NEWS HEADLINES

D.C. Prepares for Green

By Bendix Anderson

Housing experts are scrambling to master green building basics in Washington, D.C. That's because starting Oct. 1, all new affordable housing developments and rehabs in the District will have to meet strict new green building requirements.

"This law really will transform the way building is done," said David Bowers, local office director for Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. Enterprise is helping nonprofits adjust with $5,000 grants to pay for the green design charrettes already required by requests for proposals from the District's housing agencies, starting with the round due this past February.

The foundation also joined with local organizations like GreenHOME and the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development to organize green training sessions for developers. The D.C. Green Building Act requires residential projects that are more than 10,000 square feet in size and receive at least 15 percent of their financing from public sources to meet Enterprise's Green Communities criteria. New governmental developments had to meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard set by the U.S. Green Building Council as soon as the law passed in 2006. Commercial buildings will also have to meet the LEED standard by 2012.

City funding and permitting agencies will certify that projects meet the green standards, which the city is in the process of writing into its building code, a project that should be finished by the end of the year. The new requirements will add 2 percent to 3 percent to the cost of affordable development, but that extra cost should fall quickly as green materials and techniques become standard, said Bowers. "The premium should go down pretty quickly."
-Bendix Anderson