Hawaii Ranks 3rd in Green City Index

Out of 43 metro areas (including Indianapolis and Cleveland), American City Business Journals ranked Honolulu 3rd on its Green City Index.

The index takes into account 20 different indicators of a city's "greenness," including the following: Travel delay, Excess fuel, Congestion cost, Mean travel time, Percent of commuters who drive alone, Percent using public transit, Pollutants reported to state in 2004-09, States renewable energy generation, Carbon emissions per capita, Sprawl index, LEED certified and Energy Start rated projects, and Green jobs.

The Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metro areas ranked 1st and 2nd, respectively. Hawaii had comparable scores with the 1st and 2nd place title holders; however, it ranked poorly in renewable energy (42), LEED certified projects (31), and Green jobs potential (34).

To see the entire list, scores, and realated staistics, read Green Cities, Pittsburgh Business Times, March 11, 2010.

Green Building Legal Issues

Green Building Legal Issues on the Horizon is a free webinar that discusses legal issues and regulatory challenges caused by green building requirements.

The presentation discusses a Marlyland case where Shaw Development sued a building developer who failed to achieve LEED Silver certification in a design-bid-build contract for a condominium development. The presentation also discusses green building mandates, the problem with obtaining surety bonds for guaranteeing green building compliance, cases where the insurance industry refused to insure "green roofs," and green defects, a subset of construction defects.

In Hawaii, counties are considering green mandates for private projects and the State land use commission has mandated LEED compliance as a condition of granting a district boundary amendment.

LEED Projects in Hawaii as of March 2009

According to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System is a voluntary, consensus-based national certification system for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. LEED is developed by employees of the USGBC. The USGBC is a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC. See About USGBC.

Projects listed by Project Name, City, and LEED Rating:

• Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawai'i , Hilo , Certified
• Case Middle School - Punahou , Honolulu , Gold
• AIA Honolulu Chapter Office , Honolulu , Gold
• 1779 Palolo Chinese Home , Honolulu , Certified
• Group 70 International-Ground Floor Reno , Honolulu , Silver
• Hawaii Baptist Academy Middle School , Honolulu , Gold
• University of Hawaii at Manoa - Frear Ha , Honolulu , Silver
• Hawaii Gateway Energy Center at NELHA , Kailua-Kona , Platinum
• Botanical Research Center , Kalaheo, Kauai , Gold
• Hilton Waikoloa Dolphin Quest Village , Waikoloa , Silver
• Dowling Company Office , Wailuku , Certified
• Waipahu School Cafeteria , Waipahu, Oahu , Certified

See LEED Projects & Case Studies Directory.

LEED Isn't the Only Game in Town

As I wrote previously, the City and the state Office of Planning's attempts to impose mandatory LEED standards on residential homes is not a well thought policy. (See, Proposed LEED Mandate Fails, Working Group Created to Investigate Issue, City and County of Honolulu to Require All New Buildings to be LEED Platinum Certified by 2014, and Energy Efficiency Building Requirements: Hawaii’s Regulatory Maze.)

Most would agree that the policy goal of reducing our energy consumption is good, if not necessary, for society, but importing a third party rating system from abroad, untailored to the specific needs and restraints of Hawaii's unique market and environment would miss the mark and add to housing costs.

If LEED is imposed, it should be tailored to Hawaii with the input of stakeholders and the community and with incentives to help defray implementation costs. But more importantly, policymakers should consider incorporating other green building programs or other energy saving measures unique to Hawaii.

In the following quote from KHNL News, John Bendon of Green Building LLC talks about a home on Maui that is LEED Gold certified:

Yes, this is a $2.4 million home but Bendon says it's not that costly for an average home to go just as green.

He says to get a solar water heater, use energy efficient appliances and lighting and reduce your need for air conditioning.

"You can plant trees in the proper place. You can put a radiant barrier on your roof and reduce the heat gain in the attic," said Bendon.

Project leaders say they are simple concepts that, like the Good Home, can show what can be done today, and what may be done tomorrow.

There are two other green ratings systems in Hawaii - Energy Star and Hawaii BuiltGreen. LEED is the most stringent and is affiliated with the United States Green Building Council.

Source: Mari-ela David, Green Maui Home Gets National Attention, May 14, 2008, available at http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=8319959.

State Legislature Considers How it Can Increase the Cost of Homes in Hawaii

With the median price of single family homes well over $600,000.00 in Hawaii, one would ask: Why is the legislature considering mandating solar heating at an average cost of $5,600.00 per home?

Add the above cost to the more than 10 percent cost of LEED Silver compliance for single family homes (the Office of Planning has been repeatedly demanding a LEED Silver mandate at the State Land Use Commission) and you have close to a $70,000.00 tax on all new single family homes in Hawaii.

The problem, however, is not the state's laudable (some would say, necessary) intent to curb our use of fossil fuels, but the means by which it has chosen to get there: command and control mandates. Mandates benefit no one. In this case, it would push home ownership out of the reach of many Hawaii residents. It would put up another roadblock in the already ailing housing market, which is limping along in light of the mortgage crisis and economic recession. A slower market means less supply, and it doesn’t take an expert to tell us that demand for affordable homes in Hawaii is at a crisis level.

