Published October 2, 2008
SustainLane spoke with Esther Matthews, director of the city of Austin’s Climate Protection Plan, in July of 2008. When we asked her to look fifty years into the future, Matthews told us she envisions a more densely-built Austin with many more tall buildings. She said she fears the city may lose its green vegetation “to the heat and the fact that the sun is getting stronger and stronger by the year,” but that the city will work hard not to lose its green cover.
Read the full Q&A below:
SustainLane: How did the city of Austin come about?
Matthews: Around 1840, Austin was called Waterloo. It was identified as a good location for the capital, and they started building the capital here in 1860s. The city was established in 1890s. It was able to put in a dam on the river to end the flooding, and the dam provided the electricity. The city owned the electric utility, and it has managed to hold on to it all these years.
We are in a unique position: we own our airport, our electric utility; it puts us in a favored situation.
In the 70s, there was an effort to bring the high-tech companies here. We got Symantec to move here, which was the federally-funded consortium for high-tech companies and that brought a lot of other high-tech companies here. That’s about the only industry that we have here.
The community changed a lot when the manufacturing for high-tech came in. It really increased the growth rate in the city. In the last few years we have really grown and I think that’s going to continue.
SustainLane: How has growth affected development in Austin ?
Matthews: We were a fairly small town, with the suburbs may be two miles from downtown for years and years. And then since about the mid 80s we started to grow, expand out into the suburban areas, and now we have a large movement towards condominiums towards the downtown area in the closed in areas.
Because of all the growth that is coming here, some of the people cannot afford to live in the city, so they live in the suburban communities. People tend to move either out into the county, outside the city limits, or into the smaller communities that are around us. Several of them have grown ten-fold in the last 10 years. So we have a fairly extensive transportation problem because of that, and we don’t have a real strong bus system.
We have also been an environmental community for a long time. We have been requiring certain things like 45% impervious cover on a home site. We are building a light rail that goes into some of the communities to the Northwest, and it is supposed to open in December.
SustainLane: What are some of Austin’s geographical limitations when it comes to sustainability?
Matthews: One of our biggest limitations is that it is a place everybody wants to live here. If you live in Texas, you want to live in Austin. That causes us to grow more than we like.
I don’t think we could raise enough food to feed our entire population. We have the Blackland Prairie to the east of us, but it’s not big enough to maintain the whole community.
We are actually a help shelter for Galveston , so we recognize that if there is any kind of future storm event down the coast, most of the people will move here. We really don’t have any limitations, and that is part of why we are growing; except the cost of housing, that’s probably a limitation, but that’s not geographical.
SustainLane: How much attention does Austin pay to the city’s tree-cover/urban canopy?
Matthews: We have a non-profit called “Tree Folks, and their main effort is to plant trees and teach citizens how to maintain trees.
I think our tree cover is at 22%. We have just done an inventory of street trees and the park trees, and we are in the process of doing a flyover to get the actual percentage of what our tree canopy is.
The city has a tree program known as “Neighborwoods.” We go to a neighborhood, and if we identify a place where a tree could be planted on the right-of-way, we leave a little note to the homeowner, saying, “If you will agree to plant, water, and maintain the tree, we will bring you one and you will have to plant it right here where our note is with a flag on the ground.” We also follow Austin Energy Tree trimming, so that the tree trimmers can come to the neighborhood and cut down trees, and we come back in and offer people new trees.
We put up 4000 trees a year with this program.
SustainLane: Do you have a green roofs program?
Matthews: Yes, we do. It is in our code, allowing people to build green roofs. I think City Hall is the only one of the city facilities that has a green roof. It is kind of quasi-green roof. It is more like flower beds on top of some levels of City Hall. I think today they are having a training program about how to reduce [water] leakage into the building from green roofs. There is a lot of interest in it.
Our problem with green roofs is we have to water them. It is not as energy efficient; we have to pump water up. In Chicago [which has more green roofs than any other city in SustainLane’s study], it rains enough to not have to water your green roof. That is our biggest problem. Usually we average about 30 inches of rain a year, but last year we got 56 inches. This year we may probably get 15. You never know how much it is going to be.
SustainLane: So if you have a green roof, it might be just cactus?
Matthews: Succulents might work here too.
