France decrees new rooftops must be covered in plants or solar panels
 

d'accord !

so no smoke/cig break on the roof ? :-(

And in related news France's new building requirements create more fucking bureaucracy and paperwork thereby killing off a million more trees a day.

Furthermore the workers charged with implementing this code undergo a formation to learn the procedures and somehow graduate being even more incompetent. Scams, half-assed or incomplete work plagues every new construction.

Which thereby makes it necessary to hire eastern Europeans who somehow with no training and at half the cost and half the time correctly complete each job without a problem. The French take to the streets to protest the influx of too many immigrants and the Front National's popularity sky rockets.

Conclusion: If you want Europe to work... Kick France out

Is that popular in France? Anyways - it would be even nicer to have a break with plants :)

The best place to have your cigarette break, plants love carbon dioxide :thumbsup

This is a good thing, nice to hear France making an effort for the world :thumbsup

"The Socialist government convinced activists to limit the scope of the law to commercial buildings."

"Green roofs are popular in Germany and Australia, and Canada’s city of Toronto adopted a by-law in 2009 mandating them in industrial and residential buildings."

The city or state could just plant trees on government owned lands ...

Solar panels are another issue -- when they are economically beneficial businesses and consumers will use them. Solar water heating has been a reality in sunny climates for years but they are required by building code. Why are there not municipal solar panel farms selling the electricity into the general power grid? They have the taxing authority to issue bonds to capitalize this, and I am assuming, if it was economically feasible they would. Municipalities pay huge power bills for street lighting and other uses of electricity.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

So true :1orglaugh:thumbsup

i want plants on my roof :helpme

The French smoke like chimneys. There's some really great regions in France but what most people think of when they think of France is Paris.

Sadly Paris is a ghetto.

Yup the entire city is just one big ghetto. It always has been and it will always will be. There's dog shit literally everywhere! The people are ignorant and they smoke so much that non-smokers have been known to have to cross the street to get away from the hoards nicotine addicts.

New Jersey's industrial zones are like the Garden of Eden compared to Paris

They should decree that the plants must be herbs. that way the plants have a dual purpose. Mint, basil, oregano, chives could be the exception :thumbsup

We've just bought a lemon tree & with the herb plants now growing, my roof solarium will be nicely filled with lovely green plants this summer including a 'sanpedro' cactus my partner bought me for a present a few years ago :winkwink:

im waitin on the invite :winkwink: if a thug is on your bucket list

Decrees? Last time I looked France had a democratically elected government.

it's not so far from the truth :winkwink:

You want a roof that's not corrugated tin.

I find it odd that conservatives always get in an uproar every time something is done which revolves around self sufficient power & taking care of the environment.


Meanwhile they would probably get in an uproar if Coal Ash or fracking waste was dumped in their back yard.

You just can't please them I guess..

Green france, i like it

always welcomed to try out the greenery in maybe a few months :winkwink:

Agreed!!! This is a good idea - it has been around for a while now but glad to see France is finally doing something about it.

I know right. So if you build a commercial warehouse/strip center you need to put how many plants on the roof of a 40,000 sq ft building? Along with some sort of elevator to bring up the pots, soil, fertilizer. You would need plants that grow well in 100% sunshine and an irrigation system using a large amount of water.

Would you also have state inspectors making sure all the plants aren't dead? Fining if they are? Is the building owner or tenants responsible for upkeep?

What the fuck is the purpose except to increase costs and employ more bureaucrats.

Feel good legislation that in the real world will end up being poorly maintained and costly overhead. When I owned commercial buildings you couldn't get tenants to take care of anything yet alone a rooftop garden.

I believe it would change the structural requirements as well. That is a lot of added weight on the rooftop. Dirt, root systems, the plant itself, the extra water sticking around because of the dirt and the root systems, piping, additional equipment, and more.

Forcing people to do XYZ rarely works out well. Think of making your kid do the laundry versus giving them a good reason to do the laundry (extra perk, allowance, etc.)

I like the green effort but would prefer an incentive-based system. If you want a "feel-good" movement, that's it. People doing something because they "want" to, not "have" to.

And the solar panels are supposed to do what? Contribute to the energy grid? Or do you just need a single panel to heat the water for restrooms?

This is the sort of thing Google/Apple/Facebook might do to their corporate buildings but to make it a requirement for the roofs of restaurants, bars, shoe stores, food stores, etc is ridiculous.


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nice ...

And now you just stumbled on the way the French grow their economy.

France has literally MORE bureaucrats, government inspectors and other assorted make work bullshit positions than any other nation on earth.

I'm NOT joking and I'm NOT trolling. My first wife was French and this is literally how their economy works.

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

We gotta try, man, we gotta try...


Not so ridiculous. I'm shopping for Solar panels for my new house (I move in 3 days yay!) and I'm learning a lot. Solar energy doesn't have to be sold back to the grid in all cases, at least not here in Montreal. For example you can use solar to power a part of your home circuit such as lighting at night to start, expand to cover things like TV's, etc. And also, solar tech is getting better every day, while prices are dropping. Solar ideas should be dismissed without doing some digging first.

