As reported in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, the City of Austin enacted an ordinance in April that requires that home sellers conduct and pay for an energy audit. These cost from $200 to $300 and are intended to motivate both buyers and sellers to undertake energy efficiency improvements for existing housing. With the rapidly rising popularity of all things sustainable, many municipalities are watching this closely. While the City gets no cut of this fee, it’s easy to imagine how a cash-strapped jurisdiction could also find a way to share in this potential new income stream. Could there and should there be such audits in our future?
I hope not, at least not on these terms. Call this a good idea done badly. The problem is, once something like this gets in place, other cities can be quick to jump on the bandwagon, happy to build off of the flawed foundation of someone else’s ordinance, then use the fact that everyone else has done it to justify their own acts. Our local leash law is a perfect example, but that’s for another post.
My first concern with these audits is that, unlike similar provisions such as termite inspections or general home inspections, it is required by law, even criminalized. I’m no lawyer, but I understand that the seller is required by law to reveal known termite damage, inspection or not, with potential financial liability under the law being the penalty for failing to do so. With Austin’s energy audit, failure to get it done is a crime. A misdemeanor. Wow. This to me speaks clearly to the fact that even the City of Austin appreciates how otherwise unimportant this audit is to those buying, selling or even loaning money on these homes. A better solution might be a fee or tax at closing, equivalent to the amount required to perform the audit, for those who don’t have an audit performed. That way somebody still pays so audits get done, but it’s negotiable. And, of course, now the City gets to participate in the income stream. Still not good, but more fair.
My bigger concern, however, is how this new requirement appears to be a fairly random and isolated provision. To do such a thing, it needs to be a part of a bigger plan, a set of actions designed, considered, prioritized and coordinated to achieve the larger goal of improved energy efficiency and sustainability. I don’t see such a plan, here or anywhere else. Previous seismic shifts in the way we control the built environment, such as the Americans With Disabilities Act or the enactment of modern energy codes, were part of just such a plan and were implemented broadly across the state or the nation, and over a relatively short period of time.
Not so with the “Green” movement. It’s all coming to us piecemeal. One city enacts an energy audit, another requires the documentation associated with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, but doesn’t require the certification itself, while another requires full LEED certification, but only on specific building types of a certain size. Random acts of senseless sustainability.
Improved energy efficiency and sustainability should be encouraged and embraced. It’s not just a good idea, it’s the direction we’re going and I don’t see anything now that could change that, even if we wanted to. Provisions like the Austin Energy Audit, however, fall into that category of poorly conceived, from-the-hip, even mercenary provisions that may help a little in the short run, but will ultimately build resentment and skepticism of efforts at sustainability, slowing the implementation of legitimate progress. We’re seeing so much of that already. Don’t even get me started on compact fluorescent lights.
Here’s hoping that in our home town, we’ll think such issues through and resist the urge to cut corners for appearance or profit’s sake.
