On behalf of NAIOP I would like to thank you for the opportunity to comment on the work of the New Buildings

January 7, 2009 Mr. Jayson Antonoff City of Seattle Office of Sustainability PO Box 94729 Seattle, WA 98124-4729 Dear Mr. Antonoff: On behalf of NAIOP I would like to thank you for the opportunity to comment on the work of the New Buildings Subcommittee of the Green Building Task Force. Generally NAIOP favors approaches that are incentive based. Further, options that allow for flexibility and innovation by the developer are preferred to prescriptive frameworks that tend to lead to economic inefficiency. Finally, NAIOP urges the City to rely on meaningful cost benefit analysis of all alternatives that includes an evaluation of the impacts to both the private and public sector. Initially, the policy options the New Buildings Subcommittee was asked to consider were: Green Investment Fund, Green Building Feebate, Green Building Density Bonus, Green Priority Permitting System, Green Building Code, and Energy Code. Subsequent meetings of the Subcommittee yielded the concepts of Beyond Individual Buildings, Continuous Monitoring of Performance, Increasing Energy Rates, and an Innovation Review Board. Each option is discussed below. Green Investment Fund As described by the task force, GIF is a financing model that seeks to offer competitive grants for innovative green building developments. While generally an option that we support, there are some concerns. First, we question the source of ongoing funding. If the City does ...