Beyond California Dreaming - New San Francisco Building Codes

San Francisco is close to enacting some of the strictest green building codes in the nation. Last week, the city’s Building Inspection Commission voted to pass the revisions to its building code onto the city’s Board of Supervisors. Mayor Gavin Newsom, who established a task force last year to come up with these revisions, has promised to sign the regulations into law.

Unlike many green building standards, which only apply to public buildings or buildings that receive a certain amount of public financing, these will affect private developers and commercial projects. The regulations would be phased in over a number of years and would apply to new residential high-rises over 75 feet, new commercial buildings over 5,000 square feet, and renovations on buildings over 25,000 square feet. Other new residential construction would have to comply with Build It Green’s GreenPoint Rated standard, which is similar to LEED (but more user friendly).

According to city officials, by 2012 the new green building codes could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60,000 tons and save 220,000 megawatt hours of power and 100 million gallons of drinking water. Pretty impressive. This could be a model for other forward thinking cities who have passed green building laws but have not yet greened their building codes.