PROJECT INFORMATION

Sustainability Challenges and Goals

California cities like Tracy face substantial challenges: a changing climate, rising oil costs, increasing and migrating populations, shifting demographics and lifestyles, increasing obesity and asthma, and too few living wage jobs that result in long commutes. The Emerald Cities Pilot will help Tracy build environmental, energy, and economic resilience and greater community health to meet these challenges, directly and comprehensively.

The following are typical challenges and types of long-term goals that can be used to address them. Goals specific to Tracy will be developed within the coming months.


Energy

Challenges: Rising energy costs and increasing demand; dependence on non-renewable energy

  • Goals: Reduce dependency on non-renewable energy and increase renewable energy resources and use; decrease energy costs and waste

Water

Challenges: Increasing demand and rising water supply and pumping costs; declining regional water supplies

  • Goals: Reduce water supply demands, increase water use efficiency

Agriculture/Food Production

Challenges: Dependence on fossil fuels, depletion of topsoil, growing air pollution, groundwater contamination, increasing production costs, and lack of adequate, local sustainable food production.

  • Goal: Protect and enhance local, sustainable ranch and farm food production and marketing at multiple scales

Transportation

Challenges: Dependence on oil and gas; increasing congestion, air pollution, and motor vehicle operating costs; rising vehicle and pedestrian accident and injury rates

  • Goals: Reduce motor vehicle use and dependency, and decrease vehicle carbon emissions; increase transit use, walking and biking, and develop a circulation system that supports mobility choice

Economy

Challenges: Reliance on auto commute-based employment; economic growth through the continued expansion of commercial, industrial, and residential land development

  • Goals: Increase community prosperity, and economic resilience and health while enhancing environmental and human resources

Public Health and Air Quality

Challenges: Consumption of fertile land for new development; increasing infrastructure costs and auto-dependency

  • Goals: Improve the energy and environmental efficiency of all development; protect resource lands from urbanization, and transform auto-oriented, single-use development into compact, walkable and transit-accessible, mixed-use neighborhoods, districts, and centers

Solid Waste and Recycling

Challenges: Increasing quantity of solid waste sent to, and resulting greenhouse gas emissions from, landfill

  • Goals: Reduce the amount and toxicity of solid waste sent to landfill; increase community-wide solid waste recycling and reuse, and composting of organic waste

Natural Habitat and Biological Resources

Challenges: Loss of sensitive habitat and natural resources, increasing pressure on threatened and endangered species

  • Goals: Protect and enhance biological and other natural resources and environment
Sustainability Targets

 

To meet each long term goal, the City has set targets or interim milestones, and identified measurable performance criteria that enable the community to evaluate progress made on each target. The following is a list of these targets:

Overall Greenhouse Gas Emissions:

  1. Target #1a: 29% reduction of municipal greenhouse gas emissions from 2020 business as usual (BAU) projected levels.
  2. Target #1b: 29% reduction of community greenhouse gas emissions from 2020 BAU projected levels.

Energy

  1. Target #1a: 25% of all municipal energy needs provided by renewable sources. 
  2. Target #1b: 25% of all community energy needs provided by renewable sources. 
  3. Target #2a: New municipal buildings powered by 10% using on-site solar panels.
  4. Target #2b: New residential and non-residential buildings powered by 10% using on-site solar panels.
  5. Target #3: 10% reduction in the municipal peak electrical load from current (2006) levels.
  6. Target #4: 15% reduction in community energy consumption from current (2006) levels.

Water

  1. Target #1a:  20 to 40% reduction in municipal water use from current (2006) levels.
  2. Target #1b:  20 to 40% reduction in per capita water use from current (2006) levels. 

Agricultural

  1. Target #1:  No loss of Prime Farmland, Farmland of Statewide Significance, or Unique Farmland outside of the City’s Sphere of Influence (SOI).
  2. Target #2:  Any loss of such farmland inside of the SOI is offset by mitigation fees to the Central Valley Farmland Trust, at a ratio of 2 acres preserved for every acre that is lost.

Transportation

  1. Target #1a: 20% increase in the percentage of City employees who participate in travel demand management programs from current (2006) levels.
  2. Target #1b: 20% increase in the percentage of non-City employees who participate in travel demand management programs from current (2006) levels.
  3. Target #2a: 20% reduction in the municipal VMT from current (2006) levels.
  4. Target #2b: 20% reduction in the community VMT per capita from current (2006) levels.

