Third-Party Specs

This week’s Fullerton Planning Commission meeting brought out some of the best leadership discussions I have heard at the dais in a seemingly long time.

The Commission had been asked to weigh in on and vote for the City to adopt a policy on the subject of Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design or “LEED”.  Many believe LEED is the next great certification in the building industry.  The only problem, as was noted by the Planning Commission, is that LEED is a fabrication of the U.S. Green Building Council.  As official as the name may sound, USGBC is a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built, and operated. 

LEED is an ecological feel-good program that some swear by and others swear at.  Either way, the certification and standards are not law and the Commission took the stance that the City of Fullerton should not be making laws or even policies based on third-party standards.

In a letter to the Fullerton City Council, the Commission wrote:

It is the recommendation of the Fullerton Planning Commission that the Council NOT mandate or incentivize any additional green building standards in Fullerton beyond the existing California Green Building Code. This recommendation is based on the following:

• Mandates can add unrecoverable cost to a project which can render a project infeasible, cause cost cutting on other project objectives, and/or create barriers to successful development.
• As green building techniques mature and are proven effective in the marketplace, developers will increasingly choose to exceed standards and/or seek third-party certification on their own without the force of mandates.
• The current California Building Code as well as other regulations already require energy conservation, water conservation, improved indoor air quality, reuse/recycling of materials, and improved water quality.

This recommendation applies to the development standards of both private and public projects including future General Plan stipulations. It should NOT be construed as a recommendation against green building techniques in general which should be considered by merit on an individual basis for projects with public funding.

The Planning Commission gets it! 

Not that I don’t want a better environment for my family but there is another side to these third-party standards and mandates.

This week I was responding to an agency’s request for qualifications for a survey and mapping project.  In their RFQ they noted that the mapping must meet or exceed a certain standard.  The standard they specified was not one created by an agency but by a third party building industry publisher.  To find out what the standard was I had to purchase a book that is copyright protected and not available except through the publisher.  This practice is becoming commonplace thanks in large part to my brethren East Coast engineers. 

At $2 per page, the cost of the specification manual I had to purchase, it would appear that at least a few engineers figured out a way to make money when the government cheese gets cut.