Having flown through Committee last week, yesterday San Francisco’s Bird-Safe Building Code ordinance was passed by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. The two biggest bird hazards the ordinance aims to effect: reflectivity and transparency in building design.
∙ It’s (Not Just) For The Birds [SocketSite]
∙ The Cow Hollow Association Might Say Both Are For The Birds… [SocketSite]
wow, this is the stupidest shit i’ve ever heard. this is the sort of thing that makes the tea party anti-regulation/government rants seem rational.
I live in SF, and birds fly into my back window every once in a while. Only one has died — broke his little finchy neck, and we buried him in our yard with a little bird statue — but most just fly away. There haven’t been as many birds hitting the glass since my kids used those window/glass crayons and covered the glass with “art” (grumble grumble). Maybe SF can provide glass crayons to everyone, you know, to save the birds?
Seriously though, what exactly am I supposed to do? It better be very close to nothing…
I wish the Bum-Thug-Dealer-Safe Building Code Ordinance would fly as well.
What are we going to do to protect cats from birds who are just big teases. There are any number of pigeons who know full well there is glass between them and my kitty, and who therefore feel free to parade back and forth on the window sill inciting feline frustration, even madness. The BOS needs to take this up pronto do something.
Yet more insanity from the bird-brains who run this city.
This should not be a real priority for the Board of Supervisors.
With all the other City problems, this is extremely down on the list.
I’ve yet to see a dead bird from hitting glass either.
New construction uses more glass, surrounded by more trees. It might not be a huge problem now, but it can be in the near future as newer buildings replace old. It makes perfect sense to address this issue now before it becomes a bigger problem.
Joh – “Before it becomes a bigger problem” implies that it is currently a “big” problem, which it is not. I’ve never seen a dead bird downtown, much less witness one flying into a building.
This is exactly the kind of time-wasting, non-sensical BS the BOS should NOT be spending time on.
Next time you hear that city budgets are “cut to the bone” and “stretched to breaking”, remember how our tax money was spent on this issue. A year-long planning department study, City Attorney’s office time to review Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors resolutions, public hearings by both bodies, etc. etc. etc. Probably need to hire a bird specialist down at the Planning Department now also.
I’m the author of this ordinance. And I’d like to address each and every one of your concerns.
First, that it isn’t a big problem. You may be right that it isn’t a big problem. Frankly, it isn’t a problem at all, as you rarely see any dead birds in the downtown area. But although it is a trivial problem, it’s one we can solve. When I am up for reelection, I’ll be able to point to a number of non problems that I have solved. The unsolvable ones, crime, homeless, etc. that people should hold me accountable for, will pale in comparison to the non-problems I’ve solved. This will give me a good story to tell at reelection. People will forgive me for the problems I didn’t solve if there are a sufficiently large number of non-problems that I did solve.
Second, the issue that budgets have been cut to the bone. Budgets have been cut to the bone, but only for things that benefit *you*. The things that benefit me represent an unlimited well of funding. For example, most of the studies we did for this ordinance were outsourced to a company owned by my biggest campaign contributor’s good for nothing son in law. The reports he produced were complete crap and the city staff had to rewrite them all. However, ka-ching for my campaign contribution fund! I’m sorry, what were we discussing.
In conclusion, each year we keep coming up with more and more ridiculous things to funnel money to our campaign contributors for, but honestly, who cares? You are just going to vote for the guy whose name you recognize on the ballot more, and all those signs that get me there cost money. If you don’t like birds, buy a cat.
Really Fishcum, it’s not a big problem? Do a little research. Go ahead, do a simple Google search. Here’s just one result.
http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/
Also, SF is located on a major migratory flyway. We do have a certain responsibility to address the issue.
Because there are piles of dead birds outside newer buildings? Knee deep from what I can tell.
So glass now is no longer allowed to be reflective or transparent. So that leaves translucent? Smoky? Not limo-glass, but factory-SUV glass?
It makes me very sad that most of our current BOS members are not birds, and that we dont have more taller buildings composed entirely of translucent or reflective glass.
The answer is obvious.
100% of the bird deaths involving windows involved… uh… windows.
Thus, San Francisco buildings should no longer have windows.
simple.
“Before it becomes a bigger problem” implies that it is currently a “big” problem, which it is not. I’ve never seen a dead bird downtown, much less witness one flying into a building.
No, it implies that it is a problem. Bigger is a relative term.
Have you read the proposed ordinance? Just because you’ve never seen a dead bird or one flying into a window doesn’t mean that it isn’t a problem. Bird collisions are more likely to occur adjacent to open space than they are downtown.
An estimated 1% to 5% of birds die from window collisions. Is that a problem? Yes. Is it a big problem? It depends who you ask. Should we wait until bird mortality is 10% before taking action?
