Montgomery County’s Bill 10-20 (2020) dramatically upgrades the Maryland county’s existing green building real property tax credit, prioritizing energy reduction in the name of GHG emission reduction, in new and existing commercial and multifamily buildings and ensuring incentives are now given only for buildings that surpass requirements of the County’s building code.
The new law creates a new two-tier structure for the green building tax credit. The first tier ties the amount of the credit to the energy reduction level relative to the existing building code. The bill defines “energy reduction level” as a level of energy performance, expressed as a percentage, that the Director of Environmental Protection finds to be at least 10% better than the level of energy performance that would be achieved under the current Building Code. The higher the energy reduction level, the higher the credit.
The second tier assigns a bonus credit. The amount of the credit, in addition to the new building energy reduction tax credit, is: (A) 25% of the property tax owed on the building for 4 years if the building achieves the most recent version available of LEED Gold, NGBS Gold, PHIUS+/PassiveHouse, BREEAM-NC Excellent or an equivalent standard; (B) 75% of the property tax owed on the building for 4 years if the building achieves the most recent version available of LBC Petal Certification, LEED Platinum, NGBS Emerald, 297 BREEAM-NC Outstanding or an equivalent standard; and (C) 75% of the property tax owed on the building for 5 years if the building achieves the most recent version available of Living Building Certification.