Academic literature on the topic 'Boston Zoning Code'

In 2007, Mayor Menino and the Boston Redevelopment Authority implemented Article 37, an amendment to the Boston Zoning Code requiring new construction approved under Large Project Review be designed and built to meet the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED certification. The amendment was intended to promote green building practices in the city and reduce the environmental impacts of buildings larger than 50,000 square feet. Article 37 dictates that buildings be LEED “certifiable,” but does not require that they actually achieve LEED certification. This study examines how this policy has affected building practice in the city. This research relied on several data sources including public records, communication with public officials, and qualitative research interviews with building industry professionals working in Boston. Interviews were conducted with 9 individuals at 7 firms. Both architecture and engineering firms were included and all have worked under Article 37. The experiences of each firm were treated as a case study, and cases were considered in relation to each other. A cross-case analysis was completed using the qualitative research methods of interpretation, synthesis, meaning condensation, and meaning categorization. It was concluded that Article 37 has advanced sustainability goals in Boston and has provided an educational benefit to building practitioners and clients. However, Article 37 has not had a substantial impact on building practice in the city. The LEED certifiable standard is not actually equivalent to LEED certification and does not set an aggressive goal. This research fills a gap in the literature and is an important step in critically examining the outcomes of green building policy. This understanding of how Article 37 has influenced building practice in Boston is valuable not only to the city, but also to the numerous municipalities that have adopted LEED-based requirements for private construction.

In 2007, Mayor Thomas Menino and the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) implemented an amendment to the Boston Zoning Code Article 37 (Green Buildings) requiring new construction approved under Article 80B (Development Review and Approval: Large Project Review) be designed and built to meet the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (USGBC LEED) certification. This amendment is intended to promote green building practices in the city and reduce the environmental impacts of buildings larger than 50,000 square feet. Article 37 does not require that the buildings actually achieve LEED certification, but they need to be LEED certifiable as determined by an interagency review committee and with the endorsement of a LEED Accredited Professional. This study examines how environmental goals have been translated into policy and how this policy has affected building practice in the City of Boston. The Green Buildings amendment was enacted to help curb greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the energy consumption of the building stock and is expected to help achieve the City’s goal of reducing carbon emissions by 25% by the year 2020 and 80% by the year 2050. This is not possible without a shift in the current building and construction paradigm. Through interviews with building professionals we assess whether this building code amendment has resulted in any necessary changes in practice and whether or not those working under the standard of LEED certifiability believe it to be an effective policy.

Americans tend to think of the western United States as open spaces and the east coast as urban and crowded. After all, the northeast corridor from Washington, DC to Boston, Massachusetts, exempli- es the modern “mega-conurbations” of cultural historian Lewis Mumford—”nearly unbroken belt[s] of residential and commercial development, dotted with isolated parklands but little actual countryside.” Ironically, the eastern urban centers melded together in imitation of Los Angeles, California, that haphazard collection of zoning-de- ant industrial-residential-commercial melanges. By now, Los Angeles’s cement-and-asphalt environment has become the very model of a modern human habitat and the nation’s poster child for suburban sprawl. In an attempt to emulate its glittery lifestyle, every prosperous American town has snaked strip developments out along major highways, spraying cheap commercial-residential urban–suburban developments in all directions. Supported and encouraged by enormous public investment in roads, highways, and other infrastructure, the sprawl constantly expands until it displaces all other land uses and human habitat becomes the dominant or only habitat. We seem to have little concept that clean environments, and clean air and water in particular, support the physical, mental, and economic health of human societies (see chapter 1). This is why environmental guru Paul Hawken and co-authors termed them “natural capital.” Sprawling urban–suburban habitats are not very healthy because they foul the air and make numerous contributions to water pollution. Developments are dominated by gas-belching automobiles, gas stations with leaky underground storage tanks, and asphalt roads and parking lots. Residential suburbs shed megatons of lawn fertilizers and pesticides into local streams and lakes. All these relatively uncontrolled chemical releases make cities and suburbs into sources of land, water, and air pollution, which damage both human health and livelihoods. Urban wastes come back to haunt us through our air and water and also come floating onto our beaches. Urban and suburban areas depend on nonurban areas for food, clean water and air, and raw and manufactured materials. Our Earth simply cannot support human life if urban growth continues wiping out all its agricultural land, isolating wildlife in limited preserves, taking clean water from rural areas, and spreading pollution from the mountains to the shore. All of these habitats people need for survival.