"Shoots" of Green Building Laws Emerging in Southern Maryland Counties
As a state, we have green building laws that have existed and that continue to come into existence in the northern and central parts of Maryland (Baltimore City, Annapolis, Howard County, and Montgomery County), but I think that we're beginning to see local governments moving - albeit at more of the turtle's pace than the hare's- towards integrating green building requirements in the southern counties. In particular, I'm talking about the exceptionally lovely Charles, Calvert, and St. Mary's Counties.
Charles County: Charles County is beginning to take a more active role in mandating green building for some publicly-owned or funded buildings.
- The Town of La Plata passed Town Council Resolution #08-2, which requires that all town-owned and town-funded new construction and major renovations greater than 5,000 square feet become LEED Certified. According to this Resolution, the Town of La Plata is leading the way in green building in Charles County - its La Plata Town Hall is the County's first LEED certified building.
- "LEED or its equivalent” language is becoming integrated in zoning approvals. For example, a bill passed in 2009 rezoned 48 acres from the Agricultural Conservation zone in Charles County to the Planned Employment Park zone which allows for the inclusion of industrial, office, and retail components. As a condition of that bill, the owner-applicant is required to obtain LEED certification “at both the site level and the architectural level.” As a side note, this is an interesting (read: complicated!) requirement because the LEED certification process isn't broken down into two levels of certification. There is no site development certification that is separate and apart from the building/architectural review - therefore, it could prove difficult for the owner to satisfy this condition (self-serving plug in 3...2...1: if you're a developer facing issues like this, you might benefit by having a land use attorney that's familiar with green certification requirements on your team).
Calvert County: Calvert County is in the planning phases for green building laws.
- At the end of 2008, the Director of Planning and Zoning began advocating that the Board of County Commissioners consider enacting green building amendments to the Zoning Ordinance– but, to my knowledge, nothing has been implemented yet.
- Calvert County has created a Green Team that is charged with the task of making recommendations regarding the County's future green building goals. Some of the Green Team's recommendations include preparing town center ordinances that facilitate green site and building design and requiring future county-owned buildings over 10,000 square feet to comply with LEED Silver certification.
St. Mary’s County: St. Mary's County is home to some incredible LEED-certified institutions.
- The Evergreen Elementary School is LEED Gold certified and won an award last night at the USGBC Maryland Chapter's 5th Annual Awards Ceremony.
- St. Mary’s College has a LEED Silver certified academic building
Predictions: There's a pattern that counties, towns, cities and other municipalities follow when going green. The first step is to require that publicly owned or funded buildings incorporate green elements or achieve various levels of certification. As the local government becomes more comfortable with legislating green, the focus may start to transition towards the private sector (Baltimore City and Annapolis are good examples). While the shift to mandating green building for private construction might be a bit far off in the future for these southern Maryland counties, I think we're beginning to see the first steps.
