Objectives, benefits, and stakeholders

View of pedestrian stair to Edgewood Apartments at Rhode Island Center, a GreenPlace pilot. Image: MRP.

to support low-traffic, low-pollution living, and promote a built environment that is healthier and more walkable.

The GreenPlace certification uses sketch modeling software, called URBEMIS,‡2 to determine environmental and transportation impact; accounting for the proximity of jobs, housing, and transit service. It also accounts for traffic reduction strategies like affordable housing, parking supply and pricing, transit passes, and bikeshare and carshare memberships.

Objective, benefits, and stakeholders

The objective of GreenPlace is to give people better information about the potential impact of new housing – encouraging locations, designs, and transportation demand management programs to reduce traffic and pollution.

GreenPlace will provide stakeholders with objective, systematic evaluations of residential developments that significantly outperform the average. The certification is intended to inform four stakeholder groups:

Decision-makers

Planning and Zoning Commissioners, Board of Zoning Adjustment members, City Council and County Board members, and other public officials need better tools for objectively evaluating the traffic and pollution reduction potential of more housing in transit-accessible locations. GreenPlace’s use of a validated model gives decision-makers greater confidence in the benefits of placing more housing near transit, with the right features, making our communities and region more sustainable.

‡ URBEMIS is a national sketch model developed by the California Department of Transportation and Air Resources Board to account for air emissions from land use, and accounts for vehicle trip reduction benefits of low traffic developments.