Building a Green Maryland : Maryland Green Building Lawyer & Attorney : Megan Reuwer : O’Malley, Miles, Nylen & Gilmore Law Firm : MD Green Building, Sustainability

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This week's post is part one of a two-part interview that I conducted with Thomas M. Farasy, President of the Maryland-National Capital Building Industry Association, and President of Terra Verde Communities, LLC, a real estate development, investment, and advisory firm specializing in transit-oriented development, multifamily projects, and green building serving the Washington, D.C. area and the Mid-Atlantic region.

Tom was nice enough to sit down with me and discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of USGBC's LEED certification program and the National Association of Home Builder's ANSI-approved National Green Building Standard. This was a fun and informative interview, and I hope you enjoy it!

The ANSI approved ICC-700-2008 National Green Building Standard (NGBS) includes single and multifamily homes, residential remodeling projects and site development projects. NAHB has billed the NGBS as being more flexible than USGBC’s LEED in terms of recognizing innovative approaches and techniques. Why do you think NAHB developed its own standard, and do you agree that it is more flexible than LEED?

As a multifamily developer, it’s been my experience that LEED is somewhat rigid and is more commercial building friendly. I think NAHB recognized a need for a standard that encompasses the unique features of residential building. For example, while LEED does offer some site development points, the National Green Building Standard is more comprehensive on site development issues and allows you to capture more points than LEED for that site work. The bottom line is that, as an industry, we want choices. We want flexibility.

In addition to the flexibility factor, there’s the issue of tracking how dollars spent translate into actual green features of the site and the building. For instance, if I spend $100,000 to incorporate green elements into my building, under the National Green Building Standard, 90 cents on the dollar goes into actual hard costs; with LEED, only about 75 cents on the dollar goes into hard costs. The other 25 cents goes into consultants, certification processing fees, and other things that just don’t contribute to the end product of the building featuring green elements.

What are the relative strengths of LEED and the National Green Building Standard?

The USGBC has done a great job of marketing LEED; so that when you ask a consumer “what is green?” they will say “LEED.” On the other hand, the National Green Building Standard has been approved by ANSI (the American National Standards Institute), which implies objectivity and impartiality. An ANSI approved standard means that the standard is the result of a collaborative effort. The development and review process for the National Green Building Standard was inclusive and involved participation from a broad spectrum of people: builders, developers, environmentalists, code enforcement officials, politicians, citizens, and community activists, to name a few. For these reasons, it has much more meaning to me and is representative of a greater stakeholder interest.

Check out next Wednesday's post for more valuable insights from Tom, including his thoughts on the market for green building, emerging issues in the field, and whether green building is good from the building industry's perspective.