FY20 Climate and Open Space Priorities
The FY20 budget plan includes investments to support a healthy environment, reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and prepare for climate change.
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Still have questions? Contact:
Budget
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1 City Hall Square
Room 813Boston, MA 02201-2037
CLIMATE CHANGE
Boston’s climate preparedness program is critical to the City’s long term success. The Environment Department’s FY20 budget includes funding for a new climate preparedness program manager.
This position will help continue the Resilient Boston Harbor Plan and begin to implement strategies that will increase access and open space along the waterfront while better protecting the city during a major flooding event.
Additionally, the City is investing $50,000 to facilitate smart design and construction choices when reviewing projects as part of Boston’s Green Building Committee.
The City is investing $175,000 to implement the strategies identified by the Mayor’s Zero Waste Advisory Committee. The Zero Waste Boston program will work collaboratively with the Waste Reduction program in the Public Works Department to increase behavior change for residential waste and to improve the quality of resident’s recycling efforts.
The Environment Department will also work aggressively to reduce waste in Boston’s high volume commercial, industrial and institutional sectors. An additional $100,000 will be invested in the Parks and Recreation Department to match grant resources to expand recycling efforts in Dorchester and Mattapan.
The City is investing an additional $100,000 in the Greenovate program, which works with Bostonians to achieve the Mayor’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.
The investment will train additional Climate Leaders for campaigns in Boston’s neighborhoods and will support behavior change campaigns and trainings across City departments, agencies and partners.
Open Space
Boston is committed to creating and maintaining clean, green, safe, accessible and climate-resilient open space as a key strategy in sustaining Boston’s world-class open space environment.
Three new Park Ranger positions have been added in FY20 to support the safe enjoyment of Boston’s busiest open spaces. An investment in new maintenance staff will support Martin’s Park, one of Boston’s newest signature parks.
Boston's street trees are critical to the City's efforts to provide urban cooling and capture greenhouse gases. In FY20 a $100,000 investment has been made for tree care and urban forestry.
The Animal Care and Control unit is moving to the Parks and Recreation Department in FY20. This organizational change will be supported with a $170,000 investment to provide quality sheltering services with compassionate veterinary care with a new full time veterinarian as well as a veterinarian technician.
The Animal Care and Control unit will provide complimentary services with Park Rangers to ensure that open spaces and safe and accessible to all.
LONG TERM CAPITAL INVESTMENTS IN RESILIENT OPEN SPACEBoston will prepare for climate change by investing at least 10% of all new capital funding to open space, infrastructure, and facilities projects that are climate resilient or contribute to making the City more environmentally friendly.
- The Moakley Park master plan will re-design the park, including climate resilience features to mitigate flood risk.
- Copley Square will undergo a complete park redesign to include climate resiliency measures and new programming ability.
more about the budget
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Still have questions? Contact:
Budget
-
1 City Hall Square
Room 813Boston, MA 02201-2037
