According to an article in the Boulder Daily Camera online, the major result from today's BuildSmart Update Hearing with the Boulder County Commissioners was an almost immediate relaxing of the rules of the BuildSmart program. Specifically, although BuildSmart is still the county green building code, it appears that the HERS Index for new construction has been 'stretched' a bit, so that the most stringent requirement of HERS 10 or less applies to houses greater than 7,000 or 8,000 square feet, rather than today's 5,000 square feet.
Further, and in my opinion most importantly, the stringent standards for existing home renovations has from all appearances been essentially shelved for the moment. Rather than having to hit a specific HERS index based on a somewhat confusing matrix of original square footage vs. additional square footage, the new rules for now are that Commissioners want "remodels to be handled through the appeals process on a case-by-case basis so rules that cause excessive costs can be waived."
At the time of this writing it is not at all clear what that "appeals process" will look like or how it will be administered. But what is clear to me is that the Boulder County Commissioners got more than an ear-full about the current rules and regs and decided to do something about it quickly to appease an impending rebellion of the citizenry.
In my opinion this makes sense, in that the purpose of a regulation like BuildSmart should be to improve the efficiency of both new construction and the existing housing stock, but it should not place a significant barrier to doing so like the current rules do for existing housing. Under today's system, a house like the one owned by a client of mine (who was in fact quoted in the D.C. article) can have a HERS index of over 300. She wants to expand it modestly and fix it up to make it far more efficient than it is today or ever has been, but because of her budget and the condition of the house, she could very well face a situation in which she has to choose between not touching the house and leaving it as it is today (3" of insulation in the attic, no insulation in the walls, a 50% efficient furnace, and on and on) or having to hit a near-impossible HERS 60 -- nearly a six-fold increase in the efficiency of the house -- which could place her entire project at financial risk.
A better system would encourage this homeowner to improve her home as much as possible and reasonable, rather than effectively encouraging her to do nothing and leave the house as-is. After all, in this case an improvement of HERS 300+ to HERS 150 (for example) is a HUGE improvement. But under today's BuildSmart, this would not be allowed; she would have to hit HERS 60 or would not get a building permit, in which case this old house would continue being horrifically inefficient because of the difficulty (either physical or budgetary) of the house ever hitting the required efficiency threshold.
In summary, I agree in principle with the Commissioners that some changes to BuildSmart were needed, particularly on the side of existing home renovations (I am not quite as concerned with new construction ... more on that in a later post). I will be following with great interest where it goes over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully the "appeals process" will be fleshed out a bit more. The next public hearing where this will be taken up is June 11. Mark your calendars.
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