K Kaufmann

K Kaufmann is a business reporter, covering energy and green technology and building for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs. She has also covered local government, development and higher education issues for the paper.

Given their druthers, 79 percent of Americans in a 2011 survey said flat out that they are opposed to new development projects in their communities—one finding that helped form the backdrop for a panel on “Elevating Design through Public Involvement and Politics: Is It Possible?” last Wednesday at the Urban Land Institute’s 2011 Fall Meeting and Urban Land Expo in Los Angeles.
At the “Neighborhood Design: Green + Affordable = Sustainable” panel held at the Urban Land Institute’s 2011 Fall Meeting in Los Angeles, three projects were profiled that mix environmental and economic sustainability—one of the main drivers behind LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED ND), the U.S. Green Building Council’s community-level LEED rating system.
“Reinventing retail is a daily exercise for all of us in merchandising and everything else,” said Michael Townsend, president and CEO of Townsend & Associates, a retail and commercial developer, while speaking at the “Looking Forward: Reinventing Retail” panel at ULI’s Fall Meeting. Read more to learn why he and other industry experts predict casualties as well as opportunities in the years ahead.
At the “Urban Mixed-Use Development” session at ULI’s 2011 Fall Meeting in Los Angeles last week, all three panelists agreed that being successful at mixed use means getting the right mix of uses at the right location—which, in most cases, means high-density urban areas. Read more to learn why the panelists said that—despite planners’ best intentions—mixed-use projects don’t work everywhere.
It was pretty much business as usual at a panel discussion entitled “Public/Private Partnerships: Solutions for the Next Generation” at ULI’s 2011 Fall Meeting in Los Angeles—master plans, local politicians decrying their tight budgets, pay-as-you-go infrastructure takedowns. Business as usual, that is, until a veteran developer veered wildly off script and divulged some home truths, followed by advice for best approaching these partnerships and ensuring success.
Governor Jerry Brown is trying to draw large-scale developers back to California with a promise: If they can deliver net-zero projects—and well-paid jobs for state residents—they won’t get tied up in long, costly environmental lawsuits. Read how the two bills he just signed into law “strike the right balance between protecting our environment and kick-starting jobs and investment in California.”
Advocates for property-assessed clean energy (PACE) financing have long argued that the public works–style assessments used for green home retrofits can actually bolster—not undermine—the home mortgage market. Now they have numbers showing a miniscule 0.1 percent default rate for the more than 2,500 homes in the three cities and one county with current or recently active PACE programs. Learn more.
Last year, property-assessed clean-energy (PACE) financing plans were considered dead in the water. But a more hopeful narrative emerged earlier this month when 120 local government, business, and nonprofit officials gathered in Palm Desert, California, for the “PACE Solutions” conference. Read how creative approaches are being used to circumvent FHFA restrictions and break the federal logjam.
Consumer and commercial demand for clean, green energy and products is creating an increasingly diversified market that is drawing billions in venture capital and federal investment funds, and affecting every major industry in the country. Read what participants at last month’s seventh annual Clean Tech Investor Summit had to say about this sector vis-à-vis the lack of a national energy policy.
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