Water Conservation

Well we did it! As we discussed in some of my June posts, we have been working hard this year to conserve water, both indoors, and more importantly in the yard. On our final water bill for the year, we came in 21,000 gallons below our allotment, or almost 9% below. While this is good, what is even more remarkable is that last year we were almost 40,000 gallons over our allotment, so in total we have cut our water usage by almost 22% Not bad if I say so myself!

We have also been cutting down on our electric useage, mostly on air conditioning. We only largely ran it for one month this summer, rather than the four months that we normally run it. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but our electric bills have certainly been lower. Now to create some goals for next year!

Happy New Year

To all my faithful readers, I hope you have a great new years eve, and lets all have a prosperous New Year!

Fugly December '08

I ran across this project awhile back in Grand Junction, and I was simply floored by it. In this day, with all the design professionals, stringent planning departments, and all, why do we continue to build such fugly housing? I understand the need to build homes that are affordable, but why on earth do we need to build multi-family housing straight as a Kansas Highway?

This particular building has 5 units in it, with the street facade dominated by garages, and hard to find front doors. Why not add on some bumpouts to break up the second floor, add a little ornamentation to the roof line, etc? There are simple things that can be done that adds dramatically to the character, without adding much cost.

What makes this even worse, is that these buildings are lined up barack style, and covered with a drab coloraed vynil siding material. Talk about going from bad to worse. I would have thought we would have learned lessons from all the 60's housing projects that are now being torn down. I guess not.

Where's My Bailout?

As a small business owner of Vignette Studios, I am amazed at all the money being thrown into the financial systems, banks, markets, and possibly the auto industry now. All this is supposedly to keep a huge meltdown of the system from happening, with the original theory of helping out main street. Well guess what? The meltdown happened anyway. But I often ask myself, where is my bailout? I have tried hard to keep my debt down, have refused to mortgage my house to the hilt, have always managed to pay my bills even in tight times, and have tried hard to keep people employed. In spite of all this, my industry, which has been slowing down for the past few years, has collapsed the last six months. I am worried that everything I have worked hard for, might all be lost. So why isn't the feds coming to my aid? Instead of handing out billions upon billions to a few key companies, where I will never see any of that money, and they are still shedding thousands of jobs anyway, which makes the economy worse, and we just continue to spiral down, why not send each small business owner a hundred grand or so? That would keep millions of people employed, keep small business doors open, and keep us from defaulting. I think the feds, if they want to throw out money, need to truly help Main Street.

That being said, I am optimistic that we are closer to the end of this mess than the beginning. My business is directly tied to the residential market, and the residential market will come back first and help to lead the country out of the mess. All markets are local, and many will come back before the national market will. Our market, in Northern Colorado, did not get the massive buildup and runup in prices that California, Nevada, and other places did, therefor we did not fall as bad. All the indicators are out there that we have reached bottom, and will start climbing our way out. All we need is some confidence.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Sustainable and Development

I have been working on a small 10 unit development, where our goal has been to create a sustainable community from the ground up. This development called Midori (see the sustainable development post below) has only 10 homes on 5 acres. While this is not an aggressive density by any means, it is all that is allowed per the zoning code. One of the big goals was to reduce our impacts on stormwater management. We were able to do this somewhat, by reducing our amount of hardscaping, and having plenty of open space. However, some of my other ideas were shot down by the reviewing jurisdiction. One of my thoughts was to use permeable pavement in our private driveways. I would be allowed to do it, but would not receive any stormwater credit because of fears that it could become clogged, or that the homeowners may choose to pave over it in the future. These are reasonable concerns, but this line of thinking does not allow any kind of creativity, especially in light of todays views of trying to leave a light footprint on the planet. To add insult to injury, in turns out that when the adjacent roadway was rebuilt a couple of years ago, an outfall pipe for the property was not installed, so now we have to account for double detention on our property. As a result we have gone from a barely noticeable detention area of only a foot or two deep, to a hole in the ground that is 6 feet deep.

