Building Edge June 2nd E-News Briefs

Charlotte Commissioners Likely to Keep Reduced Impact Fees
After months of debate, it appears the Charlotte County Commission will keep the impact fee rollback until 2009, although the temporary measure has not resulted in a surge of building permits. County officials are still exploring options with the rollback, but it now seems more likely that the fee will runs its course. "I think we should leave things alone," said Commissioner Tricia Duffy. "If it helps to keep one person in the construction industry from losing their job, then it was worth it."
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Leaders Fear Impact Fees Deter Development
Santa Rosa County Commissioners think water taps and utility impact fees might be stalling economic development in the area. "I know of one business that we had given incentives to locate in the county, but the water utility impact fee was $1 million," Commissioner Don Salter said last week. "That business went elsewhere." So commissioners, gathered in Milton for an impact fee workshop on May 20, directed their staff to arrange meetings with the county's utility companies. Commissioners want utilities to find a way to offer lower utility impact fees to help attract new industry.
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New Homebuyer? The Time Might Be Right to Take Plunge
First-time homebuyers squeezed out of the market by the 2004-06 housing-price surge may want to consider taking the plunge now. Prices are down and still falling, interest rates are low and stable, and a huge inventory of houses and condominiums is for sale -- a mix that should spark more sales by year's end, Realtors say. But some buyers are still reluctant. Stunned by the subprime-lending debacle, banks and thrifts want higher credit scores and bigger down payments. But those rules aren't any tougher than those in place before the housing boom. Realtors, lenders and credit counselors say there are more options and loan money available now.
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Florida Architects are Ready to Build on Energy Bill's Foundation
During the last week of the 2008 session, the Legislature took the initiative to position Florida as a leader in energy conservation and in reducing greenhouse emissions in the built environment - key aspects of sustainable design. As the voice of Florida architects, the Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects, known as AIA Florida, applauds Gov. Charlie Crist and the Legislature for passing legislation that takes a giant green step toward preserving our environment and protecting our future.

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Green Bank Heading to Eustis Area
By the looks of the giant billboard on the north side of U.S. Highway 441 -- along the Eustis-Mount Dora border -- another bank appears to be headed to the Golden Triangle. This time it's the First Green Bank, the brainchild of Lake County's Ken LaRoe. The banker and entrepreneur has found a familiar home for his latest endeavor. The bank, expected to focus on services for environmentally friendly businesses and projects, will be just down the road from the site of LaRoe's former Florida Choice Bank, which is now part of the RBC Centura Bank network.
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Area Builders Encouraged by Sales
New home sales across the nation rose in April for the first time in six months, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, and local builders said sales in Bradenton-Sarasota also are perking up. "This is a strong indication that home buyers once again recognize the benefits of buying a new home instead of purchasing an existing one," said Lee Wetherington, president of Lee Wetherington Companies.
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Brevard Housing Permits on the Rise
With April's 162 housing construction permits the highest of any month so far this year, home builders say Brevard County's housing market is showing signs of new life. The new Monthly Construction Activity Report from the Home Builders & Contractors Association of Brevard follows a separate report Friday that showed a steady increase in existing home sales in the county from January through April. The 162 housing permits in April were up from 102 in March, 81 in February and 96 in January.
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Energy Saving Devices Supplied In Some Sebring Homes
Free was the key word of the day Tuesday as Progress Energy kicked off its Neighborhood Energy Saver program. "Free is a great four-letter word that we love to use," Mayor George Hensley said. "We are very pleased Progress Energy is starting this free program in Sebring." Sebring is the sixth city in the state where Progress Energy has implemented the program, which targets the low-income area near the Washington Heights neighborhood.

