The Climate Action Plan
The recent development of the draft Climate Action Plan includes a set of new and ambitious heat goals including:
Goal H1: Create a network of 30 cool corridors in vulnerable communities by 2030 to facilitate movement from residents’ homes to their places of employment, education and play.
Goal H2: Increase shade provided by trees or constructed shade in ‘flatland’ parks, streets and rights-of-way to achieve a 25% tree & shade canopy in pedestrian areas by 2030 prioritizing communities most vulnerable to heat.
Goal H3: Provide resources and services to residents to manage heat.
Goal H4: Increase the use of high albedo, or reflective, materials in infrastructure projects.
Goal H5: Develop HeatReady certification for cities in partnership with ASU by 2025.
Details on these specfic policies can be viewed in the Draft Climate Action Plan. Yet the City has one specific innovative heat-related policies that is the shaping new developement:
The Walkable Urban Code (WU Code)
A new urban and transit-oriented zoning code, the WU Code, was adopted by City Council on July 1, 2015. It regulates development in proximity to light rail stations to encourage walkability in high-density developments and include heat-mitigation measures such as the requirement for 75% shade around all new developments. This Policy tool is currently under review for expansion to other regions of the city. Future version could include other heat-mitigation solutions such as incentives for cool roofs or building materials the reflect heat. Read More.
Mandatory Requirement for Air Conditioning for tenants
Given cooling is a necessity in the region, the City of Phoenix requires landlords to provide cooling to renters and must maintain temperatures below 82 degrees (or slightly higher for swamp coolers - 86 degrees). The landlord i salso not allowed to cut utilities or cooling in the summer months as a means of evitction. View the reference in Chapter 39 of the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance.
Cool Roof Requirements in the Building Code
The City of Phoenix adopted the 2018 Internation Building Building Code which includes specifications for cool roofs under the prescriptive energy complaince requires. Although the majority of submitals tend to follow the Performance Based Approach (which bypasses the cool roof requirements) the code language does provide for the approprite language for cool roofs which will be explored for potential use in the future. View the energy efficiency requirements in the IECC 2018 and scroll to section 204.3 to view the cool roof language.
Other Relevant Policies
The Tree and Shade MasterPlan outlines a long list if actions relevant to the vision to double the tree and shade canopy to 25% by 2030. The Tree Program policies that support mitigation and adpatation are listed under the "All Things Trees" website.
