The City of Seattle has a strong commitment to both climate protection and green building, as reflected by Seattle’s Environmental Priorities. To accelerate the adoption of green building practices, the Seattle Department of Planning and Development provides a Priority Green Permit program to assist innovative projects that will serve as visible models of high performance and sustainability.
PRIORITY GREEN permitting:
- Provides a single DPD point of contact for applicants
- Provides code and process assistance by an interdisciplinary DPD review team
- Sets high performance building expectations and goals
- Adopts an integrated design approach
- Maximizes financial incentives available from other City departments and agencies
- Meets the 2030 Challenge
How it Works:
A Priority Green Building Matrix was created to evaluate projects and represents the City of Seattle’s environmental priorities in 5 categories. Elements within each category address specific sustainable strategies. There is a total of 31 points available.
Proposed projects must:
- Comply with the 2030 Challenge
- Achieve a minimum of 10 points
- Include elements in three of the five environmental priority categories.
Priority Green team members and City Green Building staff can assist the project team in evaluating which strategies work best for your project, and help you prepare and complete a Priority Green Permit application.
As an alternative to completing the Priority Green Building Matrix, applicants may submit a proposal that achieves a LEED Platinum or Built Green five star rating, and compliance with the 2030 Challenge.
Applicant Teams are Asked to:
- Use an Integrated Design Process (IDP). It is recommended but not required that representatives of the DPD review team be invited to participate in the IDP
- Identify one member of the project team as the single point of contact with DPD
- Collaborate with the DPD review team to identify project milestones and develop a project time line
- Collaborate with the DPD review team to revise green strategies if revisions are needed during the review process. The point total must consistently remain at 10 or above.
- Provide utility data after building occupancy to compare ••energy usage to models and assumptions made during the permitting process. This information will be used for research or educational purposes only. This data will not be used to access penalties.
What is the 2030 Challenge?
The 2030 Challenge seeks to reduce energy and fossil fuel use by 60% by 2010, and seeks to create carbon neutral buildings (no fossil fuel greenhouse gas emitting energy) by 2030. To participate in Priority Green Program, projects must comply with the 2030 Challenge by demonstrating fossil fuel energy reduction by 60% or by exceeding the Seattle Energy Code by 20% for commercial buildings and 30% for residential buildings.
