The Yudelson Associates Blog: What's New

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Green existing buildings using LEED for Existing Buildings to upgrade the value of real estate

According to a story last week, in Toronto, major developers and property managers such as Oxford Properties, Cadillac Fairview and Colliers are pushing for a Canadian version of the USGBC’s LEED-EB program. Oxford Properties’ King Tower in downtown Toronto became the first Canadian multi-tenant building to receive LEED-EB Silver certification, working with HOK‘s Toronto office. The 15-story, 472,000 sq.ft. building replaced all T12 fluorescent lamps with more efficient T8’s and also ran a pipe 83 meters (about 270 feet) below the surface of Lake Ontario to run cold lake water through the building’s heat exchangers, to provide year-round cooling energy.

Posted by Jerry on 11/16/2008 at 08:16 AM

This entry has been viewed 14 times.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    TwitThis   

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

This entry has been viewed 158 times.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    TwitThis   

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Are green homes obstacles to homebuilders or a path out of the current wilderness?

With home prices far outpacing growth in family income, it’s obvious that the business model of “bigger, faster, more expensive” doesn’t work for single-family housing any more. We’ve had a doubling of home size in the past 30 years and a 10 percent decrease in household members. Do we really need 2,400 sq.ft. for two people (my current home, albeit with a home-based business)? Would we be less happy if we actually were forced to share space with other family members? Would we be any worse off if we weren’t spending 40 to 50 percent of our disposable income on housing? Shouldn’t we be asking for builders to build healthier, more energy-efficient homes? Other countries, especially those in the EU, get by with much smaller homes, serviced by better public transportation, in more compact, walkable neighborhoods. My new book, Choosing Green: The Home Buyer’s Guide to Good Green Homes (Island Press, 2008), shows both builders and home buyers the way out: build better homes that people can afford and you won’t have any trouble selling them. Why not focus instead on the long-term value of a home that’s quiet, comfortable, cheaper to operate and healthier to live in, rather than the quick profits of buying and flipping? The game of musical chairs is over, and a lot of people are left standing, without a home they can afford. A new acquaintance told me of his sister, in southern California, who has successfully traded up to a home ten times the value of her first home, in a little over ten years. Now she has a $5 million home. But I wonder, how will she now afford the $25,000 monthly mortgage, especially if there are no buyers to allow her to trade down to a more affordable home? In my Choosing Green book, I document more than 50 great new home developments all over the US and Canada that show what builders can accomplish, when they marry their business acumen with a new approach to designing and building sustainable homes. So, I ask once again, does green building represent a pathway out of the dark woods in which builders now find themselves?

Posted by Jerry on 07/17/2008 at 08:20 PM

This entry has been viewed 116 times.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    TwitThis   

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Green Building Grows Up, Raises Mainstream Design and Construction Issues

A story in the online edition of McGraw-Hill’s Engineering News-Record outlines some of the risks and unintended liability issues of what advocates might think of as “conventional” green design, such as green roofs, operable windows, daylighting and cork (rapidly renewable materials) flooring. The bottom line: don’t “guarantee” anything, including any specific level of LEED certification and certainly don’t warrant that certification will be done by any specific time. Products and systems might not be available or might not be of the quality required, etc. At a project meeting held today, to consider “going green” for a new shopping center, similar issues were raised with respect to the developer’s marketing claims that the project will achieve a LEED certification. It was interesting to me that the developer’s lawyer was in the project meeting, undoubtedly wanting to get informed about the LEED aspect and to make sure we weren’t putting anything in the tenant’s leases that we couldn’t live up to after the project was completed. A similar report appeared recently in Constructor magazine, subtitled “Green construction can expose project teams to unreasonable expectations and a new set of risks.” The first task then of many green building projects will be to understand and manage these risks, on behalf of the entire project team, as well as the building owner or developer.

Posted by Jerry on 07/10/2008 at 07:59 PM

This entry has been viewed 114 times.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    TwitThis