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About The Southwest Portland Post. (Portland, Oregon) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2013)
February 2013 FEATURES PORTLAND COMPREHENSIVE PLAN New Institutional Zoning (Continued from Page 3) of their activities are allowed by right. The intent is not just to make new development on such campuses less onerous, but to acknowledge that the institution “has a right to be there,” Cole said. “Hopefully the process will still in- clude meaningful input from neighbors, and robust off-site impact mitigation requirements,” Cole said. Anton Vetterlein of the Homestead Neighborhood Association, whose boundaries include OHSU, isn’t so sure. Since the university’s Marquam Hill campus’s zoning was changed, Vet- terlein said, “Our experience (with an employment zone) is that the neigh- borhood has less means to deal with problems. There is mitigation, but they either do the bare minimum or they fail to anticipate problems.” Specifically, OHSU’s latest master plan calls for employees to avoid using Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard to get to work, but there is little enforcement, he said. The Collins View Neighborhood Association has at times worked coop- eratively with Lewis and Clark College, but there have also been conflicts and the last master plan process was “hor- ribly contentious,” according to Collins View’s Dixie Johnston. Her husband Dave Johnston said that so far, “We don’t know enough about what’s being proposed to be con- cerned,” and that minor tweaks would be okay. However, Dixie Johnston said that in the past Lewis & Clark College hasn’t shown enough concern about the wel- fare and safety of their own students and faculty, let alone those of their neighbors, and she fears a lessening of City requirements. Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard that simply painting your roof white can reduce household electricity bills by 40 percent. Is this something any of us can do? – Susan Pierson, Sumter, SC Yes anyone can do it—and the ben- efits can be significant, especially for those in warmer climates who expend a lot of energy keeping cool. But most of the world’s roofs, including on some 90 percent of buildings in the U.S., are dark-colored. Dark colored roofs absorb more heat from the sun’s rays than light colored ones, and as such get much hotter. A black roof exposed to full sun can in- crease in temperature by as much as 90 °F (50 °C), meaning the air conditioning inside has to work that much harder to compensate for the added heat load. But a white or reflective roof typically increases temperatures only 10-25 °F (5–14 °C) above ambient air tempera- tures during the day. This translates into a savings of up to 15 percent on air conditioning energy use over a year for a typical one-story residence, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The upshot of this energy savings is not only cost savings for the con- sumer—annual energy bill savings of 20-40 percent aren’t uncommon for single story homes in America’s Sun Belt—but also reduced air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions generated in The Southwest Portland Post • 7 the production of electricity. A white roof also helps keep build- ings and houses without air condi- tioning cooler in the summer than they would other- wise be. And it also helps mitigate the “urban heat island effect” whereby a city can be 6-8 °F warmer than its Some 90 percent of U.S. buildings have dark-colored roofs which, surrounding areas when exposed to full sun can increase in temperature by as much on warm summer as 90 °F. A white roof typically increases temperatures only 10-25 days. °F above ambient air temperatures during the day. (Photo courtesy The non-profit White Roof Project) White Roof Project promotes the concept across the U.S. roofs may indeed provide more overall and last year painted some 30 buildings, environmental benefit for the cost of a helping hundreds of families lower couple of cans of special white paint. their energy bills in the process. Indeed, painting the roof white might “A white roof project is low cost, easy be the best energy efficiency improve- to implement, relieves stress on the ment you can make to your building power grid, cuts down on smog, and or house. creates tangible change for individuals, CONTACTS: White Roof Project, our communities, and even globally,” www.whiteroofproject.org; DOE Cool reports the group, which is looking Roof Fact Sheet, http://www1.eere. to expand its work across the country energy.gov/buildings/pdfs/cool_roof_ significantly in 2013 and expand inter- fact_sheet.pdf. nationally in 2014. EarthTalk® is written and edited by The White Roof Projects gives away Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a reg- instructions (via a free downloadable istered trademark of E - The Environmental “DIY Packet”) to help do-it-yourselfers Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send paint their own roofs white without questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. hiring a painter or roofer. All it takes is a few painting supplies, a couple of cans of highly reflective elas- tomeric white paint, and a plan for how to cover all relevant surfaces properly and safely. Those who would rather Multnomah Village. hire someone to do the ladder climbing 1000 square feet above and paint application can hire any local painter or roofer. 7832 SW Capitol Hwy. 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