Green-Roof Tax Incentives:how to eco green garden apt roofs ad costs with bee hives
Green-Roof Tax Incentives: Environmental Change Giving You a Chunk of Change
By Alan Saly
http://www.6sqft.com/
6sqft is no stranger to green design, and more and more buildings throughout New York City are implementing eco-friendly features, from providing electric car chargers to utilizing geothermal energy systems. A major component in sustainable development is the addition of green roofs. Whether they’re merely for environmental purposes, or if they provide a usable outdoor space, green roofs are the next big thing in green design. So, we decided to chat with Amy Norquist, CEO and founder of Greensulate, a leader in integrated design, engineering, installation and maintenance of green roof systems for the residential, commercial, and industrial markets.
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Greensulate also installs green walls. Can you tell us a little about those and how they fit with the roofs?
how to eco green garden apt roofs ad costs with bee hives
Green roofs are a go: A bill signed by Governor David Paterson on August 5 provides a co-op / condo tax abatement worth a quarter to a third of the typical installation cost. Buildings meeting guidelines will be able to take an abatement of $4.50 per square foot of green roof, up to a maximum of $100,000 for the entire job.
Until now, green roofs have generally been high-end showcases, such as at Battery Park City's Riverhouse, or projects, such as the one at 890 Garrison Avenue in the Bronx, financed by such environmentally conscious nonprofit groups as Sustainable South Bronx. Can green roofs catch on in the hard-nosed world of co-op and condo boards?
Martin Meltzer thinks they can. Spurred by the prospect of the tax abatement, Meltzer, a retired physician and the president of the co-op at 395 Riverside Drive, and his seven-member board have given the go-ahead to a committee to obtain cost estimates for a green roof. It would sit atop their 116-unit Manhattan cooperative at 112th Street and cover roughly 6,500 square feet.
According to Dr. Paul S. Mankiewicz, the executive director of the Gaia Instituteand a board member of the New York City Soil and Water Conservation District, that's enough to make an ecological impact. "Each 10,000 square-foot green roof can capture between 6,000 and 12,000 gallons of water in each storm event," he says. "This is rainfall that will never enter the combined sewer [system]. At the same time, the evaporation of this rainfall will produce enough heat removal to noticeably cool ten acres of the city."
What else can a green roof do? Advocates says it reduces smog; provides better building energy efficiency by reducing cooling and heating loads, thereby saving fuel and electricity; captures storm-water runoff that otherwise may overflow sewers and overwhelm wastewater treatment plants; improves air quality, by virtue of the increased plantings; and produces local food and habitat for birds, insects and plants.
No Irrigation Irritation
As environmentally savvy New Yorkers know, there are two types of green roof. The first, the "intensive green roof," or roof garden, generally features trees and other large plants and requires deep soils, intense labor and high maintenance. Its purpose is usually ornamental, but gardening is also possible. The second, the "extensive green roof," is characterized by drought-tolerant vegetation grown on a thin layer of growing medium, and it requires little maintenance and usually no irrigation.
Studies done in Germany in the 1980s showed that grasses will dominate a green roof when the soil is between 10 to 20 centimeters in depth. If the soil layer is less than 10 centimeters (2.5 inches), the genus Sedum and mosses are most successful. Sedum, a hardy succulent with water-storing leaves and five-petalled blossoms, is the extensive green roof plant of choice, and it's what you'll see in most urban installations. Also common are native grasses and another succulent, semper vivus, says Leslie Hoffman, executive director of the Manhattan-based environmental non-profit Earth Pledge.
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Rob Crauderueff, policy director for Sustainable South Bronx, says a three-inch layer of gravelly soil topped by plants weighs 30 pounds or less per square foot when dry, information an engineer will have to consider when estimating how much a green roof will weigh. Sustainable South Bronx has a green roof installation team that provides estimates and consultations.
Hoffman reports "many calls" about green roofs from co-op and condo board members, asking for presentations and advice. "They're interested to know, can my building support a green roof and what will it cost?" she says. Hoffman advises them that "your first step is to get a structural engineer to tell you what your potential roof load is." She says most buildings will be able to take "at least a thin-profile green roof that weighs 15 to 20 pounds per square foot." And the tax abatement can be "enough to make the return on the building's investment make sense," she says. "If you start with a $20 per square foot price and you can get $4.50 a square foot back, that's a substantial benefit...."
Alexandra Woods, a psychoanalyst and co-op owner, chairs the committee investigating a green roof at 395 Riverside Drive. She went with Meltzer to an August 20 presentation about green roofs and stormwater management hosted by the Hafele Showroom in Manhattan and presented by Green Home NYC in association with nonprofit environmental groups. She left inspired and energetic about the project and ready to begin contacting engineering firms for a roof-load estimate come September.
"We're just getting started," she says. "More and more people have been talking about green roofs in the neighborhood." She notes that 395 Riverside has just installed a new roof to halt leaks, which makes the decision to consider the green roof "quite gutsy." Woods believes a green roof will ultimately raise the value of the property. She anticipates future buyers who are environmentally aware will factor it into their decision to buy.
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Environmental benefits[edit]
Green roofs are used to:
A 2005 study by Brad Bass of the University of Toronto showed that green roofs can also reduce heat loss and energy consumption in winter conditions.[6]
- Reduce cooling (by evaporative cooling) loads on a building by fifty to ninety percent,[7] especially if it is glassed in so as to act as a terrarium and passive solar heat reservoir – a concentration of green roofs in an urban area can even reduce the city's average temperatures during the summer
- Reduce stormwater run off[8] — see water-wise gardening
—A study presented at the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Conference in June 2004, cited by the EPA, found water runoff was reduced by over 75% during rainstorms. See the PDF at [9] for more information.
- Natural Habitat Creation[10] — see urban wilderness
- Filter pollutants and carbon dioxide out of the air which helps lower disease rates such as asthma[11]— see green wall
- Filter pollutants and heavy metals out of rainwater
- Help to insulate a building for sound; the soil helps to block lower frequencies and the plants block higher frequencies[12]
- If installed correctly many living roofs can contribute to LEED points
- Increase agricultural space
- With green roofs, water is stored by the substrate and then taken up by the plants from where it is returned to the atmosphere through transpiration and evaporation.
- Green roofs not only retain rainwater, but also moderate the temperature of the water and act as natural filters for any of the water that happens to run off.
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