Eugene Permaculture Guild

Contents to this page

GP Draft Intro jan

Draft Executive summary jan

GP Glossary

Global Trends-local Choices jan

Taxation To Encourage what we want/don't want rob

Eco City-Eco Village rob

Externalized Cost and Taxation rob

Property Taxes rob

programatic Response to peak oil in the S Willamette Valley ravi

Block planning jan

Suburbia jan

land use and public Health jan

Green Paper Draft Intro

The Green Paper is a project of the Eugene Permaculture Guild and Friends.

The Guild is an association composed of people interested in advocating culture and
economics that reduce one's environmental foot print and are more local in their
orientation. Permaculture is a broad term that refers to a web of strategies, values,
principles and practices that serve as tools to move individuals and communities towards
living and lifestyles that are more community based and sensitive to the well being of the
natural world.

We have been evolving the idea of the Green Paper since the Spring of 2004. Many
people have contributed ideas, writing, editing and collaborating.

The Paper is intended to suggest ideas and strategies for how to move Eugene in a
healthier and more peaceful direction. The Paper is not intended to be a wish list for
tasks we would like the City to accomplish on its own. The Paper is intended to describe
a very different Eugene, a Eugene that uses far less natural resources. A Eugene with a
set of principles guiding us that will reduce our ecological footprint, and foster a culture
and economy looking closer to home to satisfy its needs.

The City can be an invaluable ally in helping to evolve our town towards a future that can
endure for generations where our economy puts the well being of people and the
environment first and is accountable to the full cost of doing business. Ultimately, the
Citizens and business people of Eugene are responsible for being partners with the City
and taking initiatives at home, at the work place and in their neighborhoods that will help
create a town that is more able to endure into the future without depriving others on
Planet Earth the same opportunities we have.

It is our belief that contemporary America has material expectations and lifestyles that
cannot be maintained. Producing the goods so many expect and disposing of the waste
that is so abundant is causing environmental damage unprecedented in human history.
The very natural systems we are dependent upon such as clean air and clean water are
degraded year after year causing public health problems costing tens of billions of dollars
each year along with a widening gap between the haves and have nots. Our affluence
comes at a price too often paid for by degrading the health of people, cultures and the
environemnt world wide.

Global trends we are reading about and hearing about ever more frequently are a warning
to we humans to make major changes in how we live. Global warming, peak oil,
diminishing food producing capacities, increasing tension over resources becoming more
scarce, an increasing global population with increasing material expectations are only a
few of the reasons we believe the Green Paper is a document that is urgent and deserving
close attention.

The authors of the Green Paper do not pretend to know all the answers. We do feel up to
now, the civic dialogue, both in Eugene and at the national level, does not recognize or
take seriously the challenges we are increasingly confronted with. The Green Paper is
intended to raise the profile of those challenges and at the same time, suggest ways to
respond to a world that is changing in ways that will increasingly disrupt our economy
and way of life.

The Green Paper will include a set of principles, an executive summary, table contents, a
vision of a better future grounded in the present and suggested reading. The Guild and
Friends can serve as invaluable resources to the community. We intend to set up a
speakers bureau to adress a wide range of issues and topics as part of a community
education campaign.

DRAFT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary is the Green paper at a glance.

The Green paper is a document explaining and describing a set of principles, ideas and
strategies for Eugene and the Willamette Bio Region. The writers of the Green Paper
believe the current precepts determining our economy and much of our way of life such
as perpetual exponential growth subsidized by cheap energy and resources, are causing
side effects to public health, global relations and the environment that sober analysis
cannot continue to ignore, not at the federal level nor at the local level.

Several principles can serve us well as we seek to re invent our way of life. An enduring
economy should be based upon the agreement that the human economy is reliant and
dependent upon the well being of the natural environment. The human economy should
be based upon full cost accounting, that is, that prices we pay must reflect all costs
involved with the production, consumption and disposal of goods and services. The
human economy should be mindful of exponential growth. We must choose strategies to
correct our economic, cultural and environmental mistakes that contain the largest
number of positive outcomes per choice.

The level of affluence we expect and take for granted in the US and increasingly
worldwide, is at the source of an increasing list of global trends that deserve far greater
attention. Those trends include a natural environment under deepening stress, the
prospects of increased political instability over energy, water and other natural resources;
climate change and destruction of our planet's wonderful and vital cultural diversity.

One of the greatest challenges of our modern age is for our society to make use of the
healthy technologies and concepts it has invented and leave behind those that do not
serve us well. Our urban areas must be redesigned so automobiles become far fewer in
number, the environment must be restored to health; there must be a new sense of civic
accountability both from individual citizens along with public and private institutions.

The Green Paper addresses the issues of land use, economics, transportation, food
security, the environment, global trends, public health

Green Paper Glossary

External cost- Consequences of a product or service beyond its intended purpose.
Frequently takes the form of damage to the environment or public well being
Full cost accounting- An approach to assigning the cost of a product or service when the
price paid for products or services covers all the external costs of the production,
use and disposal of those goods or services
Exponential growth-
Bio Region
Permaculture
Peak oil

Global Trends-Local Choices

The Green Paper was written to widen the discourse about what opportunities
we have as
a community in a rapidly changing world. Humans have a history of putting
off what needs to be done. The Green paper is intended to elevate the level
of civic discussion and response regarding trends and issues that are
happening as we speak but are receiving less than adequete attention from
the public and policy makers.

