In what they said should be a natural extension of existing energy and water conservation programs, Pima County and Tucson Electric Power are giving their support to the new Green Building Council being organized by the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association.

Yves Khawan, building codes administrator for the county’s Development Services Department, said at the first meeting they are looking to expand on efforts from Pima County’s water conservation taskforce.

“We’re looking at anything that will reduce water consumption,” he said, “and the best way to head off problems is to create an incentive-based program using standards that are already in place.”

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That’s the type of action the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is supporting. Incorporating environmental considerations into the entire process of housing construction and offering the methodology for home buyers to be more resource efficient is the association’s goal.

Several years in development, there is now a Model Green Home Building Guideline, bringing together guiding principles for lot design, resource efficiency and indoor environmental quality with strategies for popularizing them with NAHB members across the nation. Offered to local home building associations as template for going forward, the SAHBA committee, with the encouragement of the national organization, is joining several other local groups to take on the task of adapting the principles and strategies to the local market, while preserving the intent of making homes more earth friendly and healthy.

Rather than just following, the local home builders, with the support of local government, are looking to build on Tucson’s reputation for environmentalism by taking the lead in implementation, and among the best options for doing that, Khawan said, is to create a checklist of requirements, based on that guide.

Matching them with incentives, such as $2,000 or more on impact fees and reduced building permit approval times, “could be essential to encouraging home builders to make decisions that are in the best interest of the city and county,” he said.

What Tucson Electric Power is expected to get from SAHBA’s new council is a chance to convince builders that sustainable options aren’t just for the wealthy, said Jeff Hunter, residential account manager for the power company’s Guarantee Home Program. “Green building standards need to make more of an impact on the residential construction industry.”

Hunter said most developers already agree that environmental standards are the right thing to do. “What we need to impress on them is that they are also affordable. This committee can show them how.”

The committee can also address shortcomings in the national plan, “with needs to be refined to become more regionalized,” said Luis Figueroa, vice president for land development and construction for John Wesley Miller Companies. “Some things in the plan are more applicable to Maryland than Tucson, but we can use common sense to overcome these shortcomings.”

It’s the right time to try, noted committee chairman John Wesley Miller, president of the John Wesley Miller Companies. He said this year is forecast to be the first time when more than half of local builders will complete at least one “green” home.

When it comes to sustainable construction, Miller said, “we’ve learned to be happy with baby steps because progress, early on, was very slow.”

However, now the pace has increased. “It’s definitely gathering momentum,” he said.

“Now we have an opportunity to be proactive and an opportunity to bring people in from the national level to help us get more educated in the techniques available,” Miller said. “It’s my hope that, this way, we can become a leader.”

E-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Contact Philip S. Moore at pmoore@azbiz.com or at (520) 295-4238.

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