces, increase permeability of surfaces);
2. Stationary and area sources (i.e. conduct pollution prevention audits for small business to reduce energy consumption and environmental impacts);
3. Energy and climate (i.e. reduction of landscape equipment emissions through sustainable lawn irrigation and turf management);
4. Land use transportation strategies (i.e. increased public transportation, reduction in vehicle miles traveled, converting parking lots to parks);
5. Diesel engines (i.e. reduction in idling, retrofits);
6. Green building and development (i.e. link green building techniques with affordable housing initiatives); and
7. Off-road sources (i.e. small off-road equipment replacement and retrofits)
Sustainable Skylines cities include Dallas, Texas and Kansas City, Missouri.
If the city gets this grant, it already has a sustainability manager in place to help implement it and a lot of enthusiasm among local organizations. Anybody know of plans by other Triad cities to apply?
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