Marin County Requires New Buildings to Be Electric
Mandate also requires 15% of multifamily parking space to have EV charging.
Marin County, home of the forest of giant redwoods north of the Golden Gate Bridge, is requiring all new residential and commercial construction to be electric-powered effective Jan. 1.
The county’s board of supervisors voted unanimously to enact the requirement, designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the use of natural gas, the Mercury News reported.
The ordinance also enacts tougher energy efficiency requirements for additions, alterations and remodels, as well as increased access to electric vehicle charging stations for residents of multifamily housing.
Natural gas generated 26% of Marin County’s pre-pandemic greenhouse gas emissions, second only to transportation, which caused 56%, the newspaper reported.
The tougher rules for renovations apply to single-family homes of more than 750 SF. Owners will be required to implement additional energy efficiency and electrifications, including several options, but the county has opted not to required all-electric renovations at this time.
Marin County also is not requiring all-electric appliance swaps at time of replacement, also known as “time of burnout.”
Marin is the first county in NoCal to require that multifamily housing residents be provided with access to EV charging stations. The county is requiring that 15% of new multifamily units with parking spaces have level 2 charging stations, which exceeds the state requirement, which is limited to 5%.
The county is requiring that existing multifamily campuses be upgraded to provide EV charging whenever parking lots are modified.
As of August, 60 California jurisdictions, including Fairfax and San Anselmo, have adopted ordinances requiring all-electric buildings for new construction.
Several local environmental groups appeared at this month’s board of supervisors meeting in Marin County in support of the all-electric building mandate.
“If we do not dramatically reduce our dependence on methane [natural gas], we have no chance of avoiding the catastrophic consequences of climate change,” Sue Saunders of the San Anselmo Climate Action Commission told the board, according to the newspaper report.
Other groups supporting the change included non-profit MarinCan, a group calling itself Cool the Earth, and the Marin Conservation League. The League urged the county to begin incentivizing residents to replace existing gas appliances.