There exist a number of global trends that should cause us to pay attention
and make smart
choices with these trends in mind. Any one of these trends should, by
itself, give us
pause. How they continue to interact with one another will be fascinating.
It is also important to
understand that none of us will be complete by-standers.

We are talking about global warming, population trends, agriculture trends,
peak oil, the
condition of the environmental and global water issues. These are not the
only areas we
should be paying more attention to.

We all have some idea about global warming. The facts are chilling. Of the
ten warmest
years in recorded human history, all have been in the past 15 years. Global
carbon
dioxide levels are at their highest levels in several hundred thousand years
and CO2
levels are directly related to global temperatures. Leading scientists in
the world almost
all agree global warming is for real and consequences immense.

Our entire global food system is calibrated to fairly specific conditions of
temperature,
rainfall and sunshine. As patterns of precipitation and temperatures change
[beyond
"usual" variations] agriculture will be highly challenged to keep up.
Already, global per
capita grain production is in decline. Hungry people are not happy people
and in an interdependent global economy, what
happens in one place impacts many other places. The US, located at the top
of the
economic pyramid, is most vulnerable to social, economic and environmental
instability.

Global trade and food production are highly dependent on cheap energy. The
concept of Peak Oil is becoming
more widely discussed as a phenomena yet deserves far more attention by the
public in general and policy makers
at the highest level. Even the June issue of the mainstream National
Geographic ran a cover story on Peak Oil. A Register Guard editorial on
September 27th called attention to peak oil with the editorial ending on
this note, "oil consumers are driving toward a cliff with their foot on the
accelerator, with Americans in the lead."

In essence, Peak Oil is the point when global oil production reaches its
maximum. As global demand increases,
extraction and distribution cannot keep up with demand. Peak oil is not
about running out of oil, it is about oil becoming
permanently more expensive at an increasing rate, a buyer's market turning
into a seller's market. The
implications are enormous. Our entire way of life is predicated on cheap
energy which subsidizes the way we
use both urban and agricultural land, how we move ourselves from one place
to another, how much and what
kind of food we eat and finally the products we depend on every day.
Already, many less affluent countries are stressed to afford the rising cost
of oil.

Global agriculture, again highly dependent on cheap energy is not keeping
up. The Green Revolution has
reached its ceiling. Maintaining productivity even at current levels is a
challenge. While the Earth gains 80
million new people per years, an estimated 2 BILLION of Earth's residents
already do not have adequate nutrition, access to clean water or sanitation.

The global food production and distribution system is totally dependent on
cheap fossil fuels for fertilizer,
cultivation, processing and transportation. There is nothing in sight that
can begin to replace oil. Political
instability in any one of a half dozen oil exporting countries will create
tremors world wide, including Eugene.
Rising prices for oil will cause mounting levels of political and social
instability for virtually every country that
uses oil. Combined with rising energy costs, climate change will have
profound impacts on a
global agriculture system that is dependent on climate patterns we are now
learning have been unusually
benevolent for the past several hundred years.

Rising populations are stressing rivers and aquifers world wide. A growing
amount of the world's water is too polluted even for industrial uses. Many
of the most stressed areas of the world also have the highest fertility
rates. Shared rivers such as the Nile, Indus, Jordon, Mekong, Tigris-
Euphrates already have a history of water conflict. The City of Las Vegas is
now paying its residents to remove grassy, water intensive yards. Lake
Powell, on the Colorado River is two years away at its current rate of
falling water level, from losing its capacity to generate hydro power.
Growing economies require an over draft of the world's water account from
China to Saudi Arabia, from Hereford County Texas to New Jersey. This past
100 years of unprecedented global economic growth is bought largely on
credit, cheap water and cheap energy.

There are many other factors that interplay with the trends mentioned above.
Debt in the US is at record levels; personal debt, national debt, balance of
trade deficit lead by cars and petroleum. Many fear the possibility of the
Dollar losing its long held advantage as the world's leading currency. Such
a decline would have severe consequences on everyday life in the US. Global
equity deserves a close
look. Is it moral for the rich and powerful to consume at a rate tens if not
hundreds of times greater than the
poor? A wise people should ask themselves such questions, especially when
the terms of global trade are
biased so completely in favor of the wealthy countries. What are the
benefits and liabilities of an ever increasing
economy in a finite world? Does more stuff actually make us happier as
individuals and as a nation?

In aggregate, these trends receive inadequate attention at the local and
national policy level. The popular media
does little to add to a civic discussion on these issues that have profound
impacts on our world and our own
lives. As a people, we would benefit greatly by expanding the public
education and discussion about global
warming, peak oil, water, agricultural trends, population, debt and ethical
considerations. The Green Paper is for the purpose of elevating
the level of duscussion of these global trends and changes, to point out
that we are not paying attention and to offer healthier choices.

