Earlier this week, lawmakers in Albany reached an agreement with Governor Paterson on amendments to New York State’s Brownfield Cleanup Program Act (”BCPA”). Under current BCPA provisions, developers can receive tax credits for up to 22 percent of the cost of remediating a brownfield site. The new Act will increase that figure to 50 percent but include a cap of $35 million (or three times the cleanup cost, whichever is less) for non-manufacturing projects; the cap increases to $45 million (or six times the cleanup cost, again, whichever is less) for manufacturing projects.
June 25th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | ContinuedLegislation
What Will LEED v3 Mean for Green Building Legislation?
In an email that was circulated yesterday, USGBC President Rick Fedrizzi announced that his organization’s long-awaited next generation rating system, LEED Version 3.0- which will be known as LEED 2009- will debut for public comment on Monday, May 19. Generally speaking, LEED 2009 will reorganize credits from each of the existing LEED systems into a Bookshelf System, individually weigh credits based on environmental impact, and offer regional bonus credits. However, one of gbNYC’s more specific interests with respect to LEED relates to municipal and state level legislation that either provides an incentive for or mandates LEED-compliant construction.
May 16th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
Green Building Initiative Joins Chase for High-Performance Building Standard
Almost a year ago, USGBC announced that it was developing a new building standard in cooperation with ASHRAE and IESNA. Standard 189P for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings remained open for public comment through the end of last July. Though modeled on it, 189P is not the same thing as LEED. It’s intended to contain a series of performance-related criteria- including targets for energy and water efficiency- that buildings must satisfy in order for municipalities to issue a certificate of occupancy for new buildings or major renovation projects. The Green Building Initiative has announced that, it too, is in the process of developing a similar standard based on its Green Globes tool.
May 7th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
Morristown Celebrates Earth Day by Honoring First Green Globes-Rated Building in New Jersey
On Tuesday, the Green Building Initiative honored Earth Day by awarding its first Green Globes rating to a project in the Garden State. The Point at Morristown is a six-story, 24,000-square-foot mixed-use office and retail tower developed by Needle Point Homes, a Central New Jersey-based builder of custom home projects. According to Steve Needle, the firm chose Green Globes “because of its ability to assist us in meeting our goals to reduce our impact on the environment and the surrounding community, while being user-friendly and affordable.”
April 23rd, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Green Construction Law: As Legislation Proliferates and Insurance Issues Emerge, Is Green Building’s Future Being Compromised?
An insightful letter to the editor that suggests many potential green construction law issues appears in the February 2008 issue of The Construction Specifier magazine. Written by Anne Whitacre of Gehry Partners’ Los Angeles office, A Different Perspective on Green draws attention to the LEED mandates that continue to be enacted in the author’s hometown of Seattle. In the letter, Whitacre raises her concerns about both local green building incentives and public mandates; her comments ring particularly salient in light of the recent Managing Risk in Sustainable Building conference at DePaul’s Real Estate Center in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, as well as freshly proposed Seattle-based legislation that would expand a green building mandate at the county level.
February 19th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Green Globes Legislation Grows in Garden State: Will Proposed Tax Credit Act Follow?
The New Jersey Green Building Tax Credit Act of 2008 may soon give developers in the Garden State up to $20 million in annual tax credits that they’ll be able to apply to their state corporate, income, sewer, and water taxes. Under S1077, the bill containing the proposed legislation, the amount of credits that would be awarded for a particular project increases as the developer builds to higher levels of LEED certification, up to an additional six percent for LEED Platinum. Over the course of the seven-year program, the total amount of available credits could increase to $50 million. The bill is being sponsored by Essex County Assemblyman John McKeon (D), who hopes that it will be signed into law by July 1.
February 15th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Second Long Island County on Verge of Mandating LEED for Public Projects
It appears that Nassau County on Long Island is about to mandate LEED for public projects greater than 5,000 square feet or budgeted at $1 million or more. County Executive Thomas Suozzi announced at a press conference on Monday in Mineola that his proposal (also sponsored by legislators from Merrick and Oceanside) was approved by [...]
July 27th, 2007 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
LEED Creep: Gaia Napa Valley Hotel Receives Gold Rating from USGBC
Back in December, I wrote about LEED creep in the context of the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel, which at the time, and after opening in November, was waiting on its LEED certification from USGBC in order to obtain a $1 million rebate for hotel occupancy tax revenues from the American Canyon, California City Council. The [...]
July 12th, 2007 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued