Read the full stored bill text
1
______________________________
Councilmember Trayon White, Sr.
A PROPOSED RESOLUTION
_____________
IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
_____________
To declare the existence of an emergency with respect to the need to amend the Green Building 1
Act of 2006 to exempt District-built recreation centers in Ward 8 with indoor pools and 2
indoor gyms from being required to maintain net zero energy compliance standards with 3
respect to the pools and gyms, and to require that Ward 8 recreation center indoor pools be 4
built to at least LEED Silver standards. 5
6
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That this 7
resolution may be cited as the “Ward 8 Recreation Facility Emergency Declaration Resolution of 8
2025”. 9
Sec. 2. (a) There exists an immediate need to amend the Green Building Act of 2006 to 10
exempt indoor pools and indoor gyms built in Ward 8 from the requirement to build to net zero 11
energy standards, the adherence to which will mean that residents in Ward 8 will not have an 12
indoor pool built with the modernization of the Congress Heights Recreation Center nor an 13
indoor gym built as part of the modernization of the Douglass Community Center. 14
(b) The Congress Heights Recreation Center and the Douglass Community Center in 15
Ward 8 are in the process of being modernized. 16
2
(c) For years, community members have been firm in meetings with the Department of 17
Parks and Recreation (DPR) and the Department of General Services (DGS) that the modernized 18
Congress Heights Recreation Center must include an indoor pool and the modernized Douglass 19
Community Center has an indoor gym. 20
(d) In 2023, the Council passed the Greener Government Buildings Amendment Act 21
which amended the Green Building Act of 2006 to require buildings built with District funds be 22
built to net zero standards, meaning that the facility creates as much energy as is needed for 23
operations or more. 24
(e) The law became effective while DGS was in the last stages of design for the Congress 25
Heights Recreation Center, and DGS had created a design working with the community that 26
included an indoor pool. 27
(f) For projects that do not meet the net zero standard, design plans must be submitted to 28
the Green Building Advisory Committee (GBAC) for its review and recommendation to 29
determine if an exemption should be granted by the Department of Energy and Environment 30
(DOEE). 31
(g) For the Congress Heights Recreation Center, DGS applied for an exemption to the net 32
zero requirements from GBAC and the GBAC denied the application, and DOEE formalized the 33
denial. 34
(h) DGS redesigned the Congress Heights Recreation Center without a pool, however, 35
when the community learned of the new design, they insisted on a pool which will require a 36
revised design and resubmission to GBAC. 37
3
(i) There are two net zero pools in the country. The indoor pool in Los Angeles has the 38
benefit of temperate weather and a large campus. The other pool is in the Plainfield Park 39
District, Illinois, a suburban/rural community with more land for solar and geothermal wells for 40
heating the water and running the high energy components of an indoor pool and aquatic facility. 41
(j) There is no net zero pool built in the country facing the space constraints of a dense 42
urban setting and with the need to heat the pool due to our zone 7 temperature parameters. 43
(k) The site for the Congress Heights Recreation Center is very challenging because a 44
large portion of it is covered by heritage trees, which cannot be disturbed to install the 45
geothermal wells underneath them to support heating the building in accordance with net zero 46
standards. 47
(l) While the GBAC required the design plans to include the installation of net zero 48
infrastructure, the available land at the site not covered by heritage trees is insufficient space for 49
the geothermal wells required to heat the indoor pool and support the energy demands of an 50
aquatic center according to net zero standards, particularly since a portion of the available land 51
will be used to support the net zero modernization efforts at the adjacent Martin Luther King, Jr. 52
Elementary School. 53
(m) DGS asserts that the installation costs of the geothermal wells are beyond the budget 54
provided for this project and the agency cannot provide a pool to satisfy the requirements of the 55
GBAC without further delays to this project. 56
(n) Similarly, the indoor gym has been removed from the design for the modernized 57
Douglass Community Center since the executive had to fund net-zero requirements and thus 58
reduce the project scope. 59
4
(o) For years, the Congress Heights community has worked with DPR and DGS to design 60
a modernized recreation center with an indoor pool, and any further delay will cause significant 61
disruption to the government’s ability to deliver a modernized Congress Heights Recreation 62
Center with an indoor pool and negatively impact the health and wellbeing of residents who seek 63
to use the modernized recreation center and pool. 64
(p) The community has worked with DPR and DGS to design a modernized Douglass 65
Community Center with an indoor gym, the lack of inclusion of which will negatively impact the 66
health and wellbeing of residents, particularly our youth, who seek to use safe spaces like the 67
modernized community center with a gym. 68
Sec. 3. The Council of the District of Columbia determines that the circumstances 69
enumerated in Section 2 constitute emergency circumstances making it necessary that the “Ward 70
8 Recreation Facility Emergency Amendment Act of 2025” be adopted after a single reading. 71
Sec. 4. This resolution shall take effect immediately. 72