Montgomery Drafts Green Building Plan

Environmental Traits Would Earn Points

Every large office building or apartment complex built in Montgomery County would have to incorporate environmentally sensitive features -- be it a fume-free paint, recycling centers, plant-covered roofs or compost toilets -- under a proposal announced yesterday.

The bill, to be introduced at Tuesday's County Council meeting, would require buildings of 10,000 square feet or more to score at least 20 points on a rating system set by the U.S. Green Building Council. Owners of buildings that earn at least 24 points could receive an energy tax rebate. If approved, the measure would take effect next year.

County officials say the requirements would cut energy costs and pollution and would simply codify what many builders already do. "We wanted to make sure Montgomery County is a leader in the green building movement," County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) said. "The industry's moving that way and we're trying to get them to move more quickly."

But others, including some in the building industry, view it as more social engineering from a county that has already imposed living wage and affordable housing requirements on companies doing business there. They argue that it discounts efforts some builders have already made.

"Why create an imposed program that is not flexible enough to recognize what's already required or give value to what is?" said Raquel Montenegro of the Maryland National Capital Building Industry Association.

The association, which represents the region's building and development industry, was aware of the proposal but not consulted before the final draft was announced yesterday, said Montenegro, the group's associate director for government affairs.

"There are a number of green features currently required in Montgomery that receive no accreditation" in the green building standards program and others that conflict with the standards, she said, such as the county's stringent storm water management rules.

The District has a municipal green building plan under consideration, and there's talk of making the city's new baseball stadium environmentally friendly. The Montgomery bill is modeled on one in Arlington County, said bill sponsor George Leventhal, who rode his motor scooter -- 70 miles to the gallon -- from his home in Takoma Park to Silver Spring for the announcement.

The building industry was consulted in the drafting stage, he said, adding, "We're going to have a lot of time to work on this bill. I'm happy to work with industry and with everyone, and I have been."

Montgomery has long been known as a county with an environmental conscience. Windmills generate 5 percent of its municipal energy and will supply 20 percent within five years. At the new Great Seneca Creek Elementary School in Germantown, slated to open this year, children will be able to choose a toilet flush lever marked "#1," to save water or "#2," when full power is needed. The school will be a template for further green school construction. Then there's Takoma Park, with its corn-burning home heating systems, fed by a city-owned silo.

The Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Spring is topped with a "green roof," a garden that cools the building and helps reduce polluted rainwater runoff, Duncan said.

Will the new legislation bring compost-toilet malls and sod-topped condos? "I think we're going to see more of that" anyway, Duncan said.

Leventhal said: "Builders have called me to say, 'Why are you gonna make me plant trees on my roof?' I patiently try to explain what LEED is about."

LEED refers to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a green building rating system established in 2000 by the U.S. Green Building Council. The LEED checklist assigns points to every environmentally sensitive building feature. Buildings near public transportation earn one point, supplying bike storage and cyclists' changing rooms another. Composting toilets, which involve no flushing, earn points, as do fume-free paint and carpet, ample natural light and using wood from forests where trees, and tree harvesters, are well managed.

Instead of laws to encourage green building, "We prefer incentives, because we think that's a better way of actually changing the mind-set of the building industry," said Green Building Council spokeswoman Taryn Holowka. "But still we think it's great."

Holowka said that since 2000, 6 percent of new construction in the United States, or about 563 million square feet, adheres to LEED standards.

Usually 26 points on the rating system are required to win the lowest-level certification. But Montgomery, which would conduct its own certification program, needs to start slow, Leventhal said.

"A lot of this has to do with energy conservation and water conservation," he said, adding that the county has saved about $10 million over the past decade through energy-efficient construction.

"You don't have to do composting toilets if you don't want to."