Protecting Wildlife and Biodiversity with City Ordinances
Oct 24, 2023Season 2Episode 16
Booked on Planning
Ever wondered how urban planning and wildlife can co-exist harmoniously? We kickstart our conversation in Minneapolis, sharing insights about bird-safe glass and how it safeguards our feathered friends from fatal collisions with buildings. Our path then takes us to San Francisco, where we explore the city's mandatory bird-safe designs for new constructions and sizable renovations. As we further embrace the role of ordinances in fostering urban biodiversity, we delve into Portland's eco-roof program. We also touch on landscape policies that champion native plants over grass, leading to water conservation and increased biodiversity. If you've ever been curious about how our cities can protect biodiversity and how zoning influences urban wildlife, you won't want to miss this episode!
Show Notes:
To download a copy of the article: https://planning.org/publications/document/9006907/
To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
Follow us on social media for more content related to each episode:
Ever wondered how urban planning and wildlife can co-exist harmoniously? We kickstart our conversation in Minneapolis, sharing insights about bird-safe glass and how it safeguards our feathered friends from fatal collisions with buildings. Our path then takes us to San Francisco, where we explore the city's mandatory bird-safe designs for new constructions and sizable renovations. As we further embrace the role of ordinances in fostering urban biodiversity, we delve into Portland's eco-roof program. We also touch on landscape policies that champion native plants over grass, leading to water conservation and increased biodiversity. If you've ever been curious about how our cities can protect biodiversity and how zoning influences urban wildlife, you won't want to miss this episode!
Show Notes:
To download a copy of the article: https://planning.org/publications/document/9006907/
To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
Follow us on social media for more content related to each episode:
You're listening to the Booked On Planning podcast, a project of the Nebraska chapter of the American Planning Association. In each episode, we dive into how cities function by talking with authors on housing, transportation and everything in between. Join us as we get Booked On Planning. Welcome back, bookworms, to another episode of Booked On Planning. In this episode, jennifer and I dive into a short zoning practice article from the Archives of the American Planning Association focused on zoning for urban wildlife and diversity. The article, published in 2013, highlights the efforts of a few communities that are using zoning provisions to protect biodiversity in urban areas. As I read Accidental Ecosystem from our first episode this month, what I kept coming back to is whether there were any cities that were actually thinking about the impacts to urban wildlife and planning for them, so this episode was a perfect follow-up.
Jennifer:
And it is no surprise that those cities who are regulating developmental impacts on wildlife are using zoning to do so. Love it or hate it, zoning is still the most effective tool we have to regulate large swaths of development. It's one of my absolute favorite things to see communities take large unwieldy tools such as zoning and hone it to protect the greater interests within the community.
Stephanie:
So some of the big issues with urban wildlife in cities are caused by tall buildings that block migratory bird patterns and cast shadows, blocking light, create light pollution, lack of diversity in native plants, and the one that I've dealt with the most in my past position is glass. So in Minneapolis we had some requirements for bird-safe glass to help cut down on the number of birds killed flying into buildings, and it was so sad to hear about all the birds killed because of the new Viking stadium that was constructed several years back, but I think that they've since then made some changes to try and help alleviate the issue. The American Bird Conservancy estimates that the stadium alone kills 111 birds every year, and the article mentioned that the American Bird Conservancy estimates that between 300 million and 1 billion birds die each year as a result of colliding with buildings.
Jennifer:
It is heartbreaking to see a bird fly directly into a window. Maybe this is a little bit of a flex, but I went to see Taylor Swift at Vikings Stadium a few months ago and, walking up to that building, all I could think was like God, I wonder how many things fly into this.
Jennifer:
Even with the protective stuff that they've put in place. The thing is massive and it reflects back like no other. Yep, that's for sure. One city that is taking bird safety seriously is San Francisco. Back in 2011, san Francisco adopted an amendment to their code that set forth standards that require the use of bird-safe designs for new construction, building additions that create a bird hazard and replacing 50% or more of the glazing on existing bird hazards. The code divides bird hazards, which are specific circumstances that increase the risk of bird building collisions.
