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Builders looking forward to clearer LEED standards

NAPA – Bob Massaro is managing green-building documentation and certification requirements for five commercial and residential construction projects in Napa Valley, and he’s looking forward to proposed changes to the U.S. Green Building Council’s ubiquitous Leadership in Energy and Environmental Leadership rating system that would make his task more straight-forward while more heavily emphasizing energy and water conservation.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit council, whose rating systems are a foundation for several North Bay governments’ green-building ordinances, wants to realign the systems so certification-point requirements under one rating would not contradict rules in another system. These reorganized ratings are called LEED 2009 or LEED 3.0.

“Now we can learn one system, and we don’t have to learn all of them,” said Mr. Massaro, who operates Healthy Buildings USA in Napa.

Also, the maximum number of credits would be increased to 110 to weight points more heavily for high-priority environmental issues, particularly energy efficiency to combat global warming blamed on vehicle and power plant emissions of greenhouse gasses, such as carbon dioxide, as well as regionally important points proposed by the council’s chapters.

Creating carbon footprints, or inventories of carbon emissions, likely will be key to this and future versions of the LEED rating system, according to Paul Klassen, chief operating officer of Santa Rosa-based civil engineering firm Coastland.

Joshua Carrell, a project architect with Axia Architects in Santa Rosa and a LEED-accredited professional, likes what he’s seen so far with most of the LEED 2009 proposal, including rebalancing of credits and increasing requirements for addressing transportation and the impact of a project on traffic.

However, water conservation and use of recycled wastewater weren’t addressed to the degree he thinks is important given water-shortage issues in more places nationwide.

“I’ve been critical of the national approach, so this is an opportunity for our local chapters to come up with proposals for local points,” he said. Mr. Carrell said that the checklist method, by which proponents of a project can select which LEED points to target for a project – such as energy, water, indoor air quality, site-selection or materials choice – should be replaced with thresholds for meeting conservation goals.

Rohnert Park Chief Building Official Peter Bruck said flexibility in a green building ordinance for the developer to find solutions is key, or else project proponents may not cooperate and go beyond the standards.

Meanwhile, the state Building Standards Commission on July 17 adopted tougher energy and water conservation standards as part of the state green building code to take effect this year and be incorporated into local building codes statewide through 2010. LEED 2009 could be voted on by the council’s membership this fall for dissemination next year.