Boulder County's BuildSmart Program Undergoing Review

The Boulder Camera recently reported on the beginnings of the review process for Boulder County's "BuildSmart" building program. If you're not familiar with that program, it currently holds the distinction of being the country's most stringent green building code, even more so than the City of Boulder's better-known Green Points program. Put into place in May of 2008, it requires people building houses in the county to take great steps to minimize the impact of the building activity on the environment, including deconstruction of existing structures, recycling waste and conserving water. Most importantly, as the size of the house grows, BuildSmart requires a higher and higher standard of energy efficiency as measured by the house's HERS Index (Home Energy Rating Standard). The larger the house, the smaller the HERS Index must be since smaller index numbers equal higher energy efficiency. A house over 5,000 square feet must have a HERS Index of 10 or less -- this means that it must be at least 90% more efficient than a "code built" house of the same size, which would have a HERS Index of 100 ("code" in this case refers to the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code). Needless to say, this has the (intended) effect of discouraging the building of larger houses in the county.

Now, 9 months after the program's initial launch, Boulder County is opening the program up to public review by inviting members of various stakeholder groups to comment on the program for its "Phase II." If you'd like to participate in any of these sessions, the schedule is here... Note that anybody can go to any of the sessions, you don't have to be a member of one of the listed stakeholder groups.

Otherwise you can submit your ideas or comments in writing to Doug Parker at: dparker@bouldercounty.org or Boulder County BuildSmart, P.O. Box 471, Boulder, CO 80306.