Davis considers green resale ordinance

The City of Davis is in the early stages of considering a green building ordinance in which would require homes and buildings to comply to a certain standard at the point of sale. The City, Natural Resources Commission and the Planning Commission are only exploring this issue at this time, but are investigating different methods and measures to reduce the total greenhouse emissions in Davis to levels found in 1990.

First, I and all the Real Estate Agents I know are strongly for improving air quality and environmental standards in Davis but there is strong opposition in the real estate community for these types of changes to be mandated at the time of sale.

According to Gregory Mahoney, Assistant Building Official for the City of Davis, there are currently five measures under consideration:

Prescriptive method -- a list of sustainable measures that MUST be in place at the time of resale. The City of Berkeley, CA has put in this method and may include changes such as low flow fixtures, minimum insulation requirements.

Performance method - Diagnostic testing, the building would meet minimum efficiency criteria. Testing might include: HVAC/Duct testings, blower door testing to see the efficiency of the building envelope.

Points based system -- The city already has a points system in place for new construction, in this case homeowners could choose certain things to upgrade to accumulate enough points for the home to meet the "green" standard

California Energy Commission -- City would take an existing state program (HERS) and use that as a guideline to audit homes.

Build-it Green -- Another existing program where homes would be graded on five categories, Energy Efficiency, Resource Conservation, Indoor Air Quality, Water Conservation and Community.

It is important for agents reading this that often what happens in California gets passed on to other parts of the country.  The City of Berkeley already has a program in place and requires fairly extensive upgrades to older homes when sold.  It is not uncommon for this to cost the seller as much as  $15,000 or even more to comply with Berkeley's ordinance.

If you are homeowner in Davis you should realize that nothing has been decided yet but whatever this green resale ordinance may require would be in addition to the City resale ordinance already in place.  It seemed like from Gregory Mahoney's tone when he met with the Davis real estate community this morning that the City of Davis intention is to move forward with one of these programs and the question is more a matter of which one.   There is still time for anyone to get involved in this process and maybe help the city to see other alternatives to reach their goals instead of putting this on the backs of homeowners selling their Davis Homes.  The City should realize that there are many people in Davis who are environmentally aware and they may see more positive results by creating a program that gets the community involved in making green improvements and not mandating change on every seller.

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