Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Gov Patrick: New Green Policies

I'm sure many of you will read about Governor Patrick's new plan on sustainable energy; hopefully, it will make as much sense to everyone else as it does me.

The best idea of the lot:

Other changes encourage the creation of “pedestrian-friendly” districts and neighborhoods that mix commercial, civic, cultural, educational, and recreational activities with parks and homes. In housing, the principles call for building homes “near jobs, transit, and where services, including water supply, are available.” In addition, the principles would “foster the development of housing, particularly multifamily and smaller single-family homes.”
Also included are the removal of affordable housing and land preservation grants that were actually having the opposite effect - go figure.
Governor Patrick determined that the Commonwealth Capital Scorecard did not properly apply to these grant programs, and could actually discourage some affordable housing projects and undercut attempts to protect the Commonwealth’s most valuable habitat land.
I'm a fan. There's nothing better this state could do than reexamine how we do housing - and try to create more housing in more efficient ways. There's no reason why we can't create better housing in this state that a) makes things more convenient, b) is less expensive, c) is an improvement over what they otherwise had available and d) is energy-efficient. It'll take serious investment in infrastructure, but we can do it. Best of all, the cities and areas that need help the most would probably get it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Green, wasn't there some discussion before the election about the Green party and how the Democrats had so many DINOs onboard they'd be unable to govern? Well at least the Dems got 50% of their caucus on Reid-Feingold, that's practically a record.

Ryan said...

You didn't get that discussion from this blog. In fact, I'd have argued against it.

I'm all in favor of challenging bad democrats in primaries, but the green party isn't the answer.

Anonymous said...

Require all new houses built to have 2-3 solar panels incorporated into the roof. We require safe water and sewerage etc, just add that to the builders list.

Ryan said...

At the very least, all new houses should have solar water heat. It's actually not all that expensive at this point, similar to a regular water heater.

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