Portland, sustainable capital of North America – Part 2
Naomi Cole manages the EcoDistricts initiative with the Portland Sustainability Institute. The nonprofit will work in five districts over the next few years to lower carbon emissions, improve energy efficiency, and engage residents to develop vibrant and sustainable communities.
How did the idea of EcoDistricts come about?
Portland has been building green buildings really well for the last 10 years, but there’s another level after that. You have even more opportunities with green buildings that are connected with water sharing, air conditioning and other energy efficiency features.
Our strategy is based on five pilot districts. All five of the districts are urban renewal areas and they have very different typologies. We have the [Portland State] University, we have a neighbourhood called the Lloyd district and that’s primarily commercial properties, the South Waterfront, which has seen significant development in the last ten years. The last two are called Gateway and Lents. They are primarily residential, lower-income. We have done the least work to date out there.
The stake-holders in the districts are going to have very different relationships. The challenges around how you make decisions will be very different.
What are the steps that you will be taking to develop these EcoDistricts?
There are a handful of sustainable district developments in the world that we’ve looked at. But what’s unique about what we’re doing is that we’re working with existing neighbourhoods. The hope is that they become neighbourhood-driven instead of developer-driven.
We’re going to do a comprehensive audit in order to understand what the assets in each district are. The next step would be feasibility studies to figure out how realistic the project is. And then it will be a matter of finding funding. We’re imagining a three year timeline.
We see EcoDistricts working as two pieces of physical strategy: hardware and software, because it’s also an opportunity to see how people can change behaviour.
What has been the feedback from the community so far?
People have been widely enthusiastic. In the university district, for example, there’s been significant interest from professors and students who wanna do research. The Lloyd district has also received positive feedback.
The East Portland district is less known. We’ve had warnings that there have been a lot of planning development there and they haven’t seen a lot of change. We’ve been trying get our technical advisers to connect with the people who are actually living in this EcoDistrict.