Green Urbanism
Environmental groups try to block parts of California's green building code
LOS ANGELES TIMES. JANUARY 11, 2010.
The Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council are among six groups waging a last-minute campaign to derail some of the rules, saying they aren't tough enough.
Environmental groups are mounting a last-ditch effort to derail key elements of the state's first-in-the-nation green building code -- a major initiative of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration.
The proposed code, likely to be adopted Tuesday, would slash water use, mandate the recycling of construction waste, cut back on polluting materials and step up enforcement of energy efficiency in new homes, schools, hospitals and commercial buildings statewide.
"It is going to change the whole fabric of how buildings are built by integrating green practices into our everyday building code," said David Walls, executive director of the California Building Standards Commission. "The rest of the nation will be looking at what we have done."
But critics say the rules fall short of rigorous standards adopted by Los Angeles, San Francisco and more than 50 California jurisdictions in league with the U.S. Green Building Council, a national nonprofit group of architects, engineers and construction companies.
The council's voluntary Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards have become an industry norm in recent years, with architects and construction firms competing on four levels -- LEED basic, silver, gold or platinum -- to market their buildings as green.
In 2004, Schwarzenegger ordered that all new state buildings meet at least a LEED silver level.
But parts of the state's new code, which would take effect in January 2011, would amount to "a setback for California's leadership on green building," according to a Dec. 22 letter from six groups. They included the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Global Green, along with two nonprofit certification groups, the Green Building Council and Berkeley-based Build It Green.
The groups largely applaud the code's mandatory rules as a baseline minimum standard.
But they take issue with its two-tier labeling system for stricter voluntary measures, CalGreen, saying it would be open to conflicting interpretations and be unenforceable by local building inspectors.
"The tiers cause confusion in the marketplace and the potential for builders to label their buildings green without substantiating their claims," said Elizabeth Echols, director of the Green Building Council's Northern California chapter. Many local officials who would be responsible for verifying builder claims do not have the technical expertise that LEED and other third-party verifiers provide, she added.
