By Ashley Fletcher Frampton
aframpton@scbiznews.com
Published Dec. 11, 2009

Charleston City Council on Tuesday will consider an ambitious plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades.

The proposed plan calls for changes in the way the city and its residents and businesses operate. Recommended changes range from making recycling bins easier to push to encouraging private-sector sustainable building practices to reconsidering the city’s urban growth boundary.

The 181-page proposed Green Plan is the result of two years of work and study by a citizens committee that included 22 voting members and about 800 total contributors.

Since that city-appointed committee, called the Charleston Green Committee, in November approved a draft of the plan to submit to City Council, some business groups have raised concerns about its costs and implications.

Last week the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors called for a fiscal impact of the plan to gauge its costs. The group also announced its opposition to the following recommendations:

• New real-estate transfer fees and impact fees.
• Reconsideration of the city’s urban growth boundary.
• Mandatory disclosure of a property’s utility bills before sale.
• Requiring businesses to submit recycling plans in order to get a business license.

The Realtors’ main problem, according to government affairs director Ryan Castle, was with the plan’s wording. Certain policies were expressed more as mandates than suggestions.

Policies recommended in the Green Plan would not instantly become law if the City Council were to adopt it. Many would require new city ordinances — and even new state laws — to be implemented. But Castle said the plan would likely direct the work of city staff.

“We don’t feel passing this plan, but not agreeing with all of it, is smart,” Castle said. “Let’s make sure these things are right, because they’ll use staff resources.”

Last week the Realtors Association stated their concerns and launched an alert to members that prompted an e-mail campaign to city leaders. Castle said he has since met with James Meadors, chairman of the Green Committee, and Councilman Tim Mallard to discuss ways to compromise.

For example, Castle said they discussed using incentives instead of mandates and changing language calling for certain changes to studying those changes.

Following the meeting, Castle backed off the call for a fiscal impact study, saying, “We’re still wary of the cost, but with most of the mandates being taken out, or at least some of the mandates being taken out, the cost will be taken care of that way.”

The Charleston Trident Home Builders Association also has expressed concerns. Philip Ford, executive vice president, said his group shared some of the Realtors’ concerns, such as the call for impact fees. Other concerns were proposals for dealing with stormwater.

Both the Realtors and homebuilders groups said they support green initiatives and sustainable practices, but they wanted to make sure the plan wouldn’t be burdensome to businesses, residents and taxpayers.

Ford said he also had met with Meadors and other city officials about the concerns and felt that most would be addressed.

Meadors could not be reached for comment.

Mallard, who is an industrial real estate agent, said he met with the groups after receiving 400 e-mails from Realtors in about two days last week.

Some language in the plan was too harsh, Mallard said. After sitting down together, “cool heads prevailed,” he said.

Without changing the contentious wording before plan came to the City Council, Mallard said the plan would not pass this year.

“We all want to go green,” Mallard said. “But private business has to go green in its time frame.”

The only mandates in the plan should be for city government, he said.

The homebuilders group decided not to take an official position on the Green Plan itself, Ford said, but it will watch closely as individual recommendations come up for consideration as new city ordinances.

“At that time we will evaluate those (recommendations) as they move forward to become law,” Ford said.

Mayor Joe Riley recommended that the Charleston Green Committee come up with ways to reduce the city’s carbon emissions following his 2005 signing of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement.

That agreement calls for cities to reduce global warming pollution levels to 7% below 1990 levels by 2012, or to go beyond that goal.

The Charleston Green Committee has recommended a different target: reducing emissions in the city to 83% of 2002 levels by 2050. As an interim goal to measure progress, the plan calls for a 30% reduction by 2030.

The plan provides ways to meet those goals.

Riley has said that organizing a citizens’ group to figure out how Charleston can reach its emissions-reduction goal was a way to create and spread a buzz about sustainability and build on the interest that many private individuals already had.

Most recommendations in the plan provide guidance on how the city should move toward implementation. Many call for leadership from the city’s new sustainability director, a new position recommended by the Green Committee and created and filled this year.

Read the 181-page proposed Green Plan here.

Reach Ashley Fletcher Frampton at 843-849-3129.