The issue isn’t pigeons and blackbirds crashing into windows. The issue is migratory birds.
I’ve yet to see any of those estimates backed up by any solid data, and even at 5% a year I don’t think it’s even a problem, much less a big problem, given that we’ve had windows for centuries and many tall buildings for decades.
I doubt the real number from deaths is really even close to 1%. By the way, where do you get 5% from? The link provided by MightyLeaf estimates on the high end that there are close to a billion bird deaths a year (100 million a year estimate on the low end), and this link reports global bird population at 200-400 billion. So even with the highest death estimate, and the low population estimate, it’s only .5%, and if you take the high population and low death estimate, it’s only 0.025%
Further, the link posted by MightyLeaf mentions that habitat destruction is by far the biggest threat to birds, so by making development that much more difficult in SF you are making it more favorable to do construction in less dense areas, thus more likely to disturb bird habitat, and therefore this measure is more likely to actually harm birds than to help them.
The best thing environmentalists can do is to work towards making development in urban areas easier, not harder, since habitat destruction and fracturing is generally far more harmful than anything else we humans are doing.
i live in an all glass high rise and i have yet to see or hear any birds even flying nearby the building, let alone crash into it. too much regulation BOS. stop wasting time and money.
The reaction here is an example of how even the idea of a professionally managed city is abhorrent to its residents. Politics!
1. The nature and scale of the problem: Natural resources we don’t want to lose are at risk, the problem is growing along with development, and it appears possible to mitigate this impact rather easily.
2. Supervisory priorities and time spent: Very little time was spent as staff made recommendations based on nationally developed standards which were then voted on. Enough protest could draw this out, though.
3. Public money: These are recommendations for design features and materials properties. Compliance inspection is already incorporated into the construction and use permit process.
4. Likely result: Fewer extreme glass box corners and along with the rest of the coating technology included with modern windows bird strike mitigating coatings that change the reflectivity and make a pattern visible in the ultraviolet range will be included. None of this is likely to cost developers anything up front, though there is the design cost of accounting for it all.
nature of recommendation, likely responses
“Fewer extreme glass box corners”
AKA more complicated building forms (more expensive to design and build) with less square footage (development costs more, and you get less).
“coating technology included with modern windows”
I don’t think manufacturers are going to change the way they make their windows just because SF passes a law. Maybe 1 or two at best, and they will most likely charge more, so yes, it will probably cost more money to developers in order to follow this ordinance.
It easy for somebody who’s not a developer to say that it will not cause any difficulty or additional costs, but almost every time those claims are made they turn out to be false.
And of course as I pointed out, SF is already more difficult to develop in, and even if this turns out to cost no more and is not more complicated, the mere perception that it is difficult and expensive may be enough drive some developers away, meaning more habitat destruction, and that could be more harmful than making no change at all.
I know this sounds completely stupid, but do try to keep in mind that this planet isn’t ours. No harm in doing whatever we can to lessen our already outrageous footprint. A healthy bird population is actually important. I’ll be the first to admit it’s possible to take that notion too far however.
“…I don’t think it’s even a problem, much less a big problem, given that we’ve had windows for centuries and many tall buildings for decades.”
Just because a condition has existed for a long time doesn’t make it benign. We lived with lead plumbing for centuries even after we knew that lead was bad to ingest. Then came along lead additives to gasoline. Then it took a half a century after someone rang the alarm bell about atmospheric lead before leaded gas was eliminated from the USA fuel supply. That regulation too was loudly opposed. It was going to be too expensive you see. American’s wouldn’t be able to compete without leaded gas.
Just because one thing is a problem, doesn’t make another completely unrelated thing a problem.
Lead was already known to cause serious health problems, and somebody proved that it was getting into the atmosphere from car exhausts. That’s a clear problem, and the appropriate measures were taken.
Here we have a situation where there are no real numbers on how many birds die, it’s all just estimates, but from the links provided by the supporters of this, and a little bit of investigation on my part it appears that a fraction of a percent, to a fraction of a tenth of a percent of birds die from window collisions (that’s assuming these estimates are anywhere near reality, which is unlikely in my opinion). But even at 1%, or even 5%, it’s not been shown that there’s actually a problem. Then, as I’ve pointed out several times, this discourages development in developed areas, which will lead to development in undeveloped areas, which could threaten bird habitat, which has actually been shown to be a problem, and a much bigger one that window collisions.
So first there has yet to even be shown that there is a problem, and even if it is a problem, this ordinance ignores, and is in fact contrary to, the bigger problem of habitat destruction.
One comment in the link from MightyLeaf pointed out that domestic cat predation may be responsible for more deaths than window collisions. If that’s true, than that is a bigger problem than window collisions.
If you feel that this is a problem feel free to show how. Just saying some birds are dying is not the same as saying there’s a problem.
