Environment
Chicago Expedites Permits for Green Buildings
(archrecord.construction.com - 07/20/2006)
By Amanda
Webb
When it is completed in early 2009,
60-story 300 North LaSalle will be one of Chicago’s taller
structures. But local real estate players may take closer
note that developer Hines Interests snatched a building permit
faster than average, too, in a speedy 30 days.
The 1.3-million-square-foot office tower
is one of a growing number of buildings participating in Chicago’s
year-old Green Permit Program, which expedites permitting
for sustainable buildings. Designed by architecture firm Pickard
Chilton, the building will have a 50-percent green roof and
will use condenser water supplied by the Chicago River, thus
eliminating cooling towers. Hines’ Vice President of
Construction Scott Pimcoe says the company decided to apply
to the program because “there is a huge construction
boom in Chicago—sometimes getting a permit can be really
laborious.”
With the support of Chicago Mayor Richard
M. Daley, the city’s Department of Construction and Permits
initiated the program in April 2005 to “encourage the
use of green incentives, especially in private development,
and to make sure that they’re doing it well,” says
Erik Olsen, who has been the program’s chief administrator
since its launch.
Projects fall into one of three tiers,
and greener projects gain greater benefits. The owners of
Tier I commercial and other non-residential projects, including
300 North LaSalle, promise that they will be LEED-certified.
These buildings also feature one item from a “menu”
of sustainable building strategies that include, among others,
a green roof, extra affordability, and transit-oriented development.
Owners who accomplish LEED Silver building with one menu item
advance to Tier II, which waives the consultant review fee
in addition to 30-day permitting. Tier III projects must earn
LEED Gold and feature two menu items, for which the consultant
fee is waived and a permit issued within 15 days. Olsen explains
that LEED status verifies an application (residential projects
must conform to the Chicago Green Homes rating system), while
the menu items act as billboards for sustainability.
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Olsen first sits down with project teams
several months before they make permit submittals. Applicants
view this extra attention as an added benefit: “We received
good advice from Erik and his department, which found its
way into the design of the building,” says Roark Frankel,
senior vice president of U.S. Equities, project managers for
the Spurdis Institute for Jewish Studies, a Tier II building
currently under construction.
Granting incentives at such an early
stage in a building’s development can be problematic.
Besides submitting a LEED project registration number as part
of a permit review, developers must file a proof of submission
for LEED certification within 180 days of completion. They
are also required to sign contracts binding them to their
sustainability plans, and there are considerable consequences—fee
reimbursement or permit revocation, for example—for not
following through.
And yet, by the end of the 2005 calendar
year, 19 green permits were issued for projects, and 36 permits
have been issued so far this year, which puts the program
well on track to meet its goal of 40. Olsen says that nonprofit
and university owners took to the program the quickest, but
that it now spans a fuller range of building types.
Although there are no other cities with
a program as comprehensive as Chicago’s, Olsen has received
inquiries from cities as far as Seattle and Toronto. In Washington,
D.C., the organization GreenHome is pushing for local legislation
for a green permitting system because, as Executive Director
Patty Rose says, “Erik is running a program that is moving
green building faster through permits, and I'm convinced that
he's actually helping make better green buildings.”
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