Preservation Green Lab Partners
Partner City Selection Criteria
The National Trust for Historic Preservation Green Lab's first two policy partnerships are with the cities of Seattle and Dubuque. Additional partner cities are currently being evaluated in the context of a number of high-priority policy areas, including green building codes, water issues, and smart-growth policies that balance density with preservation of urban neighborhood character. Click here to download more information on our partner selection criteria.
Current Partner: Dubuque, Iowa
Dubuque is dedicated to the sustainable stewardship of the built environment through the adaptive reuse of its existing structures and the redevelopment of its urbanized areas. The city is developing the Dubuque Warehouse District Energy Efficiency Zone, which will make technical assistance available to a 28-building industrial complex in the heart of the city's downtown area.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Preservation Green Lab hope to work with the City of Dubuque to develop guidance that will include a toolkit for evaluating and implementing energy efficiency improvements in the historic buildings that are located within the Warehouse District. The Preservation Green Lab would also like to work with city leaders to incorporate the principles of reuse, reinvestment and green retrofits in both their climate change action plan and their long-term comprehensive plan.
Current Partner: Seattle, Washington
The Preservation Green Lab of the National Trust for Historic Preservation has partnered with the City of Seattle and the New Buildings Institute to pioneer a new energy code compliance framework – for both new and existing buildings – based on actual post-construction performance outcomes. Within this proposed new framework, building owners would have the flexibility to pursue whatever retrofit strategies they deem appropriate to their individual buildings, but would be required to actually achieve a pre-negotiated performance target on an ongoing basis. This would happen in the context of mandatory annual reporting of actual energy consumption for all existing buildings – a policy that the City of Seattle is pursuing so that it can rate and rank performance across its entire building stock and focus incentives to trigger upgrades of the worst performers. A third policy element linked to this effort is more extensive sub-metering requirements so that energy loads can be measured by tenant and by load type. Altogether, these could capture the effects not just of building design but of actual commissioning and tenant behavior, and serve as the foundation for massive-scale, market-driven improvements and potential district-level energy performance trading schemes.
Submitted by Ca Heritage Bd Member at: May 5, 2009
My community, Santa Rosa California is moving forward with what is probably the first mandatory sustainablity upgrade ordinace to include all existing (including residential and historic) structure in the nation. The City Council wishes to act quickly and we would be delighted to partner with Green Lab in this endeavor. Money is already coming available from a recent state senate bill and we are working hard to create reasonable/effective upgrade requirements for historic structures and get them integrated into the ordinance. The optimistic goal is 80% retrofit by 2015 to include all housing stock. The city and staff have been attentive to the preservation aspect and are already on board regarding the window replacement issue. We would welcome any input as we strive to craft the most effective conservation measures for both energy and the historic resource in our mild climate. M. DeBacker landmarc@sonic.net
Submitted by preservation lady at: April 30, 2009
In Fell's Point, Maryland, we are restoring two of the eight remaining 18th century wooden properties. One of these properties is a Baltimore City Landmark. Both are under easement to the Maryland Historical Trust. We are in a Main Street neighborhood. We want LEED designation and have been using the ideas in the Forum article on the Lincoln Cottage and recent issues of Preservation Magazine. We even went a step further and put in an earth toilet instead of renting spot- a- XXXs during our preconstruction stage. Could these properties be considered as demonstration sites? Our City has just created an Office of Sustainability and we are anxious to show others in our City and especially in our National Register Historic Districts what can be done. We also provide architectural design review services for this community and Federal Hill across the harbor. Involving our DRC and City Office of Sustainability would enable us to significantly expand our ability to demonstrate what we can do, if only we dare.
Submitted by seasalt at: March 25, 2009
This is the way to go. Our Woods College Preservation School project would be an excellent site for a Preservation Green Lab. Please contact me at jrcminc@hughes.net thanks. This is where stimulus ought to be.