Sep 15 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Jessica Portner San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Los Altos Hills officials unveiled their new, $4.4 million energy-efficient Town Hall last spring. Now, the town's new mayor wants would-be home-builders planning to build big to go green, too.

The city council is set to discuss tonight whether to require all residents who construct a home 6,000-square-feet or larger to make it 25 percent more energy-efficient than a new state law requires. The proposed plan, which council members first discussed informally last year, would make the small, affluent town one of a handful of cities to issue such an environmental mandate. The idea is modeled on a Marin County ordinance.

"I think that we have to develop bottom-up solutions to our energy problems, whether it's global warming or gas or electricity use," said Los Altos Hills Mayor Breene Kerr. "We have to come up with local solutions."

Kerr helped push through the redesign of the Town Hall, which is equipped with 176 solar panels, water-conserving shrubbery and strategically placed vents to supplement energy-guzzling air conditioning.

Under the proposed energy ordinance, Kerr predicts that a homeowner might pay $25,000 to outfit a 6,000-square-foot home with better insulation, more efficient lighting and other features. Kerr said that cost probably would be offset by a savings of $3,800 annually in energy bills.

Some people in the town are not warming to the price tag.

"That is a lot of money," said Toni Casey, one of the founders of the Los Altos Hills Civic Association. "For some, $25,000 is lunch. For others, it's not. Some people don't have unlimited funds."

Casey said the voters -- not the council alone -- should make the decision for the town's 8,000 residents. "When something of this magnitude affects residents," she said, "then it should be put on a ballot."

 

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

The meeting will be at 6 p.m. at the Los Altos Hills Town Hall, 26379 Fremont Road.