Highlands Ranch - Alternative Fuel City of the Future

To view the Highlands Ranch Incorporation energy efficient city government strategy and charter, please click this link below:

Highlands Ranch City Energy Government Vision & Strategy

Below is the March 8, 2007 Denver Post article about our ThunderRidge High School senior research project for the “Future City of Highlands Ranch Energy Economy.”

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Grand vision for a “city of the future”
By Susan Thornton, Denver Post Columnist

Quietly, on the south end of the metro area, a small group of visionaries are planning a revolutionary approach to municipal government.

Highlands Ranch, the sprawling development that is home to 90,000 people in northern Douglas County, has never incorporated. Instead, residents receive services from Douglas County and a variety of special districts. The idea of incorporating so that residents have more control over their future has been floated in the past, but has never gotten as far as an election, in part because the area hasn’t had enough retail business to generate the sales tax revenues needed to run a city.

Now a small, grassroots group that includes a Highlands Ranch resident, a major auto dealer, a large property developer and a group of high school students has come together to plan the incorporation of a city that would be organized and funded in a way never before tried. The idea is to incorporate as a “renewable energy city” - in the proponents’ words, a “City of the Future,” where residents are completely free of dependence on fossil fuels.

Highlands Ranch resident Steve Taraborelli, who developed the original concept, says the City of the Future would have solar cells and windmills to power every home, biofuel in the tank of every car, and residents selling excess energy generated by renewables back to the power grid. A city-owned and run “clean technology incubator” would help clean-energy startup companies develop. The incubator would help the startups find funding, develop business plans and research potential markets.

Startup companies would come to the incubator, Taraborelli says, because they would want to locate in a community that has voted to free itself from conventional sources of energy. When the companies leave the incubator and become successful in the marketplace, they would pay royalties and fees on new business earnings to the city. Taraborelli believes that those ongoing fees and royalties would replace sales taxes as the municipality’s major source of revenue.

Backers are thinking “outside the box” even about how to draw up an incorporation plan. Instead of hiring lawyers, they have turned to high school students. For their senior project, five students at ThunderRidge High School are developing a business plan for what Science Club adviser Wilbur Sameshima describes as an “alternative way to incorporate.” This year’s students are “laying the foundation,” Sameshima says, by interviewing stakeholders about a “new energy incorporation.” Additional Science Club teams will build on their work in the next three to four years.

L.G. Chavez, CEO of Burt Automotive Network, and his partner-brother, Hank Held, donated $5,000 to fund the work of the Science Club and are strong supporters of the City of the Future concept. The brothers freely admit that self-interest is involved. Sales of conventionally fueled cars are declining, they say, while cars that run on alternative fuels are coming to the fore; the pair want their dealership to be a leader in offering the new vehicles at a discounted price to all Highlands Ranch residents.

Will the City of the Future concept work? ThunderRidge students presented the results of their study recently to the community, and backers say it was well received. Certainly it’s a new day in Colorado for alternative energy sources. Gov. Bill Ritter has pledged to open 45 ethanol stations across the state, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Colorado School of Mines, the University of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado State University have formed a “collaboratory” to make Colorado the renewable-energy capital of the nation.

So there is much exciting change on the horizon. But is the City of the Future concept too big, too bold, too unconventional? As the former mayor of a “traditional” city, I know firsthand how difficult it is for any Colorado municipality to provide even a modest level of services without an adequate sales tax base.

But what if I’m wrong? If the vision succeeds even in part, and we witness the birth of a new city with greatly reduced dependence on fossil fuels, backers will have succeeded. They will have developed an exciting model that will, no doubt, be eagerly copied by other communities across the U.S.

Stay tuned.

Susan Thornton (smthornton@aol.com) served 16 years on the Littleton City Council, including eight years as mayor.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_5324427

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Provided by: Ashleigh Warntjes

Story Found At: http://denver.yourhub.com/HighlandsRanch/Stories/Community/Community-happenings/Story~261013.aspx

Future City of Highlands Ranch Energy Economy
A Strategic Plan to Reduce the Residents Reliance on 3 rd Party Energy Sources

BACKGROUND:
Each school year, the ThunderRidge High School (TRHS) seniors must complete a senior project research requirement in order to graduate. In October, 2006, five seniors joined together to develop a strategic business plan to incorporate Highlands Ranch based upon an alternative fuel and energy efficient economy.

PROGRESS MADE TO DATE:
Throughout the school year, the five seniors have met each Monday to gather research on the “Future City of Highlands Ranch” strategic business plan. Community stakeholders have been interviewed to gather more information in regards to incorporating under an energy municipality charter. Stakeholders that were interviewed: Highlands Ranch Metro District (HRMD), Douglas County Commissioner, Highlands Ranch Chamber of Commerce, Highlands Ranch Community Association (HRCA), Gefinor Ventures (venture capital firm) and Shea Homes.

The TRHS research group also collaborated with the Burt Automotive Network senior executive team. Burt Automotive Network made a $5,000 contribution to the TRHS Science Club so that the Future City of Highlands Ranch research project will continue with each graduating senior class. All contributions to the Science Club are administered by TRHS’s Grizzly Bear Backers Club.

RECENT EVENTS:
The TRHS senior research team presented their Future City of Highlands Ranch Vision Statement to the HRCA Public Issues Committee and the HRMD board of directors in February. Both groups offered positive comments and HRMD has asked the senior project research team on what “clean tech” ideas can HRMD implement today.

We are hoping that sometime in the near future, a major automotive manufacturer will join in our efforts by offering concept alternative fuel autos for usage around Highlands Ranch. And we are hopeful that an energy fuel company will install an alternative fuel filling station in the heart of Highlands Ranch. So when the concept alternative fuel vehicles becomes mass produced, Highlands Ranch is poised to be first in line to take advantage of this new technology.