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Home    Sustainable Okotoks    Rebate Programs    LEED® Incentive Program

LEED® Incentive Program

The Town of Okotoks viewed  the current development and expansion of the Okotoks Business Park as a fantastic opportunity to set a ‘green’ building and ‘green’ business park precedent in our community through the creation of an incentive / rebate program for the construction of environmentally sustainable buildings.  From our research of other green building incentive/ rebate programs, the most economically efficient way for a municipality to proceed is through a third party certification / audit program. The most widely accepted third party certification program for commercial and light industrial buildings in North America is the LEED-NC ® Green Building Certification Program.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Green Building Rating System has continuously grown in popularity over the past ten years with continual revisions made to the program to streamline the administration process and set standards for a greater variety of building systems. In 2003, when the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) was formed, they adopted and launched Canadian specific LEED® Guidelines, LEED– Canada for New Construction (NC) version 1.0. This program is currently being revised with the new version scheduled to launch in 2010.
Types of CaGBC LEED® Certification applicable to development within the Okotoks Business Park:
The average incremental cost to a project’s total construction cost of obtaining varies levels/ thresholds of LEED® certification are:

LEED® Certified
1 - 3%
LEED® Silver
2 - 5%
LEED® Gold
4 - 6%
LEED® Platinum
5 - 8%

The incremental green building costs for commercial and light industrial buildings tend to be one the lower scale however; smaller buildings (under 50,000ft²) tend to be higher in costs due to economies of scale.
According to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) the total Soft Costs can range between 1 – 5% of Construction Costs, with smaller and more complex projects falling at the higher end of the range.  Enermodal Engineering estimates that approximately 50% of the total incremental LEED® costs to be soft costs with the other 50% incremental cost being attributed to hard costs.
 
The Soft Costs include:

  1. Design Costs
  1. Commissioning 
  1. Documentation & Fees
  1. Energy Modelling

The Incentive Program - Details
Town of Okotoks incentive/ rebate program is based on a percentage return to project’s building permit fee when specific levels of LEED® Certification are achieved.
 
The Town is proposing the following rebate structure:

Level of LEED®  NC or CS Certification
Rebate Percentage to Building Permit
CERTIFIED
20%
SILVER
40%
GOLD
50%
PLATINUM
60%

  Example:       

Building Construction Cost (CC)
Building Permit Fee (0.8% of CC)
LEED® Platinum
60% rebate to BP
LEED® Gold
50% rebate to BP
LEED® Silver
40% rebate to BP
LEED® Certified
20% rebate to BP
$1,000,000
$8,000
$4,800
$4,000
$3,200
$1,600

The Canadian Green Build Council (CaGBC)
 
Contact Information:

Head Office
Canada Green Building Council
47 Clarence Street, Suite 202
Ottawa, ON  K1N 9K1

Customer Service - LEED® Canada project inquiries & membership inquiries
E-mail:        info@cagbc.org
Toll Free:   1-866-941-1184
Fax:             613-241-4782
 
 
CaGBC Alberta Chapter
Address:
Box 34024 Kingsway Mall
Edmonton AB  T5G 3G4
Phone: (780) 669-3665
Fax: (780) 419-7064
 
 
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