California

At a press conference last week that was held at Tishman Speyer’s LEED Silver hopeful 555 Mission Street, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed municipal LEED legislation that, if enacted, would be among the most rigorous in the country applying to private construction. Mayor Newsom has vowed to fast-track his signature on the legislation should the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approve it. It's unclear when the Board will debate and vote on the measure.

The legislation would require commercial and residential projects greater than 25,000 square feet, or taller than 75 feet, to earn a LEED Certified rating from USGBC in 2008. In 2009, the requirement for commercial projects would increase to Silver and, in 2010, Gold. Residential projects would require a Silver rating beginning in 2010.

Beginning in 2009, mid-sized commercial buildings would need to meet three LEED credits. This requirement would increase to four credits in 2010, six in 2011, and seven credits in 2012. The text of the proposed legislation does not appear to be available online, and it’s unclear how the ordinance defines small and mid-sized buildings. Nevertheless, all mid-sized buildings would be required to satisfy a checklist based on LEED during 2008.

Small and mid-sized residential buildings would need to receive 25 points under California-based non-profit BuildItGreen’s GreenPointRated rating system beginning in 2009. This requirement would increase to 50 points in 2010 and 75 points in 2012 (2011 for multi-family residential buildings with five units or more).

San Francisco already requires all public projects to earn a LEED Silver rating. The proposal is based on the work of a Task Force featuring a number of local owners and A/E/C stakeholders that Mayor Newsom assembled earlier this year. The Task Force provided the Mayor with a 47-page report (which at one point was available online, but I've been unable to track it down) back in June.

Governor Schwarzenegger has vetoed the trio of green building bills which we presented here a few weeks ago. AB 888 would have required most commercial buildings in California to earn LEED Gold by January 1, 2013, while the other two bills (ABs 1058 and 35) were to apply to homes and public buildings, respectively. The Governor’s grounds for the veto were two-pronged; first, he argued that the LEED-driven standards would discriminate against California wood products in favor of foreign bamboo.

I’m glad to be back home after a really terrific vacation on the West Coast. I missed gbNYC tremendously but it was great to take a break and recharge for the remainder of 2007. My girlfriend Allison and I drove from Los Angeles to Portland - we stopped in Big Sur, San Francisco, Napa, and at the Oregon beaches, all of which were beautiful and a wonderful change of pace and scenery for both of us. While renting a car and flying on a jet across the country weren’t the most sustainable of vacation choices, we did rent bikes, hike, and check out a number of green buildings, which I’ll be writing about over the next few posts.

The 11th Hour, a new documentary produced and narrated by Leonardo Di Caprio, will open next Friday in New York and Los Angeles, with a general release scheduled for this fall. The film premiered earlier this year at Cannes and "explores how humanity has arrived at this moment – how we live, how we impact the earth's ecosystems, and what we can do to change our course." The documentary includes dialogues with Mikhail Gorbachev, Stephen Hawking, William McDonough, and Bruce Mau, among many others, who detail the state of Earth's natural environment and how humanity can solve the myriad ecological problems it faces- from global warming to deforestation and mass species extinction. gbNYC is extremely grateful to have received five sets of two tickets to a screening of the film next Thursday evening, August 16, at 6:30PM in Times Square. If you're interested in attending, please email me, and I'll select five lucky readers at random.