Feel good legislation? Would you like to see reality? Which also includes giving free buss passes in an attempt to remove unnecessary cars from the road..

http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/i/newscm...5b1f763280.jpg

That is smog and they are doing what it takes to remove it.

We're talking about commercial property here. As a landlord any solar expenditures would be for the benefit of the tenant in which case I would want to be paid back from the tenant. This means higher rents, so all this really does is increase the expenses of French business owners.

I don't see savings offsetting electric bills and maintenance of the systems. If true savings were possible business owners would be demanding it not bureaucrats. Again, feel good legislation by government workers.

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Damn pretty hardcore smog.. I thought with nowadays EURO X standards for cars in place this couldn't happen.

Putting plants on roofs isn't going to remove that lol. Neither will a bunch of tenant maintained low end solar panels providing hot water at best.

it wont stop it - yes. but it will reduce it for sure. plants are good

i dont know if this is popular. probably not as its too "dangerous".
but I do it here from time to time in Carribean ;-)

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pu...-08-g_3429.jpg

im nerd now :1orglaugh i dropped sum shells back in the day

true, although maintenance on large buildings is normal procedure, for them to have timed water, and a gardener to keep trimmed once a year, no big deal, & solar panels is easy to look after

This sounds like a great idea.

Not sure about where you live, but here in Northern California solar is becoming more and more common. When I first moved here our HOA didn't allow it; Now everyone seems to have it.

Maintenance is normal procedure? Do you have any idea what a triple net lease is? And how most tenants are constantly in default? No google allowed, lol.

Again, a few plants and cheap solar panels on NEW commercial buildings won't do shit. Feel good legislation at it's best.

Paris (AFP) - French authorities will on Monday put in place emergency traffic-limiting measures in Paris, as the City of Light and much of northern France suffers from a choking smog.


Smog-choked Paris forces half of cars off roads - Yahoo News


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so is it here. srp wants to raise the rates if you have solar! :1orglaugh:1orglaugh the government is full of shit! :2 cents::2 cents: i built my solar panels to sell power to srp

Depending on the type of building, freehold tenants usually would pay a community charge which would include the maintenance of the building & surrounding area. I suppose it would depend on the type of hold, whether people are renting, lease holding, freehold between our debate :2 cents:
I've owned a shop, this was lease hold & I was to look after the premises & garden, so I do understand what you are saying. Although, we have also rented homes, the maintenance is included in the rent as with owned homes & apartments :thumbsup

That article is saying that most of the issues are caused by vehicles. These new demands would do nothing to address the issue of vehicles. Address the issue, not punish someone totally unrelated in a fat chance hope that it "might" do something.

I'm trying to find some information on why this is such an issue for Paris but not finding much. I'm wondering how their auto pollution regulations compared to the United States? Are they having issues because of a more dense population (more dense than New York and San Francisco? Seems hard to believe.)

More than 70% of registered autos in France are diesel. Assuming a large amount are Citroën, Peugeot or Renault's and you have your problem right there. Not lack of bushes on roofs of future yet to be built commercial properties.


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I was just in Paris last October and at that time it was no smoggier than any major city.

If your roof is covered with wet soil it will retain water. So, you need to have an epoxy coated rebar reinforced concrete roof that is poured in two slabs, each with a water retention membrane applied and the structural steel to support it -- that ain't cheap. The bearing weight load would be phenomenal for 100% coverage -- we are talking road bridge construction techniques.

Planter boxes over bearing walls would be a lot cheaper and feasible -- I don't know what the new regulations call for -- 10% coverage with green areas?

I built in this method; bearing wall planters on a steel beamed concrete deck, an architectural nightmare on a multi-million dollar waterfront house. I was a building contractor in my past life. You also have to design for earth retention and the necessary weep (drainage).

If you want to stop smog just have everyone walk or ride a horse :1orglaugh
Electric cars for short city commuting make sense and they don't produce smog. But retrofitting the "fleet" will take time and planning.

well, it will be still nice to have more green in the city, rght ?:winkwink:
so why not ?
about smog - the other reasons could be also some geographical conditions, like valleys, lack of wind etc.

That is partly the landlords fault. Nobody will take care of your shit as good as you. Go full service, or modified gross on office space. I don't do industrial (I think you were into warehouses?), but I know there is something essentially the same as modified gross, maybe even called the same.

Reserve the NNN leases for the McDonalds, CVS' and Walgreens of the world. Where they'll be there for 20 or 30 years, have professional property managers and maintenance on staff, and are happy to assume that responsiblility so you can sit back and get your 7% CAP.

Just like Enterprise doesn't make the renters change the oil, landlords should not expect tenants to take care of their shit as well as them. They have no experience in property management and zero incentive to care about your shit. Doubly so if they're going to move on in five to seven.

http://www.climatetechwiki.org/sites...aser_image.jpg

OK I'm down.. Just need to find a landscaper that isn't afraid of heights.