The morning after absorbing another sucker-punch to his budget, Connecticut’s energy czar found a hopeful vision for the future in a downtown New Haven apartment lobby.
Daniel Esty, commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), offered that soberly optimistic view at a ceremony in the lobby of the 25-story 360 State Street apartment tower.
He helped hang a new plaque on the wall announcing the tower’s “LEED Platinum” status. The tower became Connecticut’s “first, largest and only building” to receive official what’s called LEED Neighborhood Development Platinum certification. That means it has been built not only to save lots of energy through modern conservation and energy-saving techniques, including an on-site fuel cell. It’s also designed as part of a green neighborhood strategy — across from a train station, on bus lines, in a walkable urban downtown.
360 State’s builders were able to do that in part thanks to an estimated $12 million in “green” tax credits administered through Esty’s office.
Esty said Thursday he hopes many other builders will follow 360 State’s lead by taking advantage of those credits. Because he hasn’t had to cut that program.
He does have to keep cutting lots of other projects under his aegis. In a special session Wednesday night legislators passed a plan to finish closing a $365 million state budget deficit. Their plan will cut between $500,000 and $1 million from DEEP’s $70 million budget, according to Esty. That’s on top of another $1.5 million that disappeared from his budget in “rescissions” Gov. Dannel P. Malloy made to start closing the deficit.
Esty made no effort to hide his disappointment at having his ambitions trimmed for the foreseeable future.
Like a good soldier, he praised his boss in an interview for having raised taxes two years ago along with making cuts to pass version 1.0 of the current two-year state budget. (Click on the play arrow to the video at the top of this story to watch an excerpt of that interview.) He spared his boss any blame for the new rounds of cuts: The economy took longer than people expected to recover, he noted. A new bipartisan consensus has evolved in both Hartford and Washington: People want budget cuts, not tax increases, to tackle budget deficits in tough times. Despite the sweeping victories of Democrats (including Esty’s wife, U.S. Rep.-elect Elizabeth Esty) in last month’s national elections, both parties have adopted different versions of the Republican economic approach to tough economic times. Gone is the idea of spending government money to make public investments to spur the economy.
Paul Bass Photo
Esty with 360 State developer Bruce Becker Thursday.
“The governor is right.” Esty said. “The public’s tolerance for any larger state government isn’t there.”
So next summer his department will cut back on the number of lifeguards and clean-up crews at state parks, Esty said. Some parks will be open less. The state will still clean up dangerous environmental spills, but will work harder at the get-go to make sure the polluters pay the money. Like other agencies, DEEP won’t be seeing new money flowing to spend on ambitious new projects.
“We are making a big push for using limited government … money to leverage private capital,” he said. “We’re going to use limited resources to get big things done.”
Exhibit A: 360 State.
That 500-apartment luxury tower, which opened two years ago, has become the gold standard for how to make buildings energy-efficient and part of a walkable, public-transit-accessible, “new urbanist” landscape. It sits across the street from a commuter train station. Major bus lines stop at the corner. It has water cooling towers and a bathroom-exhaust recovery system. A customer-owned grocery, Elm City Market, inhabits the first floor. It’s the first apartment tower in the world with its own fuel cell generating heat and electricity onsite. Tenants have customized meters, connected to an iPhone app, to track how much water and electricity they use. The on-site garage has a charging station for electric cars. Tenants can walk to theater, music, restaurants, and downtown jobs within blocks of home. (Click here for details on all the building’s green features.)
Make that the “platinum” standard, not the gold standard. The plaque Esty helped hang in the lobby Thursday morning marks the highest rating bestowed by the U.S. Green Building Council in its Neighborhood Development Program.
The building’s owners claim that they’re saving 60 percent of the energy usually consumed at apartment buildings — and that in some apartments heat pumps haven’t even had to be turned on yet.
A screen in 360 State’s lobby offers an energy update.
“This building represents the new model” for how Connecticut will promote “cheaper, cleaner, more reliable energy” at housing complexes that allow help the environment by reversing urban sprawl (drawing tenants from the suburbs) and fitting into pedestrian‑, bicycle‑, mass transit-friendly settings, Esty told the two dozen muckamucks assembled for Thursday morning’s event.
He spoke of how the 360 State tax credit project showed how small government investments can leverage large green private investments — in these case, $12 million helping spur $150 million. (The developer cashes in those tax credits by selling them once it meets project benchmarks.)
Esty, who drove his electric-powered Chevy Volt to the event, spoke of spurring a network of electric-car charging stations statewide. He spoke of helping natural-gas filling stations crop up to serve taxi, delivery, and government public-works fleets and help wean the state from fossil fuels. Outside the budget-reality-darkened halls of state government, out in the light of innovation, an energy czar can still dream.
Elm City Market brought a fruit tower to the apartment tower lobby for Thursday’s event.
Boosterism notwithstanding, the fact that this project earned a "LEED" rating has become a running joke among architects and city planners throughout the nation. Green design isn't just about architecture, it is about the setting.
It's unfortunate that this project gets credited with a national rating for improving walkability, when in many ways it was designed to ignore people who don't drive cars.
For example, the place where the tunnel exiting the building meets the sidewalk is an absolute death trap for pedestrians. Good luck if you are walking on State Street.
The building has ample bike racks and a bike shop, but the surrounding streets are not safe for biking on unless you are an expert cyclist. The city added "sharrows," which are the equivalent of saying that a neighborhood is safe because you spray-painted a picture of a police officer on the street.
There is a train station across the street, but no crosswalk to allow people to cross at the garage intersection right in front of the building.
There is a scary empty lot on the corner, which, thanks to the City's ineptitude around taxes, may remain as a weed-choked lot for another 20 years.
It's nice that density was added to Downtown New Haven, but projects like this shouldn't win environmental awards unless they are actually helping to solve the problem, not make it worse.
This project has a nice market and a few desperately-needed affordable housing units, but on the whole, it represents one of the biggest wasted opportunities in the history of our city.