New environmental building rules for Edinburgh

Edinburgh council today introduced a set of environmental building rules for the regulation of sustainable development. The standards come in addition to Scottish Executive environmental rules and separate Construction Design Management rules introduced last month and have sparked fears that too many rules could lead to spiralling costs for developers. The Edinburgh Standards will form new supplementary planning guidance in 2008 and cover carbon emission targets, waste management and water recycling, among other key performance indicators. John Clement, development partner with King Sturge, said the Scottish Executive’s Building Standards Scotland regulations introduced last month had already impacted on schemes. “In one case costs rose by 15%. A 300 ft-deep borehole had to be drilled costing £500,000 on a building that is only 50,000 sq ft. “The goalposts have been shifted – for a good cause – but somewhere the costs will have to be met,” he said. In another 30,000 sq ft Aberdeen office scheme that CBRE is advising on, the developer had to absorb a £108,000, or a 3.5%, rise, to meet regulations. But Edinburgh council wants to exceed statutory environmental performance indicators because it wants to be the most sustainable city-region in northern Europe by 2015. Janice Pauwels, sustainable development manager at the council, said: “We are asking developers to take these on board for future developments. For our own new HQ, we set a target of 25% waste product renewal, but actually achieved 90%. “Industry is more than capable of meeting these challenges. There are more risks to not meeting these.”