Santa Fe, NM Building Safety: Green Building Code (2026)

Adopted by Ordinance No. 2009-9, the Santa Fe Residential Green Building Code sits in Chapter VII, Building and Housing, of the Santa Fe City Code as Section 7-4.2. It applies to new single-family attached and detached residences built under the 2015 International Residential Code, to modular homes brought onto a site (with hardship exceptions the land use director may approve), and to residential additions that add living, sleeping, eating, cooking, or sanitation space, though only the addition itself is regulated, not the existing structure.

The code layers directly onto a residential building-permit application. Under subsection E, an applicant must submit a projected HERS (Home Energy Rating System) index analyzed under 2018 IECC Section 405, then confirm the final index before the city issues a certificate of occupancy. The maximum allowed HERS index is 65 for homes up to 3,000 square feet of conditioned space, dropping to 60 after January 1, 2018, and stepping down further by one point per additional 100 square feet for larger homes until it reaches zero. HERS raters must be certified through land-use-director-approved courses, and duct leakage is capped at six percent of total fan flow under 2018 IECC Section 403.3.4. A water-efficiency rating score capped at 70 (WERS) is required, and a radon mitigation system consistent with 2015 IRC Appendix F must be installed.

Subsection F sets a flat green building code permit fee of $100.00 per residential unit, layered onto the ordinary residential building permit fee, subject to any fee waiver approved under subsection 14-8.11(G)(2)(a). Structures inside a historic overlay district may have requirements adjusted where strict compliance would conflict with the historic preservation ordinance. The Land Use Director administers and enforces the section, which the code states took effect July 1, 2009.