East Quogue Home To Reap First LEED Tax Breaks; Going For Platinum Rating

One year after riding out a perfect storm of natural disaster and unfulfilled promises, an East Quogue bayfront homeowner is poised to rebuild—and will likely be the first in Southampton Town to be rewarded with a significant tax break.

Two consecutive storms, Irene and Sandy, rendered Kim Erle’s 1940s Sunset Avenue cottage uninhabitable by 2012. Ms. Erle, who is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified project planner, was running into the same problems as the 35 or so other homeowners in her neighborhood.

“Significant wave action” was found to be occurring well within their property lines during the storm, according to a Southampton Town analysis. Yet promised state aid and insurance reimbursements to lift the house and purchase expensive storm-resistant materials were nowhere to be found.

So Ms. Erle turned her passion for sustainable living into the Sunset Green Home project, a plan registered with the United States Green Building Council, to tear down the 1940s home and replace it with an entirely new, 3,600-square-foot home sitting more than 12 feet above sea level. At the same time she will seek the highest LEED rating for the house, which is “platinum.”

LEED certification is a program designed and run by the USGBC, a coalition of developers from architects to general contractors that specializes in sustainable building practices.

Energy efficiency is one of the goals of LEED certification, but the standard also takes into account the quality of life of the occupant, sustainability and recyclability of the building materials used, and the overall impact of the structure on the community. Points are awarded for check items such as natural light and air quality, as well as carbon-footprint-reducing utilities and materials.

Based on the number of points a building receives, it is awarded a level of silver, gold or platinum. Tax incentives are based on which level a project achieves.

With Southampton Town having passed LEED legislation last summer, and Suffolk County also chipping in property tax incentives since 2013, Ms. Erle stands to receive a tax exemption of an estimated $13,000 over the next decade. The laws allow a cut to the assessed value of a home, which is used to calculate property taxes, on a sliding scale over 10 years.

Since 2010, when the program began nationally, an analysis of the LEED database shows 42 mostly municipal projects being certified from Riverhead to Montauk. The USGBC confirmed that Sunset Green Home will be the first LEED project in Southampton, let alone the first platinum project, to register to qualify for the tax benefits of the newly adopted law.

While most projects to date have been industrial or government buildings, a home designed for LEED certification must satisfy 25 prerequisites, and can achieve a score of as high as 136 points.

LEED also takes into account the physical footprint of the project. Based on the size of Ms. Erle’s house, at just under 3,600 square feet, Sunset Green Home must earn 94 points for a platinum rating. Ms. Erle is aiming for 96.5.

Her team, which includes Eastport architect Bill Heine and contractor Chris Mensch of Coastal Management, LLC, of Weshampton Beach, will need to go through the process of obtaining building permits before they start counting points, however. Ms. Erle said that because the house will be close to the water, she could not predict when all the permits will be in place.

To make the approval process go more smoothly, she has enlisted the help of local LEED-certified landscape architect Tim Rumph of Araiys Design in Southampton to design a runoff-free property with a vegetable garden.

Mr. Rumph plans a rainwater harvesting system to irrigate plants, a fully permeable lot and heavily landscaped buffers, which will earn at least 10 LEED points, while also satisfying the current town code requirements.

A vegetable garden on the property will score another point allotted by the USGBC for food gardens of more than 200 square feet.

Other aspects of the home will include a non-toxic permanent pest control system, good for two points, a top-of-the-line indoor air filtering system, and the highest rated fixtures and fittings for indoor water sources.

Overall, the home, which Ms. Erle and her husband plan to use on weekends and summers, will score a 27 out of a possible 34 points for “exceptional energy performance.”

Although they will score her only an additional two points, Ms. Erle said she is most proud of two major aspects of the project—a whole house deconstruction, rather than demolition, and a blog to document the process and educate and encourage others.

The old house has been completely “deconstructed,” meaning that every salvageable bolt, window, tile, doorknob and piece of lumber is going to be reused for the new house or donated to Habitat for Humanity.

“A typical demolition job would take a fraction of the time that is required for deconstruction, and would cost about half as much,” Ms. Erle wrote on her blog, SunsetGreenHome.com. “But 100 percent of the house would be bulldozed and dumped into a landfill.”

The team decided to hire a Baltimore-based company, called Details, that offers work to people with little education and job skills to break down every inch of the ruins by hand. The company teaches green building practices to its workers and encourages them to go on to teach them to others.

“And in fulfilling its mission,” Ms. Erle wrote on her blog, “Details keeps thousands of tons of waste from entering our nation’s over-stressed landfills.” She cited an estimate that a 2,000-square-foot house would, when demolished, generate 127 tons of debris.

With deconstruction complete, Ms. Erle said the crew has been able to divert 80 percent of the material away from landfills, going above and beyond the 70 percent required for the LEED point.

And, while earning herself another point for making the public aware of green building options, Ms. Erle is able to share her personal journey through her blog.

“With great respect for Mother Nature ... we decided to build the most resilient home possible to reduce the chance of such severe damage, in what we believe will be an inevitable next storm,” she wrote. “Building a home to LEED standards isn’t easy, but it is absolutely worthwhile. I know I’ll have a resilient, durable, energy efficient and environmentally mindful home when I’m finished.”