San Carlos, CA - June 8, 2009 - The City of San Carlos announced today that it has received the 2009 Outstanding Planning Award of Merit in the Category of Innovation in Green Community Planning from the Northern California Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA).
The award is in recognition of the City's Climate Action Plan which is being developed as part of the upcoming General Plan 2030 process and the City of San Carlos' ongoing series of Green Programs and Climate Change Initiatives. The APA Award goes to the team that developed the plan led by Planning Manager Deborah Nelson, Assistant City Manager Brian Moura and Michael McCormick and Jillian Rich from PMC, a planning and consulting firm based in Rancho Cordova, CA. Work on the plan was funded with a grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD).
The City worked with a three member Climate Action Plan Subcommittee of the General Plan Advisory Committee (Don Cook, Suzanne Emerson and Michelle Margiotta) to develop the City's first Climate Action Plan (CAP). The plan includes 21 reduction goals and 39 reduction measures aimed at reducing the City's Greenhouse Gas levels to 15% below the 2005 levels by the year 2020. The project also successfully integrated Greenhouse Gas emission reduction and climate change strategies into the Environmental Management Element of the General Plan.
In presenting the Innovation in Green Community Planning to San Carlos Planning Manager Deborah Nelson, the 2009 Awards Co-Director Eileen Whitty noted that the San Carlos Climate Action Plan merited an award for several key reasons including Making a Complex Topic Easily Understood, Clearly Outlining the Impacts of Climate Change and the Community's Carbon Footprint, Showing the Impacts of the Proposed Measures to Reduce the City's Carbon Footprint and Developing a Plan that is both Practical and Highly Implementable.
Interest in the San Carlos Climate Action Plan has been high among other agencies around the state since it is one of the first to be integrated with the City's upcoming General Plan. Presentations on the CAP have been requested and made to groups including City and County Officials in Monterey County on Earth Day, the Silicon Valley Climate Protection Task Force and the BAAQMD Climate Action Leadership Summit. The CAP will also be discussed as part of an upcoming Case Study on Public Involvement by the Institute of Local Government (ILG) and at the 2009 League of California Cities Annual Conference to be held in San Jose this September.
The 2009 San Carlos Climate Action Plan is now in its final stages of preparation. It will be discussed with the San Carlos City Council in August with final adoption scheduled in October along with the City's General Plan 2030 Update. A copy of the current draft of the CAP is available for review on the City of San Carlos Web Site at:http://www.cityofsancarlos.org/generalplanupdate/whats_new_/draft_elements/draft_climate_action_plan/default.asp
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