Taxation to Encourage What We Want (Not What We Don’t Want)

If a government is going to function, it needs revenue. This revenue is
typically obtained through taxation. In addition to being a means to
raise revenue, taxation is fundamentally a form of disincentive.
Whatever a government or society chooses to tax it is ultimately
discouraging. Conversely, anything that goes untaxed enjoys a
comparative form of encouragement or incentive.

The suggestions that follow apply more to the state or even federal
level than to a municipal government, but they are suggestions that need
to be made. The clamor of “enlightened” municipalities could play a
major role in bringing about changes in state and federal governments.

Also, the suggestions that follow are by no means fine tuned. There
would certainly be major problems in implementing most of the
suggestions that follow. But a wise person once said, “It is better to
be approximately right than exactly wrong.”

Property Taxes

Suburban sprawl is clearly a big problem. No sane person wants all the
land between Cottage Grove, Eugene and Junction City to be fully
developed into track houses, strip malls, big boxes and fast food
restaurants. But unfortunately our system of property taxes is designed
to encourage just that. By taxing the value of buildings instead of the
land itself, people are punished by building taller, beautiful buildings
made of durable materials and rewarded for building flimsy, single story
buildings and allowing them to deteriorate. Due to an artificial
scarcity of buildable land on the free market, speculators are rewarded
for sitting on vacant lots in the center of town while developers are
encouraged to sprawl out to the edges of the Urban Growth Boundary.

In tandem with zoning, the taxing of buildings rather than the land
itself promotes such wasteful practices as putting up cheap, one-story
buildings with abundant surface parking on prime, centrally located
land. This helps to explain Eugene’s civic embarrassment of having so
many empty buildings downtown while office and professional parks are
constructed on the edges of town.

Much of this could be changed by taxing the intrinsic value of the land
itself rather than what happens to be constructed on it. The criteria
for assessing the value of land minus the building should be based on
its location or site. If a piece of land is one block away from a major
commercial node, it is considered to have high value not just from
explicit public investment (sewers, water lines, streets), but also from
the private human activity that goes on around it – the civic amenities,
post offices, museums, stores and parks. This is socially created
value. Owners of prime, centrally located real estate derive large
benefits from socially created value and should therefore be taxed on
that basis rather on whether they choose to utilize or squander those
benefits – for example, whether they choose to maintain a vacant lot or
build a multi-story building.

Those familiar with the issues of sprawl and its solutions in New
Urbanism look at the Kinko’s at 13^th & Willamette and roll their eyes
at the folly of there NOT being three stories of housing above that
silly, flimsy box. Taxing the true value of centrally located land
would encourage speculators presently sitting on vacant lots, to either
develop the land into something of sufficient value to pay the increased
taxes or else sell the land to someone that will. This would increase
the availability of centrally located land and very likely precipitate a
building boom in Eugene’s downtown. Developers would be encouraged to
build as much as the zoning allows for a given lot so as to offset the
increased taxes.

It must be emphasized that this is NOT meant to suggest a net tax
increase. This is a tax SHIFT to encourage what we want to have
happen. While taxes on centrally located property would increase, most
homeowners would enjoy seeing their property taxes go down. Given
Oregon’s unusually high property taxes, many home owners could be
expected to rally behind this proposed tax shift.

Income Taxes

Taxing income is like taxing creativity, ambition and industriousness –
some of the very things that a society should encourage. In the future,
only the wealthy should pay taxes on their income while the majority of
tax revenue comes from taxes placed on environmentally undesirable goods
and services. (It is worth noting that socially undesirable activity is
already taxed with alcohol and tobacco.)

In a world where much of economic policy is based on the idea that the
“wise hand of the free market” will guide the economy, we are in serious
trouble because the supposedly “wise” hand of the free market is being
deprived a lot of information. Our entire economy is rife with examples
where the true costs are not accounted for. They are “externalized”.
For example, when we pay $2.00 for a gallon of gasoline, we are not
paying the true costs of global warming, respiratory disease or the war
in Iraq. If those costs were accounted for in the price we pay at the
pump, gasoline would be closer to $10/gallon and most people would drive
a lot less. The same is true for virtually everything we purchase. The
price of lumber doesn’t account for the costs of clearcutting. The
price of lettuce doesn’t account for the costs of pesticide use, etc.

Taxation would be a perfect way to begin to level the playing field
where the economy is concerned. When something approximating the true
costs is imposed on various goods and services, it will become much more
economically viable to market the environmentally improved alternatives
to those goods and services. When the true costs of pesticides and
factory farming are accounted for, organic produce will be the obvious
choice. When the true costs of clearcutting are accounted for, FSC
(Forest Stewardship Council) Certified lumber will be more affordable.
When the true costs of sprawl-type development are accounted for, denser
mixed-use development will be more affordable.

