Sausalito is updating its green building codes to exceed minimum statewide requirements.<\/p>\n
The City Council gave preliminary approval in a 3-1 vote on Tuesday to ensure its code matches the latest state guidelines, a standard triennial update.<\/p>\n
Sausalito also endorsed code revisions to become Marin\u2019s first municipality to require the use of low-carbon concrete. The county also has that requirement.<\/p>\n
The city will require home remodels that are larger than 500 square feet to meet \u201cCALGreen Tier 1\u201d measures. These rules require a flexible mix of building materials, wiring, lighting and appliances that collectively satisfy state energy efficiency and greenhouse-gas reduction thresholds.<\/p>\n
Marin County, Mill Valley, Tiburon, Corte Madera and San Rafael \u201chave adopted or are in the process of adopting\u201d the Tier 1 requirements, a staff report said.<\/p>\n
The council action followed a discussion about countering climate change and developing new housing, both state-mandated goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am absolutely in favor of adopting these changes to our building code,\u201d said Councilmember Melissa Blaustein. \u201cThis is a real opportunity to step up and meet the moment. \u2026 We are behind in terms of the majority of the county.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to do a lot of building in the next four or five years,\u201d said Councilmember Jill Hoffman. \u201cOne of the things that we need to look at is, what are our building costs?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am satisfied that we have heard evidence on the marginal cost to our builders that will be mitigated by the savings in the long term,\u201d said Mayor Joan Cox.<\/p>\n
The discussion about the code updates Tuesday followed years of discussions and decisions on sustainability and housing issues.<\/p>\n
Green-building code proponents, following the Sausalito Sustainability Commission\u2019s recommendation, said the steps are necessary to meet the state\u2019s carbon-reduction goals. The updates also are consistent with the city\u2019s 2021 general plan and 2022 climate emergency declaration that prioritized clean energy policies and actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo align with California\u2019s legally mandated climate targets, our community must reduce total emissions by 80% over the next 20 years,\u201d Mark Palmer, the commission chair, wrote in a letter to the council. \u201cAchieving this requires every sector to contribute \u2014 particularly our building sector, where the City holds direct authority through its building code.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Hoffman, citing a letter from David Marlatt, an architect and planning commissioner writing to the council in an unofficial capacity, called for more study. Hoffman said the updates would lead to higher construction costs and could undermine the development of 724 new dwellings by 2031, as mandated by the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a very strong proponent of green sustainable buildings,\u201d Marlatt said. \u201cWhile well-intentioned, they indisputably have a chilling effect on remodel projects and add to overall housing costs, both during construction (obviously) and during the permitting phase (because preparing and verifying compliance is not free.)\u201d<\/p>\n
Brandon Phipps, assistant city manager and the city\u2019s head of planning, said about 100 new residences are in the city\u2019s permit pipeline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m cautious about anything that\u2019s going to create any friction or any hesitation of any builder that\u2019s going to come to Sausalito, and anything that\u2019s going to cause any slowdown in homeowners\u2019 or single-family remodels,\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cI\u2019d rather see an incentivizing program with us helping them get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catie Thow Garcia, city resiliency and sustainability manager, said the near-term building costs would be slightly higher. But they would be offset by longer-term savings on energy bills and help reduce carbon footprints. She also said low-carbon concrete was competitively priced and locally available.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a climate crisis. We have a (housing) affordability crisis. And we also, here in Sausalito, are working very hard to smooth out our various codes so they can be more easily administered,\u201d said Vice Mayor Steven Woodside. \u201cI want to make sure that those three things are not on a collision course.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m in favor of this,\u201d he said, but urged city staff \u201cto make sure in the implementation that it\u2019s easy to understand and the exceptions are clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re described as common sense,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when you read through all of this, it\u2019s complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The code updates were approved on first reading. Blaustein, Cox and Woodside voted yes, Hoffman voted no and Councilmember Ian Sobieski was absent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sausalito is updating its green building codes to exceed minimum statewide requirements. The City Council gave preliminary approval…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,992,6793,18022,18023,30796,993,5026,266,101,103,102,3624,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-47035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-california","tag-marin-county","tag-nbbj-construction","tag-nbbj-daily-briefing","tag-nbbj-marin-county","tag-nbbj-new-laws","tag-north-bay","tag-north-bay-business-journal","tag-northern-california","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sausalito","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}