Imagine the residents of Costa Mesa working together to do their part to improve their community and solve global warming.

Costa Mesa city council members Katrina Foley and Linda Dixon had just that in mind last September 19 when they tried to get the vote of at least one their other colleagues, Mayor Allan Mansoor, Eric Bever or Gary Monahan to create an ad hoc committee to study possible incentives for building “sustainable living” communities in the city.

Sustainable living satisfies a current community's needs without taking away resources from future generations and assumes existence of a direct link between social and economic justice, creating a stable business climate and protecting the environment.

Multiple strategies and disciplines are employed to accomplish that goal, including energy conservation, sustainable building design and using non-carbon based transportation systems, as well as encouraging participatory democracy within communities.

Sustainable living communities build “green” housing or business projects that utilize solar energy, wind power, grass covered roofs (for insulation) and community composting while encouraging the use of gasless vehicles or bicycles and making neighborhoods and business areas pedestrian friendly, as well as ensuring access to education and health care along with high quality jobs, good wages and affordable housing.

Sustainable living tenants have evolved over the past 20 years and are being applied in communities around the world, including by Costa Mesa's next door neighbor, the city of Irvine.

Foley and Dixon's proposed 11 member ad hoc committee would have been advisory only, with no decision making powers, and would have required no additional spending by the city. It's goal would be only to identify incentives for builders, not to impose new government regulations. Its purview would be to make suggestions, not policy, pertaining to overlay zones first, where most development is occurring and citywide later on.

Its members would serve a two-year term as an impressive group of six residents, five of whom are property owners in the city's various overlay zones, two city council members, a planning commissioner, three who are either architects, land use consultants, engineers or developers-one of which must live in or have business in the Costa Mesa-and one non-voting representative of the Building Industry Association-just the kind of experts you need to build a greener and more livable community.

Councilmember Bever's Plan For Sustainable Living
Calling sustainable living concepts “great,” councilmember Bever recalled that, before the time of Google, he created his own sustainable living community after doing a week's worth of research to bring forth strategies that allowed members of his homeowners association to save between 50 and 70 percent on their utility bills.

Making good use of natural resources and ending the dependency on foreign oil are good goals, Bever said, but it's better to let the free market, which is already “incorporating many of these [green] strategies routinely, because the free market demands them,” handle it than to “start another arm of government.”

However, according to Mike Robinson, the city's assistant services development director, there are only two development projects in the city that incorporate sustainable living standards: the Orange Coast College District offices and the proposed SoBECA, Mesa West residential development.

Bever, reassured by his own previous success, expressed confidence in the city staff's ability to wrap up sustainable living almost as quickly as he did. “I think staff can research this in about a week or two and bring back some recommendations,” he assured.

Only four people spoke during public comments on the Foley-Dixon proposal; all opposed it, though at times they seemed not to understand it.

Wendy Leece, who is the mayor's running mate for the city council election that occurs Nov 7, complained that the majority of the committee positions would be held by “non-citizens,” meaning that they did not vote in the city. She also had a problem with “non-elected members making a lot of important decisions.” Besides, she added, the committee would take up too much of city staff's time.

Dixon pointed out, however, that six of the committee members would be residents and that they would be making suggestions, not policy decisions, to help an overburdened city staff.

“I understand that,” Leece replied, “but I just think that sometimes the recommendations would eventually become policy.”

“That's because you have elected officials who would vote on those policies,” Dixon shot back.

Judith Berry, who is the mayor's election campaign treasurer, spoke next. She said that she had nothing against “the green and the ecology and all that good stuff,” but that the proposed committee's focus was too narrow-it should apply throughout the city, if at all, and that she feared creation of another bureaucracy that could hold back planned redevelopment of the West Side.

But the Foley-Dixon proposal would apply citywide and they both support West Side redevelopment.

Berry's husband echoed his wife's thoughts, but past difficulties trying to order pizza while watching the Super Bowl with his friends gave him doubts about the ability of experienced building and planning experts to work together productively. “Nobody can figure out what toppings they want: big, small, thin crust-well, this is the same thing,” he said.

Mayor Mansoor then brought up the possibility of asking the Planning Commission to arrange a single study session on sustainable living.

But Foley pointed out that the purpose of the committee was to bring in experts with knowledge about green building design that city planning commissioners don't have.

“The people you are referring to could certainly be invited to a particular study session with Planning Commission to address some of these issues,” the mayor answered.

Exasperated, Foley called for the motion, which was seconded by Dixon and then ignominiously defeated by Mansoor, Bever and Monahan.

Monahan, silent until now, introduced a substitute motion that offered Costa Mesa's final solution, at least until November 7, to global warming: “File the [Foley-Dixon] report and provide it to developers as they come over the counter on the second floor [of City Hall], as far as the information on building green, sustainable cities, and whatever else is in here.”