Imposing policies like those suggested above will be met with deafening
howls of protest from various interests that have historically benefited
from the externalization of various costs. Indeed, these policies will
cause unbridled consumerism to become a lot less attractive (affordable)
– and thus contribute to a perceived economic downturn. But is
absolutely unconscionable to continue engaging in a great big
consumerist frenzied party while the true costs are routinely passed on
to poor people with brown skin in other countries and to future, unborn
generations that would be furious with us if they were here to defend
their interests. A lot of so-called “conservatives” are quick to scorn
the idea of “welfare” – feeling that people should pull their own
weight. When business people complain about environmental tax reform,
their “no free lunch” ideology can be fed right back to them as they
will clearly be trying avoid paying the true costs – trying to get
something for nothing.

It is clear the externalization of true environmental costs is central
to much of the world’s environmental crisis. While restructuring the
entire world economy may be a little beyond the scope of Eugene city
government, one very worthy effort that could be undertaken on our
municipal level would be a Eugene City Office of Externalized Costs.
Such an office could have two purposes: One would be to guide the
purchasing patterns of city government to purchase the most
environmentally appropriate & responsible products possible. The other
purpose would be to actively educate the public as to this centrally
important issue.

The Emerging EcoCity – EcoVillage Paradigm – 1066 words – by Robert Bolman

The Problem in a Nutshell

The last 60 years of growth and development in the United States have
amounted to the greatest misallocation of resources in human history.
Our cities have sprawled out in all directions fully dependent on
automobile transportation. Our food needs are dependent on tractor
trailer rigs traveling thousands of miles. And we are fast approaching
the peak of global petroleum production – an ominous and historical
moment in human history.

From “Nodal Development” to EcoCity

All sprawl-type development should be halted immediately. Any
additional growth – if unavoidable – should go upward instead of out.
Nodal Development needs to be taken seriously as an attempt to create
genuinely pedestrian, bicycle, transit friendly communities.

The “Nodal Overlay Zone” idea of drawing a half mile diameter circle
over a community is a rather inelegant approach. It is no wonder that
the east university neighbors objected to it. Increased mixed-use
density could be designated on a lot by lot basis. Or concentric
circles (or ovals) could be drawn around a given node. These circles
would be measured in tens of yards not fractions of a mile. All
buildings within the first circle would be the tallest, most
aggressively commercial or mixed-use buildings. Buildings within the
second circle could be shorter and perhaps strictly residential, but
still of medium density. Perhaps a third circle could continue in this
downward trend, but very soon this abrupt “blip” of density, diversity,
commerce and culture would subside into our traditional residential
neighborhoods that no one wants to see destroyed. The difference would
be that now there would be an interesting, lively center of culture and
commerce within easy walking distance of those traditional residential
neighborhoods.

The character of the mixed-use “urban village” described above would be
like that of the most beautiful European cities. Taller buildings would
be pushed up against the street to define the street as a large outdoor
room that people would find inviting. Flowers, parks and trees would
combine with corner markets and sidewalk cafes to create a festive,
lively atmosphere on the street. People would genuinely enjoy
socializing and walking places on the street. Wherever appropriate,
taller buildings would be strategically terraced to provide optimal
sunlight to key outdoor places. Rooftop & terrace gardens would burst
with greenery – vines cascading down to the neighbors below. Much of
the greenery would be food producing. Richard Register suggests
visualizing a luxury cruise ship without the hull plopped down in the
desired location. Or imagine urban centers designed like “adult play
structures” with various outdoor amenities joined by pedestrian bridges
going from rooftop to rooftop.

The Broadway Place development, appropriate as it may be, is some of the
most expensive commercial and residential space in Eugene. Small wonder
most of the commercial spaces sit empty years after its completion.
Much of this is because so much underground parking was built for this
development. Eliminating off-street parking requirements would help to
achieve several goals. It would make the ambitious (and seemingly
unrealistic) vision presented above much more affordable. It would
encourage people to consider joining the other 90% of the human race in
NOT owning a car. It would thus encourage the use of public transit,
bikes, etc. It would make pedestrians feel safer on the street by there
always being a buffer of parked cars between pedestrians and traffic.

As we enter the post-petroleum age, there will be some question as to
what is the appropriate size for a city. We will need to preserve
adjacent farmland so that food can be brought into cities and people can
go out to farms with little effort. “Starfish” type development may be
appropriate – where urban “fingers” enmesh with green belts. Eugene is
well-suited with its abundant water and (remaining) farmland. (Fifty
years from now Las Vegas will be a ghost town).

What are we do with the Walmarts and the Valley River Centers of the
world? It would be the stuff of futuristic, post-apocalypse Hollywood
movies to imagine what they will look like 50 years from now. Generally
speaking, there should be housing above or inside them with their acres
of parking under food producing cultivation. It would be awfully
convenient if they would just go away so as to create the commercial
demand for the nodal, urban village development described above.
Perhaps the cavernous space in our big boxes and malls could be made
into schools teaching post-petroleum survival skills and personal growth
centers to help people deal with the various stresses associated with
the coming changes. There will certainly NOT be as great a need for
retail space for various frivolous consumer goods.

