Lakewood Demands Fee for Impossible Sustainability Goals

Lakewood requires such high sustainability standards that they are almost impossible for large developments to meet. The standards are meant to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.  For those developments, Lakewood accepts a fee in lieu of sustainability amenities. Lakewood is currently arguing that parkland dedication is illegal or amoral because it asks too much from developers. But Lakewood makes the same sort of demands to further its sustainability agenda. In both cases, the desire is to have development offset the environmental cost of development. The question is at what point is there so much development that the city says money is an acceptable substitute for direct environmental offsets.

Note that these city mandates will continue despite any possible changes to federal funding for climate change initiatives.

Achievable Goals or Ideology

Lowering emissions is expensive so most people have not done it or have only done it by using rebates and subsidies. Achieving net zero emissions is even more expensive and is sometimes not achievable. For example, the city of Lakewood admits its new maintenance facility will not meet LEED standards let alone be net zero. Lakewood has set its own standards and requires that new buildings meet those standards by earning sustainability points.

“net zero standards require reducing emissions to more than 90% and then only offsetting [with purchased carbon credits] the remaining 10% or less to fall in line with 1.5 °C targets.” –Wikipedia

For large developments, the city admits it is almost impossible to achieve enough points. Therefore, developers are forced to pay a fee so that Lakewood can fund other sustainability projects. This is similar to other carbon credit purchasing schemes but in this case, it is authorized, administered, and required by Lakewood.  There is currently no discussion that Lakewood will require credits or fees from existing residents. Lakewood City Council was scheduled to discuss new ways to generate revenue, as well as how to spend the revenue generated from existing fees, at the February planning retreat. The planning retreat has historically been an in-person only meeting where staff takes direction from Council on items that do not require an official vote. No recording is available online for review.

“For some [developments] that the [sustainability] targets are just too high to meet, they pitch in so that the city can spend that money to further achieve our goals.” Travis Parker, Director of Sustainability and Community Development during staff sustainability update (min 1:17:52).

Increasing UNAFFORDABLE Housing

Since 2019 Lakewood has demanded buildings meet climate sustainability goals. This was estimated to add 2-3% to building costs but actual costs have not been collected or analyzed. Building costs are passed on to the consumer, which makes Lakewood even more expensive to live and work in than in the surrounding areas.

The additional sustainability measures will add 1-10% to building costs for things like EV charging stations. Would you like all new apartments to have a few charging stations at an increased overall cost for everyone or would you like some buildings to not have those amenities at a lower cost?

Lakewood’s demands have resulted in a reduction in emissions to meet a target of 20% less than 2007 levels. With the new demands of 2022, some large construction projects cannot meet Lakewood’s demands, resulting in the project paying a fee to Lakewood that will be used for other climate goals. Lakewood city staff acknowledged that it was almost impossible for large projects to meet demands, making the fee-in-lieu necessary.

Money Making Machine

Lakewood has already generated $221,000 from various sustainability fees. They anticipate generating over $250,000 per year on these fees. Lakewood made over $600,000 on the statewide plastic bag mandate. One could say Lakewood is getting into the business of selling emission offsets.

For more information on what Lakewood’s sustainability measures have achieved so far, watch the full video update at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYbpkr1Gm24&t=150s

Consequences

The extra expense of building in Lakewood limits the possibility of new businesses coming into Lakewood. Even sustainability businesses, whose goals align with Lakewood’s, find it difficult to make a profit when required to meet high sustainability standards.  Councilor Rein specifically remarked that he would like Lakewood to attract new businesses that would develop sustainability technologies.  At the same time, businesses nationwide are rethinking their sustainability goals amidst high demands such as Lakewood’s.

The enhanced development fee was first approved in 2019. Now the city is asking for more and some projects are not even possible to achieve what Lakewood wants. All projects must meet a base emission efficiency level. After meeting that base level, projects are eligible to pay a fee because even Lakewood staff admit it is not possible to achieve what they are asking for.

“Fee-in-lieu is for those super large projects that have really large point totals that may not even be able to find enough points in the [standards] list to meet their point total, they still have to achieve at least 50 [base level efficiency] and they can achieve the rest as well or they can pay a fee in lieu for some of those higher points.” – Travis Parker, sustainability update (min 1:34), emphasis added

What do the fees go towards? They could go towards every basic city service besides police. Per Councilor Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, these fees could be used for sidewalks, bike lanes, lighting, park maintenance, road maintenance, climate impact and water impact. Councilors asked about tree preservation and housing. Public art was part of the original goal. Tree canopy health. Food access. Household wages. Even subscriptions to city communications and trips to the rec center count towards “sustainability goals”. Other people have to fight to earn business advantages like that.

The dates below are from the staff presentation, detailing future meetings where Lakewood will be implementing more robust sustainability measures for Lakewood.

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