Subdivisions go green in central Arkansas
Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008
After living 20 years in Maumelle, watching developers clear-cut trees to build cookiecutter homes, Mary Segrave and her husband decided they wanted something different for the home where they will eventually retire.
They found that in Woodglen Park — a 35-home solar subdivision to be built in Little Rock on a hill overlooking the Arkansas River.
The subdivision is one of a growing number of green, or environmentally friendly, residential developments planned in central Arkansas.
“The green is very appealing,” Segrave said. “We see the problems with our environment, and this is a way to solve some of those problems, even if it is just your own individual footprint.”
The residential developments are the latest in a green building trend in Arkansas that began with major projects such as the Clinton presidential library and the Heifer International headquarters and has trickled down to businesses, individual homes and now neighborhoods, said Chris Ladner, an environmental consultant with eIntegration who is former president of the U. S. Green Building Council of Arkansas.
Some of the developments, like Woodglen Park, focus on renewable energy. Others, like CityGrove Townhomes and Rockwater Village in North Little Rock, focus more on location and ensuring that homes are built near public transportation and other amenities.
But all are designed to affect the environment less than traditional construction by reducing homes’ operating costs, conserving water and energy, and encouraging the efficient use of resources, Ladner said.
“People have begun to see the merits of [green building ] and decided it was the right thing to do,” he said.
Homes that are more energy efficient or use renewable energy rely less on power provided by coal-fired power plants, which can cause pollution, and imported energy that forces the U. S. to rely on foreign countries, Woodglen Park developer Bill Ball said. They also put less stress on the power grid — and that benefits everybody, Ball said.
“There is a universal benefit to clean air,... there is a universal benefit to improved national security, and there is a universal benefit of having less stress on the grid,” he said.
Nationally, green building is gaining momentum, particularly in the past year, said Ed McMahon, senior resident fellow for sustainable development at the Washington, D. C.-based Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit organization that focuses on development.
“We may look back on 2007 as the year when the issues of sustainable energy, energy efficiency and [concerns about ] climate change really went mainstream,” McMahon said, adding that the issues received a big boost with the release of Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth and increased news coverage of environmental concerns.
“It is explosive,” McMahon said of new, residential green development.
“I think we are at the beginning of this. The housing market is this enormous thing, and turning it around is like turning around a supertanker — it has a very large turning radius,” McMahon said. “But I can tell you the supertanker is turning. We are moving to a new paradigm that is the green, sustainable development paradigm.”
Nationally, green building represents about 2 percent to 3 percent of housing production each year, said Liz Warin, spokesman for the National Association of Homebuilders, a trade group. By 2010, green building is expected to represent 5 percent to 10 percent of the national housing stock, Warin said.
Another measure of the growth of green building is the increasing number of construction projects seeking the U. S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program’s certification, McMahon said.
The design program certifies buildings that have been built according to green building standards on water conservation, energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality. To date, 1, 228 projects have received certification with 9, 516 more in the pipeline, council spokesman Ashley Katz said.
In Arkansas, eight buildings have been certified, with 48 in the works, Katz said.
The certification program began in 2000 with new construction — mainly commercial construction. But new certification programs have been developed to provide standards for residential homes, she said. One of the latest programs still in the pilot phase provides standards for green development of entire neighborhoods, Katz said.
Though they are not a part of the original pilot program of 238 projects, two projects in central Arkansas are building developments that will adhere to those Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Neighborhood Development standards.
The certification looks at four main components: location efficiency, resource efficiency, environmental preservation and compact, complete and connected neighborhoods, according to the U. S. Green Building Council.
“The fundamental intent behind it is to get developers to think about their footprint,” said Ladner, who is helping CityGrove’s developers work toward certification. “It has a lot more to do with location, connectiveness and linkages to the community.”
The CityGrove Townhomes, planned for the 400, 500, and 600 blocks of Maple Street in North Little Rock, seemed a perfect fit for the program, said John Gaudin, one of the developers.
The project will include 57 units of about 1, 500 square feet each, all with energy-saving features. The townhomes will be within walking distance to Dickey-Stephens Park, Alltel Arena, the river trail and several restaurants. They are also near the River Rail line and other public transportation, Gaudin said.
That means residents can drive less and walk more, he said.
“It’s not only the right thing to do, but there is a huge trend in urban development now to build more walkable neighborhoods that are more friendly to the environment,” Gaudin said “We have acquired the property over the last two or three years. I knew right off the bat what I wanted to do.”
Each home will be built at least according to Energy Star standards — a rating of energy efficiency designed by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U. S. Department of Energy. Home buyers will have the option to upgrade to LEED certification, Gaudin said.
Energy Star standards, introduced in 1992, require homes to be built with effective insulation, energy-efficient windows, tight construction and ducts and efficient heating and cooling equipment. The homes that achieve the rating are at least 15 percent more energy efficient than standard-built homes, and often include additional features that make them 20 percent to 30 percent more cost efficient. That can add up to a savings of between $ 200 and $ 400 annually, according to information from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Homes that are built to LEED standards are expected to achieve a cost savings of about 30 percent on energy bills, according to information from the U. S. Green Building Council.
There is no way to quantify the average energy costs for a particular size of home because there are too many variables that affect that cost, such as the home’s location, how many people live there and how much energy residents use, said Susan Recken, energy efficiency programs coordinator for the Arkansas Energy Office, a division of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
The first model home in the CityGrove project will be built by mid-February. The first 20 homes will be built in the 400 block of Maple Street and will be available by November, he said.
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