From Cul-De-Sac to EcoVillage

On a level smaller than the EcoCity described above, the EcoVillage
would be an intentional community where neighbors would be friends,
resources would be shared and genuine community cultivated.

From an economics of scale point of view, it would make sense for all
the neighbors on a given block to tear down their fences. What were
once people’s backyards would rapidly transition out their back doors,
through a hierarchy of private space and turn into a large, park-like
environment. Instead of individual vegetable gardens suffering from
weeds and the neglect of an overworked homeowner, community gardens
would enjoy many hands, shared expertise and a bounteous harvest to be
enjoyed at community dinners.

An EcoVillage could serve as a microcosm of the larger world that we’d
like to live in. It could produce its own food, compost & recycle its
own waste and resolve its own conflicts. Many things ordinarily owned
privately could be shared. Car sharing co-ops are a good example of
this, but the same thing can be applied to everything from lawn mowers
to ping-pong tables.

The level of community to be developed in the EcoVillage model would
address many of the social maladies so prevalent in our society today.
From teen suicide to people on Prozac, the isolated nuclear family (if
that), cut off from meaningful community by a car and an automatic
garage door, is highly suspect. Growing millions of people are
recognizing the importance of personal growth and healing. The
EcoVillage intentional community model is ideal for encouraging and
implementing this. Maitreya EcoVillage at the corner of W. Broadway and
Almaden has built a number of environmentally innovative buildings that
accommodate a twice daily group meditation and classes ranging from yoga
to gardening.

Externalized Costs & Taxation – 827 words – by Robert Bolman

In a world where much of economic policy is based on the idea that the
“wise hand of the free market” will guide the economy, we are in serious
trouble because the supposedly “wise” hand of the free market is being
deprived a lot of information. Our entire economy is rife with examples
where the true costs are not accounted for. They are “externalized”. For
example, when we pay $2.00 for a gallon of gasoline, we are not paying
the true costs of global warming, respiratory disease or the war in
Iraq. If those costs were accounted for in the price we pay at the pump,
gasoline would be closer to $10/gallon and most people would drive a lot
less. The same is true for virtually everything we purchase. The price
of lumber doesn’t account for the environmental costs of clearcutting.
The price of lettuce doesn’t account for the environmental and health
costs of pesticide use, etc.

Also, the suggestions that follow are by no means fine tuned. There
would certainly be problems in implementing most of the suggestions that
follow. But a wise person once said, “It is better to be approximately
right than exactly wrong.”

Taxing Income? Why?

Taxing income is like taxing creativity, ambition and industriousness –
some of the very things that a society should encourage. In the future,
only the wealthy should pay taxes on their income while the majority of
tax revenue comes from taxes placed on environmentally undesirable goods
and services. (It is worth noting that some socially undesirable
activity is already taxed with alcohol and tobacco.)

Taxation would be a perfect way to begin to level the playing field
where the economy is concerned. When something approximating the true
costs is imposed on various goods and services, it will become much more
economically viable to market the environmentally improved alternatives
to those goods and services. When the true costs of pesticides and
factory farming are accounted for, organic produce will be the obvious
choice. When the true costs of clearcutting are accounted for, FSC
(Forest Stewardship Council) Certified lumber will be more affordable.
When the true costs of automobile dependent, sprawl-type development are
accounted for, denser mixed-use development will be more affordable.

A lot of conservatives are quick to scorn the idea of “welfare” –
feeling that people should pull their own weight. When business people
complain about environmental tax reform, their “no free lunch” ideology
can be fed right back to them as they will clearly be trying avoid
paying the true costs – trying to get something for nothing.
Conservatives would also be quick to complain that environmental tax
reform amounts to raising taxes. Various approaches should be used to
make the tax shift “revenue neutral” – generating no more tax revenue
than the tax structure that it replaces.

A lot of progressives would argue that the tax shift suggested above
would be regressive – that it would hit poorer people harder than
wealthier people. Various approaches should be used to make the tax
shift “distribution neutral” – or even to redistribute some of the
wealth back down to poorer people (reversing an ugly trend of the last
20 years).

Property Taxes – 521 words – by Robert Bolman

Much of this could be changed by taxing the intrinsic value of the land
itself rather than what happens to be constructed on it. The criteria
for assessing the value of land minus the building should be based on
its location or site. If a piece of land is one block away from a major
commercial node, it is considered to have high value not just from
explicit public investment (sewers, water lines, streets), but also from
the private human activity that goes on around it – the civic amenities,
post offices, museums, stores and parks. This is socially created value.
Owners of prime, centrally located real estate derive large benefits
from socially created value and should therefore be taxed on the basis
of that value rather on whether they choose to utilize or squander it –
for example, whether they choose to maintain a vacant lot or build a
multi-story building.

Those familiar with the issues of sprawl and its solutions in New
Urbanism look at the Kinko’s at 13^th & Willamette and roll their eyes
at the folly of there NOT being three stories of housing above that
silly, flimsy box. Taxing the true value of centrally located land would
encourage speculators presently sitting on vacant lots, to either
develop the land into something of sufficient value to pay the increased
taxes or else sell the land to someone that will. This would increase
the availability of centrally located land and very likely precipitate a
building boom in Eugene’s downtown. Developers would be encouraged to
build as much as the zoning allows for a given lot so as to offset the
increased taxes.