SustainLane: How is Austin planning to become even more sustainable?
Matthews: We have the new climate protection plan that calls for our city to be carbon neutral by 2020. We plan to put all of the city facilities on renewable energy at the end of this year. We get renewable energy from wind turbines in west Texas ; currently the utility has about 11% of our capacity coming from wind. That helps us a lot. We are also putting solar panels up on our city facilities, where it is appropriate.
We discovered that our water utility is our largest user of energy, so we are working with them on energy efficiency for a lot of their pumps and blowers. In every way we can make them more energy efficient, we are trying to do that.
We [use rebates to] encourage our [utility] customers to put more efficient products into their homes. We also offer rebates for low-flow toilets, efficient irrigation, and clothes washers.
We have our own green building rating, based on our climate; the green building rating actually started here; we were the first community to have a green building division within our city, and we created our own green building rating process. It is similar to LEED.
It is more specific on energy efficiency than LEED is; I know that LEED has started to move in that direction. In the past, their energy efficiency was not necessary to their rating. Our green building rating does require energy efficiency.
Low-income housing that receives federal funding through city of Austin is required to have a two-star [ Austin ] green building rating. And of course all city facilities are required to be at a certain LEED level or green building rating.
One of the requirements for the climate protection plan is that we try to implement energy efficiency retrofit program, where you require buildings to be made more efficient at the point of real estate sale. This is a way to improve your building stock that is already on the ground.
SustainLane: So that’s a program to retrofit and re-commission existing residential and commercial buildings?
Matthews: Yes. We started our first energy efficiency rebate program in 1982. Because of our energy efficiency programs, we didn’t have to build a 500 MW power plant—a coal plant that we had on our list to be built back in the 80s. Our goal is to save another 700 MW through energy efficiency and green building effort.
SustainLane: Tell us about Austin’s solid waste diversion effort.
Matthews: We have a solid waste department that is working on a goal of zero solid waste by 2030. Right now we are preparing to move into an all-in-one recycling effort, beginning October 1. We are all going to get 90 gallon carts in which we put all our recycling material, which will get picked up every other week.
Except for bottles and paper, we don’t have to separate our recyclables. Right now we have a once a week pick-up, and then we have a separate pick-up for the yard waste.
The solid waste services takes the yard waste to one of our waste water treatment plants, where it’s chopped up and mixed with the waste sludge from the solid waste plant and turned into something we call “Dillo Dirt,” which we then provide free to community organizations and the city. We also sell it in bags for people’s yards. Everybody who comes to Austin makes a contribution to our Dillo Dirt.
SustainLane: Is it like armadillo?
Matthews: Yes, it is a short word for armadillo.
SustainLane: Very cute.
Matthews: We also “Dillos,” which are diesel-powered buses that drive around the downtown area and you can ride them for free. I think they are going to limit the amount of buses and hopefully change them into either electric buses or a propane or CNG. We are big supporters of plug-in hybrid technology, but it is so expensive. They can’t afford to really buy those buses.
SustainLane: Do you have any bio-diesel usage in your city fleet?
Matthews: This is the first year, that we really moved into bio fuel. All of our diesel is now 20% bio-diesel. We implemented that about two months ago. We are shifting our gasoline fleet to ethanol—all of our terminals are 10% ethanol. We are purchasing flex fuel vehicles, so that we can move to 85% ethanol.
SustainLane: Density is a major component of sustainable urban living. Does the city have any goals, like maybe, “10,000 residents in downtown 5 years from now”?
Matthews: Yes, 20,000 in downtown. I think we are at right about 7,000 now.
SustainLane: Austin is known for the high-tech incubator begun in the 1970s. It seems there are early signs of this same thing happening with clean-tech today.
Matthews: It is very similar to the growth in high-tech back then. We started this actually before the climate protection plan kicked off. Austin Energy was interested in new technologies so that we could reach our goals of renewable energy and energy efficiency. When we started the rebate program for solar PVs, I think it was 2002, we put in our rebate program an incentive for a company to actually build a PV here in Austin . We still don’t have that.
We were paying $4.50 per watt for these rebates on solar panels. We said that we would pay $5.50 if the panels were produced here in Austin . Then we joined the local clean energy incubator here in Austin , and we provide them with funding. They review the different proposals that come to us. People from all over bring proposals to us on different types of technology. We look at them, and then if we think it is actually viable, we send it over to the incubator. Then they decide whether or not to assist that company in growing.
