Make my city greener, leaner and greater by...
Citizens in Hazel Park, Southgate and Ypsilanti are partnering with their city governments to create local climate action plans. Through a yearlong public planning process, these cities are asking residents for their ideas to reduce greenhouse emissions, improve environmental quality, enhance quality of life, and save energy and money. The final climate action plans will strategically identify and prioritize sustainable strategies in order to achieve community goals.
This site is a supplement to our public meetings and allows residents from across the three cities to share ideas. For more information on how to get involved in person or to see the information we’ve collected so far, follow this link.
How would you make your community greener, leaner and greater? Share your ideas below!
27 results found
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Create a "green" rental certification program to encourage energy-efficient improvements.
Ypsi has a large rental population, many who are look for low energy bills and/or sustainability minded housing (on-site composting, gardening, clotheslines, rain barrels, etc). Creating a system to allow landlords to gain green certification, market it easily through various websites or other media, and allow renters to seek out and prefer it, could help push less likely landlords to make improvements to attract good tenants, and let sustainability minded renters have some positive influence on the rental housing market.
12 votes -
More bike lanes and bike-safe streets!
There are many areas (like the Hamilton Rd. to Huron St overpass over 94) in Ypsilanti that are still very un-friendly towards bikes. Lots of these dangerous areas lead to important places in our community (like the Whittaker Rd Library branch, for instance). If we want to make biking a viable primary transportation option, we need to not only finish the Border to Border trail, which is great, but make some of our other main roads more bike-safe.
30 votes -
Get city leaders and employees visibly active on climate change issues.
City leaders should attend all events geared to a more sustainable Ypsilanti, and encourage others to attend. Examples: Bike Ypsi rides, Tour de Fresh, community garden events, Annual Solar Tour, Sustainability Film Series, etc.
12 votes -
pilot some community level alternative energy micro-grids with a variety of structures ~ at least one that would be residential co-op.
"A microgrid is a localized grouping of electricity generation, energy storage, and loads that normally operates connected to a traditional centralized grid (macrogrid). This single point of common coupling with the macrogrid can be disconnected. The microgrid can then function autonomously.[8] Generation and loads in a microgrid are usually interconnected at low voltage. From the point of view of the grid operator, a connected microgrid can be controlled as if it was one entity. Microgrid generation resources can include fuel cells, wind, solar, or other energy sources. The multiple dispersed generation sources and ability to isolate the microgrid from a…
20 votes -
Create a community awards program for energy efficiency
Give public recognition to businesses that document individual energy-saving improvements.
5 votes -
Have a community-wide recycling contest!
Shelley O'Brien of Hazel Park suggested this during our meeting today. She suggested that different sectors or parts of the city compete to recycle the most. We should pair this with info about how much money they're saving the city, how much good they're doing for the environment, per unit recycled.
6 votes -
provide express bus service between Ypsi and Ann Arbor
Many of my friends in Ypsi work in Ann Arbor, either downtown or at the U; they've said they would take the bus, but it takes too long. A commuter-oriented express line could attract riders who won't take a regular service bus.
27 votes
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