It must be emphasized that this is NOT meant to suggest a net tax
increase. This is a tax SHIFT to encourage what we want to have happen.
While taxes on centrally located property would increase, most
homeowners would enjoy seeing their property taxes go down. Given
Oregon’s unusually high property taxes, many home owners could be
expected to rally behind this proposed tax shift.

A Programmatic Response to Peak Oil for the South Willamette Valley

Preface

The model of development now dominant in the south Willamette Valley is, like that of the global economy to which it is connected, unsustainable in many respects. It contributes to ozone depletion, global warming, habitat destruction, resource depletion, increased environmental toxicity, loss of community empowerment, cultural homogenization, diminished social safety net, erosion of civil liberties, and other problems.

These effects of the unsustainable nature of current development are all issues of growing concern which will need to be addressed in the coming years. But there is one feature of unsustainable development that is likely to first and hardest: that of peak oil.

Peak oil will occur when demand for oil surpasses available supply. Although all who have looked at this situation agree that it will occur, there is a range of opinion on when it will occur. Median estimates are in the range of four to seven years, but there are those who suspect that the recent rise in oil prices indicate initial impact of the peak oil shock.

Whether peak oil is here or (let us hope) a few years out, its effects will be severe, as oil is the primary energy source for so much of our transportation, manufacturing, food production, and heating. Its effects will be felt by all, and for many the effects will be require dramatic changes in life style. How much suffering will occur due to peak oil will depend, in large part, on the degree of aware anticipation and appropriate preparation by our community.

Below is a draft of a programmatic approach to anticipating and preparing for the dislocation of peak oil in the south Willamette Valley.

Study

A standing commission should be formed as a joint initiative by local and county governments to:
(1) study the expert opinion on peak oil,
(2) project reasonable scenarios as time and nature of the impact of peak oil, and
(3) recommend governmental policy and civic initiatives to make anticipatory responses.

The members of this commission should be:
(1) competent to analyze peak oil data,
(2) uncompromised by ulterior interests,
(3) able to envision solutions that lie outside the parameters of the oil based economy, and
(4) accountable for the perspective and advice they provide the community.

Education

There should be a program of community education on the anticipated approach and effects of peak oil. These educational efforts should be widespread, reaching the great majority of the community, and they should be substantive in content. So much as possible, at educational forums there should be ample opportunity for citizens to discuss and express their views, reactions, and solutions.

As a part of a program of community education:
(1) study of peak oil should be a required part of the high school social studies curriculum;
(2) public libraries should play an active role in procuring and prominently displaying information on peak oil;
(3) a peak oil web site should be established that would be jointly sponsored by LCC, the UO, and local governments; and
(4) authorities on the subject of peak oil should be invited to keynote community forums.

Green Taxes

To fund peak oil study, educational, and action initiatives, local governments should seek ways to tax significant users of peak oil. These tax revenues should be allocated solely for purposes related to preparing the community for peak oil.

Food

Food is an essential commodity that will be highly effected by increased oil costs for two reasons:
(1) in the global economy, there are significant transportation costs imbedded in the price of food, and
(2) in modern agriculture, there are large amounts of oil used in growing food.

To protect against the threat that peak oil is likely to have on our food supply, two main policies should be adopted:
(1) basic food commodities should, as much as possible, be locally grown, thus eliminating most of the costs of transporting food;
(2) basic food commodities should, in the main, be grown organically (or transitionally), a method of agriculture which uses only about one half of the fuel inputs of non-organic agriculture; and
(3) there should be preferred production of foods that require less energy inputs (eg, many plant based sources of protein are less energy intensive to grow than many animal sources of protein).

An effective combination of incentives, subsidies, grants, education, and regulations should be put into effect to vigorously promote local, organic food production. A planning commission, vested with adequate powers, should be established to guide this undertaking.

Transportation

Like food, transportation is also a basic need that will be highly impacted by peak oil. At present, virtually all energy used in transportation comes from oil. The amount of transportation that is human or electrically powered is negligible. Additionally, transport fuels are used very inefficiently, and the patterns of settlement and of commerce found in America (and the south Willamette Valley) require much greater amounts of fuel for transportation than in any other cultural setting on the planet. For these reasons, special attention also needs to be given developing strategies for minimizing the impact of peak oil on transportation.

Strategies which should get used to alleviate the shock of peak oil on transportation include:
(1) using incentives, education, and punative regulations to greatly increase the fuel efficiency of vehicles;
(2) promoting use of biofuels, renewable electrical energy, and human energy (eg, bicycles) as alternative means to power transportation vehicles;
(3) promoting changes in land use in ways that significantly reduce use of vehicles;
(4) making improvements, adjustments, and increased subsidies to public transport systems so as to increase their use and fuel efficiency;
(5) modifying or scraping planned road construction projects that will have the effect of promoting vehicle use; and
(6) applying green taxes, or other disincentives, on the purchase of vehicle models that have the worst MPG rating for their class.

