A lot of things are happening in preparation for the design process. We have to think and prepare for our building permit.

Chicago is interesting in that the city has developed the Chicago Green Homes program (CGH). It is a voluntary program that encourages homeowners like us to use and integrate green, sustainable and resource efficient technologies during new construction or major remodeling.

The program is very similar to LEED for Homes program (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) by the U.S. Green Building Council, but doesn’t have the registration and commissioning fees.

Look up LEED for Homes registration and commissioning fees.

CGH offers an excellent resource with its Green Homes Guide (v.2), which provides examples of sustainable practices and technologies that could be used during new construction or remodeling.

The guide organizes the examples into seven major categories (similar to LEED):

1. Sustainable Sites
2. Energy Efficiency
3. Materials
4. Health and Safety
5. Resource Conservation
6. Homeowner Education
7. Innovation

Why is this of so much interest to us? Because the city has done an excellent job turning this into an incentive program for homeowners like us. Each practice or technology has a number of points assigned to it. Take windows in the energy efficiency category for instance (item 215.1). Energy efficient windows with a U-value of 0.31 or less earn us 5 points.  Windows with a U-value of 0.28 or less earn us 10 points. (U-value is a measure of heat transfer through the window. The smaller the U-value, the greater the resistance to heat transfer, the better insulated the window).

The points actually have a value to us. They can buy us a free building permit – a Green Permit – and expedite the permit process. Here is how it works:

The CGH point system is structured into three green building levels (one star, two stars and three stars). For the renovation of a residential building like ours (fewer than 10 units), we would need enough points to achieve two stars (i.e. 250), which would qualify us for a green building permit. Well – almost. We would also need to include two Green Permit Menu Items. The menu items cover areas such as exceptional energy performance, renewable energy, exceptional bike parking, to mention a few.

Meeting these requirements would expedite our permit (the published goal is 30 days, although it is not always met) and waive consultant review fees up to $25,000. A typical permit would probably cost us around $1,000 to $1,500, which is what we would save with the Green Permit.

How do we know if we meet the requirements? We have our project principles and wish list (see also 09/03/2009 post) and use this information to complete CGH Multi-Family Renovation Checklist and select the most applicable Green Permit Menu Items. The checklist is a preformatted Excel spreadsheet with all applicable items under each of the seven categories (see also above) and automatically tallies the points.

Because we haven’t tested our ideas, scrutinized our wish list, or delved into the design process yet, I assigned zero points to any item that had even the slightest question mark hanging over it – just to be safe. It turns out that we may get as many as 440 points, which gets us above the required 250 points for the green permit. On the Green Permit Menu Items, we assume that we will comply with the requirements for renewable energy, exceptional water management and exceptional bike parking.

I would love to provide links to the Green Permit requirements and Green Permit Menu Items, but it appears that the information on the city’s web site has not been updated yet. If you would like to get up to date information you may want to contact the Department of Buildings or the Chicago Center for Green Technology directly.