PEABODY — The City Council voted unanimously to move forward with advertising a stretch code for new construction that represents a key final step toward Peabody being accepted into the state’s Green Communities program, which in turn would open up access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant funds to the city.
Director of Community Development Curt Bellavance appeared before the council’s Legal Affairs Committee on Aug. 24 to seek approval on the new code, which will be advertised before a final vote is taken on its adoption. Bellavance told councilors that the city would receive a $125,000 grant immediately upon acceptance into the program and an additional grant estimated at $250,000 based on the city’s population.
“This is really the key piece to us becoming a Green Community,” Bellavance told councilors.
He added that the city is also responsible for conducting an energy audit of municipal buildings that had already gotten underway.
Of the state’s 351 communities, 300 have adopted the code, which Ward 2 Councilor Peter McGinn said makes it no longer a stretch but essentially the dominant building code statewide.
For McGinn, voting to move forward was “very simple.”
“There’s nothing risky here,” he said. “What we’re doing is very mainstream.”
“We’re actually the outliers by having not adopted it at this point,” McGinn added.
McGinn and Ward 3 Councilor Stephanie Peach lobbied for the city to complete both the adoption of the new code and the audit ahead of the program’s competitive grant round this fall, which closes in October. The deadline to submit to the program for admission is in December. McGinn said he has already asked Bellavance to begin looking into projects the city might want to apply to this fall, so that if the city is admitted, officials would be able to hit the ground running in developing grant applications.
The new stretch code, should it be adopted by the council at the close of the advertising window, would govern all new construction, all commercial construction, and one- and two-family homes that are more than 3,000 square feet, according to Bellavance. Historic homes would be exempt from the new code. Should the code be adopted, it would take effect in January or July, Bellavance said, with the delay serving to aid staff in getting up to date with the new regulations.
Bellavance noted that the code requirement is enforced when developments seek city approval for building permits to actually begin construction, meaning projects that have already cleared the special-permit process would still have to adopt the new regulations.
McGinn’s motion to advertise the new code cleared the committee and the full council unanimously. The code was also referred to the council’s Ad Hoc Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Committee, which would take the final vote on approval before bringing the code before the full body.
Talk of Peabody becoming a Green Community dates back as far as 2008.
The program invests into energy-efficiency initiatives, renewable energy, and innovative projects at municipal facilities. Since its inception in 2010, Green Communities has provided more than $153 million in grants, which has resulted in more than $23 million in savings a year for member municipalities.
“The savings that were projected on all these projects were the equivalent of removing almost 6,000 homes from the grid or removing over 12,000 cars from the roads,” Department of Energy Resources Green Communities Division Regional Coordinator Neal Duffy told the ad hoc committee last year.
