But they can see over the fence as they fall

Risk management is always an issue (in this case a "safety, privacy and liability issue") but boy this is taking it a bit far, no?

THE oldest is 14, the youngest only four. But that hasn't stopped a group of neighbourhood friends from taking on the Brisbane City Council.

After more than 18 months working on their dream four-level treehouse, the group of more than a dozen Newmarket children are fighting to keep council from tearing down their project.

"It's our clubhouse. We made it from scratch," said one child, 6, whose parent did not want them to be named.

"We all did it together."

Chairman of City Business and Local Asset Services David McLachlan said the structure, which is built on council land in Spencer Park, is a "safety, privacy and liability issue". "The top platform is some 4m off the ground," Cr McLachlan said.

"This is close to a property and the platform is built so they can overlook a neighbour's property, so there is a privacy issue."

More than 18 children under the age of 14 live in Market St and the treehouse has become the centre of street parties, birthdays and other get-togethers.

"What kind of over-regulated society do we live in, when kids can't play in their tree house?" asked Nicholas Edwards, 12. "Mum didn't tell me to say that."

Mum Lisa Palu said the treehouse had brought families together.

"All the dads met each other through it and helped the kids with the construction," she said. "Liability is a serious issue for council. I know that. But what we want is the opportunity to meet with council. Come and talk to us so the children understand."

Councillor for Central Ward David Hinchliffe said the structure should stay.

The treehouse is due to be torn down by the end of the week.

Just in case you missed it....

A new role that I am taking on that was picked up (slow news day) by the business section of The Age in Melbourne and some bloggers...

The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) has established a new task group to encourage local councils to take up the green building agenda. The Local Government Task Group (LGTG) has been formed to engage with local councils on green building issues, identify opportunities and barriers and provide guidance on the use of the Green Star rating system for buildings.

According to Chief Executive of the GBCA, Romilly Madew, many local governments – including the Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth city councils – are already fully engaged members of the GBCA.

“Local governments have been promoting and implementing green building programs for a number of years - from developing iconic buildings such as the City of Melbourne’s CH2 through to mandatory local laws to ensure minimum energy efficiency standards.

“The GBCA’s new Local Government Task Group will further this trend by encouraging the uptake of voluntary rating tools, offering practical advice and assistance and educating councils on best practice from similar organisations around the world,” Ms Madew says.

The LGTG will be chaired by Wayne Wescott, sustainability consultant and former Chief Executive Officer of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) Oceania Secretariat. Task Group members will be appointed for their technical expertise and industry knowledge.

“In the wake of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations, people are looking to make practical changes and green building is one of the most cost effective and efficient ways to cut carbon emissions and improve sustainability outcomes,” Mr Wescott says.

“The Task Group will integrate local governments’ efforts with other sectors – from developers to householders - to demonstrate that significant small-scale action across our nation can be aggregated towards major change.

“We aim to see more local governments take on the role of ‘green change agents’ and lead the way in the adoption of sustainable building and eco-friendly business practices.

“By working at the grass-roots level, we hope that councils around Australia will influence the future direction of green building in Australia,” Mr Wescott concludes.

The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) is Australia’s leading authority on green building. The GBCA was established in 2002 to develop a sustainable property industry in Australia and drive the adoption of green building practices.

The GBCA has more than 830 member companies who work together to support the Council and its activities.The GBCA promotes green building programs, technologies, design practices and processes, and operates Australia’s only national voluntary comprehensive environmental rating system for buildings - Green Star.

The GBCA has an online portal, the Green Guide to Government Policy (available at www.gbca.org.au), which outlines green building programs and incentives at all levels of government around Australia.

Now THIS is an interview...

 I am not sure that Johannesburg's Mayor Masondo (who used to be President of ICLEI) quite got what he thought he would get here from Chris Barron of the Sunday Times...

