Bay Area cities lift natural gas bans on new buildings

Erika Minkowsky, co-owner of the personal chef service Heirloom Chef, cooks on a gas stove in her home in Richmond, Calif., on Thursday, May 9, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Cities and counties in the Bay Area are holding back on enforcing a ban on natural gas in new buildings following a recent federal ruling – a controversial move that environmental groups fear will delay the achievement of important climate goals.

The Sunnyvale City Council recently temporarily lifted its ban on natural gas in new construction. The ban was first put in place in 2022 as part of an effort to cut Sunnyvale’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade.

Cupertino recently announced that the city will suspend its gas ban until the fall. In the East Bay, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors agreed earlier this month to suspend the requirement that buildings use only electricity and the gas ban in the county’s unincorporated areas. San Mateo County and San Luis Obispo also recently suspended their bans.

The breaks follow the Ninth Circuit’s refusal in January to rehear Berkeley’s ban on natural gas in new construction. The court had struck down the ban in April 2023. A panel of judges ruled that Berkeley could not ban natural gas because of a pre-existing federal energy law.

Berkeley has since agreed to lift the ban. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling does not affect cities that have taken a zoning-based approach to implementing natural gas bans — such as Sunnyvale, Palo Alto and Mountain View — but those cities also chose to suspend bans to avoid potential litigation or other legal problems in the future.

In 2019, the California Restaurant Association (CRA) sued Berkeley over the implementation of the gas ban, claiming it was “passed with disregard for available cooking technologies and, ultimately, the small businesses in the community that rely on gas-powered appliances for their cooking.”

But environmentalists say all-electric buildings — which have no natural gas or propane lines and use electricity as the sole energy source for heating, cooking and other household appliances — are cheaper and more energy efficient, and are critical to meeting California’s goal of achieving 100% carbon-free energy by 2045.

“Electrifying buildings is a huge opportunity,” says Pamela Leonard, deputy director of marketing and communications at Silicon Valley Clean Energy. “It has a climate benefit because you’re not polluting anymore when you build new buildings that last 50 to 100 years, but there’s also a cost aspect – it costs more to build with gas.”

Dashiell Leeds, environmental coordinator for the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, said the use of gas appliances contributes to poor air quality and exposes people to pollutants such as nitrogen oxides.

“Every new gas pipeline installed is a threat to public health and a step backwards in the fight against climate change,” he said. “The more we can avoid the dangers of gas pipelines and gas appliances in new buildings, the better off we will all be.”

Following the court ruling, organizations like Silicon Valley Clean Energy, a Sunnyvale-based nonprofit agency that provides clean electricity to 96 percent of Santa Clara County residents and businesses, are looking for ways to encourage people to adopt environmentally friendly behavior.

Zoe Elizabeth, deputy director of decarbonization programs and policy at Silicon Valley Clean Energy, said more homeowners and housing markets are becoming aware of the benefits of electric buildings and are choosing to use them without direction from local authorities.

Sunnyvale city spokeswoman Jennifer Garnett said the city has taken other measures in addition to the lifted gas ban to encourage electric infrastructure, including allowing residential and commercial projects with all-electric construction to increase their square footage. City staff will present to the council in six months with other options to discourage local developers from laying gas lines.

“We do not expect this short pause to negatively impact our ability to meet our climate goals,” Garnett said in a statement. “We will also continue to encourage the adoption of all-electric vehicles.”

While cities and advocacy groups try to encourage the use of electricity, some local business owners say they prefer gas but are willing to be more flexible.

“I enjoy cooking with gas more,” says Erika Minkowsky, co-owner and personal chef of Heirloom Chef. “I think you can control the temperature better.”

Heirloom is a personal chef service that operates primarily in the East Bay and San Francisco area. The local chef team often uses their clients’ gas and electric appliances to prepare meals, but Minkowsky believes electric appliances are better for the environment and supports their use, even if it takes a while to get used to.