This week Gilroy became the second-to-last city in Santa Clara
County to adopt a green building policy for spacious public
buildings, but the city council approved a loophole in its
ordinance that will likely exempt the library from the higher
standards.
This week Gilroy became the second-to-last city in Santa Clara County to adopt a green building policy for spacious public buildings, but the city council approved a loophole in its ordinance that will likely exempt the library from the higher standards.
This comes despite recent pledges from council members to make sure future buildings live up to these environmental standards and despite the possible $7.4 million a “green” library could save the city in energy expenses over the building’s lifetime. But those long-term savings could cost $740,000 up front, so rather than anger residents by going over budget, council members and the library’s architect said they would strive to incorporate as many cost-neutral changes into the building’s nearly complete design plans as they could at this point.
“This doesn’t mean the library won’t be built to that same high standard, but it means we’re not committing to doing that because the project is already 90 percent designed, and the taxpayers have already allocated $37 million to build it,” Councilman Perry Woodward said. “Everybody on the council has a commitment to being environmentally sensitive.”
Especially Cat Tucker, who was the only dissenting vote Monday night when the full council passed a resolution requiring that new city buildings and renovations topping 5,000 square feet must adhere to the minimal standards of Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, a national nonprofit that certifies eco-friendly buildings as LEED Silver, Gold or Platinum. Councilman Peter Arellano and Mayor Al Pinheiro said they would like Gilroy’s library to be LEED Silver last week after the Dispatch reported that the police department’s energy consumption is expected to triple this year.
A loophole in the resolution, though, only requires LEED standards if the council finds such environmental impositions “financially feasible.” City Administrator Tom Haglund said the library was designed before anyone had really heard of LEED, but the council will hold a study session March 16 to hear from designers about any green substitutions and how those may affect construction costs and schedules. Still, the financial loophole was too much for Councilwoman Cat Tucker to allow.
“You can always say it’ll be cheaper,” Tucker said. “To me, that’s not a real commitment.”
Building the 53,500-square-foot library in accordance with LEED standards would add about 2 percent, or $740,000, to the total construction cost of $37 million, but the additional upfront expenses will result in a “life cycle savings” of 20 percent – or $7.4 million – over the course of the building’s operation, according to calculations the council received from the Santa Clara County Cities Association Green Building Collaborative.
Despite the potential long-term savings, though, Tucker’s colleagues said in phone interviews that forcing LEED standards on the library now could anger cost-conscious residents who barely approved the bond measure last November.
This particular issue sets Gilrory apart from the county’s 14 other cities, all of which, except Mountain View, have adopted the building standards promoted by the collaborative, which is an alliance of city councilmembers, planners and building officials. Mountain View officials said the city is coming around, but Milpitas and Gilroy were the only cities to include a financial escape path in their ordinances, said Phil Yost of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, an organization supported by area businesses that partnered with the cities association to form the collaborative.
The ordinance also requires private developers of commercial and residential projects to submit non-enforceable green check lists with their planning applications to “assist the city in tracking voluntary implementation of green building,” according to a memo written by City Administrator Tom Haglund. The check lists come from LEED and Build It Green, a similar environmental organization with standards for homes instead of commercial buildings. Annual dues to both nonprofits will cost the city $600, according to Haglund.
The new library will replace the 12,5000-square-foot building at the corner of Sixth and Rosanna streets, and city officials said they expect the project to go out to bid by the fall, whereupon the library will operate out of a temporary structure that city officials have yet to identify, Haglund said.