Jennifer:
Go ahead and try and say that twice. Fast Into categories Location related and feature related. If a building is located in an unobstructed flight path leading to a larger heavily vegetated open space, which is location specific, those buildings must include specific facade lighting and wind generation requirements on that portion of the building that the birds are most likely to collide with. But if the building has a feature related hazard, like skywalks, balconies or rooftop greenhouses, the mitigation actions actually are required for the entirety of the structure. So many cities have actually used San Francisco's bird-safe building requirements as a model.
Stephanie:
It's really interesting thinking of a building being a bird hazard. It's just like a typology.
Jennifer:
Yes, it is.
Stephanie:
The author points out the need for specificity in defining natural resources to include wildlife and biodiversity, in order to hold when challenged under due process grounds. She references a South Burlington, vermont case where the ordinance required planned residential developments to protect important natural resources. The Vermont Supreme Court struck the provision from the ordinance because it was unenforceable and ambiguous, lacking standards to show whether the development failed to protect the listed resources.
Jennifer:
Every lawyer knows that your ordinance is only as good as your definition section. This is a common problem actually in most environmental law situations, and it's a bit of a delicate balancing act. If you define your object too narrowly, then you miss out on massive opportunities to protect anything that's kind of similar or like groupings. But if you define it too broadly, then courts are going to strike it down for ambiguity and bigness. There just needs to be some kind of like a clear standard for a court to apply when reviewing a case.
Stephanie:
So it's really difficult to meet, which is why so many development review planners spend hours upon hours thinking about the simplest of definitions.
Jennifer:
My favorite definition to ever try and come up with is abandoned, because under the law, you have to have the intent to abandon, but no person is going to walk up to a court and say, yeah, I intended to abandon this building, when they are forcing, like looking at some kind of like eminent domain or something.
Stephanie:
Interesting. Now I'm curious what our code says. We'll have to look at it. So another case study is from Portland, oregon, and it's more focused than I was really expecting from the case studies, which aren't really broad ordinances to protect urban wildlife, but instead there are small ordinance changes that can help in various ways, like green roofs. Portland's eco-roof program is part of their stormwater management program, which allows for additional floor area bonuses based on the ratio of the building footprint used as an eco-roof. There was an estimate of between $10 and $24 per square foot to install an extensive green roof, which is the smaller scale version that doesn't require intensive roof structure, which would seem like a small trade-off to get additional floor area and reap the benefits of energy conservation in your building. I actually have a flat roof on my house and it made me start thinking about installing a green roof on top to help with biodiversity and also help keep down the energy costs on my house. I could even throw some beehives up there, like Minneapolis City Hall has.
Jennifer:
Given enough time, stephanie, you are going to have the most eco-friendly house in this city. So I have to share this very apropos learning experience. We have a few green roofs in some of our commercial districts. In Lincoln, my favorite is actually it was done by Nebraska Arbor Day Foundation. They put it in a few years ago and you can access it from Qdoba. It's my favorite place to grab a quick lunch when I have a project that's downtown, because you can just go up and you can enjoy this green roof. It's been really fun to watch it grow because it started as teeny tiny plantings.
Jennifer:
So I was thinking about that place while I was reading this article because, as you say, it explains the different types of green roofs and the enhanced building requirements to house them. You and I actually recently attended an APA Nebraska workshop that featured one of Lincoln's lead gold certified buildings and the green roof was discussed in detail. As I was sitting there listening to the architect and landscape architect who were working on that, I was like I know what you're talking about. I did not know previous to reading this article, but I was also sitting there thinking we already have some really amazing green roofs downtown. Maybe in Lincoln should consider implementing some zoning incentives to encourage more, as we see, larger scale redevelopment down there.
Stephanie:
Yeah, that's a really good idea. One example of zoning to assist biodiversity that I think has become really more common practice today are landscape ordinances that support native plants over grass. A lot of this is unfortunately been boosted by climate change, with many communities trying to conserve water with drought tolerant natives. But regardless of the impact on biodiversity, it's still there. I remember working on my first ordinance amendment in Lubbock, texas, fresh out of college as a planner, trying to convince them to adopt a water wise ordinance to cut down on all the water that's wasted on these lush green lawns in the middle of West Texas.
Jennifer:
Yeah, it's probably not the greatest place to just have green grass expanses everywhere.