We have a lot of people at the University of Texas , and even down at Texas A&M down in College Station , who are trying to identify new technologies for more efficient service delivery of utilities, and different types of innovative technologies to improve the production of energy. This whole clean-tech energy thing is going to be big for us.
SustainLane: It sounds like the fact that Austin owns its utilities gave it more leverage than other cities have to establish these young technologies to serve the utilities.
Matthews: I think that is true.
SustainLane: Do you see other benefits to owning your own utilities?
Matthews: It is a huge benefit; now we are able to create these renewable energy programs and run our city facilities on them. And, because of it, we will probably be one of the first cities, that is not a [city run on hydroelectric power], to be carbon-neutral.
The energy efficiency programs are in place because we own the utility. When you think about how we are structured here, we have seven council members, including the Mayor, all elected at-large. They each have one vote on the council, and utility customers are people who elect them.
I am a stock holder in my electric utility, because I get to elect the board through the process of electing the city council. It makes the utility so much more responsive to the customers because customers get to elect the board of directors that runs the utility. I wish this for any community, that they could own their own utility.
Also, there is additional funding that is available because we own the electric utility. It is a huge money-maker. We are able to do things, for example the urban heat island tree program. Most cities can’t just start spending a million dollars on trees a year, but we could because we had the money.
SustainLane: What is the status of your car sharing program? Do you guys have one yet like ZipCar?
Matthews: Car share is here, and I think they have around eight vehicles. We are taking to the city council a proposal that they purchase four additional vehicles that will be available for city employees during the day and for the community during the night, after hours and weekends. Texans and their cars, it is pretty hard to separate us. Car share had a difficult time getting started because of that.
In addition to that, we are trying to create a bike-sharing program. It will probably be similar to car-sharing. If you are a member you can check out the bike online and go and pick it up.
SustainLane: Do you plan to expand the definition of sustainability beyond just environmental and economic impact to social and cultural?
Matthews: Yes, we consider that a part of sustainability. There are housing issues for low-income and homeless, the ability to get good healthcare. We contract with our local community schools to train people to do solar installation and get associate degrees to be linemen at the utility. This all figures into sustainability.
SustainLane: That’s your social program?
Matthews: It is an educational program at the community school to basically train our next set of employees, and specifically on solar installation and how to work for an electric utility. I don’t think any of the other departments are doing that, but Austin Energy is doing it.
SustainLane: Tell us about Austin’s sustainability structure in city government.
Matthews: We don’t have a single department that is in charge of sustainability. We have entities in each of the departments that are working on that. Through this climate protection plan, we have been trying to pull those departments together to work on sustainability issues.
We do have lot of activities going along in different areas; We have a watershed department that handles all the drainage in the city; and they also are handling our permitting process for building codes and that part of thing. They are implementing the policies created by the city council. The council is very interested in sustainable issues.
SustainLane: Are there any plans to centralize the effort in one department?
Matthews: We had one department that was in charge of it, and that department was dismantled in 2004. Now we have a new city manager, and I am guessing that we might a see a restructuring in the future. I feel like I am temporarily kind of pulling that effort together.
SustainLane: What are the biggest challenges for Austin in the next 50 years?
Matthews: I think growth will continue to be our big challenge. We have the inner-city neighborhoods that don’t want to be compact neighborhoods, but they have to be. Condominiums are going to be prevalent every where. For Texans, that is not what we want. We want to be able to see the horizon; we don’t want to see buildings. Also, we are having huge transportation issues. It’s probably going to get worse because people are going to move here.
SustainLane: Where do you see Austin 50 years from now?
Matthews: I see it as a much larger place. I don’t think you will be able to see the capitol anymore. It will be completely surrounded by big, tall buildings. I think it will still be a viable financial area for people that live here.
I am concerned we will lose a lot of our green vegetation, just to the heat, and the fact that the sun is getting is stronger and stronger by the year, so we are going to work hard to keep that from happening.
Photo Caption: Ester Matthews, long-time Austin Energy staffer, was named Director of Austin's Climate Protection Plan in 2007. (Photo Courtesy Ester Matthews)
