Santa Clara Cities Unite on Green Building

All join accord on environmentally friendly construction

A common policy on “green” buildings has been adopted by all 15 cities in Santa Clara County. The agreement sets in place a standard for municipal buildings – LEED Silver. For commercial and residential buildings it takes the first steps toward setting standards for more efficient use of energy, water, land and sustainable construction materials and practices. With this first stage established, discussions about more comprehensive polices are under consideration.

With approval by the Gilroy City Council on Feb. 2, all the county’s cities have adopted a first stage of standards. The agreement is the result of the efforts of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group in partnership with the Santa Clara County Cities Association. Together, these two organizations formed the Green Building Collaborative, a group of city councilmembers, planners, building officials and representatives of U.S. Green Building Council and Build It Green.

“The green building industry is so new and quickly evolving that the Leadership Group felt it was important to coordinate a county-wide effort on local government policy,” said Shiloh Ballard, the Leadership Group’s vice president for housing and community development. “We’re really pleased to see that all the cities have adopted this first phase of green building policy. I’m unaware of any other county or region in the country that has adopted a common standard.”

While attention is often focused on energy use and emissions from transportation and industry, buildings in the United States account for 68 percent of electricity consumption, 39 percent of total energy use, and 38 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Those numbers show the importance of constructing buildings from environmentally friendly materials, and equipping them so that their ongoing operation uses as few resources as possible.

"The built environment is an area where local governments can play leadership roles,” said Yoriko Kishimoto, a Palo Alto Councilmember. “I'm so proud that our county has worked together to share approaches, resources and model ordinances to have 100 percent of our cities adopt a green building ordinance.”

Val Alexeef, Government Relations Manager for the non-profit Build it Green, which has developed standards for residential building, said, “Build It Green applauds Santa Clara Cities and County for achieving consistency and dependability that will promote green building and move the County closer to meeting the State’s AB 32 goals.” AB 32 is California’s pathbreaking law to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“All cities have limited staff resources. That is why the efforts of the Leadership Group and the Cities Association have been so instrumental,” said Jamie McLeod, a Santa Clara Councilmember. “They have done the heavy lifting by working with city representatives to develop sensible green building policy recommendations, making it easy for all cities to move forward more quickly.”

The cities in Santa Clara County have agreed as follows:

All construction and renovation projects of municipal buildings larger than 5,000 square feet will aim to meet LEED Silver standards (two cities have left themselves the option of determining that Silver might not be financially viable, and a third, Mountain View, expects to revisit the issue in the next two months).
The cities will use the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® Rating system and Build It Green’s GreenPoint Rated system (residential). A common set of standards relieves cities of the task of developing their own standards, and provides consistency to builders who work in many jurisdictions.
For commercial and residential buildings, cities will require a Green Checklist as part of the planning application. The applicant is not required to adopt green building practices but the checklist educates applicants about green building and enables the city to benchmark green building practices.

This first round of green building standards begins with firm goals for municipal buildings, and sets a procedure for working toward upgraded standards for commercial and residential buildings. Government adoption of green building practices will spur the green building market, including the development of professional expertise and green products and ultimately serve to bring down costs.

In addition to the environmental benefits, green building saves money over time. The average premium for green buildings is slightly less than 2 percent, or $3 to $5 a square foot. That 2 percent increase can result in a life-cycle savings of 20 percent of total operating costs. For example, an initial upfront investment of up to $100,000 to incorporate green building features into a $5 million project would result in a savings of $1 million over the life of the building.

In addition to materials and energy use, green building also involves increasing the density of homes and offices, reduced parking requirements in conjunction with proximity to transit.

As all the cities come to agreement on a first round, work has already begun on formulating the next level of standards for which countywide agreement will be pursued. The Leadership Group would also like to see a countywide agreement adopted in other counties in the Bay Area.