Communities Gone Green

Evans Environmental Fair --- Saturday March 31, 2012

The New 3 R’s

Reuse, Recycle, Renewable’s

Reuse

• Approximately in 1925 The Town of Brant Purchased an abandoned Methodist church to house a day care & recreation center for the community. The building was constructed in the late 1800’s of plank boards without insulation.

Reuse

• Around 1970 one of the rooms in the front of the building was converted into a Town Clerks office and in the 1980’s it was made into the Brant Town Hall with a meeting/court room and offices to house the courts and supervisor office.

• The building had approx. 3,300 square feet of office space.

Reuse

• Because of the age of the building and the lack of insulation the building was very costly to heat in the winter and very warm in the summer months.

• The building was deteriorating, the windows needed to be replaced and we decided that putting money ($50,000) into an aging structure was not prudent.

• The Brant Town board decided to look into the building of a new town hall.

Reuse

• An engineer was hired in the fall of 2008 to

accumulate data and present the town board

with a proposed estimate for the building of a

new Town Hall.

Reuse

• An 11,000 square foot building was proposed to be built on our town park property with a price tag of

• $1,573,000

• There were rumors, that the Brant Elementary school would be closing.

• The town board dragged its feet so to speak waiting to see if the school was going to close or not.

• At this time the Lake Shore Central School board decided that the Brant elementary school would close due to a lack of student attendance district wide. The district was in a consolidation program to save tax dollars.

• A call from the superintendent of schools stating that the summer of 2010 would be the last year that the school would be opened.

• Negotiations began between the Brant Town Board & the School Board.

• It was noted that the closing of the school could pose the same problem as was realized with the closing of the Farnham Elementary school many years earlier.

• It Cost the tax payers of New York State over $600,000 to tear the Farnham eye sore down.

• Today’s costs would probably be closer to a million dollars.

• Working to avoid the same fate, the Town & School Boards came to an agreement to purchase the Elementary School for $100,000.

• This not only saved the building but the reuse of this building kept the elementary school from being abandoned and a town tax burden.

• The Town Bid out the work for renovation and with a donation from a retired school teacher to keep the facility still looking like a school and various volunteer work being done, the cost to the tax payers came to about 375,000

• The total cost to the tax payers of the Town of Brant came to just under $500,000 for a 20,000 square foot hall.

• This was a savings of over 1 million dollars and expanded the hall from 11,000 square foot proposed new town hall to a 20,000 square foot gem.

• This is how the reuse of a building can benefit a community!

The purchase of the school also brought about a savings in electrical costs due to the fact that the building was already updated with the NYSERDA lighting program

RECYCLE

• The Town of Brant is very responsible in their recycling program.

• The Town Supervisor sits on the South Towns Waste Management Board (NEST). This board ensures compliance with the NYS management act. This provides safe disposal for household & hazardous waste.

RECYCLE

• NEST holds Household Hazardous waste, Electronic & Drug collection events throughout the year.

RECYCLE

• The Town of Brant has just signed a contract to have an E-Waste pick up site at our Town Highway garage.

WASTE

This will make it convenient for residents to dispose of unwanted electronics and the Town will be paid for each pound.

RECYCLE

• The Town of Brant has been very proactive in eliminating waste in our community and is in the process of creating a tire disposable site for our residents.

Re-Newables

THE TOWN

Of BRANT

• A leader in Solar Power• Legislation

Re-Newables

• 2002 - Brant became one of the 1st towns in New York State to commit to renewable energy, by including it in our Master Plan

• 2005 & 2006 – helped with legislation on passing the real property tax exemption for solar, wind & farm waste energy.

Re-Newables

• 2005 Brant was involved in the removal of NYS sales tax on residential solar equipment.

• 2007 Sponsored one of the 1st energy fairs in New York State

• 2008 Brant was involved in a state law in regards to net metering for municipalities & companies.

Re-Newables

2008 Passed one of the most comprehensive responsible wind mill ordinance law in New York State.

What was unique to our law was the fact that we addressed the differences in commercial,

residential and novice systems.

Re-Newables

Also in 2008 We were the only town in New York State that

took a public opinion survey in regards to wind energy

We spearheaded the removal of the Erie County portion of the Sales Tax on Residential Solar installations.

Re-Newables

• August 24, 2008 the Town of Brant threw the switch on, and Brant became one of the 1st communities in Erie County to have a Solar PV system

Re-Newables

SOLAR LIBERTY Was instrumental in helping us procure a grant with NYSERDA and donated their time in putting a $61,200 solar system on our Highway garage.

Re-Newables

• The System has 72 PV panels on our highway roof with a capacity of 12.24 KW.

• This solar system has saved over 40 tons of coal & kept 65,174 lbs of CO2 from our atmosphere

• It has produced over 38,000 KW hrs since August of 2008.

• Total Savings of approx. $2000 per year

Climate Smart Community

• The Town of Brant passed a resolution on February 14, 2012 and became the 102nd Climate Smart Community in the State.

• With the following 10 pledges:

Climate Smart Community

1. Combat Climate Change2. Set Goals, Inventory Emissions3. Decrease Energy Demand4. Encourage Renewable energy5. Recycling & Solid waste management

practices

Climate Smart Community

6. Community Land Use Planning7. Plan for adaptation to climate change8. Support a Green Innovation economy9. Inform and Inspire the Public10. Commit to an Evolving Process

RESPONSABLE

• The Town of Brant works closely with an environmental watch dog know as

• F.N.A.B.G.L. Friends & Neighbors Advocating Better Green Living

Brant Town Supervisor is also a member & chairman of various committees in Erie County such as:NESTErie County Water Quality CommitteeLake Erie Water Protection AllianceCornell Extension Ag Committee

This helps promote responsible green living!

• The Town of Brant is working on a plan to

create an Energy Park

• And using Compressed Natural Gas as a source

of energy for our town fleet.

• As a Climate Smart Community the Town is

looking at a number of programs to save Tax

Dollars at all of our Facilities

Finally

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME

Produced by Leonard K. Pero – Supervisor Town of Brant