Green building law ok’d on final reading
18th Davao City Council approved on third and final reading the green building ordinance of the city.
The ordinance, proposed under committee on environment and natural resources chaired by Councilor Diosdado Mahipus, seeks to ensure environmental sustainability of buildings and reduce their negative impact to health and environment.
Green building is the practice of adopting sustainable features and measures in the design, construction, and operation of the building.
The Green Building Ordinance 2018 of Davao City aims to improve building performance in the aspects of energy efficiency, water efficiency, materials and waste management, site sustainability, and indoor environmental quality.
Section 6 of the ordinance states that it prescribes additional mandatory measures that have been pre-determined through detailed analysis to achieve savings in energy and water efficiency, materials and waste efficiency, indoor environmental quality and site sustainability.
Tables of energy efficiency measures, water efficiency measures, material efficiency measures,
IEQ measures and site sustainability measures per building type have been provided in the ordinance.
Section 5 of the proposed ordinance states that green building requirements shall apply entirely to new buildings.
Covered are residential buildings with total floor area greater than 20,000 square meters, office buildings with total floor area greater than 10,000 square meters, mixed-use buildings with total floor area greater than 10,000 square meters, educational buildings with total floor area greater than 5,000 square meters, retail buildings with total floor area greater than 15,000 square meters, hotel buildings, hospital buildings, and government buildings.
Floor area is defined as the total floor area shall include all floor space within a building.
“For mixed-use buildings, building requirements for each building type incorporated into the mixed-use building shall apply,” the ordinance read.
Section 5.2 states that green building requirement applies to scope of works covered by modification/renovation of existing buildings in the categories above, and covering a floor area of at least 1,000 square meters.
The Davao City Green Building Authority (DCGBA) as defined in the ordinance shall review the application of the regulation to building categories and total floor areas three years from the adoption of the ordinance and every year after. The body may broaden the application to include other measures, building categories, existing buildings, and/or lower corresponding total floor areas. Article 5 of the ordinance seeks the creation of Davao City Green Building Council and DCGBA
Davao City Councilor Bonifacio Militar proposed a separate ordinance for the DCGBA, since it will be a separate office and its funding will have to be approved by the executive department.
Section 11 states that all owners and developers of projects within the coverage of this ordinance shall secure Green Building Pre-Compliance Certificate (GBPCC) in Building Design, and Green Building Compliance Certificate (GBCC) in construction.
Section 15 of the ordinance also provides for filing fee of P150 for green building pre-compliance certificate, and P50 green building compliance certificate.
Varied processing fees was also provided per type of the certificate and building type, ranging from P5.25 per square meter of total floor area to P1 per square meter of total floor area.
A certificate fee of P75 must be paid for green building precompliance certificate, while P25 must be paid for certificate fee for GBCC in construction.
A surcharge of 100 percent of the total green building fees but not less than P2,000, whichever is higher, shall be charged to any applicant, proponent, proprietor, owner or representative who commences or undertakes any project without securing first the Green Building Pre-Compliance Certificate and which shall be due upon such certificate. Minimum penalty of P500 up to maximum of P5,000 or imprisonment of two months will be faced by any person who violates any provision of the ordinance.