Small steps to green

Since Costa Mesa started offering to waive permit fees for environmentally friendly building projects, homeowners haven’t exactly been rushing to tear down their houses and build more energy-efficient ones. However, during the nine-month city program, which ended Monday, many residents have installed longer-lasting roofs and solar panels.

In large part, homeowners said the money the city offered was meager compared with the incentives they received from other agencies and the savings in energy bills and construction costs. Many surveyed by the Pilot said they would have made the renovations even if they had to pay a few hundred dollars in permit fees.

Robert and Genevieve Rheaume, who live in north Costa Mesa, recently installed a $50,000 solar panel system on their roof. Genevieve said the $800 fee break they got from the city was just icing on the cake.

“We were going to install the solar panels anyway because our electric bill was very high,” she said.

The couple was paying about $350 each month in electric costs, and now they pay nothing because they generate more energy than they use, she said. An $18,000 rebate from Southern California Edison and a $2,000 federal rebate are also saving them money. Altogether, they calculated it will take less than seven years to pay off the project. Although the city acknowledges that many of the projects undertaken would have been built irrespective of the permit fee waiver, officials in the building and planning departments cite an increase in frequency of some green installations as proof of the program’s effectiveness.

“Some people were going to do things anyway, but what I really think this program encouraged residents to do was install solar panels,” said Khan Nguyen, who coordinates the program in the city’s building department.

Nguyen says that since the program’s September start date, owners have been applying for solar roofs four times as frequently.

Statistics have not yet been compiled for the program’s final month, but so far, almost half of the 78 proposed projects will replace old wood shingle or tile roofs with longer-lasting composite material roofs. Another one-third of the improvements will add solar panels, and the rest will replace small things like windows and water heaters.

City staffers said the program worked as expected and was a success. Even though most of the building projects people applied for were not major, small projects are a step in the right direction and only improve the environment, according to City Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who initially proposed the project.

“Even if it’s only roofs being redone, it’s still major energy savings and makes the neighborhood nicer,” Foley said.

There have been a handful of large-scale developments since the program’s inception. The Coast Community College District has remodeled its administrative headquarters, a new Westside condominium complex will have a landscaped deck on the third floor, and two residential homeowners have completely redone their houses.

Steven Blanchard, a Costa Mesa resident and developer, bought an old home near the Mesa Verde Country Club and plans to put up the most environmentally friendly house in Orange County. The house will include solar panels on the roof, low-flow toilets and faucets, tankless water heaters, and a weather satellite-controlled sprinkler system.

“I’m really big on the whole green movement. In the development business, I think we’ve done a horrible job in Orange County,” he said. “I did it because I want to educate people.”

Blanchard missed the deadline for the permit fee waivers from Costa Mesa, but he said the city has been very supportive of his effort.

The council will look into the possibility of continuing the green building incentive program later this year, maybe with a few adjustments.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.