City Council Study Session Agenda and Packet 2008 06 24

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Page 3 of 4 At this time, the developer of the new North End development, Markel, is a member of Built-Green Colorado. That association claims its member-contractors offer houses which are built to 15% above current-code requirements. And we certainly commend Markel for their commitment to such an improvement program. But not all con- tractors that may build within Louisville will subscribe to such commercial `green' programs, nor is there any currE;nt requirement that they do so. That is one reason why we recommend the city adopt its own program, rather than hope for voluntary program participation by contractors. After a review of local and regional `greE;n' residential-construction programs conducted by LRCAB since 2006, we believe the adoption of aGreen-Points Program will offer Louisville's City Government the best options to provide City residents with above-standard energy-efficient homes, beginning immed- iately and extending into the foreseeak~le future. We believe the organizational frame- work of such a Program will allow city officials responsible for defining and administering the Program to make changes to its incentive-points checklist to meet evolving long-term resource-conservation goals and adapt to changing technology and building practices. Such a locally developed and administered Program will give city officials much greater flexibility in meeting local needs, than any hoped-for future nationally based program, that by necessity may have to be set to a lower common standard to meet diverse national conditioins and try to be a "one size fits all" solution. LRCAB reviewed several `green' plans City of Boulder Green-Points First implemented in 1997, with points assigned to improve the 1997 Uniform Building Code; modified the end of 2007, with points assigned to improve 15%-25% over 2006 IRBC &IECC, several mandatory items were incorporated at the same time. City of Longmont Green-Points Based on the original Boulder Green-Points program, first implemented the end of 2007, with points assigned to improve app 15% over 2006 IRBC &IECC. Built-Green Colorado, Home Builders Assn of Metro Denver Built-Green is a commercially developed program first implemented in 1995, with subscriber-member builders. It targets a 15% improvement over the current IRBC & IECC. Its current subscriber-members comprise just 26% of the metro-Denver market, and only 13% of the out-of-area market. It's the program to which Markel (North End) currently subscribes. Energy-Star, US-EPA, US-DOE Energy-Star targets a 15% improvement over current IRBC &IECC. Beginning in 2008, it is the energy-use standard adopted by Built- Green. Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET) & Home Energy Rating System (HERS) RESNET is an industry-membership organ- ization, national-standards-making body for building energy-efficiency rating systems. Its HERS scale sets a value of 100 points for a residential structure built to meet the current- year's IRBC, so the actual energy used by a 100-pt house will change each time the IRBC is updated. It sets a 0-point value for a structure that has zero net-energy usage (ie, it `produces' as much energy as it uses}. So a lower HERS point score is more energy efficient. It is the standard selected by the City of Boulder for increased energy efficiency in its recently modified Green- Points plan, and the standard selected by Boulder County for determining the required increased energy efficiency in its recently adopted Build-Smart plan.