Late last week, Councilman Curtis Jones and Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown introduced legislation that would modify the 10-year property tax abatement of new constructions, conversions and big improvements so that it would be contingent upon obtaining LEED certification.  Heard in the Hall had the details:

On Thursday, March 5th, Council members Blondell Reynolds Brown and Curtis Jones Jr. will co-sponsor and introduce a bill that will “green” the current ten year tax abatement on all new and rehabilitated residential and rehabilitated commercial properties. Applicants under the new system will receive property tax abatements proportional to achieving one of the four LEED Green Building certification levels: Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum.

There aren’t many folks in this city who are more solidly behind green building and energy conservation than I am so that side of me is happy that Jones and Reynolds Brown have stepped up with what is, on its face, a progressive and efficient plan for achieving this goal.  In effect, they would be using the tax code to cover the initial cost of designing for green from first principles.

However, if there’s one thing we learned from the citizen budget workshops, it’s that a lot of people are skeptical about the 10-year property tax abatement, considering a way to help rich, Center City condo owners get out of paying property taxes.

The city has done a poor job over the life of the abatement to make it widely known that this is a citywide benefit available to anyone who cares to improve their property.  The Jones-Reynolds Brown plan has the political risk of taking a benefit that is available to everyone and truly making it something that only wealthy, LEED-savvy developers can take advantage of.

It’s true that a conversation needs to be had about the 10-year abatement.  Do we still need it?  Do we still want it?  Should it be changed from a 100 percent abatment to something less than 100 percent?  In fact, this city needs to get moving on reforming its system of assessing property value, taxing that value and collecting those taxes.  Throwing around green friendly terms like LEED-certified into an already tangled property tax system just confuses the issue.

Once those vital decisions about the “actual value initiative,” Land Value Taxation, and delinquent taxes have been made, then we can see about tinkering with property taxes to encourage green building.  For now, there are plenty of non-tax incentives that the city could pursue to make green building easier, more cost effective and competitive with non-green building efforts.  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is getting closer to drafting building code standards that would not only encourage, but possibly require, that developers meet certain energy efficiency goals.  In Philadelphia, Reynolds Brown herself has been on board with incorporating sustainability into the zoning and building code.

And anything that could let demonstrably green projects be fast tracked through the city’s byzantine permitting process so that folks like the 100K House builders don’t need quite so many steps in their “How to Build a House” instructions would go a long way to getting the desired outcome.  The Next Great City coalition has been touting this idea since before the candidates for mayor in 2007 even started their campaigns:

We need a modern zoning code that provides incentives for high-performing buildings such as the Philadelphia School of the Future and the Comcast Building. Today we know that all buildings are not alike — some buildings perform better than others. We want to encourage new buildings to use less energy so they won’t burden the local electrical grid and less pavement so they won’t cause flooding on neighboring properties. In an age of rising energy costs and increased pollution caused by energy usage, it is essential that Philadelphia build smart, high-performing, energy-efficient buildings. And of course the city needs a zoning code that requires developers to reserve a public waterfront, as previously discussed.

Oh, and when the city starts looking for volunteers to put solar panels on their roofs, sign me up.

(H/T to Young Philly Politics for the link back to the Jones-Reynolds Brown story.)