Once you’ve shown there’s a problem, please also show how it’s a bigger problem than cats and habitat destruction, disease and natural predation.
I’ve shown how I don’t see this as a problem, feel free to show how I’m wrong.
I’m not saying that this bird strike issue is a problem lyqwyd, just that problems can go unrecognized for a long time. I’m just going by the data presented in the report.
As for bird populations keep in mind that the bird community is a mix of thousands of different species, some of which are endangered. So a 0.5% bird strike death rate might turn out to be 500K out of a 100M (0.5%) population of the common seagull plus 3000 out of a total 5000 population of the rare Brazilian red breasted ever-squacking tit (60%!), the latter of which would severely impact that small endangered population. Different bird species have different behaviors and may be differently impacted by these sorts of hazards.
Speaking of problems, so many here are complaining that this will increase building costs but no-one has presented any info on how those costs will escalate. This could be much ado about nothing.
There’s lots of things that might be a problem. But we can’t make changes for everything that might be a problem. If 60% of a particular species is getting killed by window strikes every year, it would already be extinct.
You say this might be much ado about nothing, and I agree: There’s little to no evidence that there’s an actual problem, much less a big problem, yet our money and time is wasted on this.
I’ve already pointed out how this could increase development costs above. But the truth is that those claiming there will be no additional costs should be the ones to prove that statement. Sometimes it’s well worth increasing the cost of development, but that’s not the claim of the supporters. They claim it will be no additional cost, so it’s their responsibility to prove their case.
I just used that 60% number to illustrate the “mix not median” aspect of overall population numbers. Feel free to use a lower number that doesn’t result in extinction today but brings a species to the brink instead. The general concept is still relevant without the hair splitting.
Chicago has similar rules in effect:
http://www.birdsandbuildings.org/docs/ChicagoBirdSafeDesignGuide.pdf
New York City also just implemented Bird-Safe building guidelines.
http://www.nycaudubon.org/home/BirdSafeBuildingGuidelines.pdf
I get it MoD, but my point is that at best you have hypothetical theories on how it could in some possibly way be a problem. That’s nowhere near the same as saying there is a real problem today. I’m only interested in how it’s a real problem in the real world today, and how these regulations will solve that problem.
If there is a species that is in decline due to window strikes in San Francisco then that would be interesting. I believe that the Peregrine falcon was mentioned in the previous thread, but from what I can find the falcon population is recovering, and they find tall buildings to be suitable habitat, so discouraging development in SF is actually contrary to their benefit. The species has done well enough that I believe it’s been removed from the endangered species list, and it’s recovery has happened at the same time that mirrored skyscrapers have been most developed (the peregrine population was at it’s lowest in the 60s & 70s).
I’ll also point out again (4th time I believe) that discouraging development in dense urban areas only encourages it elsewhere, and habitat destruction is the biggest threat to birds, so these regulations could wind up doing more harm than good.
How do we know that this ordinance will discourage urban development? I don’t think we even know the costs yet. If compliance ends up being excessively costly then that will create credible opposition (including myself).
How do we know the ordinance is of any value? There hasn’t even been shown to be a problem, so why is it necessary?
It discourages by making development more expensive and complicated.
The supporters claim it will be no cost or added difficulty, why don’t you ask them to explain that.
lyqwyd – if you read the standards doc, you might find the answers to some of the questions that you’re asking. For example: “While species that are plentiful may not be threatened by
structure collisions, many species that are threatened or
endangered show up on building collision lists (Ogden 1996
and references therein).” and “Occasionally policy goals may conflict, and we must balance
the benefits and costs of one policy against the other. For
instance, gains in energy and resource conservation provided
by wind generators could also have negative environmental
impacts if installations of those wind farms increase mortality
among flying animals.”
So it appears that the problem has been documented and the backers of this initiative recognize that compromise may be required to have a balanced and reasonable policy.
http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/2010.0182T.pdf
Doesn’t seem very documented to me, a list from 1996. Peregrin falcon is probably on that list, but has been off the endangered species list for over a decade. Is this list specific to SF or just a list of birds that have once been shown to have died hitting a window somewhere 15 or more years ago. I’m interested in real problems today, not unspecified possible problems from 15 years ago.
Regarding the second quote, it’s not a matter of tradeoff of one benefit for another harm, it’s a matter of claiming to benefit one thing, but actually doing more harm in knock-on effects. Say this saves 1 bird in SF, but kills 2 through habitat destruction elsewhere. There’s no benefit, only harm.
So again I’ll point out, no problem has been demonstrated, the claims of no detrimental effects have been unsupported, and claimed environmental effects have not been compared to potential externalized negative effects.
The supporters should be able to provide clear and concise evidence to counteract my problems with this. If they can’t then they haven’t done their homework and it’s not worth doing stuff like this.
Posted by: lyqwyd at September 21, 2011 3:26 PM:
I doubt the real number from deaths is really even close to 1%. By the way, where do you get 5% from?
Posted by: lyqwyd at September 21, 2011 3:26 PM
From page 2 of the Standards for
Bird-Safe Buildings from this link (or pdf page 7):
http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/2010.0182T.pdf
It states:
“From a population standpoint, it’s a bleeding that doesn’t get replaced,” he stated, estimating that between one and five percent of the total migratory population die in window crashes annually (Knee, 2009).
As for the argument against habitat destruction, I can’t imagine any developer being so burdened by this new regulation that they’ll opt to build on previously undeveloped green space out in the suburbs/exurbs. While the restrictions have the potential to increase development costs for a given design, I’m sure architects are creative enough (even in SF) to overcome them in a cost neutral way where needed. As outlined in the link above, it’s not just about the type of glass used.
As more cities decided to follow suit (NYC, Chicago, Toronto are already on board), costs of specialized materials will come down.
Thanks joh, so I was right to be suspicious of that number. You said “An estimated 1% to 5% of birds die from window collisions”, while the actual quote from the document you linked to is: “between one and five percent of the total migratory population die in window crashes”, although that is not a direct quote in the document, I found the article it is referenced from and the direct quote appears to be “estimating that between 1 percent
and 5 percent of the total migratory
population die in window crashes annually.” An important thing to note is that this is from an article in a newspaper, not a peer-reviewed scientific paper.
I then went to read one of the reports written by Daniel Klem the guy who made the quote, and couldn’t find anything that obviously supported that quote. I did notice a few strange things from the paper though:
In the abstract he says “We estimated 1.3 bird fatalities per ha per year; this rate extrapolates to ~34 million annual glass victims in urban areas of North America north of Mexico during the fall and spring migratory periods.”
In the very next paragraph it says “The deaths of 1 billion birds annually from collisions with glass in the United States (U.S.) alone is likely conservative;”
How do you go from 34 million to 1 billion? Later in the document they say 100 million to 1 billion, but as far as I could tell the only number that had any real methodology was the 34 million, and even that was based on many variables that were not explained as to how those numbers were chosen. Even if those numbers are correct, they don’t explain how it’s a problem.
That’s exactly the type of stuff that makes me skeptical of the reasoning behind this ordinance. The city uses a quote from a non-science article as one of the primary arguments for this, and that quote seems to have no backing.
If this were a real problem, I would support the ordinance, but there seems to have no effort to define the actual problem, provide supporting evidence, or describe how this will solve the problem. There’s also claims of no cost that also seem to be completely unsubstantiated. At best it appears to be a worthless regulation, and it could in fact be harmful for the very birds it claims to protect.
Oh, I forgot to include link to the Klem study, so here it is
…habitat destruction is by far the biggest threat to birds, so by making development that much more difficult in SF you are making it more favorable to do construction in less dense areas, thus more likely to disturb bird habitat, and therefore this measure is more likely to actually harm birds than to help them.
Excellent point, lyqwyd, and it’s quite possible that the net effect would be negative as you suggest.
This way of looking at things is a major component to Edwin Glaeser’s book “Triumph of the City”. He asserts that policies tending to reward suburban and exurban living are nearly always anti-green. See the name link for a nice exposition.
By the way, I randomly ran across something about this the other day, and it mentioned that Toronto, which is in the middle of a flyway, had about 10,000 bird strikes/year. That’s a city of 2.6M over 243 sq miles for the City of Toronto (more than 3X SF population and more than 5X SF size) and 5.5M over 2751 sq miles for the metro area. Not sure how the number of glass towers compares to here. The estimate for Calgary, which apparently is on the edge of a flyway is less than 150/year, although Calgary is much smaller obviously and probably has many fewer glass towers despite the mining boom.
Source: http://www.boma.ca/2011/02/16/city-is-in-a-flap-over-building-bird-strikes/
I looked and you can find data on individual buildings for Toronto, although I’m not sure how you extrapolate from about 3000 deaths due to the Top 20 buildings to 1M/year, and that 1M estimate is probably as bogus as the 1 billion estimate:
http://toronto.openfile.ca/toronto/file/2011/04/towers-toll-birds-still-rising
My impression (from bird watching tactics during these migrations) was that the birds tend to congregate in places like marshes, deltas, and estuaries (think the Sacramento delta) and also places with trees (certainly Golden Gate Park above downtown SF) in order to find things to eat. That’s why in NY, having glass buildings near Central Park is actually an issue (apparently between 20-120 birds/year get killed by the Met: http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/ar-dw-glass.html — that’s a huge range). Maybe the solution is to have fewer trees downtown!