Protect the City We Love

“In a recent mailing, developers opposing the Green New Deal falsely claim, ‘An error in the law accidentally exempts buildings buildings over 5,000 square feet from greener building standards.’ In fact, the Green New Deal ordinance says that all 2,000+ sq ft buildings must meet the LEED standard. Once the 5,000 sq ft trigger occurs, the project must also demonstrate energy efficiency performance improvement of a certain percentage above the minimum stated in the latest version of ASHRAE 90.1: Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings in addition to LEED requirements triggered at 2,000 sq ft. This ensures that a project pursuing LEED does, in fact, meet appreciable building energy efficiency improvements despite any current or future LEED energy efficiency targets. We can’t speak to the intent from the previous version, but our intent was to avoid a problem where, in the past, larger projects could essentially buy their way around LEED standard without making real efficiency gains. Here, we used the ASHRAE language already present in the ordinance as a backstop against that kind of workaround.”