Santa Rosa toughens green building rules

<p>Santa Rosa will get greener under tougher environmental building standards tentatively approved for late summer.</p><p>"If we want to be leaders, we should be showing the way," Councilwoman Veronica Jacobi said as the City Council agreed last week to increase the requirements residential and commercial builders must meet before building. A formal ordinance implementing the changes still must be adopted.</p><p>Under the city system, points are awarded to various construction components based on the impacts on air quality, water use and energy. The less impact and more environmentally friendly, the greater the number of points awarded. Under the plan endorsed by the council, the minimum point level is being raised.</p><p>Consultant Mike Gabel, who is helping the city develop those tougher standards, said Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park are among 14 of California's 500 cities that require residential builders to meet energy-conservation standards higher than those set by the state.</p><p>"We want to stay ahead of the curve," Jacobi said.</p><p>Community Development Director Chuck Regalia said the higher point requirement could result in builders including such things as solar-powered water heating systems or photovoltaic energy systems into new homes.</p><p>The new requirements, once adopted and enacted, will add between $2,671 to $12,487 to the cost of building a new home, consultants said.</p><p>While the council unanimously endorsed the new standards to reduce global warming and greenhouse gases, tougher decisions await.</p><p>One of the most controversial recommendations forwarded by the city's Green Building Advisory Committee last year is that the city develop a system to require older homes be retrofitted to make them more environmentally friendly.</p><p>Those requirements, as proposed, would be mandated either at the time of sale or when a major remodel of the home is undertaken.</p><p>The local building and real estate industries widely oppose such a move because of the potential costs.</p><p>Regalia said he expects the city will study the proposal to to develop a cost analysis, who would pay and how such a program would work before bringing it to the council by late April.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Mike McCoy at 521-5276 or mike.mccoy@pressdemocrat.com.</p>