--- title: cool one street at a time canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/cool-one-street-at-a-time markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/cool-one-street-at-a-time.md subtitle: a community cooling campaign would change a whole street on its replacement cycle. solarize mass shows how the group part works category: how-to --- # cool one street at a time *a community cooling campaign would change a whole street on its replacement cycle. solarize mass shows how the group part works* A **community cooling campaign** is our proposal, not a program that exists today. It would be a city or a group of neighbors changing a whole street's surfaces at once: dark roofs to light ones, sealed ground to soil that drinks, more street trees. Each roof and each stretch of pavement would change when it comes due for replacement anyway. The model is a solar program Massachusetts ran more than a decade ago, and this post is for the people who would have to run the new one: a city public works or sustainability lead, a community group, and the owner of a flat black roof on Broadway in Chelsea. Start with what already cools the block. Chelsea's street trees, the soil under them that takes the rain, and the Mill Creek marsh cool, drain and clean these blocks whether or not anyone buys a certificate. A campaign would change the surfaces around them. **ensurance** is one way the people who depend on that living work can fund it. It is not the work itself. :::johnson **one roof is a purchase. a street of roofs is a market.** — One owner replacing one roof gets one quote, usually with little help. A street that changes together gets a competitive bid, someone who knows the material, and a reason for a payor to fund the cooling. [tell us which street →](/contact?from=guide&topic=chelsea-heat) ::: ## what a community cooling campaign would be Picture downtown Chelsea around Bellingham Square: flat roofs, many of them dark membrane, in a city that is about 80% sealed ground. In a heat wave, the air downtown has run up to 9°F hotter than at Island End Park. None of those surfaces is permanent. Each one is replaced on its own clock: | surface | replaced about every | what the change can be | cools | takes rain | who pays now | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | City streets | ~5 years | Higher-albedo (albedo is how much sun a surface reflects), pervious (lets rain through) asphalt or concrete | Significantly | Yes | The city | | Residential roofs | 15–50 years, mostly black EPDM (a common flat-roof rubber membrane) | White EPDM or high-albedo shingles | Significantly | No | The owner | | Commercial roofs | Varies | White EPDM or TPO (a white plastic membrane) | Yes | No | The business | | Street trees | 50–100 years | Plant, then keep alive | Substantially | Yes | City or state plants; city maintains | | Rain gardens | Varies | Soil and plants in place of pavement | Substantially | Yes | Varies | A campaign would line those clocks up on one street. When the city repaves, the owners on that block who are due for a roof would replace it in the same season with a light material. Tree pits and rain gardens would go in with the curb work. One bid, one round of outreach, one street that comes out cooler. This is our proposal, built from the Solarize model: change the surfaces on one street together, over several replacement cycles, with technical help behind the owners. No program like it is funded in Massachusetts today. ## the model it borrows: solarize mass Massachusetts has done the group part before. **Solarize Mass**, run by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) with the Department of Energy Resources (DOER), helped towns buy rooftop solar together. A town picked one installer through a competitive process, and local volunteers did the outreach to their neighbors. It worked. In the 2012 round, 802 residents and businesses signed contracts to install solar. Later rounds added **Solarize Plus**, which brought heat pumps and other clean-energy measures into the same group-buy model. It is also history. MassCEC says it no longer has funding for Solarize Mass or Solarize Plus. What remains is a path and a manual: a town designated under the state's public **Green Communities** program may be able to use Green Communities grant funding to cover the cost of running a Solarize-style program, and MassCEC still publishes a Solarize-HeatSmart toolkit for towns that want to run their own campaign. Check the current Green Communities grant round before you plan around that money. Three things carry over to cooling: people act when their neighbors act, a town that bids as a group gets contractors' attention, and a neighbor beats a mailer. One thing does not carry over. Solar paid its owner back on the electric bill. A light roof can lower cooling cost for its own building, but most of what a cool street does lands on other people's books. ## why the street, and why on its cycle A campaign that asks an owner to tear off a five-year-old roof will fail. A campaign that reaches the owner the year the roof is due asks them to pay only the difference between a dark membrane and a light one. We looked for a published premium for white over black EPDM in Massachusetts and found none, so this post does not quote one. Getting that number for one street is part of the work. The street is the right unit for two reasons. It is the city's own surface, on a cycle of about five years, so the city can set the date. And it is where people actually stand on a hot afternoon. A design model for Chelsea, done under MVP (the state's Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program), estimated that cutting sealed ground by 25% could lower air temperature by up to 3.0°F on a 95°F day, and that raising canopy to 30% could lower it by up to 3.5°F. It is a design model, not a measurement, but it is the clearest local reason to treat pavement and trees as one project. A street of white roofs is not a cool street on its own. A light roof cools its own building and does nothing for the rain. Trees and soil do three jobs: shade on the sidewalk, rain held where it falls, and street air a little cleaner. [What a green roof actually is](/guide/what-a-green-roof-actually-is?from=guide) covers