Eco-City Alexandria

According to Richard Register, who coined the term, an eco-city is “a human settlement that enables its residents to live a good quality of life while using minimal natural resources”. The City of Alexandria, Virginia began taking its first steps to becoming an eco-city in 1998 when city officials and community leaders attended the Environmental Quality of Life Summit and began to produce Alexandria’s first environmental strategic action plan. Since then, Alexandria’s Eco-City Project has made progress, including the implementation of the Open Space Plan and the adoption of the Water Quality Plan, and the development of the Transportation Master Plan.

Recently, In January 2007, the City of Alexandria has partnered with Virginia Tech’s Department of Urban Affairs and Planning in order to further their goal towards sustainability, through a strategic planning process called Eco-City Alexandria. The Project consists of three phases. First was the creation of a document that took inventory and outlined all of Alexandria’s existing environmental programs and policies. This “Green-Ventory” Report was created in the spring and summer of 2007. The second phase of the Eco-City Project was the creation of a preliminary list of strategic short and long-term environmental actions (fall 2007). Finally, the third phase was the development of an Eco-City Charter (adopted June 2008) and an Environmental Action Plan (adopted June 2009). The city also created a public forum for Eco-City Alexandria called the Environmental Policy Commission as well as a public blog called the Eco-City Alexandria Blog.

The City Council of Alexandria approved the first phase of the Eco-City Action Plan on January 24^th, 2009, which will be implemented FY 2009- FY 2011. Focusing on short-term environmental actions, this first phase consists of 41 goals and 133 action items covering the principle issues of global climate change and other emerging threats, energy, land use and open space, water resources, air quality, transportation, building green, solid waste, environment and health, as well as the implementation of those goals and actions. Members of the Environmental Policy Commission and city officials continued working with Virginia Tech students and faculty on a draft of Phase two of the Environmental Action Plan and released it to the public at Alexandria’s Earth Day celebration. Unlike phase one, phase two focused on Alexandria’s future by outlining and including mid-term and long-range environmental policies and programs with a time horizon between FY 2012- FY 2030. The Alexandria City Council unanimously approved the completed Eco-City Alexandria Action Plan 2030 on June 23^rd, 2009. Two days later, Eco-City Alexandria was selected to receive the 2009 VSBN Green Innovation Award for Most Sustainable Community Project. The city continues to make progress with their EAP towards becoming a true sustainable eco-city. It was released on November 23^rd, 2009 that Alexandria City Public Schools recently received first place in the “Student Population 10,001 and Up” category of the 2009 VSBA Green Schools Challenge sponsored by the Virginia School Boards Association (VSBA).

-Kristin Sukys