Rancho Cucamonga: A Study in Green

June 2009

This month's news story features an article that was published in the July/August edition of the Cal APA Planner written by Hogle-Ireland employee John Kenyon . Hogle-Ireland partnered with the City of Rancho Cucamonga to focus sustainability efforts by creating a sustainability action matrix which helps address the City's environmental impact.

From the recent declaration of a drought emergency by the Governor, to the carbon footprint requirements of AB 32 and SB 375, to the block grants for energy and environmental initiatives that are a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed in February by President Obama, California cities are facing greater pressures and incentives than ever before to address their own environmental impact. The Sustainability Action Matrix recently created by Rancho Cucamonga, a city of 175,000 people in San Bernardino County, offers an example of a straightforward and inexpensive options cities have to meet some of these challenges. This matrix establishes a framework for “green” actions and initiatives for the next five to ten years.

The matrix, a list of concrete and achievable initiatives broken out into logical topic areas, was created during a series of meetings with staff representing the breadth of city activity. “This approach allowed the city to take advantage of the wide range of city staff expertise”, said Fabian Villenas, Principal Management Analyst for the City of Rancho Cucamonga. “While we did not have one person on staff that was an expert in all ‘green’ issues, we certainly had experts in water conservation in our Parks and Landscaping staff, experts in energy efficient lighting in our Facilities staff, experts in recycling and reuse in our Environmental Services staff, etc.”

The Sustainability Action Matrix is divided into nine topic areas: integration with Rancho Cucamonga’s healthy community initiative, climate protection and air quality, green buildings, energy use and procurement, water, integrated waste management, transportation, procurement, and education. Within each of these categories, city staff developed a list of current and proposed efforts and assessed each on whether it could be accomplished with current staffing and funding, or whether the effort would require additional commitment of resources that would need to be addressed in subsequent budget years.

In the energy category, for example, staff listed the following ten initiatives as current efforts, several of which have already been accomplished:

1. Adopt a resolution requiring at least 20% of City energy electricity purchases to be renewable by 2010 and 33% by 2020.
2. Retrofit city red traffic signal lights with LEDs.
3. Retrofit green and yellow city traffic signal lights with LEDs as replacements are needed.
4. Design all new City buildings to maximize cost effective energy efficiency.
5. Retrofit all City facilities with energy-efficient lighting and lighting controls.
6. Complete an HVAC Comprehensive Study to ensure facilities’ HVAC systems run at maximum efficiency. As part of this effort, replace large City building pumps and electric motors with “variable speed drives,” which respond to demand, and modernize the Civic Center’s system to replace the old and inefficient compressors.
7. Offer Rancho Cucamonga Municipal Utility (RCMU) customers energy audits of their facilities.
8. Offer RCMU customers rebates for lighting retrofits, HVAC tune-up, and solar installations.
9. Replace gas-powered grounds maintenance mowers and rakes with electric whenever possible.
10. Retrofit park lighting with efficient fixtures.

The City of Rancho Cucamonga has been at the forefront when it comes to innovative green programs. The Healthy RC initiative, for example, aims to improve the overall health of the community by focusing programs on three key areas: healthy minds (theater, library and other cultural programs); healthy bodies (sports and fitness, nutrition, health education and other related programs); and healthy earth (reduction of city waste, four-day work week for city staff to reduce commute times, etc.).

The Sustainability Action Matrix went to the city council for formal adoption in April. According to city staff, it has already started to help with budget and program priorities. Staff expects that the matrix will be reviewed yearly and updated as needed.

City staff was guided through the process by Sam Gennawey, a Senior Project Manager with the planning firm Hogle-Ireland, and John Zinner of Zinner Consultants. “We asked them to dream,” Zinner added. “Tell us what you would really like to do?”