Flagstaff, AZ Building Safety: Green Building Code (2026)

Flagstaff has not made the National Green Building Standard part of its adopted Building Code; Title 4 adopts the 2018 International Building Code and related I-Codes with local amendments, and ICC-700 appears only inside the Zoning Code's Residential Sustainable Building Incentives program. Section 10-30.70.040.D requires a development seeking the program's density bonus to satisfy one of three energy-efficiency tiers, each verified by an approved third-party professional and the Sustainability Director. The all-electric zero-energy tier requires certification as a zero energy building under the U.S. Department of Energy definition with no natural gas plumbing.

The all-electric, energy-efficient tier, the one that uses the green building standard, requires bronze-level certification within the National Green Building Standard (ICC-700), as amended, for every residential building in the development, plus construction that beats the City's current energy code by at least 15 percent, demonstrated with the U.S. Department of Energy's REScheck software or another Building Official-approved method; natural gas plumbing is barred except for narrow exceptions like fireplaces, outdoor grills, and non-residential cooking in a mixed-use project. The third tier instead requires EPA Energy Star and Indoor airPLUS certification plus a WaterSense checklist.

Meeting one tier under Section 10-30.70.040.D is only the energy-efficiency piece; a development must also clear the water-resource, transportation, and waste-reduction prongs of the same section to receive the program's 25 percent density increase, and the commitment is recorded against the property as a sustainable building incentive agreement under Section 10-30.70.050.