Kansas City’s Mayor Sly James is sponsoring an ordinance to require mandatory energy benchmarking in the city, but he is getting blowback from building owners, reports the Kansas City Star.
Building owners are voicing their opposition to the plan via the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Metropolitan Kansas City, which represents commercial buildings. A BOMA representative said the mandate would add more expense for building owners and penalize owners of older, less-efficient buildings. BOMA Kansas City supports voluntary benchmarking, but opposes making it mandatory.
When the City of Chicago was considering energy benchmarking, BOMA Chicago opposed the disclosure aspect of the program, saying, “While we support Mayor Emanuel’s benchmarking ordinance, we believe the public disclosure mandate in the proposed ordinance will unfairly penalize and marginalize many older and historically significant buildings in Chicago.” Ultimately, Chicago did pass the ordinance.
The Kansas City Star says the City Council has also received letters of opposition from large construction firms and others involved with large commercial buildings. The council’s finance committee is expected to debate the measure this week.
Just last week, the Atlanta City Council unanimously passed legislation to require energy benchmarking and audits in its commercial buildings. And Portland, Oregon, passed a similar policy on Earth Day.
Photo: Kansas City via Shutterstock
