Storage rooms are given a higher permissible lighting power allowance than dorms, according to the Ithaca Energy Code Supplement.
Table AA1 provides a list of 58 "lighting power allowances" for everything from atriums to banking areas to post office sorting areas. "Class I sports arenas" will by far have the best lighting, at 1.84 LPAs.Â
Notwithstanding that Ithaca is one of the least sunny places to live in the United States, why we need to granularly assess lighting power allowance and how code enforcers will enforce it remains unclear.
68 pages of bureaucratic legalese regulates everything from the amount of permissible lighting, square footage that can be heated, the ratio of windows to walls, and the types of heaters and dryers that can be purchased. What this will effectively do is reduce and slow renovations in a highly regulated community that has a generally dated housing supply and not enough new homes being built.