Recommendations of New York green building codes

 By Yatin Pandya | Place: Ahmedabad; Source: DNA

After having looked at the lessons learnt from the New York city’s initiative, steered by the rich mayor Bloomberg and the speaker, at creating Green code taskforce to make New York city’s buildings 75% more energy efficient in 20 years, here is a summary of the 111 recommendations which all in an integrated manner would achieve this.

Environment, health, Costs & savings being the major criteria, the recommendations have been generated in ten major themes in response to climate change.

The ten themes include: Overarching code issues (seven recommendations), health and toxicity (20), energy & carbon emissions-fundamentals (17), energy & carbon emissions- energy efficiency (28), energy & carbon emissions-operations and maintenance (six), building resilience (nine), resource conservation (five), water efficiency(seven), storm water (seven), urban ecology (five).

The following is the representative list of the kind of concerns and directives covered in the recommendations:
Add environmental protection as fundamental principle of the construction codes, don’t exempt existing buildings from green codes, consolidate regulation of landscape practices, streamline approvals for green technologies & projects, enhance code training for architects & engineers, limit harmful emissions from carpets, limit harmful emissions from paints & glues, ensure ventilation airflow in residences, convene task force on recycling fluorescent light bulbs, phase out toxic & inefficient light fixture components, promote stair use through signage, build new homes to Energy Star® Standard, limit heat loss through exterior walls, increase allowable size of solar shades, provide window screens to encourage natural ventilation, reduce artificial lighting.

In sunlit spaces, ensure operable windows in residential buildings, allow large solar rooftop installations, improve energy modelling for building design, improve energy & water efficiency.

Upon sale of residences, increase lighting efficiency in apartment buildings, encourage installation of energy star® appliances, reduce overheating in apartments, turn off equipment in empty hotel rooms, reduce artificial lighting in sunlit lobbies & hallways, limit after-hours retail lighting, insulate pipes exposed during construction, reduce lighting power requirements for offices.

It recommended the analysis of strategies to maintain habitability during power outages, ensure toilets & sinks can operate during blackouts,include climate change in environmental impact statements, recycle construction waste, use recycled aggregate in concrete, provide recycling areas in apartment buildings, use recycled asphalt, protect forests by using sustainable wood, upgrade inefficient toilets, showerheads & faucets during renovations, facilitate use of recycled water, reduce use of drinking water to clean sidewalks, stop wasting drinking water for cooling, increase biodiversity in public landscapes, increase biodiversity in sidewalk plantings, preserve “100-year old” trees.

Thus these recommendations have been argued with data, cost repercussions and human responses. They have looked at technology to policy change to operational and maintenance to public health and ecological dimensions. We need to relook at our development codes at least in our local milieu but in the entirety of vision and clarify them with depth of issues and breadth of its far reaching implication.