Is Joburg ready for the World Cup?
I think we are.
What about the potholes?
We are addressing that problem.
What about the trenches that are left open for months for people to fall into?
Again, that’s one of the big problems.
What about the broken traffic lights?
It’s being addressed in an ongoing way.
What about the street lights that don’t work?
You keep on mentioning these things one by one. And my answer is an honest one, to say yes, there are gaps, and we are working on addressing the problems.
What about the missing street signs?
The matter has been raised with the mayoral committee by the executive director of 2010. And, again, a commitment has been made that we’ll be upgrading these in the next two to three months.
What about the litter?
The city’s much cleaner than it used to be.
There’s still a lot of rubbish around, though, isn’t there?
There is a lot of rubbish around. Pikitup is working on a programme that seeks to mobilise communities.
What about the blocked stormwater drains?
Yes, because it rains quite heavily. Some of the problems ... have been exposed and we are addressing them.
That’s an issue of maintenance, isn’t it?
Yes, it’s an issue of maintenance, but you know ...
They’re not being properly maintained?
They’re not being properly maintained. It’s the kind of thing that should be done in winter.
Why isn’t it happening?
There have been some problems there.
What about the lack of reliable public transport?
Well, I mean we have introduced BRT (bus rapid transit).
On all routes?
Not all the routes.
Do you use public transport?
Once in a while, yes. I use a taxi once in a while.
Wouldn’t it send an encouraging message if you used public transport to get to work?
I don’t know if you’re aware of this but annually, every October or so, we use public transport.
You use public transport every October?
Just to try and encourage people to use public transport.
So you use public transport once a year?
Yes sir. I don’t use public transport daily.
Don’t you want to encourage people to use public transport?
We’re doing our bit.
The mayor of New York uses public transport every day to get to work.
The mayor of New York?
The current mayor of London goes to work on a bicycle.
That’s going to the other extreme, but he’s doing something that’s positive.
Do you think you might use a bicycle one day?
I will do anything possible to incline people in the right direction, but I will not do a public stunt simply for the sake of it.
If the public transport was any good would you use it?
Absolutely, absolutely.
So you admit that it’s not?
It’s not very good, but there is something that we are doing to get public transport right.
You plug Joburg as a world-class city. Isn’t this false advertising?
No, it’s not false at all. That’s a goal we’re working towards, that’s a vision.
In your view what makes Joburg a world-class city?
One has had an opportunity to travel to many cities in the world and therefore I’ve had an opportunity to compare and reflect. Very clearly, Joburg is one of the best cities on the African continent.
But you call it a world-class city?
We are definitely moving in that direction. If you’re talking global cities in the world Joburg is definitely one of them.
What are your criteria for a world-class city?
I don’t know if you’re familiar with our Joburg vision statement?
Is it the vision of a world-class city that makes it a world-class city, or the reality?
What reality are you talking about?
Do you know of any other world-class city where an unelected mayor has been in office for 10 years?
Unelected? What do you mean by that?
That you haven’t been elected.
I’m sure you know that the political system is different in South Africa. I get elected by the councillors of Johannesburg.
In other words you’re deployed by the ANC, not elected by the people?
If you want to criticise the ANC and bash it, do so. But don’t try funny tricks. That won’t get us anywhere.

Moving across levels of government...

Joint focus across levels of government - in this case, Stamford, CT. The lesson? Aligned agendas do not mean that you have to agree on everything...

"The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), City of Stamford, US EPA Long Island Sound Study and the Mill River Collaborative today showcased work to restore the Mill River and allow for the return of important species of fish. A ceremony at Scalzi Park, (formerly known as Woodside Park), Stamford, featured the release of alewives into the Rippowam River (popularly known as the Mill River), where they will now be able to migrate upstream to breed and then move downstream to Long Island Sound as a result of the removal of old dams.

Removal of two dams by the City of Stamford with support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mill River Collaborative in 2009 began a comprehensive restoration project which currently has opened up 4.5 river miles to increase fish runs on the Rippowam River (Mill River). At the ceremony 400 alewives brought from Bride Brook at Rocky Neck State Park, East Lyme, were released to help restore the river and rebuild river herring runs."

Did she say that the volcano was a falafel?

I know, I know, but it is just so wrong...

They're all doing it because it makes sense

The WSJ looks at early days in the development of new "green" jobs:

"Declaring that a city is going to replace yesterday's lost jobs with new green ones is a lot easier than actually doing so."

Although the general tone is "this is hyped" the actual story shows some movement (and a well-named official):

Plenty of people in Joliet recall the anticipation for other new industries that took years to develop. Tom Proffitt, an electrician for 37 years, remembers the excitement in the 1980s about laying fiber-optic cables for the expected advancements in information technology. He said many local companies didn't want to invest in equipment, fearing the industry would never become such a major force. "It took a few years" before the work materialized, he said.

Now Mr. Proffitt, the training director for a local electrical union, takes a trailer around to career fairs to show off solar equipment to high school students. His union just ordered new solar panels, at $700 apiece, to give apprentices a new set of skills for work they expect to come. "Solar was hyped and hyped," he said. "Now it's creeping in there."

Cyclists versus buses

The slightly annoying but always interesting Copenhagenise guy has a good follow on story in this endless battle...

"A bus full of Dutch exchange students were stranded in the northern Danish city of Aalborg because an angry cyclist stole the keys to their tourist bus.

The students stopped at a supermarket and their chauffeur parked illegally on the bike lane.

