The Center for Climate Change Law has launched a Model Municipal Ordinance project. The goal of this project is create “best practices” for municipal ordinances covering green buildings, wind and solar resources that avoid the drafting problems and legal pitfalls that often plague other ordinances. Current municipal ordinances vary widely in content and coverage and many municipalities cannot devote sufficient resources to form fully developed green building, wind and solar ordinances. Yet, municipalities have the ability to control many aspects of their local land siting. Columbia's model ordinances offer a framework that can enable local governments to implement and enforce the effective and efficient use of renewable energy resources. These model ordinances were derived from the best aspects of existing municipal ordinances. They are designed with New York municipalities in mind, but are general enough that with minor revisions, they can be readily adopted by municipalities in other states.
CCCL has drafted model ordinances for green buildings and commercial wind, and is in the process of drafting a model ordinance for residential solar.
Comments on these model ordinance are welcome. Comments regarding the model green building ordinance should be sent to michael.gerrard@law.columbia.edu. Comments regarding the model commercial wind ordinance should be sent to dsugar1@law.columbia.edu.
