Cracking the code

The nation’s built environment is undergoing a revolution. There are almost 12,000 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) registered projects, according to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Slowly but surely, builders and designers are moving toward “green” and sustainable construction techniques for both new construction and existing remodels.

But in the West Coast’s biggest jurisdictions, the change isn’t happening slowly at all. In fact, it’s happening so quickly that some builders and designers are complaining that the  building and energy codes aren’t able to keep up.

“There are inherent challenges within the regulatory system that provide a lot of frustration to the development community,” says Katie Spataro, research director at the Cascadia Region Green Building Council. “A lot of that is inter-jurisdictional barriers.”

Building codes have been a part of construction for thousands of years. According to the International Code Council, the earliest known code of law—the Code of Hammurabi—was written as early as 2200 B.C. It assessed severe penalties, including death, if a building was not constructed safely.

Today’s codes aren’t quite as strict with their punishment, but they are much more prescriptive when defining what is acceptable and what is not. Modern building, energy and plumbing codes might direct design-build teams to use a specific kind of pipe, require a certain number of toilets in a building or demand a certain distance between a building’s edge and the next property (called “setbacks”).

Oregon Health and Science University reuses greywater to irrigate plants on the green roof of its Center for Health and Healing. Courtesy Gerding Edlen Development Co.

Codes can also be somewhat less prescriptive, however. They might provide for certain performance outcomes without requiring a certain method of achieving them, or require input from other state or local agencies.

According to Scott Rushing, a principal at Seattle-based Rushing Co. who has worked developing codes at the local and state level in Washington, the awkward balance of the two approaches is key to understanding why the “green” building community bristles when the subject of codes comes up.

“On one hand you want explicit language that is consistently interpreted,” he says. “On the other hand you want complete flexibility to do whatever you want. It’s really a creative challenge for everybody.”

Building height restrictions and setback requirements can derail plans for a building to generate its own electricity, while something as seemingly basic as reusing rainwater can become controversial because of water rights or public health issues. But, Spataro says, codes can be flexible enough to deal with these problems—if the design team is willing to put in the work.

“My experience is that there are a lot more perceived barriers than actual barriers,” she says. “There are ways to work around them. Municipalities are more willing to support and provide variances to allow sustainable development projects to be permitted.”

The problems encountered by the “green” community, it seems, are not unique to them either. “The building code regularly affects green building as much as it affects everything else,” says Tim Nogler, managing director of the Washington State Building Code Council. “How do you meet structural, fire safety and energy codes? It’s going to be an issue whether they are doing ‘green’ building or not.”

Bioswales help divert stormwater runoff from streets in Portland's South Waterfront district. Courtesy Gerding Edlen Development Co.

Going out on a limb
Getting variances to try a new product or take a different approach to saving energy or water also takes some work, which Rushing says is what makes some people chafe.

“The complaints are not really based on code being bad product or code being not understandable,” he says. “It’s more like, ‘I don’t want to do all this work to get there or understand it.’ In some instances, it’s complicated to get a new technology through the gauntlet. It’s righteous and reasonable to have to prove that the system is better than the baseline building.”

Laurie Schoeman, Living Classroom project manager at San Francisco nonprofit Literacy for Environmental Justice, is quick to agree that it takes a lot of work to get innovations allowed. But she also thinks proving a system’s merit is worth the effort.

While stories abound in the “green” community about the problems various projects encounter when it comes to water use, hers is a recipe for coming up with creative solutions and securing permits.

Schoeman is the project manager for the 1,500-square-foot EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park. The building, which is billed as San Francisco’s first 100 percent off-grid building, will be built on the site of an old landfill being turned into a park by the city of San Francisco. This means, among other things, installing a 600-gallon blackwater treatment system to reclaim all of the wastewater generated in the building.

It would be understatement to say that reusing greywater and blackwater in a publicly accessible building isn’t an easy task anywhere. In Portland for example, using reclaimed water to flush toilets means putting up signs warning users not to drink the water, according to one designer.

The City of Portland disguises sewer pipes with landscaped curb extensions. Courtesy City of Portland.

Right off the bat, Schoeman says, she was told by the Port of San Francisco that they wouldn’t be allowed to build if they intended to use an on-site wastewater and sewage treatment system, known as a Living Machine, because it didn’t comply with code.

“We were told for years, ‘You’ve got to get permission from various state agencies,’ ” she says. “It set up a path of regulatory red tape for us to move through.”

