Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Sustainability topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Planning commission debates simplifying green-building checklist tied to height overlays
Summary
Westchester Planning Commission reviewed a shorter sustainability questionnaire from the borough's Sustainability Committee and discussed using objective energy-code tools such as COMcheck, but did not take formal action.
The Westchester Borough Planning Commission on April 29 reviewed a proposal from the Sustainability Committee to replace a long, 47-question green-building checklist with a much shorter questionnaire used to evaluate projects seeking increased height under the borough's HO-60 and HO-75 overlay districts.
Commission members said the checklist in current ordinance language (which the commission referenced in chapter 112.402 for the HO-75 height option overlay district) has been difficult for applicants to complete and for reviewers to score. Commissioners and staff discussed tying any sustainability incentive to an objective, code-based performance metric rather than a subjective questionnaire.
Why it matters: the ordinance allows buildings above 35 feet to qualify for greater height if they meet several standards; one of those standards currently requires compliance with a borough certification (identified in code as the Westchester Sustainable Certification Program, Appendix A). Commissioners said the way the checklist is written affects whether developers can gain additional height and that a clearer, more measurable metric would make administration and enforcement easier.
Commission chair Jim Cherry summarized the background, saying the Sustainability Committee led by Will Williams condensed material the committee had used for about a year. Commissioners debated whether the checklist should be maintained as a qualitative tool or replaced with an energy-code performance approach. "One of the thoughts I had after we left that building was, maybe we look at that performance, the COMcheck, and have a requirement that the applicant exceeds the performance by 10 percent," Cherry said, noting that similar approaches are used by other funding programs.
Supporters of an objective test noted that the International Code Council tools COMcheck (for commercial) and REScheck (for residential) produce reproducible, documented outputs that plan reviewers can verify. Several commissioners also stressed preservation concerns, arguing that some standard sustainability measures can incent demolition of older, repairable buildings instead of conserving embodied carbon and historic character.
Opponents of relying solely on a short checklist said binary yes/no answers invite checkbox gaming and do not force applicants to defend design decisions. One commissioner urged that the Sustainability Committee's questionnaire be reworded so applicants must explain how projects support reuse, preservation, or transit access rather than simply checking boxes.
Next steps: Commissioners asked borough staff to send the draft checklist and the ordinance language to the borough solicitor (Tom Esty) for review and asked members to submit written feedback to the Sustainability Committee. The commission agreed to invite Will Williams back to a future work session with the revised materials; no formal policy change or vote was taken at the meeting.
The discussion also acknowledged that the statewide and model energy codes have grown more stringent in recent code cycles, which alters how a local incentive interacts with baseline code compliance.
Ending: Commissioners agreed to collect written comments, seek solicitor guidance on the checklist's legal and procedural implications, and continue the conversation at the next work session so the Sustainability Committee can develop a scoring rubric that is measurable and defensible by the borough.
