Cincinnati Offers Grants For Green Roofs

City Council Plans To Spread Green Trend From Government To Commercial Buildings

(AP)  Officials want to see more green roofs on building tops in Cincinnati.

The City Council on Wednesday became the first in Ohio with a plan to channel grants and loans to residents and businesses to replace tar and shingles with vegetation.

Supporters of the idea want to see Cincinnati become a leader in green roofs, a European-born movement that has spread to only a few U.S. cities, including Chicago, Milwaukee and Seattle.

They say the greenery not only is pleasing aesthetically but reduces stormwater runoff, filters pollutants and cuts heating and cooling costs.

In Ohio, pastoral roofs grace the tops of the Toledo public library, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency building in Columbus and the Cleveland Environmental Center, home of the Greater Cleveland Green Building Coalition.

"We call it our civic plaza rooftop," Toledo library spokeswoman Rhonda Sewell.

It was installed in 2000.

"We were inspired by what we saw in Chicago during a public library conference," said Charlie Oswanski, who heads the library's facilities and operations. "It's performing very well - very low maintenance, and it does benefit us in cooling and heating costs."

Chicago has scores of green roofs, including one atop City Hall. Other buildings elsewhere in the United States that are considered green roof pioneers include the Ford Motor Co. Rouge assembly plant in Dearborn, Mich., and the Convention Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City.

The plan approved Wednesday in Cincinnati is the first of its kind in Ohio, said Bob Monsarrat, manager of the environmental planning section of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which directs certain federal grant funds toward such programs.

"We have wanted to support green infrastructure initiatives in the state directed toward improving water quality, so this was a fairly easy sell to us," Monsarrat said.

He said the handful of green roofs in Ohio have generally been on government buildings, while the Cincinnati program is mainly aimed at commercial buildings.

"It's very exciting," said Vicki Ciotti, director of the nonprofit Civic Garden Center, which plans to begin a roof garden early next year. She said the council's plan should jump-start a movement that has taken hold in a few cities but has generally been slow to grow.

"It's been slow just because it's such a new idea for us," Ciotti said. "They've been doing green roofs for years in Germany."

A report by the Green Roof Research Program at Michigan State University estimates that 12 percent of all flat-roofed buildings in Germany are covered with vegetation. It noted several barriers to widespread acceptance in the United States, including lack of government incentives or tax breaks.

"What the city of Cincinnati is doing is the largest effort I have heard of," Monsarrat said. "It will be interesting to watch that and see how it works."

About $5 million a year in below-market-rate loans through the U.S. EPA Clean Water State Revolving Fund will be available starting in 2009 for green roof projects, city officials estimate, along with an undetermined amount of grant money from other EPA funds.

[lewiston14]

"Does moss qualify as a green roof??"

I dont think so but when I put on a new roof this year I had them install zinc strips to prevent anything from growing there. Even in the gutters.

[pat1967-2009]

Does moss qualify as a green roof??


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Posted by Questionnews

Lol...Only if you don''t mind eventually having your roof in your livingroom.

[pat1967-2009]

LegacyABQ

I guess what I would ultimately like to spend the green money on is turning a 10 mile by 10 mile section of the southwest desert floor into a big solar farm with enough capacity to feed the electrical needs of the entire country without having to burn coal or damage salmon runs or any of it. We could build an even larger farm and use some of this effectively endless supply of clean electricity to make low cost hydrogen for use in fuel cell vehicles thus ending the need to burn oil derivatives in our cars. I think 700 billion could have gone a long way towards doing this.

[questionnews]

Does moss qualify as a green roof??

[gmcnally2]

Go Go

[legacyabq]

Yeah, its heavy, but in the long run we could start doing things like this in new buildings. I think the point here is that we have to get creative about using and saving energy and water. This isnt a right/left issue either, anybody can be happy about lower heating and cooling bills. I live in the desert SW: if we collected rainwater off of all buildings and ran it through filters, we could save millions of gallons of water that now comes from an UNREPLENISHED ancient underground aquifer. We have sewer lines, water lines, electricity etc. why not collect rainwater to neighborhood processing systems?
My mom doesnt even have a well. EVERY DROP she uses comes free from the sky, and she lives in a dry area. 15000 gallons of water storage man! Awesome..

[pat1967-2009]

Posted by docpeter1953

Even more weight. Even more cost of construction. I doubt if you could offset the initial cost with the savings seen in growing your own veggies.

[docpeter1953]

Posted by pat1967 at 11:54 AM : Oct 02, 2008

Yes, but think about all the fresh tomatoes, corn, beans, cucumbers and watermelon you can gorw up there. I would avoid potatos and carrots.

[pat1967-2009]

Part of the problem with upgrading existing structures with this system is that most roofs are simply not rated for the additional load of several inches of soil and all the plants. Most flat roofs have a layer of gravel or asphalt roofing that doesn''t retain water. With a soil and vegetation roof system water is retained, greatly adding to load that the roof sees.