Growth & Justice Blog

Infrastructure investment could raise its sights

A recent commentary by Chip Halbeck, executive director of the Minnesota Housing Partnership, asks: what is infrastructure?

If it means the basic physical makeup that enables a community to function, I argue that housing fits the definition. Fortunately, for the most part the free market has provided communities with the needed housing component of infrastructure. But there is a sizable and growing segment of the population for which the market cannot provide homes that are both affordable and safe.

Halbeck's piece suggests a new federal stimulus package that would fund local government grants to make low-income housing safe and more energy-efficient. He argues that such rehab work would also provide more low-skilled and entry-level jobs in more places than would large scale infrastructure projects. (Architecture 2030 has proposed a similar national stimulus buy-down program for residential buildings and an accelerated-depreciation program for commercial buildings.)

Whatever you think of his proposal, the larger point is apt.

The nation's financial woes are rooted in a housing catastrophe that has dumped thousands of foreclosed homes on the Twin Cities market alone. Vacancies and abandonments threaten the fabric of neighborhoods. Yet, instead of recognizing this impact, there's a transportation-centric coloring to our view of infrastructure spending. Roads, bridges, transit and auto companies dominate the discussions.

Moving people and goods more efficiently from place to place is a worthy economic goal — but we cannot ignore the condition of those places. And we know that more lanes and extensions into exurbia  can ultimately increase energy use and environmental impact.

What's more, transportation only consumes 29 percent of the nation's energy, while more than 51 percent goes to electricity generation and residential and commercial heat and power. Increasing the energy efficiency of our building infrastructure could provide long-term paybacks for building owners, renters and the environment.

It can also provide long-term savings for the public.

One recent example is the recently built Schaar's Bluff Gathering Center in Dakota County’s Spring Lake Park Reserve. The structure is 90-95 percent more energy efficient than comparable parks facilities, and ranks within the top 1 percent of all sustainable structures as compared to the U.S. Green Building Council's registered buildings.

It generates its own power with an onsite wind turbine, reuses rainwater to flush its toilets, and incorporates wood reclaimed from a sawmill that park employees once operated on the site.

The building is designed to react to current weather conditions. Its HVAC system is linked to operable windows so that the two don’t work against each other; automated shading devices react to the sun’s path. It even feeds local animals with its edible landscaping.

[design: MS&R photos: Andrea Rugg]

The designer, Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, was the first Minnesota architecture firm to sign on to Architecture 2030's standards for meeting fossil fuel, greenhouse gas emission and energy consumption goals.

The project began as a conventional building, but evolved through a design process that tapped  an inspiring site, a parks manager's passion for sustainability and the County Board's openness to a non-traditional approach.

Conventional procurement would have focused on managing the design/build budget and been leery of innovation. The major difference at Schaar's Bluff was a county staff dedicated to the environment who felt secure enough to encourage the unconventional and take it to the public for their input.

Starting from a carbon neutral "energy budget" helped lead to a building that stayed within the fiscal limits while delivering a long-term a balance of economic, aesthetic, environmental and social values.

In the desire to create economic stimulus, we should not labor only to lay rebar and concrete. Dakota County has shown how visionary government can render enduring beauty and public utility in difficult times.

— Charlie Quimby

Building the will to invest in our environment

As a relatively young and modest-sized organization that deals in depth with statewide issues, Growth & Justice tackles one big project at a time. That's so we can do each one ... justice.

Our mission says we are "committed to making Minnesota’s economy simultaneously more prosperous, fair and environmentally sustainable." Having started with workforce development, tax fairness, strategic investment and education, we haven't yet, with any comprehensive study, worked our way over to the crucial principle expressed at the end of that sentence.

But this year environmental sustainability will be on policy makers' minds — and possibly on the ballot — in more ways than one.

Gas tax discussions will be about both preserving the environment and sustainably funding transportation. Conservation interests will be back making their case for sustainable funding for clean water and habitat preservation. Ironically, boosting production of biofuels is one reason the state's wildlife habitat is in peril, as outdoors columnist Dennis Anderson points out, so throw farm policy and land use into the mix, too.

Environmental groups, represented by the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, favor a version of a constitutional amendment that dedicates a portion of state sales tax to fund clean energy and arts in addition to the wildlife, land preservation and clean water focus on the conservation agenda. Neither group got its way last session, so the competing amendments will be back for another hearing.

Sustainable funding isn't just one group's issue. Roads and bridges, clean water and energy, hunters and fishermen, and transit and cultural interests will all be making a case in the coming year.

Present levels of public funding can't sustain even one of these, and private initiatives can't pay the bills, either. So the discussion has to address how much more we can afford and who pays.

Constitutional amendments that dedicate funding can be problematical, especially as they lock up more of the budget and reduce flexibility to deal with change and the unforeseen. Before we tackle more amendments, the bigger issue in Minnesota right now is finding the will to invest more in our state.

We’re dedicated and working hard to helping build that political will.   

Then we can argue over where it goes.

— Charlie Quimby