Draft County green building program to be presented tonight in El Granada

Tonight, Jan. 17, the County is holding the last of two community outreach meetings for the draft Green Building Permit Program.  It will be held at the El Granada School from 7 to 9 p.m.

Proposed by Supervisor Mark Church the program is designed to encourage conservation of natural resources & energy, reduce waste in landfills from construction projects, reduce operation and maintenance costs for buildings, and to promote healthier indoor environments. 

Although many of these goals are implemented in our current planning and building standards, the goal of the County of to have new projects exceed the Title 24 standards by at least 15%.  The ordinance says: "Approval of any new building permit for new construction or a 75% remodel of a single-family dwelling, a two-family dwelling, or a multi-family residential project will require that the project receives 50 Green Points or higher on the appropriate GreenPoint Rated checklist or LEED certification.  Applicants will be required to post a bond…of $2,000, or $1.50 per square foot,... which ever is higher."  The bond will be released when the project achieves verification of a score of 50 GreenPoints or higher.  If residential builders choose to participate at the GreenPoint rating level of 75 points they will be given expedited building permit processing.

The committee to create this program included a wide variety of members:  April Vargas, homeowner; Lennie Roberts; Jessica and Paulo Resmini, homeowners who have recently remodeled; Drew Maran, builder; Dave Edwards, builder; Randy Ralston, builder; Ann Edminster, architect & LEED Evaluator; Gladwyn d’Souza, Sustainable San Mateo County Committee member; Bill Nack, Building Trades Council.  The program will be evaluated over the next year and may possibly expanded to less than remodels of less than 75%.

You can download a copy of the draft from Coastsider.

If you cannot attend you may email your comments to
Lisa Grote at [email protected]   or
Mike OConnell at [email protected]. 

Written comments can be mailed to :

San Mateo County Planning and Building Division
455 County Ctr., 2nd Floor
Redwood city, CA 94063