This irritated a local cycling citizen so much that he first scolded the Dutch angrily and then went into the bus and took the key.

'He simply takes the key out of the ignition and then disappears. So we have a bus chauffeur without any keys to a Dutch coach', said Peter Redder fra North Jutland Police.

The Dutch were able to get the bus moved and had to spend an extra night while they waited for reserve keys to be sent from the Netherlands. The Dutch admitted that it wasn't clever not to have extra keys and that they realise they shouldn't have parked in the bike lane, but they weren't too thrilled by the episode."

I guess it is all a gamble...

At a recent East-West Center conference in Honolulu

"Lin Chien-yuan, deputy mayor of Taipei, discussed some creative approaches to energy conservation, including programs in Taipei that qualify energy-savers to enter a cash lottery.

'Every month, we send out a notice of how much you spend for electricity,' Lin said. 'If you have saved more than 10 percent, you have saved money, of course. Not only that, you qualify for the lottery.'"

Its not just the science

An interesting lecture by an NYU Professor visiting Abu Dabi (and reported on by a local blogger) confronts the inconvenient truth that we simply do not have enough information to make easy business decisions on adaptation to climate change. So let's not hang it all on the science (important though that is), but include the vast range of public policy inputs and other business and cultural factors in working out our investment strategies for adaptation.

The blogger then asks:

"In Abu Dhabi's case, should the Government be thinking of moving the emirate's capital inland to its original seat, Al Ain? How should Abu Dhabi's vital coastal power and water desalination plants be protected? And what about the big industrial complexes on the Gulf coast?

In Dubai, what will happen to the huge Jebel Ali container port? Could Dubai's residents be reduced to eking out a living from offering well-heeled travellers tours of 'the Atlantis of the Gulf'?

The point is that science cannot currently provide the answers, although it may be able to do so in future. More data are needed, and we had better get cracking on making the required but difficult observations.

Levels of mandate - voluntary/mandatory continued

The Fresno Bee (can that be a real name?): Two concurrent battles globally - levels of government (in this case, State and local) that are battling over jurisdiction and the voluntary/mandatory battle over emissions targets.

"This month, Fresno County political leaders expect to vote on proposed targets for cutting emissions of those climate-changing gases -- mainly carbon dioxide from burning gasoline and other fossil fuels. In the long term, making those cuts will change how cities grow and how their people move around.

The local effort is intended at least partly to head off more aggressive targets that could be imposed this year by the state Air Resources Board, which oversees California's climate-change program.

'We felt it was prudent for us to provide a recommendation rather than letting the ARB do it on their own,' said David Fey, deputy city planner in Clovis.

Whether that strategy will work is not clear. The state still reserves the right to set more aggressive targets and may need to do so, because it is counting on local land-use and transportation measures to cut large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

An initial plan from December 2008 estimated that 5 million metric tons per year of emissions could be cut that way. That's equivalent to taking 1 million cars and light trucks off the road completely.

Local governments jealously guard their longstanding control of local land use.

The law mandating the greenhouse gas targets -- Senate Bill 375 from 2008 -- doesn't change that. It does, however, call for the ARB to set emissions targets, which the locals will have to meet or risk loss of funding for transportation and other uses."

The Commissioners might be happy to wait, I suspect

Environment Canterbury in New Zealand just gets better and better and Fiji is now introduced as an insult to political discourse!

"The Government has cancelled an October regional council election, depriving 378,512 Kiwis of a vote for the next 3 1/2 years.

Legislation reforming Environment Canterbury was introduced to Parliament last night under urgency, prompting a furious debate and accusations of 'a constitutional outrage'.

'Those people will be lucky to get a vote before the people of Fiji,' Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said.

Environment Minister Nick Smith and Local Government Minister Rodney Hide announced yesterday that the 14 elected ECan councillors would be replaced by up to seven commissioners.

Dame Margaret Bazley will lead the commissioners and her colleagues will be appointed by Mr Hide. The Government expected the commissioners would be ready to take over on May 1.

Elections scheduled for October have been scrapped and will not be held until October 2013, unless the commissioners are happy to finish their work earlier."

Haven't we learned about cutting corners yet?

StreetCorner.com.au reports on another cross government dispute. And who would back the States in implementing "fast-track" approaches? Especially in NSW?

"Waverley and Woollahra Mayors, Sally Betts and Andrew Petrie, have launched a stinging attack on the Premier Kristina Keneally’s ambitions to take even more planning powers from Councils saying it will hurt local residents.