Note, in considering alternative fuel sources, careful attention needs to be given to the sustainability and the net energy that is required to produce the alternative fuels.

Heating Fuel

Those homes and buildings that use oil heat will likely face soaring fuel expenses. So programs should be adopted to convert their heating systems to ones that do not make use of oil, preferably ones that use a combination of renewable energy sources and conservation.

Natural Gas

As demand for natural gas is also likely to soon begin to exceed available supplies, natural gas prices may also undergo steady increase. Therefore, programs may also be needed to help users of natural gas convert and conserve.

Product Substitution

Most plastic polymers are made from petroleum. As a result, peak oil will likely affect the price and availability of a diverse array of commonly used and specialty products. It may be possible to mitigate this loss by substituting plant based chemicals for petroleum based chemicals. The South Willammette valley could be in a very advantageous position to undertake such an industrial change, due to its agricultural and forestry potentials. This change would require the concentrated and coordinated efforts of industry, academia, and capitalizing institutions to achieve. An evaluation of the potential of plant based chemical substitutions for petroleum based plastics should be initiated at the earliest.

Should this industry prove to hold promise for our region, there must be determined commitment from the onset to develop this industry in a manner that results in zero toxic emissions into the local environment.

Social Equity

The community should adopt policies and approaches to preparing for peak oil in a manner that maintains social equity and community unity. There are those community members who may not have the resources to make necessary adjustments. Both governmental and non-governmental programs should be put in place to provide adequate assistance for these community members.

Motivating Change

There will likely be those members of the community that continue to consume oil products in great excess, despite the need to collectively mitigate the harsh impacts of oilâ?Ts declining availability. Many American consumers consider it a sort of sacred right to be able to make luxurious use of oil.

Social policy will need to be crafted that addresses this social condition either by:
(1) penalizing those who use in excess;
(2) denying them the significant incentives that are made available to those who, out of social interest, adjust their life style and energy sources.
(3) making aggressive efforts to educate the citizenry of the community, and instilling a spirit of cooperative zeal in working to protect community well-being;
(4) bestowing public honors on those who make outstanding efforts to help the community prepare for peak oil, or who are exemplary in their adjustment to new energy use patterns; and
(5) strictly controlling outside economic interests that may not share the objectives of local public policy on peak oil.

Block Planning

Block Planning is a neighborhood or business land use redevelopment plan. The City of Eugene contracted a
consultant in the early 1980's to advance the idea of Block Planning. Although there were no plans put into
place, the City continues to maintain the opportunity for Block planning.

Block Planning [BP] addresses many land use issues as a "key leverage point", a single action that leads to
many positive outcomes. A BP is an agreement among resident and non resident property owners on a city
block to develop the land on that block in a specific way over a specific period of time. The City and
neighborhood are also essential partners in the process. The block retains its private properties but it does
create a unified plan so the block becomes a planned unit development [PUD]. A PUD allows for more flexible
and creative ways to comply with City land use codes and standards.

Automobiles take up a remarkable amount of a neighborhood's surface area, imagine cluster parking of cars by
way of a BP, freeing up driveways to be reused for other purposes like garages turned into a granny flat, a
community room or studio. Imagine edible landscaping, shared play spaces for kids, more green and garden
space, new income opportunities.

Block Planning offers the potential to build community and increase residential density in a positive way. It
can help stimulate neighborhood scale economic development, jobs, more efficient use of resources and a more
walkable neighborhood as well as improved transit convenience. There are two locations in Eugene, Maitreya
Eco Village and East Blair Housing Co-op that contain a variety of Block Planning elements. Those locations
enjoy multiple social, economic and environmental benefits for their land use planning.

A business block can be redeveloped in a parallel way, making better use of surface area by cluster parking, not
requiring the overbuilding parking spaces and putting redundant pavement to better purpose. [A study in Los
Angeles found there are seven parking spaces for every car]

Block Planning is collaborative. A step by step process has been worked out. What is needed is an education
program to inform residents and property owners of the availability and benefits of Block Planning. The Green
Paper Outreach Department [GPOD] can provide speakers to interested groups to explain more fully the
benefits of Block Planning.

Suburbia

Surprising to many is that modern suburbia predates automobiles. Modern suburbia can
be described as a place where a significant percentage of the residents daily take some
form of mechanical transporation, car, bus, train; to a distant location of employment to
work and then return to a low residential density location. Brooklyn, NY was a fast
growing ferry suburb to Manhattan in the second quarter of the 19th Century. Brooklyn's
rate of growth between 1825 and 1900, from 25,000 to 700,000 looks more like the
numbers for meteoric population increases of cities of the American West 100 years
later. Brooklyn had a well developed culture of speculators, civic corruption and short
sighted developmemt over 175 years ago.

Later in the 19th into the 20th century, suburbia evolved from the exclusive leafy
enclaves of gentility for the wealthy, served by relatively expensive trains to vast
expanses of pavement and xerox copy homes for the masses totally reliant on
automobiles and cheap gas. What drove suburban growth was making transportation
cheaper and more accessable; from the mid 1800's omnibus, to horse cars to electric
trolleys in the early 1900's. Mixed uses of employment, residential and shopping typical
of pedestrian cities gave way to separation of function and growing distance between
where people lived, worked and shopped.

