Matthew Allman and Kedrick Whitmore | Venable
Several jurisdictions throughout Virginia, particularly in the northern suburbs of the Washington, DC metropolitan area, are pushing the envelope on green building practices. These efforts come at a time when the development market is facing numerous economic and regulatory headwinds, resulting in an increasingly complex landscape.
Virginia is a Dillon Rule state, meaning that the powers of local government are narrowly prescribed by state law. Under current law, local governments in Virginia cannot mandate that development projects achieve green building certification. However, many jurisdictions have well-developed programs that incentivize developers to achieve green building certifications voluntarily. These incentives are offered across jurisdictions, but typically consist of bonus density, bonus height, and financial incentives.
Arlington County operates the Green Building Incentive Program (GBIP), which offers bonus density as an incentive to achieve certification. The program was initiated in 1999, and the threshold for developments to achieve bonus density have become more stringent over time. Currently, Arlington is working on another round of updates to the program requirements. The proposal calls for a higher level of green building certification (v4 Platinum or v5 Gold) in order to earn the bonus density, as well as additional commitments to sustainability and energy efficiency. The proposal is expected to be considered by the Planning Commission and County Board in the first half of 2025.
The local development community has expressed some concerns about new requirements, noting that they will make development more difficult at a time when economic considerations, such as construction costs and the availability of financing, are hindering many new projects.
The City of Alexandria is also in the early stages of revising its Green Building Policy. The current policy encourages new private development to achieve green building certification at the LEED Silver level. The City has not yet released a draft of the proposed policy updates for public review, but preliminary information from City staff indicates that the new policy will focus on the importance of designing buildings for optimal energy use efficiency, rather than achieving particular green building certifications. The release of the draft policy is expected to occur later this summer, and a public comment period will follow. The new policy will likely be considered at public hearings before the Planning Commission and City Council in the fall of this year.
Local government efforts like those under way in Arlington and Alexandria are taking place against the backdrop of changing dynamics at the state level. In 2020 the state adopted the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which includes a number of investments and incentives designed to transition the state to renewable forms of energy. That same year, the state also joined Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which is a cap-and-trade market for carbon emissions that operates among states in the Northeast. However, more recently, the state’s largest utility provider has come under scrutiny for adopting new infrastructure requirements that are claimed to make small and medium-size renewable energy projects prohibitively expensive. Numerous solar energy projects across the region have been canceled or downsized because they cannot meet the parameters set by the utility provider. The complications associated with pursuing small-scale renewable energy installations could pose additional challenges to developers that are navigating the requirements of a locality’s green building incentive program.
Property owners and developers who are active in northern Virginia should be closely monitoring the changing policy and regulatory landscape for green building requirements.
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