Shoreline City Council adopts a Deep Green Incentive Program (DGIP) to continue the regenerative design momentum in the Puget Sound Region.
Just in time for Earth Day, the Shoreline City Council adopted a Deep Green Incentive Program (DGIP) on April 17, 2017. The DGIP establishes a tiered incentive program for Living and Deep Green Buildings in the City of Shoreline and removes regulatory barriers via code departures.
The Deep Green Incentive Program acts as an important tool for furthering Shoreline’s implementation of advanced sustainability within the built environment to meet city-wide goals, and positions the City as a regional and international leader. Shoreline’s incentive program is serving as a model for King County’s regional code collaboration, as participating municipalities share expertise to facilitate the adoption of the Living Building Challenge and other green building programs. It also encourages developers who are transforming the City to construct to the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard – the Living Building Challenge™ (LBC) and Living Community Challenge™ (LCC). The program also recognizes USGBC’s LEED Platinum certification, as well as the regional Built Green’s Emerald and 5-Star ratings for residential projects.
The Shoreline program is tiered such that projects that achieve all Imperatives of the LBC or LCC Certification are designated as Tier 1; those that achieve Petal Certification under LBC or LCC or meet Built Green’s Emerald Star rating are assigned Tier 2; and projects that meet ILFI’s Net Zero Energy Building Certification combined with the Salmon Safe Certification, USGBC’s LEED Platinum rating or Built Green’s 5-Star rating fall under Tier 3.
These projects are then eligible for incentives corresponding to the appropriate tier, which provides higher levels of incentives for the more rigorous programs. These incentives include a waiver for 100%, 75% or 50% of City-imposed pre-application and permit application fees for Tier 1, 2 and 3 respectively; a reduced Transportation Impact Fee; expedited permit review without additional fees; and various departures from Development Code requirements such as density and height bonuses based on tier and zone. In keeping with the Institute’s commitment to proven performance, all projects in Tier 1 and 2 must demonstrate some post-occupancy performance through a one-year period in order to satisfy incentive requirements.
Shoreline’s adoption of the DGIP marks the continued commitment of municipalities around the country to build a living future by including the Living Building Challenge™ (LBC) and Living Community Challenge™ (LCC) in their suite of new green building incentives.
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