Through the '20s, the auto accelerated the spreading out of form and function far beyond
what the trolley was able to do. Later in the '30s, government programs made new
houses much more accessable to people of modest means and those programs were
biased in the direction of low residential density suburbia rather than central cities. The
over riding purpose of the Federal Housing Adminstration in the mid '30s was to create
jobs. Mortgage loans were guranteed by the Federal Government, the building industry
became far more standardized in materials used and methods of construction, home
purchase downpayments were reduced from 30% to 10%, home loans were amortized
over 30 years, up from 8 to ten years in earlier decades. The result was a boom in
housing, almost all suburban from the late 1930's into the 50's and continuing today.

Federal programs beginning in the 30's and further pumped up by the GI Bill in the mid
40's ended up favoring white middle class development on the urban periphery to the
impoverishment of the central city. Urban freeway projects sliced and diced inner city
minority neighborhoods coast to coast. Manufacturing jobs and new investment headed
out of town as city services deteriorated. Much of the country's urban decline from the
30's into the 60's and 70's can be credited to the move of the comparatively well off from
the city to the suburbs. Modern suburbia and all its extensive crew of planners,
developers and contractors owe much of their existence to, make work programs hatched
out during the Depression and current policies that still favor low density auto dependent
development.

Special interest groups in the '30 agitated for public financing of roads. Rail
transportation was marginalized and considered the domain of private investment.
During the 20's and 30's, front companies consisting of General Motors, Standard Oil and
Firestone Rubber conspired to ruin municiple trolley systems. The front companies
bought private trolley comapanies across the country; LA, Salt Lake City, St. Louis,
Baltimore and many others and purposefully allowed the service and infrastructure to
degrade. The tracks were ripped up, the trolleys burned in huge piles to be replaced by
busses, cars and increasingly expensive and congested highways.

In the mid 50's, Eisenhower, pressured by auto companies and road building interests,
appointed a commission to look into the idea of a federally funded interstate highway
system, an unprecedented subsidy to automobile travel. Chaired by a board member of
General Motors, the commission advised the construction of by far the largest and most
expensive system of inter city freeways in the world. The US has evolved the best
automobile road system on Earth and the least functional public transportation system of
the world's affluent countries.

Today's sprawl, shopping malls, suburb to suburb commutes, depopulated downtowns,
increasing congestion, increasing cost to maintain the roads, increasing frustration,
increasing auto use, increasing public health costs and increasing defense budgets to safe
guard oil fields and pipelines for a diminishing resource all have their roots going back
over 150 years in this country. Given current local and global conditions, ending
suburban development as we know it should be a high priority for Eugene and any other
city that cares about its future.

Land Use and Public Health

Land use has a tremendous affect on public health. Richard Jackson, former director of the National Center of
Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had these words to say in a co-written
article in the American Journal of Public Health, "The design choices we make in our homes, schools, work
places, communities and transportation systems can have major effects on health,,"

Automobiles are the dominant form of moving people in the US, and our land use patterns reflect this fact. Our
cities and towns are designed for cars, not people and the results come at a heavy price for public health, the
environment and global affairs.

An area the size of the state of Georgia is covered with pavement in the US. Over 40,000 Americans are killed
by cars every year along with millions who suffer injuries from accidents, air and water pollution and the stress
common to traffic congestion. The ten most sprawling cities in the US can boast of higher rates of pedestrians
killed by cars than more compact cities

Land use patterns catering to cars, contribute greatly to a public that does not get enough exercise. Parks are
often too far away to walk or bike. Shopping, work, school, recreation are often too far to walk or bike and even
when they are not so far, biking or walking are not safe or they are unpleasant experiences.

As a result, our country is in the midst of a near epedemic of overweight people. Add to poor land use the fast
foods that are auto accessed and the obesity problem is even worse. Nearly 2/3 of Americans 20 to 74 are
overweight. Of kids 6 to 19, 15% are overweight, twice the percentage of 20 years ago. Overweight people
translate into people who are at greater risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

People who do not drive are at a disadvantage. The old, the young, many alter abled and those who just don't
drive suffer the land use of an auto centric land use pattern.

Cars contribute greatly to global warming. The US must import over 60% of its oil, 40% of that burned up by
private cars. With 4 % of the world's population, the US takes 25% of the world's oil. US foreign policy is very
much about creating and safeguarding access to foreign oil.

The expense of auto accidents, auto infrastructure, a petroleum centric foreign policy and all the expense of
cars means literally trillions of our nation's treasure goes to pay for a land use and transportation system that has
a massive consequence on public health. If spent more wisely, those trillions could be used to redesign our
cities by bringing where we live, work, shop play, worship closer together or to construct user friendly public
transportation.

We pay far more for the use of cars than what we see at the pump. The sooner we move away from auto centric
land use, the sooner we will benefit by improving public health.