Agenda - Planning Commission - 07/07/1998

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JUNE 1998 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION Challenge_ of Industrial Ecology By Jim Schwab, AICP It may be time to reexamine one of the most fundamental assumptions of zoning--that industry and residential neighborhoods make poor neighbors. What happens when industry consciously designs its operations to be so environmentally sound that its negative impacts are almost nonexistent? The classic assumption underlays one of the seminal cases in the history of zoning law, Village ofEuclid v. Ambler Real~y Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926). Planners and zoning officials assumed that, where possible, industry ought to be segregated from residential areas because its environmental impacts almost invariably had a detrimental effect on residential comfort, tranquility, and property values. These early zoning schemes, while restricting industry near residential areas, generally did not prohibit residential building in industrial zones. Later zoning codes did impose such restrictions, but many older cities still have a residential-industrial mix that harkens back to an era when many factory employees walked to work. Some of those same neighborhoods today are also blighted with brownfields where closed factories stand as mute reminders of the logic behind those early zoning concerns. In the 1950s, the widespread adoption of industrial performance standards signaled a recognition by planners that innovation in industrial design and engineering could sufficiently mitigate some impacts to allow communities to loosen zoning restrictions. The idea was to allow facilities that met the standards to locate in some commercial areas or adjacent to some residential areas, but almost never allowing industry to coexist with residential development in the same district. Mixed-use developments largely involved combining residential and commercial uses and perhaps the lightest and smallest industrial uses, typically cottage industries. Now some creative design professionals are suggesting that sustainable industrial development may have so few negative external impacts that people could reasonably expect to live next to such facilities without a noticeable diminution in their quality of life. Moreover, on a larger scale, incorporating such industrial facilities into mixed-use developments.would facilitate other social and environmental benefits such as restoring employees' ability to walk or bicycle to work in urban areas. The ideas behind such thinking are fueling the growth of an emerging intellectual discipline known as industrial ecology in which industrial designers seek to mimic principles embodied in the operation of natural systems. The practical result of applying these principles is sustainable industrial development. It is in part a bold attempt to make industry and the environmental movement natural allies instead of adversaries. This issue of Zoning News explores the zoning implications of this nascent trend in indt,strial development. Industrial Evolution Beginning little more than two centuries ago, the Industrial Revolution succeeded in replacing traditional modes of production because it dramatically increased output per worker, thus reducing product cost. To illustrate how dramatic those changes have been, Arnalf Griibler of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria has noted that data indicate at least a 200-fold increase in worker productivity since the middle of the 18th century. At each stage of its development, this revolution was driven by human ingenuity expressed through technological innovation. Sensitivity to nature, however, was not part of the original formula for success. Waste was inherent in the system and was often poorly disposed of, and the general attitude toward such problems was expressed in the old bromide, "You have to break eggs to make an omelette." Elements of an Environmental Management System Environmental management systems are a common convenant requirement for tenants of eco-industrial parks. Over time we have moved from this predominantly brawn-driven stage of the Industrial Revolution to its brain- driven stage. The strength of the environmental movement in this century reflects a growing awareness that the continuation and escalation of existing industrial practices would lead to a catastrophic collision with the limits of the Earth and the human race to absorb the wastes and pollutants these practices generate. The important transition, accelerating rapidly in the latter half of this century, has been the shift to a new focus on the sophisticated analysis of scientific information to create