Wednesday, October 11, 2006

City, UC step up with 'green' building

Christine Robertson

Kudos for Cincinnati! On Sept. 20, Cincinnati City Council passed an ordinance to encourage developers to build "green" in Cincinnati. This ordinance, a result of two motions by council members Laketa Cole and Chris Bortz, provides tax and other financial incentives to develop buildings to Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

New municipal buildings and renovations to existing municipal buildings will also integrate green building elements. Moreover, a fund will be created to provide loans to developers of low and moderate income housing to build LEED certified.

A "green permitting" process, which bypasses bureaucratic holdups sending "green developers" to the front of the line, may be soon to follow.

Six days after the ordinance passed, the United States Green Building Council visited the University of Cincinnati to present them with a plaque formalizing LEED certification of the new Steger Student Center. The student center is the first LEED-certified building in Cincinnati. Three more buildings at UC are set to apply for LEED certification later this month.

The new student center uses local and recycled building materials, energy and water efficient appliances, reflective roofing materials, landscaping and natural lighting systems, all much more efficient than buildings that are simply built "to code."

UC will also engage in a "dormitory energy challenge" in November and again this coming spring. This year major efforts are going toward outreach and marketing campaigns, headed by students, designed to promote the challenge and educate the student body about energy and conservation.

When local government and institutions choose these steps, they are acting in the public's best interest. As we all reap the economic benefits, our city's air and water quality are improved and national security heightened as a result of decreased dependence on foreign oil.

To all of the local proponents of sustainable design, thank you. If Cincinnati continues down this path it may soon become competitive with other leading cities such as Portland, Seattle, Boston, Minneapolis and Chicago. Please, for all of our sakes, don't stop.

Christine Robertson is a thesis-year graduate student at UC. She is majoring in planning, with a specialization in the environment, and serves on the university's Environmental Sustainability Committee.

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