The Yudelson Associates Blog: What's New

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

San Francisco ups the ante; City by the Bay goes green in a big way

According to one story, the new ordinance modifies the city’s building code, requiring applicants for residential and commercial building permits, beginning in 2009, to follow a city-approved checklist and rating system,including one from local residential certifier Build It Green or the LEED rating system from the U.S. Green Building Council. My comment: with this ordinance, flawed though it might be in particulars, San Francisco has definitely raised the bar to all California cities and to the more than 500 other cities that have signed onto the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Challenge.

The new ordinance requires new projects to reduce the use of potable water for landscaping by 50 percent. (This is not hard in San Francisco, since temperatures are quite mild - a 65 degree day in mid-summer is not uncommon - and the fog and cloud cover also inhibit loss of soil moisture. The ordinance also speaks to higher standards for stormwater management, construction-material recycling and renewable energy applications.

The standards apply to new residential buildings and new commercial buildings that are 5,000 square feet or larger. The rules apply to projects for new and renovated interior commercial space of 25,000 square feet or more, and to work that significantly changes the structural, electrical and mechanical systems of a commercial building that is 25,000 square feet or larger. My comment: like many other similar ordinances, this may have the perverse effect of holding landlords back from making such upgrades and renovations, if the costs of meeting the ordinance exceed the benefits of the tenant leases.

New large commercial buildings would have to meet the LEED Silver standard beginning in 2009 and the LEED Gold certification beginning in 2012. They have the most stringent standards in the new ordinance.

Look for this law to be strengthened by 2010 at the latest, as the data indicate that the costs for meeting the ordinance are not that high compared with the benefits and the consumer acceptance.

Posted by Jerry on 08/05/2008 at 10:58 AM

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Monday, August 04, 2008

Is Toyota the future of green homes?

In July, the Wall Street Journal carried an amazing story about a small division of Toyota building homes with 60-year warranties. According to the article, “Toyota’s aspirations as a home builder are also gaining new importance with the planned launch by 2010 of its plug-in vehicles, gas-electric hybrid cars with powerful lithium-ion batteries that drivers will need to recharge at home. The car maker is testing an electricity-monitoring system in its homes that would charge the vehicle during off-peak hours to keep utility bills low, while the car’s battery can serve as an electrical backup, powering the home during blackouts.” Toyota has been building modular, factory homes for years, while the U.S. continues to rely on outmoded systems of site-built housing that meet no real goals for sustainability. The great housing “correction” (read crash) of 2007 and 2008 is likely to persist as we work off millions of unoccupied homes from inventory and foreclosure. Maybe the time has come for home builders to embrace the off-site factory, but with a green building twist. At this point, they’ve little to lose.

Posted by Jerry on 08/04/2008 at 05:57 PM

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Green Weenies: Will Green Hotels Ever Come of Age?

Most European hotels now have card keys that turn off the power in the room when you leave. Most Americans won’t accept them, because the A/C might take a few minutes to kick in, so the hotel leaves on the A/C all day for an empty room for fear of losing a guest. This might be a problem during the few summer months, but what about rest of the year? What will it take for hotels to put blue recycling containers in every room and compost their food waste, among a few mildly responsible measures? Other than the obvious ploy of not washing the sheets (at your option) for a multi-day stay (which saves water but also a lot of money for the hotel), what will it take to get the hotel industry to adopt green construction and operations standards? Consumer demand and economics are the obvious answers. If green hotels start showing higher occupancies and the cost of energy keeps going higher, we may start to see this nascent trend accelerate. But for right now, I wouldn’t bet on it happening very fast, because of the lack of vision and any sense of social or environmental responsibility in the lodging industry. The only thing that might accelerate change is if corporate travel departments and meeting planners start demanding LEED or Energy Star certification for hotels they patronize; that will be a message much harder to ignore.

Posted by Jerry on 08/04/2008 at 10:21 AM

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Friday, August 01, 2008

Green Hotels the Next Big Industry

Portland’s Avalon Hotel & Spa has achieved the Northwest’s first LEED certification of an existing hotel building. The Avalon, a luxury boutique hotel and spa, joins the ranks of only nine other hotels in the world to have achieved LEED certification and is the second existing hotel building in the world to receive the U.S.Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED Silver rating. The Avalon is majority owned by RREEF Alternative Investments. The Avalon’s LEED Silver designation, ranking it higher than any other hotel among the mosteco-conscious in the U.S., builds on RREEF’s effort to reduce the environmental impact of its real estate portfolio.

Posted by Jerry on 08/01/2008 at 08:50 AM

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