the roof-level version. A campaign worth running puts tree pits and rain gardens in the same bid as the membranes. ## who pays when the street stays black When nothing changes, the cost does not go away. It moves to other ledgers: - **The electric utility** carries distribution capital. - **The city** carries stormwater capital and operating cost. - **Owners and tenants** carry the energy bill. - **The health system** carries heat illness, and asthma is part of the same burden on these blocks. That spread is why a campaign cannot live on rebates alone. [The incentive list](/guide/urban-heat-island-mitigation-is-not-an-incentive-list?from=guide) pays for a measure on a building with a bill. Most of the value of a cool street lands on someone without a bill on that building. And [who pays for the canopy](/guide/who-pays-for-the-canopy-on-a-hot-block?from=guide) after the planting crew leaves is a question no group buy answers. ## where a policy fits This is where ensurance would come in, and we will be plain about where it stands. A roof, a stretch of street, a rain garden or a tree becomes a **policy** when the person who holds title to it agrees. A policy is named for the parcel. Heat, water and air on that parcel sit in one bundle, so nobody has to buy the cooling off a tree on its own. A campaign would hand you a whole street of parcels whose owners have already said yes to changing them. A policy would pay toward the change at replacement and toward the upkeep after, once a buyer holds the line that buys it. Who buys the policies? One regional line, named for the buyer's book rather than for Chelsea, as [name the line for the buyer, not the town](/guide/name-the-line-for-the-buyer-not-the-town?from=guide) explains. If the buyer is the state or a statewide utility, the line would be Massachusetts heat and stormwater. That line is **not minted**. It is an idea on the board, shown as coming soon, and you can [co-create it](/specific/create?mode=suggest&agent=urban-heat.syndicate&name=massachusetts%20heat%20and%20stormwater&from=guide). The theme agents that exist today, [urban heat](/urban-heat.syndicate?from=guide), [water cycle](/water-cycle.syndicate?from=guide) and [clean air](/clean-air.ensurance?from=guide), can buy the same parcel policies. Where it stands today: no titleholder in Chelsea has signed, and no payor has committed. GreenRoots stewards the Mill Creek marsh restoration and holds C-HEAT with Boston University School of Public Health. ## how a city or town would start one 1. **Map the clocks.** List when each street on the hot blocks is due for repaving, and ask owners on those streets when their roofs are due. 2. **Pick one street.** The first one up for repaving with the most roofs due within a few years. 3. **Borrow the Solarize toolkit.** Competitive contractor selection, a local coach, neighbor-to-neighbor outreach. Swap solar panels for membranes, tree pits and rain gardens. 4. **Price the difference.** Get the real premium for light over dark on that street, and the cost of each tree's first years. 5. **Name the payors.** Utility, city stormwater, health system. Put the street's parcels in front of them as policies. ## frequently asked questions ### is there a community cooling campaign program in massachusetts? No. It is a proposal we are putting forward. The closest model, Solarize Mass, is no longer funded by MassCEC; a designated Green Community may be able to fund a Solarize-style campaign through Green Communities grants. ### does a white roof help with stormwater? No. A light roof cools its own building. Rain still runs off it. Trees, rain gardens and pervious paving take the rain. ### how much more does a white roof cost than a black one? We did not find a published premium for Massachusetts, and we will not guess one. Pricing the difference on one street is the first job of a pilot. ### is anyone in chelsea signed up? No. No titleholder has signed a policy, no payor has committed, and the regional line is not minted. ## next steps If you own a roof on a hot block, [see what a parcel policy would ask of you](/solutions/landowners?from=guide&topic=chelsea-heat). If you run a city's streets or a state program, [see what we offer governments](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=chelsea-heat). If several towns want to do this together, [see the regional collaborative door](/solutions/regional-collaboratives?from=guide&topic=chelsea-heat). If you would buy policies on a regional book, [co-create the Massachusetts heat and stormwater line](/specific/create?mode=suggest&agent=urban-heat.syndicate&name=massachusetts%20heat%20and%20stormwater&from=guide). Or [tell us which street](/contact?from=guide&topic=chelsea-heat). ## sources [MassCEC, Solarize Mass](https://www.masscec.com/solarize-mass) — program design; no current funding for Solarize Mass or Solarize Plus; the Green Communities path [MassCEC, Solarize-HeatSmart toolkit](https://masscec.com/solarize-heatsmart-toolkit) — resources for a town-run campaign [Worcester Business Journal, "Solarize Mass adds 802 projects"](https://wbjournal.com/article/solarize-mass-adds-802-projects-51-mw-to-state) — 2012 round contract count [Massachusetts DOER, Green Communities grants](https://www.mass.gov/service-details/green-communities-grants) — the public designation and grant program [High-Profile, "Mitigating the urban heat island effect in Chelsea"](https://www.high-profile.com/mitigating-the-urban-heat-island-effect-in-chelsea/) — impervious share, MVP design model [Scammell et al., Health Effects Institute abstract](https://www.healtheffects.org/system/files/scammell-abstract-ac2023.pdf) — C-HEAT heat measurements in Chelsea, Island End Park to downtown ## the series 1. [what a hot block in chelsea depends on](/guide/what-a-hot-block-in-chelsea-depends-on?from=guide) 2. [a white roof is not a tree](/guide/a-white-roof-is-not-a-tree?from=guide) 3. [what the state revolving fund can already pay for](/guide/what-the-state-revolving-fund-can-already-pay-for?from=guide) 4. **cool one street at a time** (you are here) 5. [zoning tells the roof what to be](/guide/zoning-tells-the-roof-what-to-be?from=guide) 6. [who pays for heat resilience, by the parcel](/guide/who-pays-for-heat-resilience-by-the-parcel?from=guide)