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Officials begin to rally around ‘green’ request
City is looking at ways to change building standards to be friendlier to the environment.
By Jason Wells
CITY HALL — Glendale is preparing to join the green building movement that has cropped up all around it over the past few years as city officials and commissioners begin to mull a Feb. 12 City Council request to come back with how to introduce green building standards.
Members on the Glendale Water & Power and Planning commissions — the two bodies that would have the bulk of input into a new set of proposed green building standards — say they are anxious to begin work on whatever direction comes out of a report that was requested by the City Council three weeks ago.
On Monday, city officials updated the Glendale Water & Power Commission on the preliminary form the effort was taking, announcing a committee made up of representatives from the Public Works, Planning, Community Development and Housing departments and the utility that has already begun to scope out what will be included in the report.
Much of it will be focused on what other cities in the county are doing in the way of requiring developers to build environmentally friendly buildings, and what planning officials feel make the most sense for Glendale, said Craig Kuennen, who coordinates the Public Benefit Charge program for the utility.
“It’s not clear what those recommendations will be,” he told the commission. “There’s a lot of things we’re doing, it’s just not in one place, where people can see it.”
While that may be true — Glendale Water & Power offers more than 20 incentive programs to customers to “green” their buildings — the city has virtually no green building requirements, or standards, on the books.
Almost a dozen cities in the county — including Calabasas, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Burbank — have established voluntary or mandatory green building standards.
Two weeks ago, two Los Angeles City Council committees approved one of the toughest set of green building standards in the nation, setting up a full council vote in coming weeks.
Pasadena already has one of the most strict set of standards in the county, requiring municipal buildings 5,000 square feet or more and commercial projects larger than 25,000 square feet to be built according to the most basic standards set forth in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — widely known as LEED.
Those standards give developers one point each for every item accomplished on an established checklist — including solar power, site location, water use reduction and natural lighting.
The total amount of accrued points lands a project on one of several tiered “green” designations that confirm the sustainability of a given project, give the developer bragging rights and, in some cases, financial incentives from local governments.
Two recently approved Glendale Water & Power buildings will achieve the middle, or “silver,” rating when they are completed in about a year, according to city reports.
While city officials don’t characterize Glendale’s nonpolicy as falling behind, they concede that it needs to be more proactive in joining what is becoming a growing movement.
“I think it was just off the radar,” Glendale Water & Power Commissioner Patrick Foley said after Monday’s meeting.
City planners have been unable to estimate when the report might be completed due to a backlog of other City Council-inspired issues working their way through the system, and when it is received, it will likely be referred to the Planning and Glendale Water & Power commissions for review, public input and other procedural paths that could tie it up for two years, Planning Commission Chairman Bill Kane said.
Those on both commissions have said they are just as interested in how to bring existing development in this mostly built-out city up to greener standards, and feel Glendale should be careful to include incentives alongside any mandates.
“We have to be sensitive to that,” Kane said.
Still, he anticipated little city resistance to activating Glendale’s green streak, adding that he had already started his professional LEED certification process. Fellow commissioner Gary Gero — who on Monday was named president of the California Climate Action Registry — is also heavily involved in the green building movement in Los Angeles.
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
Members on the Glendale Water & Power and Planning commissions — the two bodies that would have the bulk of input into a new set of proposed green building standards — say they are anxious to begin work on whatever direction comes out of a report that was requested by the City Council three weeks ago.
On Monday, city officials updated the Glendale Water & Power Commission on the preliminary form the effort was taking, announcing a committee made up of representatives from the Public Works, Planning, Community Development and Housing departments and the utility that has already begun to scope out what will be included in the report.
Much of it will be focused on what other cities in the county are doing in the way of requiring developers to build environmentally friendly buildings, and what planning officials feel make the most sense for Glendale, said Craig Kuennen, who coordinates the Public Benefit Charge program for the utility.
“It’s not clear what those recommendations will be,” he told the commission. “There’s a lot of things we’re doing, it’s just not in one place, where people can see it.”
While that may be true — Glendale Water & Power offers more than 20 incentive programs to customers to “green” their buildings — the city has virtually no green building requirements, or standards, on the books.
Almost a dozen cities in the county — including Calabasas, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Burbank — have established voluntary or mandatory green building standards.
Two weeks ago, two Los Angeles City Council committees approved one of the toughest set of green building standards in the nation, setting up a full council vote in coming weeks.
Pasadena already has one of the most strict set of standards in the county, requiring municipal buildings 5,000 square feet or more and commercial projects larger than 25,000 square feet to be built according to the most basic standards set forth in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — widely known as LEED.
Those standards give developers one point each for every item accomplished on an established checklist — including solar power, site location, water use reduction and natural lighting.
The total amount of accrued points lands a project on one of several tiered “green” designations that confirm the sustainability of a given project, give the developer bragging rights and, in some cases, financial incentives from local governments.
Two recently approved Glendale Water & Power buildings will achieve the middle, or “silver,” rating when they are completed in about a year, according to city reports.
While city officials don’t characterize Glendale’s nonpolicy as falling behind, they concede that it needs to be more proactive in joining what is becoming a growing movement.
“I think it was just off the radar,” Glendale Water & Power Commissioner Patrick Foley said after Monday’s meeting.
City planners have been unable to estimate when the report might be completed due to a backlog of other City Council-inspired issues working their way through the system, and when it is received, it will likely be referred to the Planning and Glendale Water & Power commissions for review, public input and other procedural paths that could tie it up for two years, Planning Commission Chairman Bill Kane said.
Those on both commissions have said they are just as interested in how to bring existing development in this mostly built-out city up to greener standards, and feel Glendale should be careful to include incentives alongside any mandates.
“We have to be sensitive to that,” Kane said.
Still, he anticipated little city resistance to activating Glendale’s green streak, adding that he had already started his professional LEED certification process. Fellow commissioner Gary Gero — who on Monday was named president of the California Climate Action Registry — is also heavily involved in the green building movement in Los Angeles.
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
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