The New York City Department of Education and its School Construction Authority division have released new standards for green design to serve as a roadmap for contractors and architects as they take on the city’s $3 billion school capital program.

The N.Y.C. Green Schools Guide and Rating System released this spring was the result of a more than 18 month-long collaboration between the schools agencies and several consulting firms, led by Dattner Architects of New York, DVL Consulting Engineers of Hackensack, and Viridian Energy & Environmental of Norwalk, Conn. The system will bring the schools into compliance with Local Law 86, a citywide measure enacted in January that requires all municipal construction projects to meet minimum sustainable design standards.

But the seeds of the new system were planted long before that law was on the books as the school agencies were gearing up for the current capital plan, which calls for the construction of 100 new school buildings and more than 2,000 other improvement projects. Education officials were leery of the checks and balances under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system, considered the industry standard, so the SCA had begun to hatch its own plan.

“When we started out [2.5 years ago], we really decided we’re going to do the absolute best set of green standards that are uniquely suited to the N.Y.C. public schools,” says E. Bruce Barrett, vice president of architecture and engineering for the SCA. “We knew at the outset, given our aggressive time schedule, that unless we took control we were going to have a big problem on our hands.”

The SCA was fueled by a desire to control not only the project costs, but project schedules as well, Barrett says.

“We’re under a lot of scrutiny on both of those counts,” she adds. “We’re very aware of the cost of new buildings. And schools open in September, so we need to get them done in a timely manner. If we’d gone with LEED, we would have had to submit and re-submit [documentation] and we would have lost that control.”

The city’s homespun schools rating system focuses on energy and water conservation, environmental responsibility, reduction of operating costs, and creating an overall healthy environment. Measures required by the guidelines include creating high-efficiency building envelope and HVAC systems; installing metered faucets, dual-flush toilets, and low-flow urinals and showers; and introducing energy-saving lighting fixtures in all classrooms.

While the new system was based on LEED, the idea was to go beyond those standards, Barrett says.