Initiatives for California

Locality	Initiative Type	Mitigation Strategy	Link	Title & Description	Date
Davis	Tree and Landscape Ordinance	Trees and Vegetation	Chapter 37 of the City of Davis Municipal Code	Davis Landscaping Ordinance - The City of Davis requires that 50% of the paved parking lot surface of any building shall be shaded with tree canopies within 15 years of acquisition of a building permit. Specific guidelines for the development of such canopy are outlined by the city. Only trees from the city's list may be used as parking lot shade trees unless otherwise approved by the city's arborist. It is recommended that the genera of trees be varied throughout the parking lot. Trees shall receive 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% shading credit based on their location relative to paved surfaces.	Active
Los Angeles	Urban Forestry Program; Outreach and Education Program	Trees and Vegetation	LADWP Cool Schools	Los Angeles Cool Schools Program - The Cool Schools program in Los Angeles teaches students to become environmental stewards through hands-on and classroom experience. Through the project, students have helped plant hundreds of trees around Los Angeles schools. Cool Schools creates an opportunity to teach lessons on biology, botany, horticulture, and related topics.	Active
Los Angeles	Urban Forestry Program	Trees and Vegetation	LADWP: Trees for a Green LA	Trees for a Green LA - Los Angeles residents interested in free trees from the Trees for a Green LA program first participate in an online or neighborhood workshop. Then they complete a site plan and apply for their free trees. Residents pledge on their applications to plant and care for the trees in a proper manner and allow the city to inspect their work for program evaluation and quality assurance purposes.	Active
Sacramento	Air Quality Requirement; Urban Forestry Program	Trees and Vegetation	Urban Forests for Clean Air Strategic Tree Planting in Sacramento (PDF)	Urban Forests for Clean Air - In 2006, Sacramento secured a large Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program grant to work on including urban forestry in its State Implementation Plan. The project, known as the Urban Forests for Clean Air demonstration project, involves the Sacramento Tree Foundation, the USDA Forest Service, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and the Sacramento, El Dorado, and Placer and Feather River Air Districts. The project includes three phases: 1) initial estimates of the effects of the urban forest on air quality; 2) development of improved models to analyze these impacts; and 3) a final report on the findings. Under the first phase, the Forest Service's Center for Urban Forest Research estimated the impacts of trees on air quality using existing models and statistical analyses. That analysis predicted that one million additional trees could lower emissions of NOx by almost a quarter ton per day and particulate matter by over one ton per day. If trees that emitted low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were chosen, ground-level ozone could also be reduced by 1.5 tons daily. The long-term goal for the project is to develop the technical support for a SIP revision that includes large-scale, urban tree planting as a ground-level ozone reduction control strategy for the Sacramento region.	Active
Sacramento	Demonstration Project	Cool Pavements	Pervious Concrete Pavements	Permeable Parking Lot Demonstration - The Sacramento Cool Communities Program was a partner in a project to install a pervious concrete parking lot at Bannister Park in Fair Oaks in 2001 to enhance stormwater management and to reduce the urban heat-island effect. This parking lot is one of the first in the state to use this type of paving. Pervious concrete helps water infiltrate the soil by capturing rainwater in a network of voids and allowing it to percolate into the underlying soil. Pervious concrete can help reduce or eliminate the need for traditional stormwater management systems such as retention ponds and sewer tie-ins.	Completed
Sacramento	Incentive; Urban Forestry Program	Trees and Vegetation	Rebates - Shade Trees	Sacramento Shade - Since 1990, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has partnered with the Sacramento Tree Foundation to provide more than 350,000 free shade trees to residents in the Sacramento area. This program encourages residents to strategically plant vegetation around their homes to reduce energy consumption. Homes with an eastern, western, or southern exposure that heats up during the summer are eligible for this program. SMUD provides trees between four and seven feet tall (1.2–2.2 meters), as well as stakes, ties, fertilizer, tree delivery, and expert advice on tree selection and planting techniques free of charge. Homeowners must agree to plant and care for the trees.	Active
Sacramento	Incentive	Cool Roofs	Rebates - Residential Cool Roofs	Cool Roof Rebate Program - The Sacramento Municipal Utility District offers rebates to residential customers who use cool roofing technologies. The utility offers a 20-cent-per-square-foot (0.09 m²) rebate to customers who own single-family, multi-family, or mobile homes with flat roofs and who install ENERGY STAR® cool roof products. The rebate for sloped roofs is 10 cents per square foot.	Active
Sacramento	Tree and Landscape Ordinance	Trees and Vegetation	Section 17.68.040 Tree Shading Requirements for Parking Lots	Sacramento Parking Lot Shading Ordinance - Since 1983, an ordinance in Sacramento's zoning code has required that enough trees be planted to shade 50% of new, or significantly altered, parking lots after 15 years of tree growth. A 2001 study found that the lots were only achieving about 25% shading because sometimes shade was double-counted, trees did not grow to their expected size under conditions of the lot, or trees were not adequately dispersed. Based on these findings, Sacramento modified its code in 2003 to improve coverage.	Active
San Jose	Green Building Program and Standards	Trees and Vegetation	Green Building Policy	San Jose Green Building Policy - The City of San Jose, California, includes landscape design for heat island mitigation as one of the goals of its Green Building Policy, adopted in 2001. The policy applies to planning, design, construction, management, renovation, operations, and demolition of facilities that are larger than 10,000 square feet and constructed, owned, managed, or financed by the city.	Active
Statewide	Building Code	Cool Roofs	Title 24, Part 6 2008 Updates	California Code of Regulations: California's Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings - In response to electrical power shortages, the state of California added cool roofs as an energy efficiency option to its building energy code (Title 24) in 2001. The code defines a cool roof as having a minimum solar reflectance of 70% and minimum thermal emittance of 75%, unless it is concrete or clay tile, in which case it can have a minimum solar reflectance of 40%. This 40% rating incorporates new cool-colored residential products into the standard. In 2005, these cool roof provisions became mandatory requirements for all new non-residential construction and re-roofing projects that involve more than 2,000 square feet (180 m²) or 50% replacement. The code allows owners to meet these requirements in a variety of ways. The simplest approach is to apply a cool roof that meets the minimum requirements. Another alternative is to use products that do not fully meet the cool roof criteria and then offset those reduced performance levels by implementing other measures, such as insulation and window improvements, that exceed minimum requirements. The third, and most flexible option, is to use whatever methods are deemed practicable as long as the code's specific performance goal is reached; in this scenario, the building owner creates a model of all the characteristics that affect the energy consumption of the building to determine the mix of measures that will meet the code criteria. The California Energy Commission provides computer software for this compliance option. California began the process of updating Title 24 in late 2005, with final revised standards due in 2008. As part of this update, California is investigating extending cool roof requirements to the steep-sloped market.	Active

Initiatives for California

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