Economy

  1. Target #1: Ratio of jobs to employed residents with matched skills between .90 and 1.10.
  2. Target #2: 10,000 sq ft. of neighborhood-serving retail within ¼ mile of 75% of all residents.
  3. Target #3: 50% of all new housing starts at densities of 15 units per acre or greater.
  4. Target #4: “Economic Diversity Index” score equal to or better than the State-wide average.
  5. Target #5:  10% of jobs are “green” by practice or product.

Public Health and Air Quality

  1. Target #1a:  50% reduction in the percentage of obese adults in Tracy from current (2006) levels.
  2. Target #1b:  50% reduction in the percentage of obese children in Tracy from current (2006) levels.
  3. Target #2:  90% of households within 1/2 mile of a retail outlet selling fresh food, and/or with a retail outlet selling fresh food as their closest food retailer.
  4. Target #3: 90% of households within ¼ mile of a neighborhood or regional park or recreation facility.
  5. Target #1: 25% reduction in days exceeding National and California Ambient Air Quality Standards.

Solid Waste and Recycling

  1. Target #1a:  75% of the municipal waste stream is diverted from landfills.
  2. Target #1b:  75% of the community waste stream is diverted from landfills.
  3. Target #2a:  50% of municipal construction waste is reused or recycled.
  4. Target #2b:  50% of community construction waste is reused or recycled.

Natural Habitat and Biological Resources

  1. Target #1: Any loss of critical habitat corridors is mitigated through the Habitat Conservation Plan.
Team

The Emerald Tracy Team consists of a partnership with the City of Tracy, the non-profit National Charrette Institute (NCI) and the sustainable planning firms Town-Green, Design, Community & Enviroment, ICF Jones & Stokes, and Strategic Economics, in collaboration with the California Department of Conservation and other agencies.  The Team is made up of local and regional agencies and non-private and public practitioners in the appropriate fields of sustainability - energy, water, land/ development, waste, circulation, economics, health and/or food – who will work with the State agencies, local Tracy staff, and the citizens of Tracy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process

The steps of the process are as follows:

  1. Assemble a multi-disciplinary planning team - City staff, State technical representatives, consultants and non-governmental organizations, and community representatives;
  2. Research and assess Tracy's current state of resilience or sustainability both collectively and by element - energy, water, land, waste, circulation, economics, agriculture, and habitat (e.g., conduct greenhouse gas emissions inventory);
  3. Set timely and measurable performance goals and objectives for each;
  4. With community input, propose, evaluate, prioritize, and select the best stratgies, programs, policies, and actions;
  5. Develop and launch an implementation or action plan, reflective of and supported by the community;
  6. Monitor the results.

The next opportunity for community input is February 17th at 7:00 at the Tracy Transit Station. Sign up for our mailing list below to stay informed for more ways you can participate in and support this plan!

Timeline of City Actions

 

  • April 15, 2008: The City Council identified sustainability as a City priority and directed staff to develop a Citywide Sustainability Strategy

  • November 18, 2008: The City Council committed by adoption of Resolution No. 2008-241 to pursue sustainable development and environmental practices for the benefit of the community. The resolution contains goals the State of California identified to be qualitative of a sustainable community and can be found on the City’s website

  • February 24, 2009: The City engaged in a contract with the sustainability planning firm Town-Green for the development of a portion of the Citywide Sustainability Strategy. 

  • June 22, 2009: The City joined ICLEI, a membership association that provides local governments with tools and resources to implement sustainability in their communities. The membership provides access to a program for calculating GHG emissions.

  • August – December 2009: The City is conducting a municipal and community-wide GHG emission inventory. The base year for the inventory is 2006 and will serve as a baseline for calculating reduction targets. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventory and forecast are near completion and will posted in Resources shortly.

  • September 4, 2009: The City received a grant for $150,000 through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG), a Federal program established to appropriate funds to local governments for establishing energy efficiency and conservation strategy plans and projects.

  • November 2009 - December 2009: The City and consultant team formulated draft sustainability targets and measures and modeled them to demonstrate GHG emission reductions, costs, and benefits.

  • February 17, 2010: A workshop was held to engage community input on top sustainability priorities and the proposed targets and measures.The results of this workshop are posted in the Participate section.
  • Summer 2010: A public draft of the Sustainability Action Plan will be published for public review and comment. Finalization of the Plan and adoption is anticipated later this year.

 

Please sign up on our mailing list below to recieve updates on ways you can participate in this exciting project.

Results

The results of the Emerald Tracy Project are a part of the ongoing process to create a sustainable action plan for the City of Tracy.  We will post these results as they are completed.  Please sign up on our mailing list below to be notified when we post documents for review, as we need your help to create these plans.  Thank you for your interest!