April 11, 2008

San Francisco leads green-building wave

Construction Corner

Korky Koroluk

Federal and provincial/state governments across North America are moving at vastly different rates on environmental concerns. But cities, for the most part, are forging ahead almost as though they were racing one another to see which ones can be greener, quicker.

Many cities now have green building policies, many of them either built around the LEED rating system or at least incorporating some LEED concepts. Most other communities of some size are working on similar policies, leading one to think that it is the cities that are leading Canadians and Americans in coping with environmental concerns, with our federal governments trailing.

Few cities are moving as fast as San Francisco.

The city was among the first off the mark when, in 2004, it began requiring that all municipal buildings in the city meet — at minimum — LEED Silver requirements. About a year later, the city introduced a system for fast-tracking building permits for private development projects that meet LEED Gold or Platinum standards.

Then, this time last year, the city took the next step: a task force with the job of expanding green building standards for major new private construction projects.

This approach has now yielded a set of new rules that will require projects to earn green points by introducing energy- and water-saving measures or risk not getting their building permits.

The rules are expected to become local law in the next few months and go into operation next year.

The rules will apply to both multi-unit residential and office construction projects that are not aiming for LEED certification. They are, in effect, a way of imposing LEED, or something somewhat similar, on owners who choose to build outside the LEED structure.

That means they will have to consider such things as solar water heating, or improved insulation, or increased use of recycled materials or many other things.

If they don’t earn enough green points that way, there will be no permits issued.

It’s a powerful incentive, but probably not as draconian as it might appear.

San Francisco is a large city, but early estimates are that, in the first year under the new rules, only about 1,000 new apartments and perhaps 75,000 square metres of office construction will be affected.

That means that San Francisco’s builders are already doing a pretty good job of building green. The new rules will pick up the laggards.

Of course, plain economics also plays a rule in converting those laggards.

The environmental benefits of building green are, by now, well known.

San Francisco city fathers have also cited corporate productivity studies showing that natural lighting and natural ventilation in offices can improve employee productivity by as much as 16 per cent.

In time, the city’s new rules will also be applied to new single-family homes, a sector of the construction industry where green construction has been pretty well left as a matter between to the builder and his customers.

The result has been a patchwork, with many new homes performing much as new homes did a decade ago, although some homebuilders now are reporting that would-be buyers are asking for more environmental features.

San Francisco’s new rules, along with the city’s existing LEED policy, will give it probably the toughest environmental construction standards in North America.

Some critics have already predicted that that fact will act as a drag on the local market, but with other cities also developing or expanding environmental rules, it’s likely only a matter of time before tough rules become the norm, no matter where a project is located.

Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@dailycommercialnews.com.

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