‘Green’ houses too costly?
By J. FERGUSON
Arizona Daily Sun
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Vice-Mayor Scott Overton may seem like an unlikely advocate for affordable housing.
Since he joined the council last year, the local contractor has repeatedly raised concerns about the creation of a city-run housing land trust, supporting market-driven solutions to the affordable housing crisis.
But Overton says a recent proposal to adopt a set of mandatory energy-efficient building codes will push home prices further out of the grasp of the average homebuyer.
On the other hand, Councilmember Al White, who supports the energy codes, says the costs will be relatively minimal and are outweighed by the long-term benefits.
The proposed regulations are part of the 2006 international energy conservation codes that set standards for energy efficiency in buildings.
Overton and White disagree about a subset of the proposals written specifically for the Flagstaff region.
City staffers have proposed insulated garage doors, rainwater harvesting systems and dual waste plumbing systems.
Overton contends the building industry has already gone green, rattling off a long list of changes, from pressure-treated wood to insulated water heaters. He then stops mid-sentence and wonders whether he could buy single-pane window glass if he wanted to (which he doesn’t).
Using his own home he built five years ago as an example, Overton says it would have cost $15,000 more under the proposed energy codes. He doubts he’d recoup the cost of installing rain barrels and an insulated garage door, even if he lived in the house for 30 years.
White disagrees, saying the green codes must be weighed not only in terms of energy savings but for the overall sustainability of the community.
White was moved by the Al Gore documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and says that measuring a cost only in dollars and cents is short-sighted. He sees fossil fuels as finite resources and predicts energy costs will continue to climb in the coming years.
“Look at the price of energy now — is it where it was five years ago?” White asked.
White said he is concerned that if portions of the energy code are made voluntarily, builders will continue to use cheaper, less-efficient materials.
He equates the codes under consideration to the decision to require selt belts to be installed in cars in the 1960s. They added a small cost to the price of the car, but they resulted in huge and lasting benefits because of the thousands of lives saved by wearing a seat belt.
The two-term councilmember pushed last year for the city to adopt the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, a pledge for the city to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Overton says he will push for portions of the code to be voluntary, especially the installation of water heaters no more than 30 feet away from kitchens and bathrooms.
“If a builder wants to do it, that’s great. But don’t force me to do it for every project I build,” says Overton.
He suggests builders will find ways to circumvent the new codes if they are too draconian. Some homebuilders might just install two water heaters in larger homes to comply with the proposed 30 foot limit rather than redesign existing home plans.
He said if the new code was applied to both new construction and remodeling jobs, centrally relocating a water heater from its existing spot in a garage would become a nightmare. He favors voluntary compliance with the new energy code for all remodels.
While White says the current proposal has room for compromise, he says most of the suggestions are practical and unlikely to add tens of thousands of dollars to the price of a new home.
When asked what would be too much for a new homeowner to pay for to support sustainability, White couldn’t offer a figure.
“It is like the description of obscenity,” says White. “I’ll know it when I see it.”
The council is expected to review the energy codes in the next 30 days.