Henderson City Council adopts conservation plan

By Jeremy Twitchell

Thursday, June 4, 2009 | 2:46 p.m.

Henderson’s broadly stated goal of improving efficiency and sustainability throughout the city has become a little more specific now that the City Council has adopted a new sustainability action plan.

The plan includes 21 goals broken down into 48 objectives in areas such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, water conservation, recycling, urban design, open space management, transportation and environmental health.

In general terms, sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of the current generation with minimal enough resources that the ability of future generations to meet their needs is not threatened.

Henderson Principal Planner Ned Thomas, who crafted the plan, said a team of employees from multiple city departments has been tasked with examining what the city is already doing to improve its sustainability and what it can add or do better. The council approved the plan on May 19.

“We found that the city is already doing many sustainable things, but that they weren’t really being tracked or measured in an organized manner,” Thomas said. “(This plan) gives us the policy foundation for moving forward on different actions the city is taking or will be taking in the future.”

In recent months, Henderson has hired an energy consultant to do an energy efficiency overhaul of all city buildings. The contract guarantees that the energy savings the city will see will pay for the upgrades.

The city has also incorporated the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council into its new construction projects, including the North Police Substation, the new senior center and aquatics facility at Heritage Park and the expansion of the Justice Facility.

Thomas said sustainability is as much about managing finances as it is about safeguarding the environment.

“In everything we try to do with sustainability, the bottom line is fiscal responsibility,” he said.

Though the action plan is drawn in broad strokes, the city’s goal is for it to provide a guiding framework for land-use decisions and discussions within city departments that will result in more definitive action.

Specific undertakings and programs are expected to emerge within two years, and the action plan is scheduled to be reviewed every two years and updated as needed, Thomas said.

Some efforts, however, are beginning to emerge.

Thomas said the city is in the midst of an extensive development code update, which will in part include a new sustainability section that will require sustainable components in all new development.

He said the requirement will be a point system that will allow developers to choose from a menu of options, such as building solar-ready homes and buildings and using energy-efficient fixtures, to meet the requirement.

Thomas said the city has worked with the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association and has the group’s support on the concept.

“It’s things that, in many cases, (developers) have already been doing or have wanted to do,” he said.

In addition, he said, Henderson is working with other local municipalities through the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition to do an inventory of regional greenhouse gas outputs that will serve as the benchmark by which all conservation and sustainable efforts will be measured against.