David, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I saw this coming ten years ago as every City Council and Board of Supervisors were jumping on the "green" bandwagon trying to outdo the neighboring jurisdiction. Even the Building Officials were afraid it would add too much work for them without qualified people to check all these rules, that's why they pushed the verification back to the designers.
I brought up this new depth of Codes everywhere I had an audience, including AIA Board meetings and lunch presentations featuring new Cal Green progress. No one listened because they believed that all this new work would create more fees and greater reliance on licensed architects. In fact architects are asked to do all this extra work as part of the basic fees, after all. we were the ones vocalizing the need to be more "green".
Fortunately for me, I am in a position to be able to retire, and I am gradually doing that. I now offer professional services in planning and conceptual studies along with securing Use Permits and the like. There are architects that specialize in all the new green measures, I now hire them to be a new level of consulting to add all the notes and green measures necessary. And I can tell you that after all the notes and specs are added to plans, I suspect that the Building Depts wash their hands and never look again, they don't want the liability and responsibility any more than you do.
This is one more issue where the small builders will sign off on these "certificate" simply to get the job and hope no one ever checks, and where the large and successful will "buy" the expertise as required.
It is not going to get any better as we (architects) shun responsibilities for all this extra design and specs that we have let the industry adopt without considering the effects and cost.
This situation is equivalent to requiring the purchase of a new car with all the safety features in order to secure a driving license, certainly good for the economy, but terrible for the new driver or in our case , homeowner.
-------------------------------------------
Rene Cardinaux AIA
Rene Cardinaux
Petaluma CA
-------------------------------------------