Landlords and private developers applying for building permits in downtown Yonkers will be required to comply with the city”™s year-old green development standards for construction projects as of Oct. 1, Mayor Mike Spano recently announced.
The city”™s new enforcement of a city code requirement adopted by the Yonkers City Council in late 2011 as part of a downtown rezoning plan to encourage mixed-use redevelopment is part of  the mayor”™s Yonkers Green City Initiative, which Spano has said could save Yonkers taxpayers $20 million in energy costs over 10 years. The downtown rezoning plan was developed during the administration of former Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone. The Spano administration in 2012 brought together a work group of city staff, building industry professionals and civic and environmental leaders to prepare the standards detailed in the city”™s green development workbook.
City officials have scheduled three information sessions this month on the recently updated green standards ”“ which previously were required only for city-owned buildings – at Riverfront Library on Larkin Plaza. The sessions will be Thursday from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and on Sept. 23 from noon to 1 p.m. and from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
The green building standards are required only for new construction or work on existing structures in the downtown area that require a building permit. One-family- and two-family dwellings in the downtown area are exempt.
The City Council last year adopted an ordinance that mandates energy-efficient building designs for city-owned properties but stops short of requiring the same standards for private owners and developers throughout Yonkers. Rather, the ordinance states that city officials “should encourage” the use of green building standards for private projects.
Developers outside the downtown area are required by the 2013 law to file a green buildings survey checklist with their site plan applications for commercial projects of more than 15,000 square feet and housing developments of more than 25 units. For those developers, though, Yonkers officials have stressed that compliance with the green standards is “purely voluntary.”
In an email to the Business Journal, Christina Gilmartin, the mayor”™s communications director, said that the downtown rezoning “increased the development potential of downtown by around 3 million square feet. The green building program was approved as a way to mitigate environmental impacts and reduce strains on overburdened infrastructure.”
Spano in a press release said the new green standards “will mean healthier buildings, better air quality and lower energy costs. Sustainability is a smart way to improve quality of life while attracting the next generation of Yonkers residents and businesses who are looking for healthier, more vibrant communities.”
Brad Tito, Yonkers director of sustainability, in a press release noted that two- thirds of the city”™s measured greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings. “The takeaway here is that we can make dramatic progress on climate change, but only if we design our buildings to be more sustainable,” he said.
Yonkers officials in the enforcement announcement said Enterprise Green Communities, a green building standard developed for the affordable-housing sector by Enterprise Community Partners Inc., was adapted as the basis for the “Yonkers-specific” standards, which were designed to be “cost-effective, clear, flexible, and enforceable.”
The city”™s Green Policy Task Force in 2009 developed a green building law that applied to most new construction and substantially rehabilitated buildings in Yonkers. The law was passed by a Democrat-controlled City Council, but was vetoed by the Republican mayor, Amicone, who called it “unenforceable and in fact illegal.”
“I”™m very excited about it,” Terry Joshi, chairperson of the Yonkers Green Policy Task Force and executive director of the Yonkers Committee for Smart Development, a citizens watchdog and advocacy group, said of the mayor”™s new requirement for private downtown development. “It”™s been a long time coming”¦It”™s been a five-year process.”
Joshi saluted Spano for an initiative that makes Yonkers a leader in New York for green development. “We”™re basically one of the first cities in the nation to have mandatory standards,” she said.
Regarding a green-standards requirement for construction in Yonkers outside the downtown area, “I like to think it will happen,” Joshi said, “but I don”™t think it will happen in the next year.
Both Joshi and city officials noted that most current development is focused in the downtown area.
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