Green Options » new urbanism

Can Sprawl be Green?

Kristin Dispenza — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:36:45 +0000

In my post of May 6th, “Traditional Neighborhood Development and LEED Go Hand in Hand,” I made the point that smart growth and new urbanism are helping give a ‘boost’ to green building practices. While conducting research for that article, however, I did find several assertions to the contrary. So, for the sake of playing devil’s advocate, I will here take a look at some of those assertions.

It seems evident that small houses, situated in walkable neighborhoods, are greener than large homes occupying automobile-dependent sites. The new LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) rating system draws heavily from principles of new urbanism and smart growth. New urbanism includes sustainability as one of its tenets (see Green Communities, Part 1: New Urbanism), and many of the primary elements of smart growth (as listed on their website) have become synonymous with green:

Preserve Open Space, Farmland, Natural Beauty and Critical Environmental Areas
Provide a Variety of Transportation Choices
Strengthen and Direct Development Towards Existing Communities
Take Advantage of Compact Building Design

But is density, in fact, a prerequisite for green development?

Wayne A. Lemmon, a planner and real estate economist, argued in his article, “Can Sprawl be Good,” that (among other things), “Concentrating development in areas already served by public facilities makes good sense, but only up to the point where available capacity is fully utilized.”

The National Association of Home Builders takes particular exception to the assumptions that underpin LEED. Their online article, “New LEED Certification for Development Found Wanting,” examines LEED-ND, and proposes that it may actually be inhibiting the progress of green development.

NAHB land use planner Edward Tombari explains:

Based on NAHB’s experience with smart growth and new urbanism design principles, a majority of the projects being built by developers today that incorporate Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) principles might be able to achieve some lower-level LEED recognition. However, while the number of communities using TND principles is rising, the vast majority do not because TND favors higher density and most new development occurs in suburban and exurban greenfield locations. While this excludes much new development from being eligible to meet the criteria being established by LEED-ND, NAHB believes new development affords many opportunities for implementing green development principles.

Even though the notion of returning to ‘Main Street America’ seems to have captured the popular imagination, there is no sign that the production of large, detached, single-family homes will actually be coming to a halt anytime soon. (Barbara Faga’s article on Planetizen, “Two Things People Hate: Density and Sprawl,” spurred a lively debate on this topic a few weeks ago.)

So, if urban sprawl is on a roll that cannot yet be stopped, can a neighborhood rating system that prioritizes density accomplish significant change? Many industry professionals believe that the LEED programs in place so far have managed to make a broad impact upon construction practices precisely because they have not set the bar impossibly high. Now the NAHB and the International Code Council are working on their own consensus-based National Green Building Standard, and this standard will be applicable to a wide range of developments, including conventional, suburban ones. (To view progress on the draft Standard, visit the NAHB Research Center site.) If consumers find the National Green Building Standard to be more adaptable than LEED, then perhaps LEED will have met its match in the American marketplace.

Photo Credit: NAHB

Traditional Neighborhood Development and LEED Go Hand in Hand

Kristin Dispenza — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:30:37 +0000

In the 1980’s, New Urbanism catapulted into the national consciousness. Today, a site called The Town Paper lists hundreds of Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) Neighborhoods from all over the world. And this surge of interest in mixed use planning may be helping pull environmental building practices into the spotlight.

One of The Town Paper’s TND neighborhoods is NorthWest Crossing in Bend, Oregon. NorthWest Crossing is the largest mixed use community in Oregon; it won a 2007 Development of Excellence Award from the Urban Land Institute of Oregon/SW Washington, and was recognized in 2006 as the Most Successful Development in Oregon by BUILDERnews Magazine.

Like most TNDs, NorthWest Crossing is a walkable community. It provides easy access to the Bend Area Transit bus system, and is focused on preserving the natural landscape. Its progressive planning practices extend to green building. Every home in NorthWest Crossing is required to be Earth Advantage Certified (for a discussion of Earth Advantage, see “What Does it Mean to Build Green?”). One of NorthWest Crossing’s commercial properties (which will house the New La Rosa Authentic Mexican Kitchen) recently earned LEED-CS Silver certification — a designation that was actually higher than the standard certification originally expected. According to David Ford, general manager for NorthWest Crossing,

To receive a higher-level rating from LEED than we were initially pursuing was exciting for everyone involved in this project. This certification just reinforces our commitment as a community, on both the residential and commercial sides, to sustainability and environmentally friendly practices.

The building also won the Grand Award for Green Building in the 2008 Awards of Excellence administered by the National Commercial Builders Council (NCBC) of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

Consumers’ rising interest in traditional neighborhood design coincides with their rising interest in sustainability, so developers are making green design part of their package. And harnessing the collective action of entire communities should make it possible for an increasingly broad range of building types to go green.

Photo Credit: NorthWest Crossing

http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/02/21/green-communities-part-1-new-urbanism/

http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/02/19/the-triple-bottom-line-a-new-paradigm-for-developers/

New Urbanism Takes on Climate Change

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:05:05 +0000

Climate change and its impact on Florida will take the stage, front and center, when the Florida chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) holds its 2008 statewide meeting later this month.

“As greater awareness of global climate change emerges, each professional involved in planning, designing, managing or governing Florida communities has an obligation to know the facts and potential solutions to this grave threat,” says Rick Hall, chairman of CNU’s Florida chapter.

The Florida chapter meeting, scheduled to be held Jan. 24 and 25 at Rollins College in Winter Park, is aimed at highlighting the message that “New Urbanism is the convenient solution to the inconvenient truth.”

Among those expecting to attend the statewide gathering are Anthony Wayne King of the Carbon-Climate Simulation Science Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who will discuss global climate change; Stephen Adams, lead staff member for Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s Interim Climate and Energy Action Plan; and Lizz Plater-Zyberk, dean at the University of Miami’s School of Architecture and principal of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co.

The concept of New Urbanism holds that “walkable, human-scaled neighborhoods (are) the building blocks of sustainable communities and regions,” according to the national Congress for the New Urbanism.

Image courtesy of the Congress for the New Urbanism, taken by Michael E. Arth