The alternative to mandates is economic and regulatory incentives, like tax credits, rebates, a break in permitting fees, removing barriers to entry for alternative energy providers, and an incentive package that would encourage investment in the alterative energy industry. These are just a few of the tried and successful programs implemented in other municipalities.

Rewarding good behavior encourages the natural development and implementation of green technologies. Technology will improve and become more affordable as investment in those technologies increases and products become more readily available in Hawaii. It’s the law of economics, the same factor that pushes additional investment into the alterative energy market as the cost of fossil fuels rise.

Instead of taxing potential homeowners out of the housing market and slowing the supply of housing, the state should develop incentives that will encourage the use of green technologies in residential developments.

Proposed LEED Mandate Fails, Working Group Created to Investigate Issue

Bill 87, introduced by Councilmember Donovan Dela Cruz, which would require all new buildings on Oahu to be LEED Platinum certified by 2014, failed to pass the Council according to the Honolulu Advertiser.

As I discussed in City and County of Honolulu to Require All New Buildings to be LEED Platinum Certified by 2014, Bill 87 is painfully lacking forethought. For one, LEED is one of MANY ways to achieve an environmentally, low impact building. But the bill mandates just one tool from a plethora of options. Second, other municipalities have passed similar bills, but not until they revised some of the requirements of LEED, or tailored a policy that fits their community and market. Third, successful programs include incentives and flexibility for obtaining the objective. Command and control mandates are doomed to fail.

The underlying policy of the bill is laudable and could enjoy wide support if properly drafted after input from stakeholders. This bill lacks vision and sophistication. A working group is an excellent start to formulating a policy that works.

What does a 24-story family home for six with three helipads and a 168-car garage, and the Three Gorges Dam project in China have in common?

Both projects are seeking, and will likely obtain, green building certification under LEED according to a recent article from Slate at http://www.slate.com/id/2180862/.

This is another reason why the arbitrary requirement of LEED certification for private structures, considered by some Hawaii lawmakers, is a bad idea as I previously discussed here.

City and County of Honolulu to Require All New Buildings to be LEED Platinum Certified by 2014

Bill 87, introduced by Councilmember Donovan Dela Cruz would require all new buildings to be LEED Silver certified by 2010, LEED Gold certified by 2012, and LEED Platinum certified by 2014. Presently, Revised Ordinances of Honolulu § 2-9.3 (2006), requires only county buildings to implement LEED Silver if doing so is not “infeasible or inappropriate.”

As I discussed in Energy Efficiency Building Requirements: Hawaii’s Regulatory Maze, private developments are already subject to myriad energy efficient building requirements, mostly through building codes adopted by the counties based on state energy efficiency requirements. Bill 87 would add one more layer of regulation which is not based on any study or analysis. Some questions that come to mind are (1) how does Bill 87 fit the exiting regulatory scheme in Hawaii, (2) whether the proposed legislation, which is an off-the-shelf ordinance used in a few other municipalities, will fit Hawaii’s market (i.e., cost of implementing the highest LEED certification, availability of building material, impact of higher building costs on affordable housing, et cetera), and (3) whether it is wise to export legislative drafting and compliance standards to the private mainland organization (USGBC) which owns the rights to the LEED standard.

On December 12, 2007, Bill 87 unanimously passed first reading and was referred to the committee on planning and sustainability (Gary H. Okino, Chair; Romy M. Cachola, Vice Chair; Todd K. Apo, Member; Ann H. Kobayashi, Member; and Rod Tam, Member).

Energy Efficiency Building Requirements: Hawaii’s Regulatory Maze

Hawaii is littered with various sustainable building guidelines and requirements at the state and local government levels, from statutes and ordinances, to agency rules and informal policies.

The patchwork of building design standards include:

• HRS § 46-19.5 (1994), requiring counties to incorporate the energy efficiency building standards of ASHRAE 90.1 into its building codes by 1994.


• HRS § 46-19.6 (2006), requiring counties to expedited permitting for developers who chose to incorporate “energy and environmental design building standards.”


• HRS § 196-9 (2006), requiring agencies to implement LEED Silver or other nationally recognized standard “to the extent possible.”


• Revised Ordinances of Honolulu § 2-9.3 (2006), requiring county buildings to implement LEED Silver if doing so is not “infeasible or inappropriate.”
• The Office of Planning’s recent position at the state land use commission that the Commission should extend HRS § 196-9’s public buildings LEED Silver requirement to private buildings as a condition on state district boundary amendments (e.g., p. 97, Docket No. A99‐728(a)). This is a departure from the unusual requirement that developers employ energy conservation measures (apart from those already required under the county building code), which is a more flexible standard allowing for different types of energy efficiently methods and products depending on the project, use, and site location.


• Guidelines for Sustainable Building Design in Hawai`i, A planner's checklist, OEQC, October 13, 1999. The checklist is described as “a checklist of items that will help the design team create projects that will have a minimal impact on Hawai`i's environment and make wise use of our natural resources. In a word, projects that are sustainable.”

This list is not exhaustive.

Unfortunately, most of these policies are not incentive based and may be costly to implement which, among other things, raises the cost of housing in the state. In addition, the policies tend to be reactionary in that they respond to new and emerging technologies which are untested in the marketplace. Unpredictability makes it difficult to forecast development costs and adds risk to the development process.