I would like to see the city explore a new and philosophically different approach to issuing new entitlements.

In some other (more urbanized) cities they allow the development community to purchase additional FAR (effectively more density and sometimes height), in Phoenix we traditionally look at entitlements as a function of height & lot coverage (sometimes density with residential). I think it would be an interesting study to look at the way we approach entitlements here. Perhaps we could explore allowing property owners to effectively “purchase” greater entitlements (within reason) similar to that of a San Diego and FAR. However, rather than to literally purchase them, like in a San Diego, perhaps we could set up a sustainability exchange.

The idea functions something like this: A developer implements a predetermined set of Sustainability standards on some sort of new development (I would advocate LEED certified as a starting point, but I know the City is rather fond of their Green Building Code). As a means to incentivize sustainability the City then rewards that developer with some sort of sustainability development credits. Those credits could be cashed in for greater entitlements (again within reason) on the parcel they are trying to develop or they can be sold off to other development elsewhere in the City that can be used for greater entitlements, thus creating more or less a sustainability exchange.

What fascinates me about this concept of a sustainability exchange is that we could, for the first time, effectively commoditize sustainable construction. Phoenix could catapult itself into the forefront of sustainable development; it could be a tremendous marketing tool. It also effectively ends/ curbs speculation that has decimated parts of our city over the decades. Rather than a developer upzoning land and sitting on it (speculation) in this concept the developer isn’t granted the greater entitlement until A) they develop their land to the sustai