HER LEED

The challenge that the built environment faces is not constructing with LEED design, that is being increasingly normalize in the industry and by codes like the San Francisco Green Building Ordinance. Rather it’s looking at the building as a whole system, not just stopping after the building is constructed and annually checking that the [...]

In the introduction to this research I suggested that San Francisco was setting an example of smart city planning. The presumption was that by changing building codes to value energy efficiency and conservation, behavior would change; not only in the City’s built environment, but in the lives of its citizens. What I discovered [...]

This research was part of my senior thesis at UC Berkeley. The overlying questions is will smart city planning lead to behavioral change? The investigation looked at the policies put in place as early as 1963, that first protect our air quality, and briefly chronicled the subsequent 46 years of environmental policies established [...]

The Green Building Ordinance codifies what the development industry was already inclined to do. Architects made headway with developers on greening their buildings when the incentives to fast-track the permitting process were introduced in 2006. The market value of green building is high, but development in San Francisco is low. The city [...]

The Ordinance maintains the aesthetic and character of San Francisco by penalizing demolition, and encouraging renovations. The strictest consequences apply to projects where the building slated for demolition, is also historical. With that criteria, a proposed project is required to attain LEED certification as well as LEED points equal to 10% of the [...]

The Board of Supervisors passed the San Francisco Green Building Ordinance unanimously. There has been no industrial backlash and the only reported concern with the Ordinance has to do with some procedural liability issues at the DBI. The one issue expressed by both Robert Baum and Laurence Kornfield was that the LEED [...]

What this meant for San Francisco’s Green Building Ordinance was that it would have to wait. The commercial real estate market dried up with the banking industry. The city agencies that were charged with moving projects through entitlement slowed; and developers waited. Tenant improvements to existing commercial spaces still occurred, but the scale [...]

To fully evaluate the Green Building Ordinance it is crucial to examine the real estate market and financial climate in San Francisco. While the Task Force worked with the City to construct policies and procedures for adopting green building standards, the global financial markets started their decent. The government sponsored mortgage corporation Freddie [...]

The Board of Supervisors reviewed both proposals over the first half of 2008, and passed the Mayor’s ordinance on July 22, 2008 with strict safeguards insisted on by Peskin that promoted renovation and deterred demolition (SF Board., Ord. 180). The “renovate-don’t-demolish” policy required additional permit approval for buildings slated for demolition as well as [...]

While the Mayor’s Task Force was less than a month away from announcing their support for incremental change, the President of the Board of Supervisors, Aaron Peskin, introduced a Green Building Design Ordinance to the Board on June 19, 2007. Peskin proposed to amend the San Francisco Building Codes to require all of the [...]