by Leann Taagepera
On Tuesday, April 20, the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Association of Environmental Professionals and the American Planning Association, California – Northern Section co-sponsored an evening dinner event on the topic of “Sustainability and Historic Preservation – Its meaning and practical applications.” The event was hosted by Entrix, Inc. in Concord. The speakers were: Mr. Mark Huck, Restoration Architect, AIA, LEED AP, State Office of Historic Preservation; Mr. Frederic Knapp, Historic Architect, Knapp Architects; and Ms. Leann Taagepera, CEQA and Preservation Planner, PMC, and City Historic Preservation Review Commissioner.
Mr. Huck provided a presentation about historic buildings and energy efficiency issues, including the fact that older historic buildings’ energy use can be the same or less than building between between 1959 and 2000. Pre-1919 buildings are typically more energy-efficient than buildings constructed between 1920 and 2003, when energy standards changed. He also spoke about options for improving historic building’s energy-efficiencies through actions which do not affect their historic integrity, such as weather-stripping, insulation, etc. While historic buildings can be perceived to be less-energy efficient than more modern buildings, this turns out not to be the case, depending on the period of construction. Mr. Huck also spoke about LEED standards and local ordinances such as San Francisco’s and Palo Alto’s model green ordinances, as well as voluntary and mandatory regulations in CEQA and General Plans. Mr. Huck’s presentation can be downloaded here.
Mr. Knapp spoke about what preservation has to offer to sustainability as a field. He described how historic preservation focuses on the existing environment; sees impacts on finite resources; emphasizes appropriate uses; rewards innovative techniques; enhances understanding and value of place. He noted that preservation is “ inherently sustainable because place is spatial and static in comparison to resource depletion, which is dynamic.” He also spoke about how historic preservation places a bonus on embodied energy – and extends its life beyond typical assumptions and encourages continuing use of resources which have already been extracted. He pointed out that historic buildings were originally low in energy intensity in many ways and if renovated appropriately, they can continue to perform well. As main point of this issue is that historic preservation “encourages reuse of much of the embodied energy/resources that would be lost in renovation of a non-historic building.” Mr. Knapp’s presentation can be downloaded here.
Ms. Taagepera spoke about the historic City of Benicia and its National Register and local historic districts, buildings, and Historic Preservation Review Commission. She provided information about the City’s newly-formed Sustainability Commission and the City’s Climate Action Plan. The City of Benicia is the first city in Solano County to address climate change through a comprehensive planning process, funded by a grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. This process includes the recently completed greenhouse gas emission inventory, the establishment of reduction targets and the development of a Climate Action Plan (CAP). This CAP includes a section specifically about historic buildings. For example, the CAP states, “The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties provides the framework for local historic conservation plans, which restrict the design and construction activities of designated historic structures in order to preserve the integrity of the buildings and the districts that they are located in. Energy efficiency and green building techniques can be successfully integrated into historic buildings in ways that do not affect the character defining features of the buildings.” Information about the City’s Sustainability Commission and CAP can be found on-line here. Ms. Taagepera’s presentation can be downloaded here.
Ms. Taagepera would like to thank her speakers for their efforts in preparing for their presentations and for traveling from their locations in San Francisco and Sacramento to Concord for the event. She would also like to thank her assistants for the event: Joanna Jansen from DCE and Darcy Kremin from Entrix, Inc. A big thank you is due to Entrix, Inc. for providing their conference room for the event. Lastly, she would like to thank all who attended the event and made it such a success through during the question-and-answer period and round-table discussion.
Event Speakers: Leann, Frederick, and Mark
Tags: CEQA, Energy Efficiency, Historic Preservation, LEED, Sustainability
