BAGUIO CITY — Once enacted, Baguio City will have a policy aimed at addressing overdevelopment, reducing environmental impacts and improving climate resilience in the urban center.

Baguio City Councilors Paolo Salvosa and Leandro Yangot Jr. proposed an ordinance establishing a green building code tailored to the city's ecological limits. The proposal was approved on second reading and will proceed to public consultations and final deliberations by the City Council.

The ordinance would establish a mandatory framework for all new construction, major renovations and qualifying retrofits. It uses the national Philippine Green Building Code as a baseline while adding local standards suited to the city's terrain, watersheds and infrastructure.

Public buildings would be required to comply regardless of floor area, while commercial, institutional, mixed-use and tourism developments would be covered once they reach specific size thresholds. Stricter standards, including geotechnical assessments and reforestation offsets, would apply to projects on slopes of 18 percent or higher and within watershed zones.

Under the proposal, developments would be required to install vegetated systems, such as green roofs or vertical gardens, covering at least 30 percent of the roof area. Developers would also be required to use native plants and maintain the installations, subject to structural certification and penalties for noncompliance.

Any cleared vegetation would have to be offset through on-site planting, off-site rehabilitation in designated areas or contributions to a city green fund.

The legislation includes performance standards to reduce energy and water consumption below national baselines. It mandates efficiency measures such as natural ventilation, insulation, renewable energy systems, low-flow plumbing fixtures, rainwater harvesting and graywater recycling for large projects.

Covered buildings would also be required to report their actual energy and water use annually to a city-managed public registry. Large developments would need to secure water utility certification or demonstrate a water-neutral design before building permits are issued.

Tourism establishments would face additional requirements, including water submetering, waste audits, food waste diversion, plastic reduction measures and guest sustainability programs. Compliance would be evaluated under a tiered Green Tourism Mark, which would qualify establishments for local tax reductions and regulatory incentives.

The ordinance would also introduce a Green Transferable Floor Area Rights system. Developers that exceed local environmental standards would earn tradable rights that could be transferred or sold to projects in lower-risk zones. The system would require official registration and land title annotations to prevent development density from exceeding ecological limits.

Embodied carbon rules would be phased in, starting with mandatory emissions disclosures before moving toward future caps and life-cycle carbon assessments.

Existing public buildings would be required to undergo retrofitting within 10 years, while private owners of older structures would be offered tax breaks, expedited permitting and technical support to encourage voluntary upgrades.

A multisectoral Baguio Green Building Council would oversee the policy and evaluate program performance, while existing city offices would handle day-to-day enforcement.

Violations of the proposed code would carry penalties, including fines, stop-work orders, permit revocations and forfeiture of incentives.