Go Green!

Miami Beach committee envisions a green city of the future

By Ben Torter

These days, everyone from Hollywood to Madison Avenue to Main Street America is talking about the environmentally hip green movement.

Green is used to sell food, cars, fuel, magazines, you name it. Even South Beach party impresarios Tommy Pooch and Alan Roth have jumped into the game with “green is the new black” cocktail parties.

But when it really comes down to it, are people willing to make sacrifices necessary to save the globe from environmental Armageddon?

The Miami Beach Ad Hoc Green Committee figures people may need a little push, and brainstormed new ways to encourage developers and hotels to go green at its April 29 meeting. The group will spend at least the next few months researching the issue before making a recommendation to the city commission.

“It’d be nice to find an economic model where people are actually making money for being the good guys,” committee member Patxi Pastor said.

The committee used, as a discussion guide, a tentative Miami ordinance to offer developers incentives for building green. However, the Miami proposal would allow developers to build bigger buildings than allowed by regular zoning codes, something Miami Beach officials oppose.

Commissioner Saul Gross said he will invite a developer to come to one of the committee’s future meetings “so we find something that is practical and stands a chance of being enacted.”

As far as encouraging hotels and businesses to go green, there are existing state and private programs, such as the Florida Green Lodging Program, which was established in 2004 by the state Department of Environmental Protection. It lists environmentally friendly hotels statewide on its Web site: www.dep.state.fl.us/greenlodging/lodges.htm.

“I’d love to see every hotel in Miami Beach be a green lodging partner,” committee member Nicholas Gunia said.

Pastor suggested creating a program in which the committee would certify businesses and residences with “green grades” A, B or C, similar to a program in Los Angeles that rates restaurant cleanliness, and then gives those restaurants stickers to display near their front doors.

“Two-, three- and four-star hotels couldn’t afford not to have an A,” Pastor said, pointing out the peer pressure marketing aspect.

Committee members did agree that encouraging the community to go green would require education, and that the city should be using e-mail lists and the communications department toward that goal.

“The city has the power to reach all of its residents and we should use it,” committee member Debra Leibowitz said.

Comments? E-mail ben@miamisunpost.com