Little Rock officials unveiled the city's first set of environmental sustainability goals Thursday morning, including providing incentives for businesses to become more energy efficient, providing a mobile fresh-food market for low-income residents and planting trees.
The list of 17 goals was released as a part of the city's sixth annual Sustainability Summit at the Clinton Presidential Center.
The meeting also included discussion on the future of energy, investment in public transportation, hunger in Arkansas and the future of food.
The goals, dubbed the "2020 Sustainability Roadmap," are things the city plans to achieve within the next five years.
The Little Rock Sustainability Commission spent 18 months researching and later identified five areas to focus on including energy, structures, economic development, the natural environment and quality of life, Sustainability Coordinator Melinda Glasgow said. The commission then got input from individuals and organizations for the 17 goals revealed Thursday.
Among the goals is the adoption of a "complete streets" policy, which would require the city's Public Works Department to design any new construction, reconstruction, retrofitting, repaving or rehabilitation of roads to accommodate all possible users of the road. Users include motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, public transportation users, freight-haulers and people with disabilities.
The Little Rock Board of Directors would have to vote on the measure, which it declined to do at a Jan. 20 meeting. Directors will hear the proposal for the complete streets policy April 21.
Other goals include creating a Property Assessed Clean Energy program offering businesses loans for enhancing the energy efficiency of their structures; planting vegetation on the roof of at least one city building; banning plastic bags for yard waste; improving and expanding the Arkansas River Trail; and providing recreation, education and beautification activities in the Fourche Creek watershed, which is most of the city.
In response to statistics that show one in five Little Rock residents is hungry, the city also plans to help promote and start a mobile market that brings fresh produce to low-income residents.
City Director Kathy Webb, a panelist at Thursday's event, said increasingly popular farmers markets -- which emphasize selling fresh, local produce at a lower carbon footprint -- aren't very accessible to some city residents.
Webb, executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, said Little Rock has one of the highest rates of hunger in the country and noted that is troubling beyond dietary nutrition.
"We know that kids' brains don't develop as well when they're hungry," she said.
Webb was one of three panelists at the meeting, joined by Central Arkansas Transit Authority Executive Director Jarod Varner and Arkansas Advanced Energy Association Executive Director Steve Patterson.
Varner said the transit agency, which will later be renamed Rock Region Metro, wants to increase routes in certain areas to be accessible to riders. Varner added that bus riders are more active than car drivers, walking more to and from their stops.
Car-driving culture has another downside: "Parking is the No. 1 land use in Little Rock," Varner said, showing a map of the city spotted with lots.
"It's creating an economic inefficiency," Varner said, noting that businesses have other desires for that land.
Patterson discussed Arkansans' attitude toward energy, noting that an Impact Management Group survey his organization paid for showed that Arkansans largely favor investment in renewable energy and the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed plan for reducing carbon emissions.
Patterson applauded the city's implementation of a Property Assessed Clean Energy program.
The biggest barrier to persuading businesses to increase their energy efficiency has always been the burden of high front-end costs to do so, he said.
The Property Assessed Clean Energy program would cover those front-end costs for a business in the form of a loan, and the increased efficiency would eventually decrease businesses' costs, he said.
"It's a great economic development tool," he added.
Metro on 04/10/2015