GREEN BUILDINGS COMMITTEE

LA City Council Motion Would Ban Gas In New Construction By Jan 2023

February 10, 2022

Yesterday was an exciting day for supporters of building decarbonization as Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, joined by four of her colleagues, introduced a motion to implement a ban on gas in new residential and commercial buildings by the end of the year.

The press conference announcing the motion, which I was able to watch via a Sierra Club livestream on Instagram, demonstrated the successful, quiet coalition building work of the environmental justice and labor communities (the LEAP LA and RePower LA coalitions), as speakers from SCOPE and LAANE applauded the motion.

In her motion, Raman stated that the city has lagged behind in terms of tackling emissions from buildings. She's making up for the delay by setting an implementation deadline that Raman acknowledged during the press conference is ambitious.

The motion instructs the city “to report back within 180 days with a plan for the implementation of an ordinance and/or regulatory framework, effective on or before January 1, 2023, that will require all new residential and commercial buildings in Los Angeles to be built so that they will achieve zero-carbon emissions.”

Like a previous motion introduced in December, which calls for city departments to study decarbonizing both existing and new buildings, this motion emphasizes that the transition to gas-free buildings must be accompanied by strategies to help negatively-impacted workers and prevent a worsening of the housing affordability crisis.

Both motions will need to go through the City Council committee process and be passed by the full council. I’m told this is expected to happen by the end of March, which would align with the start of the workshops being planned by the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office (CEMO). Once the city returns with its report and recommendations, the proposal would need to go through the City Council process again.

It is unclear how realistic the Jan 1, 2023 deadline is given these steps, but it is a good sign that the motion includes a specific and ambitious target date.

- Michael Rochmes
Chair, Green Buildings Committee

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