7. WISE LAND USE AND A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT

WE BELIEVE that City policy should be used to contain urban sprawl and to preserve and protect the environment. We support:

1. Ensuring that all land use and environment issues are viewed through an equity lens.

2. City policy that discourages urban sprawl and encourages community-oriented infill development and redevelopment.

3. Transitional zoning to encourage a gradual reversal of inefficient and wasteful styles of development.

4. Zoning codes and development of infrastructures that further local sustainability, such as community gardens; edible landscapes; water catchments; urban agriculture; run-off capture and prevention; and marketing, storage, and commercial preparation of local food products.

5. Zoning codes that allow temporary land uses to facilitate creative measures to meet emergency needs.

6. Sustained attention to Madison’s water system to ensure a comprehensive long-term plan for new and existing wells, water conservation, efficient water distribution, and support for innovative techniques to save and reuse existing water.

7. Dane County’s green space plan and efforts to coordinate City policy with its goals, as well as the aggressive implementation of measures for preserving shoreline and expanding public parkland, and encouraging the city to use

taller canopy street trees.

8. Responsible land use requirements for large retail developments.

9. Enforcement of laws regulating industrial, commercial, agricultural, and residential pollution, and reinstatement of local powers to reduce pesticide pollution. We advocate the use of only environmentally friendly pesticides by the City of Madison.

10. Strong support, adequate staffing, and funding for neighborhood planning, as well as stronger adherence to neighborhood planning and creation of neighborhood conservation districts.

11. Practices that avoid or reduce problems of groundwater shortages, flooding, lake contamination, and algae blooms, and that improve stormwater management and reduce harmful runoff.

12. Policies that help prepare for climate change.

13. Acquisition of land to facilitate the expansion of local food processing, aggregation and promotion of production, and food security.

14. Policies aimed at reducing and ending vehicle idling by public and private vehicles.

15. Policies and funding to support alternative energy sources.

16. Banning the sale and commodification of our water.

17. The ethical treatment of animals, including population management, entertainment, and research. Specifically, we oppose euthanization for population management of geese on City land.