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Voting on Everything Dispirits Tourist Business in Tourist Town
St. Pete Beach has become a living laboratory to study the statewide consequences of a proposed constitutional amendment called Hometown Democracy. Voters in the little Pinellas County town decided two years ago not to change their local growth plan without majority approval at the polls. Ever since not much has gotten done, which seems to be what the anti-growth faction pushing the change had in mind. A new plan to enliven the business center and allow reasonable growth within the hotel district is scheduled to go to voters June 3.
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Crist Extends Freeze on Citizens' Rates
Gov. Charlie Crist signed an extensive insurance bill that enchances protections for homeowners and freezes rates for Citizens Property Insurance, the state-run insurer for one more year. He vetoed a provision in the bill for a capital build-up program that would have provided low-interest loans to start-up insurance companies to help increase their reserves so they could write more policies. The $250 million for the program would have come from reserves accumulated by Citizens. That idea wasn't widely supported, especially since Citizens would need that money to pay claims if a massive storm hits this year.
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Manatee Chamber Says: Go Green
Installing fluorescent lighting can save four times the energy of regular incandescent light bulbs. By 2013, 36 states will have a water shortage. Planting trees around a structure can reduce wall and roof temperatures by 20 to 40 degrees. These and other facts were shared Wednesday during an informational meeting of the Manatee Chamber Green Business Initiative Committee. The committee was formed last fall to address the ever-growing need for energy conservation and environmental oversight in the face of soaring oil prices and dwindling resources.
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Study: State Should End Building Along Coast Due to Warming
While Florida should do its best to avoid global warming, it should also prepare for it by discouraging new building along coasts that could be under water one day, a coalition of environmental groups said Wednesday. "We need to be particularly thoughtful about determining where we're going to build our homes and businesses, and what actions we're going to take when these structures are threatened by rising seas," said David Godfrey, executive director of the Caribbean Conservation Corp., one of the members of the Florida Coastal and Ocean Coalition.

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New Residents Challenge Save Our Homes Tax Cap
In a case with potentially huge implications, a Leon County circuit judge heard arguments Thursday about whether Florida's Save Our Homes property-tax cap is constitutional. A group of relatively new Florida residents filed the class-action lawsuit, arguing that Save Our Homes has created a "second class of citizens" because people moving into the state often must pay far higher taxes than existing homeowners. They also argue a constitutional amendment that voters approved in January -- broadening Save Our Homes protections to help homeowners move -- will make the disparities worse.
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South Florida Called 'Greenest' Section of State
The highways of Miami and Fort Lauderdale may be jammed with gas-guzzling SUVs, but when it comes to global-warming emissions, South Florida is still greener than the state's other big metropolitan areas. That's one surprising finding in a new ranking of the so-called ''carbon footprint'' of the nation's 100 largest metro areas released Thursday by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. The report ranked the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach area No. 26 overall nationwide at 2.156 tons of carbon gas generated annually per person, with No. 1, Honolulu, having the smallest carbon footprint.
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Nine Proposed Amendments to Constitution Will be Up For Votes
Florida voters, already peppered by the claims of would-be presidents, will have more than the next occupant of the White House to decide on this fall - including nine draft amendments to the state constitution. A gay marriage ban, elimination of school property taxes and resurrection of private school vouchers are only a few of the proposals on the November ballot guaranteed to produce volleys of political rhetoric on the air waves, in print and on the Internet. Groundwork is being laid for a number of public relations campaigns, pro and con.

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US Official Says Credit Crunch Easing
A U.S. Treasury official said Monday the global credit crunch is gradually calming following efforts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks. Clay Lowery, assistant secretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury, said the Fed and other central banks have coordinated their actions to protect the financial system from possible disruptions after the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis surfaced last year. As a result, the availability of credit has improved "modestly," Lowery told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.
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Fed's Mixed Blessing
For a guy who supposedly has lost his credibility, Fed chief Ben Bernanke has been surprisingly effective in soothing stressed-out financial markets - maybe a little too effective. Since the credit crisis began unfolding last summer, Bernanke has taken brickbats from all angles. When the Fed held interest rates steady back in August, some critics claimed Bernanke was "behind the curve" and that his failure to act quickly would lead to a deep recession. Once the Fed began cutting interest rates starting in September, others warned that the Fed was overreacting and risked fueling inflation with its monetary laxity.
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Critics Say New Green Rating Hurts Affordable Housing
As the green building wave hits the residential market, some housing and development insiders fear the area's neediest residents are getting swept out to sea. The U.S. Green Building Council's new rating system for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design in neighborhood development, known as LEED-ND, is coming under fire for not putting a greater emphasis on affordable housing. Click Here>>