Stephanie:
It's actually interesting. A lot of communities I saw recently have passed either bands on turf grass in front yards or altogether, and then California actually pays owners to remove grass a certain rate per square foot.
Jennifer:
So it's interesting that you bring up California. I was a legal research fellow for the Robert Doherty Water for Food Institute at my last summer school and we were tasked with researching local governance initiatives for groundwater conservation, actually to support the Environmental Defense Fund's argument that California should switch to local governance in support of groundwater conservation. Every time we had a conversation about what's one of the most impactful things especially like an arid state could do to protect groundwater, it included regulating landscape in water scarce areas. That was so many years ago and it's really frustrating to see such a common sense approach that's relatively easy to implement taking so long for communities to accept. I know you are working on your yard right.
Stephanie:
Yep, there is about five square feet of grass left once I've finished killing this current patch in the front yard. So Midwest natives local plant nursery here that focuses on native plants to Nebraska. They just had their last sale this last Saturday, so I made sure to bike over there and get way more plants than I'd intended to.
Jennifer:
You can never buy the plants you intend to buy. You always have to buy more than you intend to buy.
Stephanie:
Exactly so. One issue that we still have, though, in our ordinances I'm sure many ordinances are still this way is that we allow native plants, but we still have this weed ordinance or a height limit of 30 inches in the boulevard next to streets, and native plants can look somewhat unkempt at times if they're not managed and lead to complaints by neighbors and clear cutting in the natives. We also blanket enforce a 30 inch height limit without considering that there are areas where taller plants wouldn't really impact driver sightlines when it's adjacent to streets. There's a small development here in Lincoln that unfortunately keeps running into issues as they're trying to rebuild this native vegetation, create this really awesome edible landscape replacing the non-productive lawns of the mid-20th century, and they're running into that issue with the natives that are getting a little taller than 30 inches.
Jennifer:
There are a few yards in my neighborhood that have put up signs to alert the neighborhood that they are working on cultivating wildlife and re-establishing prairie grass so that we don't call them as a nuisance problem.
Stephanie:
That's interesting. It's a good approach. So it was a little shocking to see that Sacramento, california, still had this 1941 air provision limiting front yard treatments to just low ground cover and turf. I've been, as we've mentioned, slowly killing all the grass in my front yard, replacing it with native plants, fruit trees and bushes, a couple of vegetable garden beds, all of which would have been illegal until not long ago under their provision. But what I've noticed, anecdotally, is an increase in the wildlife that hangs around. I've always had way more squirrels than I care for, but this year especially, there's been a ton more monarch butterflies and bees in the yard.
Jennifer:
So I have to admit, you inspired me because, guys, stephanie is a planner's planner, she does the things and so I'm not killing all of my grass yet, because that's a very large undertaking and I'm not ready. But I have started replacing flowers in my flower beds with more native plants and I agree, the amount of monarch butterflies that have just been in my yard this year because of that simple change, it's been amazing. I love that and it is a good reminder, I think, to our listeners that holistic overhauls of zoning ordinances are actually really difficult and they require a lot of time from your staff and a lot of resourcing. So it's a great reminder to if you're considering advocating for any of these ordinance changes, you really do have to make sure that you're taking a complete look at your code and it's not just necessarily your zoning code, it's your entire municipal code to make sure that you don't have conflicting provisions that would cause problems when you implement these changes.
Stephanie:
At the end of the article, the author relates how many questions are still left unanswered and the field has a long way to go to understand and better incorporate planning for urban wildlife. Unless I just haven't found the book yet, I feel like there's a need to follow up to accidental ecosystems that takes all the information he collected on why it's so important to acknowledge urban ecosystems and then give planners a guidebook that helps build on these small steps outlined in the article.
Jennifer:
I think that's a great idea. First of all, there's nothing I love more than a good guidebook.
Stephanie:
Well, we hope you enjoyed this conversation, continuing this month's theme of urban wildlife, as we discussed an APA zoning practice article on zoning for urban wildlife and biodiversity by Christian Plotz. You can read the article by searching planningorg and typing in zoning practice and searching the database for the article title. Remember to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts and please rate, review and share the show. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time on Booked on Planning.