Last week’s column took ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe County to task for dragging out needed updates for water conservation to its land development code. This week it’s the city’s turn.
At least the county could blame its dawdling on one recently retired stubborn administrator. The city has no excuse other than ennui, which means no one takes responsibility for its failure to act on a city commitment made nearly 20 years ago.
In 2006, newly elected Mayor David Coss traveled to the annual meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors, where he took accolades for being host city for a keynote speaker who was presenting a revolutionary concept to the mayors called the 2030 Challenge.
Architectural icon Ed Mazria, author of the challenge — which was to make a public pledge for requiring net-zero energy buildings by 2030 as a last-ditch effort to mitigate the 40% share of greenhouse gases caused by building operations — convinced assembled mayors to adopt the pledge.
Mayor Coss urged ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe’s governing body to adopt the pledge, which it did. In 2007, when then-City Councilor Chris Calvert sponsored an ordinance requiring every new single-family home get a Home Energy Rating System analysis, the route to zero metric was established.
Calvert’s initial ordinance did not require a set score, just a requirement to engage a qualified HERS rater to do an analysis and provide a score. In 2008, rules changed and established a score of 70 to get a permit, with a final inspection to verify compliance.
At the time, a 70 was 30% better than a code-built home with a presumptive score of 100. ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe set a national standard, and its march to zero was underway. Getting to zero was a simple matter of the City Council ratcheting down the required scored over time.
But the industry collapsed in 2009, and lower scores and higher energy efficiency were put on hold until the local homebuilding industry recovered, which arguably didn’t start happening until 2017.
The implicit intent of the 2008 ordinance was ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe energy efficiency codes always being more stringent than national standards set by the International Energy Efficiency Code, which is updated every three years and has become more stringent since 2006.
·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe has fallen behind.
Since Mayor Alan Webber was elected in 2018, the land-use department, which should champion energy code alignment, has had five directors and its independent authority downgraded and overseen by the community development director, a position still vacant with the retirement of Rich Brown in 2024.
In 2021, the city began making noise about lowering the HERS requirement and finally include multifamily apartments in compliance requirements.
But then the coronavirus pandemic stalled initiatives, and energy efficiency improvements went on the back burner again.
Finally, the overworked, understaffed and underfunded land-use department acknowledged its inadequacy and contracted two local experts with national credentials to help write new standards: HERS rater Steve Onstad for energy and Doug Pushard for water. Pushard was a key developer of ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe’s groundbreaking Water Efficiency Rating Score patterned off HERS protocols.
Their work now is largely complete and waiting action by the council. With early support by Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth, arguably the most sustainably minded of the bunch, which is not a high bar, it may finally happen later this year.
The proposed new local HERS requirement will lower to 55. Meanwhile, the 2024 version of the International Energy Conservation Code says the equivalent HERS score for compliance in ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe’s climate zone is a 53 with no solar and 43 with solar.
The 2030 Challenge goals still seem a long way off.