Green Building Sector Surviving U.S. Housing Slump
The green building industry saw an estimated $12 billion in revenues last year and could top $42 billion by 2015, Venture Beat reports. The building industry is indeed going green and, despite some potential short-term challenges such as up-front costs of becoming LEED certified, LEED-registered projects could soon account for almost 25 percent of all new construction in the U.S., according to a new report from Frost & Sullivan.
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Steel Forging a Comeback
The U.S. steel industry is enjoying a new era of prosperity less than a decade after crippling production costs and lower-priced imports helped trigger a huge wave of bankruptcies that some thought would leave it permanently tarnished. Buoyed by sharply reduced employee costs, soaring global demand, dramatic consolidation that has tamped down cutthroat competition and a weakened dollar that has made imports less attractive, steel prices have tripled in the past five years. For the first time in decades, companies operating in the United States have added capacity and workers.
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New-Home Sales Up in April Following Downward Revision in March
Sales of newly built, single-family homes rose 3.3 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units, the U.S. Commerce Department reported today. However, this gain reflected downward revisions to sales numbers reported for each of the previous three months, including a particularly large revision for March. "The fact that new-home sales are up slightly from a dismal beginning to the spring home buying season in March isn't much to celebrate," said Sandy Dunn, president of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Point Pleasant, W. Va. "We still need a great deal of help from the Administration and Capitol Hill to halt the downward trends in home sales and house prices that are producing such a drag on our nation's economy and disrupting financial markets."
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Northeast Will Be First to See Signs of a Housing Upturn
Although the national housing outlook has continued to deteriorate this spring, which is normally the peak home buying season, housing is expected to start climbing into positive territory before the end of the year in some parts of the country, according to NAHB's state and top 100 metro housing starts forecast for 2008-2009. Continuing turmoil in the credit markets and a weakening economy guarantee that "housing markets will face another challenging year in 2008 before any meaningful recovery takes hold in 2009," the NAHB forecast says.
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Free 'National Homeownership Month' Material Available
June is National Homeownership Month and NAHB is offering members and home builders associations free online promotional material -- including sample articles, radio and print advertisements, member education and other consumer resources - that highlights the benefits of homeownership for consumers and provides positive messages about the home building industry. The material also includes the "Guide to Celebrating National Homeownership Month in June," which provides tips and ideas on how to celebrate homeownership month, such as planning a news conference and holding a homeownership fair.
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NAHB Headquarters Garners Fourth Energy Star
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has earned its fourth ENERGY STAR designation for the National Housing Center, the downtown Washington, D.C. office building that serves as the association's headquarters. The designation recognizes buildings that conserve natural resources while providing a comfortable and healthy environment for employees and visitors. Since the building was significantly expanded and renovated in 2001, the Housing Center's property manager, Transwestern, has continued to fine-tune the details of the original energy-efficient construction project. This year, the improvements included at least two measures that consumers can try at home, said NAHB Executive Vice President Jerry Howard.
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Potential Energy Savings Huge With Green Remodeling
The largest potential increase in home energy efficiency can be achieved through green remodeling, NAHB Remodelers told the National Association of Realtors� during their legislative meetings and trade expo in Washington, D.C. on May 13. Speaking at the Realtors�' 2008 Land Use Property Rights and Environment Forum, Greg Miedema, CGR, CAPS, GMB, vice chair of the NAHB Remodelers and president of Dakota Builders in Tucson, Ariz., said sheer numbers favored green remodeling over new home construction when considering potential energy savings.
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GE Tankless Gas Water Heaters Cutting Energy Costs
A new line of tankless gas water heaters from GE Appliances provides a continuous supply of hot water when and where home owners need it, and can reduce water heating costs up to 35% annually over a standard 75-gallon gas tank water heater. Water heating represents the third largest energy end-use in homes, behind HVAC and kitchen appliances, according to Energy Star. Unlike conventional water tanks that heat and store hot water around the clock, GE's tankless gas water heater only activates when residents start to use hot water, and it immediately de-activates when they are done.
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Mixed Signals Confound Economic Experts
The U.S. economy grew at a faster rate in the first quarter of this year than previously thought, the government reported Thursday, further muddying the question of whether the sluggish economy is now in recession. Between January and March, the U.S. economy grew by 0.9 percent, not the 0.6 percent projected a month ago, the Commerce Department said. Normally, such a slight upward revision wouldn't merit much attention. But economists and policymakers are confounded by today's economy, which is being dragged down by a deep housing slump and soaring energy prices.
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From:	Scott Costello <scott@advantagepublishinginc.com>
Subject:	Building Edge June 2nd E-News Briefs
Reply:	scott@advantagepublishinginc.com