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Councilmember Trayon White, Sr.
A PROPOSED RESOLUTION
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IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
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To declare the existence of an emergency with respect to the need to amend the Green Building 1
Act of 2006 to exempt natatoriums built by the District in Ward 8 from being required to 2
maintain net zero energy compliance standards and to require that Ward 8 natatoriums be 3
built to at least LEED Silver standards. 4
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RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That this 6
resolution may be cited as the “Sensible Pool Building Emergency Declaration Resolution of 7
2025”. 8
Sec. 2. (a) There exists an immediate need to amend the Green Building Act of 2006 to 9
exempt indoor pools built in Ward 8 from the requirement to build to net zero energy standards, 10
the adherence to which will mean that residents in Ward 8 will not have an indoor pool built with 11
the modernization of the Congress Heights Recreation Center. 12
(b) The Congress Heights Recreation Center in Ward 8 is in the process of being 13
modernized. 14
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(c) For years, community members have been firm in meetings with the Department of 15
Parks and Recreation (DPR) and the Department of General Services (DGS) that the modernized 16
Congress Heights Recreation Center must include an indoor pool. 17
(d) In 2023 Council passed the Greener Government Buildings Amendment Act which 18
amended the Green Building Act of 2006 to require buildings built with District funds be built to 19
net zero standards, meaning that the facility creates as much energy as is needed for operations 20
or more. 21
(e) The law became effective while DGS was in the last stages of design for the Congress 22
Heights Recreation Center, and DGS had created a design working with the community that 23
included an indoor pool. 24
(f) For projects that do not meet the Net Zero standard, design plans must be submitted to 25
the Green Building Advisory Committee (GBAC) for their review and recommendation to 26
determine if an exemption should be granted by the Department of Energy and Environment 27
(DOEE). 28
(g) DGS sought a recommendation for an exemption to the net zero requirements from 29
GBAC and was denied. This recommendation was adopted by DOEE. 30
(h) DGS redesigned the Recreation Center without a pool however, when the community 31
learned of the new design, they insisted on a pool which will require a revised design and 32
resubmission to GBAC. 33
(i) There are two net zero pools in the country. The indoor pool in Los Angeles has the 34
benefit of temperate weather and a large campus. The other pool is in the Plainfield Park 35
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District, Illinois, a suburban/rural community with more land for solar and geothermal wells for 36
heating the water and running the high energy components of an indoor pool and aquatic facility. 37
(j) There is no net zero pool built in the country facing the space constraints of a dense 38
urban setting and with the need to heat the pool due our zone 7 temperature parameters. 39
(k) The site for the Congress Heights Recreation Center is very challenging because a 40
large portion of it is covered by heritage trees which cannot be disturbed to install the geothermal 41
wells underneath them to support heating the building in accordance with net zero standards. 42
(l) While the GBAC required the design plans to include the installation of geothermal 43
wells, the available land at the site not covered by heritage trees is insufficient space for the 44
geothermal wells required to heat the indoor pool and support the energy demands of an aquatic 45
center according to net zero standards, particularly since a portion of the available land will be 46
used to support the net zero modernization efforts at the adjacent Martin Luther King Elementary 47
School. 48
(m) DGS asserts that the installation costs of the geothermal wells are beyond the budget 49
provided for this project and the agency cannot provide a pool to satisfy the requirements of the 50
GBAC without further delays to this project. 51
(n) For years, the Congress Heights community has worked with DPR and DGS to design 52
a modernized recreation center with an indoor pool, and any further delay will cause significant 53
disruption to the government’s ability to deliver a modernized Congress Heights Recreation 54
Center with an indoor pool and negatively impact the health and wellbeing of residents who seek 55
to use the modernized recreation center and pool. 56
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Sec. 3. The Council of the District of Columbia determines that the circumstances 57
enumerated in Section 2 constitute emergency circumstances making it necessary that the 58
“Sensible Pool Building Emergency Amendment Act of 2025” be adopted after a single reading. 59
Sec. 4. This resolution shall take effect immediately. 60