Congratulations to our Regal Award Winning Clients!

LandmarkJCM congratulates all of the 2010 Regal Awards winners at the Home Builders Association of Delaware's 19th Annual Regal Awards ceremony on May 6, 2011 at Dover Downs Hotel & Casino!

LandmarkJCM's NGBS Accredited Verifiers are ecstatic to have worked with these builders on their green-built home projects!

Congratulations on your Regal Awards:

Benchmark Builders
Building A Brighter Future, LLC
Echelon Custom Homes
J.S. Hovnanian & Sons *
Insight Homes
LC Homes
Schell Brothers *
Zero Energy

* Congratulations to staffing award winners

LandmarkJCM was happy to win a Regal Award for the Best Associate Logo!

For a listing of all of the winners - including our clients and those we'd like to work with - and their spectacular projects and efforts that won Regal Awards, click: complete listing.

Federal Wetlands Guidance Out for Comment

It took a little over a year to get the guidance from the Federal Government after the Rapanos Case was heard in the Supreme Court. This guidance addressed the Rapanos case as well as the earlier SWANCC case and gave us all complicated but clear rules about what waters were regulated by the Federal Government and which weren't.

We have been hearing the rumor for over a year now that the Obama Administration was going to release their new guidance because the "Bush era" guidance didn't regulate enough waters. That day is finally here and the guidance is out for comment (see link at bottom of this blog).

The new Draft Guidance appears to try to grab more waters as jurisdictional, especially isolated waters that were clearly excluded by the SWANCC case and the subsequent guidance. Jim McCulley of LandmarkJCM will be meeting with leaders from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA next week in Washington DC to discuss this guidance and to get clarification.

LandmarkJCM will be scheduling a breakfast seminar in June to discuss what this guidance means to our clients.

Guidance Here: http://www.usace.army.mil/CECW/Documents/cecwo/reg/nwp/cwa_wous_guide.pdf

The Sage Report - What Will it Cost to Clean Up the Bay

What will it cost to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and more importantly, will it work?

Most people have now heard that the Chesapeake Bay TMDL is the law of the land in six States and DC. Many new laws, policies, regulations and initiatives are being developed and are all memorialized in the State Watershed Implementation Plans or WIPS.

The Sage Policy Group has evaluated the WIP in Maryland and has issued a very informative report. The highlights:

1. It will cost $11 billion between 2012 and 2017 for Maryland alone (conservatively).
2. The cost does not include broader impacts to the State economy, including the loss of 65,000 jobs in Maryland and the associated $2.8 billion in lost wages.
3. The target score for the Bay is 70 (with 100 being a pre-colonization Bay condition). In 2010 the score was 31, better than the 2008 score of 28 (the worst Bay score in the early 1980s and was 23).
4. New development will be responsible for 70.6% of the costs, New emissions rules will account for 26.7% of the cost and changes to agricultural rules and policies will account for 2.5% of the cost.

It is clear that the Chesapeake Bay TMDL will bring significant costs and may not come close to achieving the goals of cleaning up the Bay. It is imperative that we set the goals and then let the free market system address the issue in order to reduce costs.

We can clean up the Bay and we can do it a lot cheaper than what is being proposed.

Transportation Trust Fund

The TTF Task Force submitted its report to the Governor and General Assembly on the 31st. The report provided over 90 different revenue options to be considered to fully fund the shortfall in revenue needed to address all projects identified in the current Capital Transportation Plan.

New Wetland Guidance Coming

The new guidance for Federal Jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act is expected to be released soon. It is expected that this guidance will greatly increase the acreage of jurisdictional lands. For details see:

http://www.martenlaw.com/newsletter/20110311-federal-jurisdiction-over-wetlands

but:

A lawsuit was just decided in which the courts gave less weight to agency guidance, see details here:

http://www.martenlaw.com/newsletter/20110311-cwa-jurisdiction-dispute

NAHB Research Center Announces 2,000th Certified Project

The NAHB Research Center announced last week their 2,000th Green Certified Project in the Nation. Certified projects are almost all single family homes, but they also include remodeling, multifamily projects and site certifications such as this one. Congrats to the NAHB Research Center and the developer of this project in Cecil County Maryland. The link to the article is below.

We are happy to see the National Green Building Certification Program explode, a worthy accomplishment which is helping to support the housing economy. Of course here in Delaware, we have a lot of green to brag about. Our HBADE created the Green for Green homebuyer rebate program in conjunction with State DNREC officials. Delaware ranks #1 on a per-capita basis for the number of certified green homes in the nation. And while our many fine builders and clients in Delaware are embracing green, just last April Bestfield Homes in Delaware achieved the 1,000th certified green home project in the nation.

LandmarkJCM is happy to help all our clients build green, we are the most experienced Accredited Verifiers in Delaware. We're always happy to tell you about it, call Howard Fortunato at 302-323-9377 for information.

2,000th Green Certified Project link: http://www.nahbrc.com/news/pressreleases/rc_20110214.aspx

Delaware's First Certified EMERALD Home!

Our friend and client Lance Manlove of Zero Energy Homes just completed the first home in Delaware to receive the highest green home certification possible - Emerald!

The custom home in Lewes, Delaware, certified under the ANSI approved National Green Building Certification program, was awarded Emerald certification for including numerous green features. Not only is this home energy efficient, it received an eye-popping HERS score of 35 (the lower the better, 100 is code, 80 is energy star), it contains a partial green vegetated roof, solar electric and hot water heating panels, a rooftop rainwater collection and distribution system, and many other features. LandmarkJCM's Joe Gordon was the Accredited Verifier of record.

Our congratulations go out to Lance once again, and we are pleased to have partnered with Lance to build the first Certified Emerald home in Delaware!