CHANGE MY LOCATION
Fairfax County planners mull how to foster green buildings
SEE THE LATEST ON THIS STORY
Related Topics: Fairfax County
Fairfax County (Map, News) - Fairfax County planners are exploring how to persuade developers to adopt green building practices.
The county now has no cohesive way to push for incorporation of low-impact, energy-efficient building features in private construction.
But officials plan to begin serious discussions next month and the issue will move to the forefront as part of the board’s election-year push to turn Fairfax into becoming a more environmentally friendly county.
At question is how to prompt developers to go green when market forces fall short.
A solution may involve offering some sort of “density bonus” by which more construction would be exchanged for green practices, according to an Aug. 22 draft report from Fairfax County staff.
“We need to understand exactly what we’re getting into,” said Fairfax County Supervisor Penelope Gross, who represents the Mason District. “I’d like to see us get to a point where we can say our private residential developments are green.”
The market is already increasingly adopting green building techniques, said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the District-based Coalition for Smarter Growth.
“There’s even a little bit of competition growing between developers to use green building as a marketing tool,” he said.
For the plan to work in Fairfax, Schwartz said, officials should concentrate any density incentives around rails stops to keep the resulting new commuters off area roads.
Fairfax also should explore other ways to motivate developers, such as quicker review for projects that meet green criteria, they said.
Fairfax County staff will produce a new report following the workshop on Sept. 6, and there is a Planning Commission public hearing set for early November, according to Jim Hart, an at-large planning commissioner.
He said the Board of Supervisors, which will make any final policy decisions, could consider the measures by the end of the year.
“Energy conservation, sustainable building protection of water quality, there are many objectives,” Hart said. “I think we recognize that we can do much more now than has been done in the past.”
wflook@dcexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
2:16 PM MST on Thu., Dec. 27, 2007 re: "Amicus Green Building makes being green easy"
Report as inappropriate
8:34 AM MST on Tue., Oct. 30, 2007
re: "Fairfax County planners mull how to foster green buildings"
Report as inappropriate
3:15 PM MST on Wed., Aug. 29, 2007
re: "Fairfax County planners mull how to foster green buildings"
Report as inappropriate
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
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
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
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
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
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree