How To Be A Project Advocate By Diffusing Adjacent Neighbor Tensions
Background on the Building Energy Performance Standards - After the Maryland General Assembly passed the Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022 (CSNA), MDE engaged in a series of rulemakings; the current regulations were...more
A bid to bolster eviction protections for San Francisco’s oldest neighborhood businesses won key approval last Tuesday as city leaders contemplate a sweeping rezoning plan that stands to boost building height limits along...more
This newsletter explores the emerging legal topics and issues affecting the condominium and cooperative services industry. Thought-leading attorneys from Moritt Hock & Hamroff’s Condominium and Cooperative Services Practice...more
With terms like “net zero” and “carbon positive” proliferating in marketing jargon across industries, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has recently stepped in to clarify what constitutes a “zero emissions” building....more
By 2050 rising sea levels will exacerbate episodic storm surges and inundate an estimated 87,000 square kilometers (21.5 million acres) of coastal areas worldwide, exposing $1.7 trillion of real estate to catastrophic damage....more
2023 served up roughly the same number of published appellate CEQA cases as 2022 with a defense win percentage of over 80 percent, which has been the case in many, if not all, of the past ten years. A prominent theme of...more
On June 26, 2023, the Cambridge City Council voted to amend the city’s Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance (BEUDO) to require large non-residential buildings to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 and...more
On Monday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the City of Berkeley ordinance entitled “Prohibition of Natural Gas Infrastructure in New Buildings” was preempted by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The relevant...more
The City of Boston is advancing three companion regulatory efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for medium-sized and large buildings. As addressed in our 2021 advisory, the Boston Emissions Reduction and Disclosure...more
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (“ACEEE”) issued a January 2023 policy brief titled: Identifying States That Will Benefit Most from Updated Building Energy Code (“Policy Brief”)...more
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser signed two significant pieces of legislation recently to build on the success of the Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act of 2018 and to further help transition the District to a new energy...more
Build Back Better No More – Welcome to the Inflation Reduction Act - Starting as a $3.5 trillion legislative proposal to tackle climate change and shore up the social safety net, the Build Back Better Act was eventually...more
Montgomery County, Maryland, signed Bill 16-21 into law on May 2, 2022, as an amendment to the County's Building Energy Use Benchmarking Law (Benchmarking Law), Article 6 of Chapter 18A of the Montgomery County Code. Bill...more
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (“ACEEE”) published a December 2021 paper titled: Knowledge Infrastructure: The Critical Path to Advance Embodied Carbon Building Codes (“Paper”) ...more
Boston Acting Mayor Kim Janey signed an Ordinance Amending City of Boston Code, Ordinances, Chapter VII, Sections 7-2.1 and 7-2.2, Building Energy Reporting and Disclosure (BERDO 2.0) into law on Oct. 5, 2021. The amended...more
Climate change is expected to have a significant impact on existing real estate. According to a government assessment, by 2050 up to $106 billion of United States real estate will be below sea level....more
While cities around the globe have talked for years about the need to cut back on carbon emissions and their overall impact on the environment, New York City has taken bold and aggressive action in this regard. The Climate...more
We know that, mostly as a result of climate change, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be the highest priority, but that won’t be enough to prevent severe...more
New York City and Los Angeles have announced unprecedented plans to address climate change with an emphasis on greenhouse gas emissions from large buildings. New York City enacted a legislation package requiring certain...more
On April 22, 2019, the New York City Council celebrated Earth Day by enacting the “Climate Mobilization Act” into law. The centerpiece of this important legislative package is Introduction 1253-2018 (“Intro 1253”)....more
On November 23, 2018, the United States government released Volume II of its Fourth National Climate Assessment. The report assesses the effects of the expected rise in sea levels resulting from global climate change,...more