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Revised green bills lessen burden on county builders
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Related Topics: Howard County
Howard County (Map, News) - Changes to the green legislation eased the burden on builders, but retained the intent of the environmentally friendly laws, officials say.
“A lot of our members are already doing [green building techniques] and are comfortable with the language,” said Heidi Gaasch, director of government and community affairs for the Howard County Chamber of Commerce.
With the series of amendments adopted by the Howard County Council on Monday, County Executive Ken Ulman’s green bills essentially require private developers to go through the process toward achieving certification in nationally accepted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, techniques. They are no longer required to become certified.
Publicly funded buildings of more than 10,000 square feet must be certified.
Among the changes were:
» Remove the bond that assures a building will be certified;
» Impose fines on developers who do not apply for certification;
» Increase the size of private buildings to apply for certification from 20,000 square feet to 50,000 square feet.
This made the legislation “more palatable,” but didn’t weaken it, said William Erskine, a land use attorney with Reese and Carney LLC.
Most builders applying for LEED certification are expected to achieve it, he said.
Green building consultant David Pratt said the laws still will achieve the intended result and the county could have a large number of higher-rated LEED certified buildings.
“The spirit is still there,” he said.
Councilman Greg Fox, R-District 5, a vocal critic of the legislation, called the package an “unmandated mandate,” but said the changes took away “most of the almost ridiculous hurdles” and improved the legislation.
Removing the bond and increasing the building size were the most important amendments, he said.
“It brings the predictability and balance that was missing,” Fox said.
The result was a compromise, “but it’s still incredibly strong legislation,” Ulman said. “I believe this county moved forward dramatically.”
smichael@baltimoreexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
2:16 PM MST on Thu., Dec. 27, 2007 re: "Amicus Green Building makes being green easy"
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8:34 AM MST on Tue., Oct. 30, 2007
re: "Fairfax County planners mull how to foster green buildings"
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3:15 PM MST on Wed., Aug. 29, 2007
re: "Fairfax County planners mull how to foster green buildings"
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Would be Amicus Customer said:
Amicus is totally unprofessional and unreliable. For green building products, go to Capital Building supply. I have been trying to buy cotton insulation from Amicus for a while, but they are not open about their prices, and are difficult to reach due to their capricious operating hours (they are a shoddy mom-and-pop operation). They did not even remember to bring their price list to the Green Convention. After they bragged to me about their huge inventory of this product, I went down there, and lo and behold, they have been out of stock for several months. This is their core product, and they don't have it. I browsed their other products, and it is a lot of Chinese made junk and stuff with dubious environmental value (an inflateable rubber balloon to reduce the capacity of your toilet tank?). Plus, there is an annoying dog roaming their warehouse, which is a nusiance to people like me with allergies, and is a poor example of environmental responsibility.
158 agree | 126 disagree
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Man What said:
Regardless of the possible detrimental effects of illegal workers, a healthier environment is a healthier environment. You may as well complain about attempts to improve education, fight violent crime, or prevent government corruption. Not every effort can be spent on chasing people out of the country when there are so many other issues at hand.
152 agree | 159 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I can not believe our Fairfax County officials are taking their valuable time to be get involved in fostering green buildings while the illegals aliens in are community are driving up the cost of living for tax paying legal citizens of this county. It's time to get involve in the effort to remove ALL illegal aliens from the county, state and the country.
190 agree | 172 disagree
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