Home builders lobby for new Kansas City energy policy
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Home Builders Association of Greater Kansas City (KCHBA) says an energy code adopted by the city council in October of 2022 is hard to communicate to builders.
“The end result that we’ve gotten with the code having been adopted in the way that it was and our efforts to comply with it is a historic reduction in new housing starts in Kansas City, Missouri,” KCHBA Executive Vice President Will Ruder said in an interview with FOX4 Wednesday.
The code did not go into effect until the second half of last year.
“In February of 2023, Kansas City, Missouri was 25% of the entire metro in new housing starts,” Ruder said. “In February of 2024, Kansas City was 3.3% of the entire metro.”
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Ruder met with Councilmember Andrea Bough at City Hall Tuesday. An email to her office was not returned Wednesday. Bough was one of the sponsors of the ordinance that passed out of the previous city council a year and a half ago.
The ordinance they passed aligned with the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). The city wants new housing electric vehicle ready and roofs to be prepared for solar installation.
Bough was not at Wednesday’s Finance, Governance, and Public Safety Committee meeting. Vice Chair and Mayor Quinton Lucas, who also supported the ordinance that passed 18 months ago, says he thinks you can have both development and strong energy codes at the exact same time.
“We look forward to working with everybody who’s engaged in this conversation,” Lucas said in an interview with FOX4 after Wednesday’s committee meeting. “That being said, we will always think about how we can build a healthier community for our kids of the future. I have a three-year-old son. I want to make sure that Kansas City is around and healthy and safe and has clean air for him and all of his peers years from now.”
Ruder says his plan for a new compliance path involves building homes that are still energy efficient, but it bypasses additional requirements put into play by the previous city council.
New Councilmember Wes Rogers touched on the meeting between Bough and Ruder as well. He’s a member of the Finance, Governance, and Public Safety Committee.
“They got together,” Rogers said. “There’s still some fine tuning they need to work out, but it sounds like they’re generally on the same page, and hopefully those adjustments will make a difference.”
A news release from the KCHBA Tuesday says that housing costs are increasing and the availability of them in the city’s decreasing. The release said the goal of creating low-income housing isn’t being addressed.
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“Building permits are going up on the Kansas and Missouri side outside of the city of Kansas City, and they’re not going up,” Rogers said. “In fact, they’re going down in the city of Kansas City, so we’ve got to do better, but the good news is the home builders and the people inside of city hall have gotten together and come up with a new proposal, so I think we’re trending in the right direction on that.”
There’s no word when an ordinance on this subject would show up on a committee agenda.
