Montgomery County Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions

monthly meeting

Thursday, October 17  •  7:30 – 9 pm

River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 6301 River Road, Bethesda, MD

Montgomery County is about to revise its building code for commercial buildings, called the International Green Construction Code.  This code revision could have important benefits for energy use, transportation, water, flora and fauna in the County.  Mark Nauman of the MC Dept of Permitting Services, who has been drafting the building code revision, will  speak and answer questions on Thursday Oct 17, from 730-9pm at the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 6301 River Road, Bethesda.

We feel that the new code (see below) will help conservation and climate change , and deserves wide support.  Please come to learn more.

Please come to the monthly meeting of MC-FACS, the Montgomery County Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions.  We are people from local faith communities urging our county to fight climate change.  For more info contact walter.weiss@verizon.net

General introduction to building codes for commercial buildings in Mont Co

Building codes set the legal requirements which must be met for any new building or large addition in Montgomery County. Builders submit their designs to the MC Dept of Permitting Services before construction starts, and then they are granted a building permit after review. Energy efficiency of a proposed building is calculated from a formula based on the submitted design.

In the US and Canada, building codes of all types are drafted by the International Code Council. They revise building codes every three years, and then send these drafts out to states, cities, and counties. Each local government is free to edit the building code to meet their local needs. Each local government then passes their edited building code into local law.

Montgomery County adopted the International Green Building Code (IgCC) for new commercial buildings in 2017, after five years of discussion. The version passed in Montgomery County was drafted by the International Code Council in 2012. (there was a version of the IgCC in 2015 which was skipped over). In 2018 the three year update of the IgCC was sent out to local governments to be edited locally and then adopted. The MC Dept of Permitting Services has been editing this draft, and is scheduled to submit the document to the Mont Co Council for adoption in the Fall of 2019. The document will first go to the Transportation and Environment Committee (CM Hucker, Reimer, and Glass) where it will be reviewed and voted on. Then if passed, it will go to the full MC Council for review and a vote.

As a note of clarification, LEED certification is separate from the IgCC. Buildings are submitted for LEED certification to the US Green Buildings Council (a private organization) after they are fully built. This is entirely voluntary, and LEED certification is used as a promotion tool. LEED certification is based on a checklist of building features, with points given for each feature. Depending on the number of points, a building is given either LEED Silver, Gold, or Platinum rating.

All commercial construction in Mont Co must meet the IgCC requirements before they get a building permit. Few new buildings in our county are submitted for LEED certification.

Montgomery County has set very ambitious goals of reducing all greenhouse gases 80% by 2027 and 100% by 2035. To reach these goals, we believe that by 2027 building permits for new commercial buildings should require them to be net zero energy users. This is often achieved by adding solar panels. Many cities are requiring new buildings to be net zero energy by 2026 to 2030. Since it often takes years for buildings to be constructed, the building codes need to require net zero energy well before 2035.