100 yellow bicycles, three comps.

As a Portlander (Oregon) and Chicagoan (current), as well as editor, 1 am excited to present our second sustainability issue, following our Second Quarter 2007 issue, for which hardly anything concrete about the genre was known, other than the fact that it was ready to explode. Despite the slumping commercial and residential real estate markets, it still is on the verge. And now, as opposed to then, comps are starting to come on the market, builders and consumers are applying a little science to the construction and consumption (instead of falling for the marketers use of the word "green"), and appraisers are starting to understand how they can interface with this burgeoning field, as opposed to merely waiting for numerable comps (they're coming--numerous studies, some of which are outlined herein, promise us!).

The feature spread starting on page 10, "Finding Green in Sustainability" outlines how to get in on the ground floor, and become a part of the decision making process; as well as numerous sidebars with resources galore! On page 18, attorney Fredric Prohov outlines the important issues of "green leases," another burgeoning topic. And on page 14, guest commentator Thomas Dorsey, MAI, SRA, equates the future of the movement to when buildings got elevators or air conditioning--things that are nowadays commonplace and quantifiable.

"Quantifiable." It was the same term used by George Sullivan, the short-fused firecracker of a developer I interviewed for that second quarter 2007 issue (http://207.208-196.137/webpac-bin/pdf/VIP2007/Q207p5.pdf). If it wasn't quantifiable, it wasn't worth listening to. And "green" was the term he railed against. "Comp" was the one I playfully floated as the more infuriating one, for appraisers--at least at that time.

Back to Portland, the city that officially endorsed a program (http://c2.com/ybp/story.html) in the early 1990s in which they painted 100 (or more) bicycles bright yellow and left them around the city for anyone's use, free of charge--just take a bike you find, ride it where you need to, and leave it there; the next person will do the same. And so on (in other words, the "cycle" continues).

In 1971, Oregon was the first state to implement a bottle return policy to encourage recycling and has spurred at least eight other states to adopt similar legislation. Over and above recycling, this is how I used to make pocket change as a youngster (including around $60 one particularly industrious weekend at a campground--as I bothered everyone with any cans outside their RV--"Umm, can I take those?'). And the mayor from 1985-1992 was).E. "Bud" Clark, himself a bicycle rider who would exclaim "Whoop, Whoop" as he rode around town (and even so, he was re elected to a second term--that's Portland)!

Upon moving to Chicago (which does not have a bottle return policy, which is criminal), its great public transportation system enabled me to sell my car, with nary a regret. (Although, if I did, there is the iGo and ZipCar programs, which are very akin to Portland's 100 yellow bicycles, but with cars and nominal fees.) And Chicago Mayor Richard Daley--who has vowed to make Chicago "the greenest metropolis in the nation"--was named the fifth "greenest mayor" in the U.S. For those in the know, due to his colorful language and demeanor, he might also be the craziest. Which got me thinking ...

Maybe there is a certain element of craziness in those passionate about their sustainability issues. However, despite the antics of Mayors Bud Clark and Richard Daley, George Sullivan, and pre-teen me, it might just be the appraiser who doesn't take advantage of the sustainability movement that is the crazy one. Hopefully the articles in this issue will help.

By Executive Editor Adam Webster