Green Building Trend Picks Up Pace in Westchester
by Abby Gruen
The New York Times
January 16, 2009
Living in a building with geothermal heat makes Garfield Hylton happy. He enjoys knowing his carbon footprint is smaller because he uses less energy in his apartment here.
“I’m a positive person, and this is a positive thing to be doing,” said Mr. Hylton, 28, a network technology specialist who lives at 66 Main Street, Yonkers’s first geothermally heated and cooled apartment building. The system will pay for itself in energy savings over 10 years, said Ken Dearden, the developer of 66 Main.
The new Ossining Public Library and the almost completed Mount Kisco Public Library also use geothermal heating and cooling systems. They are part of a green building trend — one that uses energy-efficient materials and technologies and minimizes disruption to the environment — that has accelerated in Westchester over the past two years.
The economic slowdown accentuates this shift in construction practices, said Steven Winter, an energy and construction consultant in Norwalk, Conn.
“Commercial and speculative projects have fallen off, but school buildings, affordable housing, government buildings and health facilities are least affected, and these tend to be green projects,” Mr. Winter said. He was chairman of the United States Green Building Council in 2000 when it released its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, known as LEED, which is a nationally recognized third-party certification process for the construction of green buildings.
More than three dozen new building projects in Westchester have sought or completed LEED certification, according to the Green Building Council, which is based in Washington.
Building green in the county does not always mean building to LEED certification standards. Some local governments, like New Rochelle’s and the county Department of Public Works, have committed to green building in principle but are not going for LEED sign-off because of extra costs of hiring consultants and paying certification fees.
“We are requiring all of our staff and consultants to provide us with a listing of options for the different levels of certification, and then we are analyzing the costs,” said Ralph L. Butler, commissioner of public works for the county, who has begun offering LEED certification training to county engineers but has not adopted LEED standards.
Reese Berman, the supervisor of the Town of North Castle, has been working with a team of county leaders on climate-change issues for the past few years and now, as a member of the Westchester Municipal Officials Association executive committee, is working on green guidance for local governments.
“It’s hard when development is slow for towns to make this kind of legislation,” said Ms. Berman, whose town has had to shelve plans for a new highway garage with solar panels. “Unless there are really big incentives from the state or federal government, we are not going to see the kind of green initiatives we were hoping to see.”
Yonkers, which has the most at stake in the county with Struever Fidelco Cappelli’s $1.6 billion redevelopment plan in the works, as well as other waterfront and downtown building proposals, has drafted the most aggressive green building standards in Westchester.
“We had heard that it was not going to be economically feasible,” said Liam J. McLaughlin, the Republican minority leader on the City Council, who heads its Environmental Policy and Protection Committee. “Then we talked to other developers and municipalities and found that the added expense is not that great.”
Mr. Dearden, the developer of 66 Main, estimated that complying with LEED standards would have added up to 4 percent to his building costs.
In a rare instance of unanimity, the Yonkers City Council is expected to pass a green building code this month that will require that most new construction, including the Struever Fidelco Cappelli project, comply with LEED standards, Mr. McLaughlin said.
Mayor Phil Amicone has not endorsed the law yet but is likely to support some form of green building code, said David Simpson, his spokesman.
“Especially in Yonkers, where we have the Hudson River and the Saw Mill River,” Mr. Simpson said, “we have to do the best thing to protect these environmental assets, at the same time that we are developing the city.”
The New York Times
January 16, 2009
Living in a building with geothermal heat makes Garfield Hylton happy. He enjoys knowing his carbon footprint is smaller because he uses less energy in his apartment here.
“I’m a positive person, and this is a positive thing to be doing,” said Mr. Hylton, 28, a network technology specialist who lives at 66 Main Street, Yonkers’s first geothermally heated and cooled apartment building. The system will pay for itself in energy savings over 10 years, said Ken Dearden, the developer of 66 Main.
The new Ossining Public Library and the almost completed Mount Kisco Public Library also use geothermal heating and cooling systems. They are part of a green building trend — one that uses energy-efficient materials and technologies and minimizes disruption to the environment — that has accelerated in Westchester over the past two years.
The economic slowdown accentuates this shift in construction practices, said Steven Winter, an energy and construction consultant in Norwalk, Conn.
“Commercial and speculative projects have fallen off, but school buildings, affordable housing, government buildings and health facilities are least affected, and these tend to be green projects,” Mr. Winter said. He was chairman of the United States Green Building Council in 2000 when it released its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, known as LEED, which is a nationally recognized third-party certification process for the construction of green buildings.
More than three dozen new building projects in Westchester have sought or completed LEED certification, according to the Green Building Council, which is based in Washington.
Building green in the county does not always mean building to LEED certification standards. Some local governments, like New Rochelle’s and the county Department of Public Works, have committed to green building in principle but are not going for LEED sign-off because of extra costs of hiring consultants and paying certification fees.
“We are requiring all of our staff and consultants to provide us with a listing of options for the different levels of certification, and then we are analyzing the costs,” said Ralph L. Butler, commissioner of public works for the county, who has begun offering LEED certification training to county engineers but has not adopted LEED standards.
Reese Berman, the supervisor of the Town of North Castle, has been working with a team of county leaders on climate-change issues for the past few years and now, as a member of the Westchester Municipal Officials Association executive committee, is working on green guidance for local governments.
“It’s hard when development is slow for towns to make this kind of legislation,” said Ms. Berman, whose town has had to shelve plans for a new highway garage with solar panels. “Unless there are really big incentives from the state or federal government, we are not going to see the kind of green initiatives we were hoping to see.”
Yonkers, which has the most at stake in the county with Struever Fidelco Cappelli’s $1.6 billion redevelopment plan in the works, as well as other waterfront and downtown building proposals, has drafted the most aggressive green building standards in Westchester.
“We had heard that it was not going to be economically feasible,” said Liam J. McLaughlin, the Republican minority leader on the City Council, who heads its Environmental Policy and Protection Committee. “Then we talked to other developers and municipalities and found that the added expense is not that great.”
Mr. Dearden, the developer of 66 Main, estimated that complying with LEED standards would have added up to 4 percent to his building costs.
In a rare instance of unanimity, the Yonkers City Council is expected to pass a green building code this month that will require that most new construction, including the Struever Fidelco Cappelli project, comply with LEED standards, Mr. McLaughlin said.
Mayor Phil Amicone has not endorsed the law yet but is likely to support some form of green building code, said David Simpson, his spokesman.
“Especially in Yonkers, where we have the Hudson River and the Saw Mill River,” Mr. Simpson said, “we have to do the best thing to protect these environmental assets, at the same time that we are developing the city.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
posted by Swallowtail at 19:38
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home