The R.I. Building Code Commission last week released draft rules to implement the Green Buildings Act passed by the General Assembly last year. The proposed rules require new state buildings or ones undergoing major renovations to meet one of three green building standards or an “equivalent standard” determined by the state building commissioner. The public has until Aug. 12 to comment on the proposal.
Steven Hughes, an architect and associate at the Robinson Green Beretta Corp. in Providence., is the supervising director on the U.S. Green Building Council Rhode Island chapter’s Advocacy Committee. He recently took some time to speak with Providence Business News about the rules and what they would mean for public projects.
PBN: What is going to be the largest impact for architects and builders when they work on state projects under the new rules?
HUGHES: The Green Buildings Act is kind of a spin-off of the governor’s executive order, which required all state facilities to be designed to LEED silver standard. The Green Buildings Act actually kicked it back a notch and made everything have to be designed to LEED certified or equivalent.
And some of the equivalent standards most architects in Rhode Island are already used to. One of them is Collaborative for High Performance Schools, which is a high-performance school standard. So if you are doing a school in Rhode Island right now you already have to use that anyway.
I think in a way if you’re practicing in Rhode Island you’d already be familiar with a lot of this. The purpose of the Green Buildings Act was to actually make it easier and get rid of some of the conflicts that existed out there. And we actually added Green Globes, which is another standard out there that a lot of people like to use. The whole purpose is to be a little bit more flexible.
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PBN: So these might actually be easier standards to meet than those first outlined by the governor?
HUGHES: It should be easier because it’s dropped the level from LEED silver to LEED certified, which is a step below it.
PBN: There’s been a lot of discussion that adding green features drives up the initial cost of the building. What do these proposed regulations mean for the price of state buildings?
HUGHES: I think a little bit of that is a myth. There’s been a lot of studies, the latest one being done by [construction consulting firm] Davis Langdon. They studied a bunch of municipal projects – everything from libraries to health care to public buildings – and they found that actually adding green building doesn’t necessarily do that.
It used to be that people would say it increased the cost 1 to 2 percent, which isn’t bad. But now they’re finding that buildings that were LEED certified came in cheaper than buildings that weren’t so they retracted that and said it really doesn’t increase the cost.
And I think that’s very true. But you have to go in to it understanding that you’re going to be doing a green building, pick your rating system and work with it versus trying to sprinkle it on at the end. I think that’s where people can really add a lot of cost to a project.
PBN: Is there anything in the draft regulations that worries you as an architect who works on public projects?
HUGHES: No, actually I think they look pretty good. They’ve covered everything down to the annual report.
I think the big thing is going to be projects applying for an exception. Economic hardship I think is probably not a good excuse. At least that’s what they tell me whenever I go for Fire Board of Appeal.
So I think that could be where some discussion comes in – what makes an exception. We had talked about that exceptions would be like a salt storage dome where there’s no mechanical system. You’re not heating and cooling it. Or premanufactured buildings.
I guess if there’s any real commentary it would be about applying for an exception.
PBN: Right now this only applies to public projects. Do you see this some day becoming incorporated into building standards for all projects?
HUGHES: Absolutely. There’s a lot of things going on right now that I think are helping it move down that path. Rhode Island just adopted a new energy code, which is a lot stricter for residential as well as commercial, and there’s also a new code out there called the International Green Construction Code. And that was added into the rules and regulations as another acceptable standard and that just came online. So when the Green Buildings Act was put together originally it was something that was being developed, but now it’s a reality out there.
I think all these things are going to help drive the movement. We do a lot of both public and private work and people are really in-tune now with green. We’re doing a job for Crimzon Rose’s manufacturing distribution facility. And they want to be green because Wal-mart and some of their major suppliers are saying we want you to be green as a supplier. It’s really starting to trickle down and focus on everything.
But I don’t think you’ll ever be able to mandate it for private construction. I think it should be done with incentives and that’s something that my committee may be looking at next year – is there a way to decrease the permitting time if you agree to build to a LEED standard or something like that. Give some benefit to a developer that would help them want to pick a green building standard over a traditional standard and be rewarded somehow through the process.
