Portland scales back green building policy
Last week City Commissioner Dan Saltzman announced a scaled-back version of what was originally supposed to be a visionary policy for green building in Portland, and an important part of the city’s efforts to reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions.
Last week City Commissioner Dan Saltzman announced a scaled-back version of what was originally supposed to be a visionary policy for green building in Portland, and an important part of the city’s efforts to reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions. Energy use in the commercial and residential sectors is the top source of Portland’s global warming pollution, and as originally envisioned the plan would have imposed strict new energy efficiency guidelines for new and existing buildings (homes, offices and other commercial spaces).
Portland has made significant progress in meeting its initial goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 10% below 1990 levels, standards that are the most stringent of any city in the nation, and stricter even then the Kyoto Protocol. The city’s success is largely a result of careful planning and follow-through over the last 15 years, since the goals were first adopted in 1993. And, over the last year the city brought together a group of stakeholders to overhaul not just green building standards, but the entire global warming action plan last updated in 2001. The updated version is a comprehensive look at what will be required in transportation, land use planning, energy use and waste management for the city to reduce its emissions by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
Taken in this context then, while the Commissioner’s green building plan still sets some of the toughest energy efficiency standards in the country and sets forth mechanisms in the form of fees and rebates to meet those standards, it fails to provide overarching direction for an important piece of the building sector; home owners. The way it stands now current homeowners also stand to miss out on a vital aspect of energy efficiency measures – long-term savings on energy costs. As well, there would be missed employment opportunities in energy efficiency audits, retrofits and upgrades for existing homes.
What’s your opinion? The green building plan is open to public comment until January 20th. For more information visit portlandonline.com/osd/gbpolicy.
