Bossy Visionaries, Portland, and how to ram “Green” down the throat of an uncooperative market

by Jeff Kempe

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

The Bossy Visionary guide to power:

1. Sell a crisis.  It can be real, it can be almost real, it can be imaginary, but sell it apocalyptically.  Over-population/global famine has been an especially popular one, Paul Erlich having predicted it every five years since 1968 (but this time he’s serious!), following in the footsteps of Thomas Malthus, who first predicted the population would outstrip the food supply in 1798. [Now, of course, we have global warming, global cooling having proved a disappointment.]

2. Set yourself up as the one person/group/coalition/association that can solve the crisis, if only people will give you enough money and behave exactly as you instruct. 

3. Demand sacrifice, open a bank account, and wait for the marketplace to work.

4. When it doesn’t, legislate. 

The Bossy Visionary confidently knows what’s better for people than people.

Portland, Oregon is fertile breeding ground for Bossy Visionaries.

Portland doesn’t wear the progressive label; it wallows in it.  The County Commission and the City Council cattily compete with each other for the ‘most like San Francisco’ award, often to the exclusion of proposing anything actually, well, sane.  Thus the county a few years ago began unilaterally issuing gay marriage licenses, notwithstanding the fact that it wasn’t legal, wasn’t popular, and there’s nothing worse than giving someone something only to have it taken away, which the Supreme Court predictably did.  Thus the City Council is in the process of changing the name of a major thoroughfare in North Portland from ‘Interstate Ave.’ to ‘Caesar Chavez’ Ave., notwithstanding the fact the neighborhoods through which Interstate runs are an olio of Polish, Indian, African American, old, young, hip and not, but less than 8% Latino; and notwithstanding the fact that those neighborhoods, especially the businesses, are overwhelmingly opposed to the change.  [To the petulant mayor – he did the perfect ‘terrible twos’ impression and stomped out of a Council meeting when it looked like one of the key votes had changed – all that matters is the du jour grievance group, the fawning press that will be generated in the process, and one more notch in the totem erected to the politically gooey.]

So this didn’t come as a great surprise:

The city announced last week that Portland would like to insert itself into the home building and inspection businesses. 

Oh, dandy.

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Those who’ve guessed that I haven’t exactly jumped on the “Change your lightbulbs or Omaha’s going to drown!!” bandwagon will have guessed correctly.  The earth has alternately warmed and cooled for billions of years, and right now it’s warming.  The same models and modelers that can’t successfully predict a single hurricane season are telling us what the climate will be in fifty years, the same static modeling that got Malthus in trouble, only in this case with thousands of variables.  The thought that we can interfere with the warming is hubris on par with the flea climbing up the elephant’s leg with rape on its mind.

But to the Visionary it’s de facto religion.  No; it’s even transcended that.  It’s a marketing tool for a burgeoning industry, an industry that relies on the AGW hyperbole to survive.

And the marketplace – damn the fools! – isn’t cooperating.

Nine months ago the Portland MLS unveiled, to gushing local fanfare, a “green” search field, with homes with EnergyStar, LEEDS, EarthAdvantage or StarAdvantage accreditation eligible.  Here’s my favorite pull quote from the over-the-top article announcing the change, this from an EnergyStar frontman who’d just failed to get the same designation started in a Florida MLS :

“I think they’d have trouble unloading the inventory that wasn’t Energy Star…I don’t mean to trash Realtors, but they’re just out for a buck.”

Riiiiiiiight.  As I put in the comment section of Jim Duncan’s post, here are the numbers as of today:

·  Percent of active listings designated all manifestations of “green”:  3.2%
·  Percent of EnergyStar?  0.7%
·  Percent of green homes sold in the last six months (to allow for ramp up): 2.6%
·  Percent of EnergyStar: 0.5%

Apparently builders aren’t willing to put an additional 3%-8% into the cost of construction in a market in which they’re already having to take substantial cuts and offer huge incentives, especially knowing that the demand from buyers is virtually nonexistent.  Go figure.

The Visionaries are unhappy. 

So the city sent 18 people – including the mayor and a delightfully pretentious city commissioner – to Chicago for the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.  There they rented a 20,000 sf display to wow the likeminded visionaries, and spent somewhere in excess of $60,000 for that wow.  Sixty Oregon companies showed up to sell their green wares.  And, at an invitation only cocktail party, the commissioner announced:

Beginning in 2010 Portland will be levying a fine on builders – imprecise but in the hundreds of dollars range – who meet the already strict building code.  To avoid the fine a home must exceed the energy efficiency code by 30%, and a home 45% in excess – that’s solar panels and water recycling – the builder gets money back, though how much is left to the imagination.

And, in the words of Bob Barker, that’s not all!  The law will mandate that inspectors complete an energy efficiency report on all homes sold.  A LEEDS inspection ranges from $500 to $2000, EnergyStar around $1500.  The inspectors I use haven’t a clue what an energy efficiency inspection would be, and no one seems to know what would be done with the report once generated. 

All anyone really knows is it’s the buyers who will end up paying the bill.

And all the Visionaries applauded. 

[There’s a wonderful picture in the print edition of The Oregonian: the mayor, the commissioner and the head of the sustainable development commission grinning and clinking glasses after the announcement.  It’s the perfect caricature of South Park’s famous “Smug Alert” episode.]

Of course, there’s the real world to deal with, the same one that’s rejected nearly all green marketing unless there’s an economic quid pro quo.  That’s why the announcement was made in a group hug atmosphere.

Even in Portland, it will never fly. 

But I don’t think that was ever the point.  As with so many things Visionary, it’s the posturing that counts, and looking like you’re doing something – with an acceptable mawkish feeling of visionary intent – is more important than actually doing anything substantive.

The important thing is Portland is back on top.

PS  This needs to be said: I love the Portland area, even with all its idiosyncrasies, and have lived here nearly my entire life.  Wouldn’t live anywhere else.  Like a family member who complains about the drunk aunt at Thanksgiving dinner, I figure I’ve earned my right to point out the obvious…