January 20, 2010, by Last week the California Building Standards
Commission unanimously approved a new building code “2010
CalGreen” that will take effect January, 2011. 2010 CalGreen is
an update to the 2008 California Green Building Standards
discussed in an earlier post and differs from the 2008 Green
Building Standards Code in that its provisions are stricter and
mandatory. 2010 CalGreen has been hailed by the San Francisco
Chronicle as the most stringent and environmentally friendly
state building code. However, a coalition of environmental and
green building certification groups are criticizing 2010
CalGreen as a step backward, since its requirements are less
strict than LEED standards and building codes already adopted in
some California cities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the some groups take issue
with CalGreen because "the tiers cause confusion in the
marketplace.” Others are in support of 2010 CalGreen because it
was drafted to allow builders to receiv