Political opponents, Labor Member for Coogee Paul Pearce and the Liberal’s candidate for Coogee, Randwick Councillor Bruce Notley-Smith, are also united in their opposition to “emergency” fast-track Stimulus Package planning measures being extended to “significant projects”. They argue that the community will be cut out of the decision making process on the developments that impact them most. On the other hand, developers are welcoming the Review and all seem to agree that developers will be the main beneficiaries if even more projects bypass Councils and local community consultation processes."

One false move when you are sharing the road

My friend Mayor  Bob Harvey has done a great job (with some wonderful assistance) over the years in Waitakere in New Zealand but even so - this view from the cycle is a little hair-raising...

Oh dear God: evidence that we need a moratorium on all "sustainable city" awards

The Globe Awards have a nicely designed web-site (though with the requisite typos) but are very lazy on the whole subject. Is there any excuse for having an award for a sustainable city again this decade? And these cities are the finalists, for goodness sakes?

"# Curitiba, Brazil
# Malmö, Sweden
# Murcia, Spain
# Songpa, South Korea
# Stargard Szczecinski, Poland
# Sydney, Australia"

Jeepers, if even Seattle is dragging the chain...

Mayor McGinn - who knocked off the redoubtable Greg Nichols (now at Harvard) as Mayor of Seattle last year - is holding the line on a regional transport plan (and at least the water supply is looking up) but the majority investment strategy is still way askew:

"McGinn, in contrast, said this weekend (in remarks the invite-only Climate Neutral Seattle Unconference...) he decided to go it alone in voting against the plan because “it doesn’t meet our objectives on transit, land use, social equity, or greenhouse gas emissions.” Instead of moving the region boldly forward in promoting transit, density, equitable access to infrastructure, and greenhouse-gas reductions, the plan preserves the region’s “moderate” status quo—relatively modest investments in transit and biking coupled with massive outlays on new highways for cars.

McGinn’s position, incidentally, is shared by groups like the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, the Cascade Bicycle Club, the Transportation Choices Coalition, the Washington Environmental Council—and even those radical lefties at the US Environmental Protection Agency."

And it makes the discipline a lot easier

Andrew Sullivan (Taking Green To The Extreme - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan) has an interesting series going on at the moment showing that we need a dose of humanism (not to mention reality and compassion) in the green movement more than ever...

Lisa Hymas contends that "the single most meaningful contribution I can make to a cleaner, greener world is to not have children."

The average American generates about 66 times more CO2 each year than the average Bangladeshi—20 tons versus 0.3 tons. If you consider not just the carbon impact of your own kids but of your kids' kids and so on, the numbers get even starker. According to a 2009 study in Global Environmental Change [PDF] that took into account the long-term impact of Americans' descendants, each child adds an estimated 9,441 metric tons of CO2 to a parent's carbon legacy—that's about 5.7 times his or her direct lifetime emissions.

Another city on the brink

Other governments face the consequences of population loss and high unemployment...and the State has no funds to offer either.

Report: Detroit bankruptcy looms without drastic change | detnews.com | The Detroit News:

Detroit -- Mayor Dave Bing and the City Council must reduce the size of government and slash the city's budget deficit to stave off bankruptcy or state receivership, according to a report released Monday.

Without draconian cuts and changes aimed at downsizing government, the city could end up with a 'possible' general fund deficit between $446 million and $466 million to its $1.6 billion budget.

What a mess

Villaraigosa Calls For City Agencies To Close 2 Days A Week: "The mayor of Los Angeles says all city departments except police, public safety and those that make money must close two days a week because of a budget crisis."

(From the Huffington Post)

Apparently brought on by a dispute over raised water rates, this is another example of multiple levels of mandates that cross governance systems and become unworkable. And the end result? A shuffling crisis of service delivery tha makes everyone even more cynical about local governments...

Its the layers that are the problem

Disputes over the different mandates of levels of government is a continuing theme - now being played out ruthlessly in New Zealand with the sacking of Environment Canterbury, a regional Council. what was the role of the territorial Mayors?

The Press reports:

Canterbury council chief executives left Environment Canterbury (ECan) meetings "with a cream cake in one hand and a blood-covered knife in the other", ousted ECan deputy chairwoman Jo Kane says.

Her comments come as Canterbury mayors who urged the demise of ECan will soon influence how the regional council is run.

Critics have accused Canterbury's 10 mayors of a "power grab" after legislation rushed through Parliament last week made them advisers to the Government-appointed commissioners who will replace the 14 sacked regional councillors.

Christchurch City councillors said the mayors were sharing the spoils of victory, with Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker already indicating a willingness to take control of the city's buses from ECan.

Creative thinking about adaptation

New York has been the site of some fascinating approaches to climate adaptation - using zones and different teams of architects' imaginations - and the Museum of Modern Art has just displayed some of the results.

MoMA | Rising Currents: Opening of the Exhibition