The red-tape path led through two agencies: the Water Quality Regional Control Board and California’s Department of Health Services (DHS). The problem with trying to get the agencies to help in her quest was that they deal with municipal water projects and issue permits for “million-gallon-a-day projects,” according to Schoeman.

“Health services didn’t even understand what we were trying to do and the water board said, ‘We love your idea, but we can’t give you a permit because it’s too small and would cost tens of thousands of dollars.’ ”

Frustrated, Schoeman tried to find another way of dealing with the situation. “If the intention of code is to protect the public welfare, I thought to myself: ‘On the state level, you’ve got an agency doing that. Who is their local counterpart?’ “

She approached the city’s Department of Public Health (DPH) and explained that the building would be more than 1,000 feet from a sewer line, making the problem a functional issue, as well as an educational and environmental one. With the support of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, she asked DPH to be her project’s regulator. Since DPH does the same thing as DHS at a local level, that would allow it to witness the project’s construction and operations and achieve the department’s public health protection goals. “A permit is not good enough,” she says. “We needed a partner to help us make sure we were doing it right.”

Curb extensions provide water management while remaining attractive. Courtesy City of Portland.

According to Schoeman, the take-away from her story is that the workaround, which will allow what she calls San Francisco’s first Living Machine to be put in place, depended on a local partnership.

No us and them
All along the coast, Schoeman’s lesson is borne out. In Portland, Lori Graham, codes specialist at the city’s Bureau of Development Services, points to a Living Machine at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) Center for Health and Healing. “Was it a big hurdle? Yeah,” she says. “Were we able to bring together all the parties and make it work? Yeah.”

Dennis Wilde is a partner at design firm Gerding Edlen, which worked on the OHSU project. He says that the firm has been interested in water issues for awhile but they have long been a stumbling block when it comes to Portland’s code.

As far back as 2001, his firm examined the idea of treating storm water in bioplanters on the sidewalk or using swales to mitigate runoff on a smaller scale. When Gerding Edlen approached the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT), the idea was met with resistance.

Three years later, efforts to educate and work with the various city agencies yielded progress. Now, DOT has tried some of these rainwater retention and treatment facilities in residential neighborhoods.

“If you work with the public sector you can make things happen,” Wilde says.

Seattle’s Rushing agrees. “The code is nimble enough to account for issues when they come up,” he says. “We just need to realize that we’re the same people on both sides of the table. There’s no us and them.”

Mandatory “green”
Building codes—which generally encompass requirements for construction as well as energy and plumbing codes—exist first and foremost to protect public safety. But they have a secondary goal as well: to protect the public welfare.

According to the USGBC, buildings account for 39 percent of U.S. energy use, 39 percent of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and consume 12.2 percent of potable water in the nation. That impact may be what’s driving some efforts to incorporate sustainable building into code.

The day when it happens might not be that far off. Two organizations that develop standards often adopted as code—the International Code Council (ICC) and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)—are each developing green building and energy efficiency standards.

The ICC standard, developed in partnership with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) will be the first green building standard certified by the American National Standards Institute, the organization says. It will apply to residential buildings of all sizes and will address land, water, resource and energy conservation, as well as air quality. As with LEED, builders will be able to earn certification at various levels. It’s expected to receive final approval this summer.

The standard being developed at ASHRAE is known as Standard 189.1P, and it could lead to changes to building codes in the region. ASHRAE’s standard for commercial building energy efficiency, 90.1-2004, is considered a benchmark in the industry. According to the Department of Energy, 23 states—including California, Oregon and Washington—either meet or exceed its standards in their codes.

The goal of Standard 189.1P is to achieve a minimum 30 percent reduction in energy cost over Standard 90.1. Some jurisdictions, including Portland, are considering adopting it as code, either in whole or in part.

Portland’s Graham cautions that it is unlikely that 189.1P will be adopted without amendments; Oregon’s energy code is “fairly aggressive” already and there are simply too many stakeholders to imagine that, she says.  But it is being considered, along with the NAHB/ICC draft standard, as “a base document in part because of the perception that building codes are a barrier” to green development.

Wilde, who is working on a number of Living Building Challenge projects, welcomes the effort.

“Public officials’ obligation is maintaining the public’s health and safety and they take it very seriously, as they should,” he says. “It’s trying to find that middle ground where you are trying to maintain public health and safety and allowing innovation to move forward. It’s always kind of a dance.”