Carson City one of 5 capitals getting ‘green’ help

Carson City is one of five communities that won U.S. Environmental Protection Agency help for green-oriented design work, which locally will be used on William Street plans.

The award, part of the federal EPA’s “Greening America’s Capitals” program, will include a team of designers to provide technical assistance in designing what the federal agency terms a pilot neighborhood. The help will key on Carson City’s plan to do corridor improvements on William and Carson streets, said Community Development Director Lee Plemel, who made the local announcement Wednesday. Timing aspects, he said, might change as a result,

“This could modify that,” he said, noting earlier the William Street business corridor project time line called for planning in 2016, design in 2017 and construction in 2018. City planning personnel learned the EPA expects to work with Carson City later this year on project scope of work matters and tackle design work from 2005.

Plemel’s announcement indicated corridor redevelopment was identified for applicants as of particular interest to EPA for the 2014 program. Carson City, after the Board of Supervisors approved a one-eighth of one penny hike in city sales tax, is initiating multi-year corridor improvements on both Carson Street and William Street. Initial efforts focus on downtown and the latest downtown design was unveiled earlier this month.

EPA will fund a team of designers to produce schematic designs and illustrations for a portion of East William Street between Carson Street and the freeway, Plemel said. It will be folded into the corridor improvement designs and plans over the next few years, said Plemel.

In the EPA’s 2014 request for proposals, the federal agency said it would supply a technical assistance team for up to three days to produce “schematic designs and exciting illustrations intended to catalyze or complement a larger planning process.”

Nevada’s capital was joined by Texas’s Austin, Ohio’s Columbus, South Dakota’s Pierre and Virginia’s Richmond in receiving EPA’s nod for such technical assistance. The program comes from the EPA’s Office of Sustainable Communities and, via the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, includes collaboration with the federal departments of Transportation (DOT) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It strives to promote smart growth and green infrastructure.