San Jose, CA First U.S. City to Mandate Green Building Policy
Moments ago, at the San Jose City Council meeting, the country’s first mandatory green building policy was enacted. The Council just voted to amend Title 17 of the San José Municipal Code to add a new Chapter 17.84 to establish Green Building Regulations for Private Development to include LEED (Silver or better) for commercial and Build it Green’s (BIG) Green Point Rated (for residential) rating systems as the mandatory green building standards for the City of San José. This is a great step in the right direction, and we congratulate the city for leading the way for stringent green building control. Straight from tonight’s meeting agenda:
7.2 Green Building Ordinance for New Private Sector Construction.
Supplemental – Memo from the Director of PBCE
* Recommendation: For lack of quorum, transmitted by the Transportation and Environment Committee on June 1, 2009, accept the staff report and consider approval of an ordinance amending Title 17 of the San José Municipal Code to add a new Chapter 17.84 to establish Green Building Regulations for Private Development to include the following:
(a) Establishing the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC), Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED) and Build it Green’s (BIG) Green Point Rated
rating systems as the mandatory green building standards for the City of San José.
(b) Establishing the Green Building Refundable Deposit and procedures for the
collection and refund of the deposit.
(c) Describing the process for requesting an exemption from the established Green
Building Standards and pipeline provisions for determining how the standards
apply to projects already in progress.
(d) Listing implementation guidelines to illustrate the application of green building
requirements to projects with multiple buildings.
(e) Analyzing the cost implications resulting from green building requirements in
accordance with California Energy Commission requirements.
CEQA: Exempt. (Planning, Building and Code Enforcement)
(Transportation and Environment Committee referral 6/1/09 – Item 3.9)
Like this? Tweet it to your followers!