At least I was able to achieve one of my goals and minimized the amount of piping, with most of the stormwater being carried in open swales. Oh well, maybe we can still make up for it in the landscaping and the homebuilding.

Grand Opening

Recently Standard Pacific Homes of Colorado opened a new project in the heart of Lowry, within the City of Denver. We worked with Standard Pacific for almost 18 months on this project, from initial conception, to project approvals and finally construction documents. We were responsible for the entire site design, streetscape renderings, and landscape design. At only 20 homes, this community is sure to be a quick sellout. Indeed it opened to strong reviews.


This is a project of small homes on small lots, designed for low maintenance living. The lots are approximately 36 feet wide by 85 feet deep. The lots can be small for this front, since they are accross the street from a community park. A driving design feature, was the desire to create outdoor living spaces. We incorporated use easements, where one homeowner gets the use of the side yard of the adjacent home. Careful attention was paid to the design of the homes themselves to ensure that windows do not face onto adjacent courtyards. We are proud of this design, and look forward to repeating it in other infill developments.

Sustainable Community

We have been working with Ecosphere Investments on a sustainably driven residential development. This development is featuring 10 homes that will all be built to meet or exceed built-green and/or energy star standards. To complement this, the site plan has been designed to foster community, reduce hard scape, and to be environmentally focused. We are incorporating things such as bio-swales, native plant materials, community, and very limited turf grass. Each home will be carefully sited to provide private outdoor living space in a tightly packed development. The developers are also exploring a community wide geothermal heating and cooling system, Photovoltaic power, and many other ideas. We created some graphics for them to use in the sustainable living fair where they are giving there first marketing exposure to the community. This is indeed, an exciting community that we believe will be the future of development.

Silver Lining

My daughter and I took a trip through Windsor last weekend to see how the progress was coming from the Tornado that wiped out the east side of town last May. I was pleased to see how much progress has been made in the last couple of months. It also occured to me, that even though this tragedy is awful for the homeowners and businesses that were damaged or destroyed, it is also providing much needed jobs for the construction industry right now. From carpenters, to drywallers, to painters to roofers, all are able to make some money and put food on there own tables in a time period that has not been kind to construction personal.

My hats off to Windsor for rising to the occasion and recovering from this storm!

Rain and more Rain

Don't know if this is global warming or not, but we have had a very dry spring and summer, with only about half of our normal moisture for the year. Until Thursday. It started with a bang Thursday afternoon with a major hail storm that flattened our garden and a good 1/2 inch of rain. Since then it has rained almost non-stop. So far, our own rain gauge has a total of 3 inches in it. That follows pretty closely to the nearest official rain gauge. Feast or Famine, at least I won't be having to water the yard for some time!

Thoughts on Las Vegas

I recently spent some time in Las Vegas for a conference. I have been there several times over the years, and have even done some work there, though it was about 15 years ago. It is fun though to go see those projects and see how well they hold up over the years. As everyone knows, Las Vegas is a study of contrasts. There is the mega resort strip, and then Las Vegas for everyone else. Of course, wherever I go, I like to stray away from the touristy areas and see how the real people live.
Thoughts On The Strip
The strip just simply boggles my mind. Each resort is basically a city unto itself complete with its own shopping mall! Each one must be able to support around 15,000 people. I can only imagine the infrastructure that it takes to support this! Can you imagine the size of the water lines and sewer mains? Not to mention the power that is required. To top that off, they are constantly rebuilding there. If a structure is about 10 years old, it is prime to be redeveloped. Currently they are building the City Centre project. This is one where a massive project has gone from conception to construction in only a few short years. Mind Boggling.

Thoughts on Las Vegas Suburbs
Most of the residential areas in Las Vegas are boring. There is no real design. Even the master planned communities are not all that exciting. They are all car centered, with no real pedestrian connections, or any real thought given to creating a sense of place. There are exceptions of course, and one in particular I will be writing about in a separate post. And then there is a lack of landscaping along most arterials. Las Vegans love walls, every yard has a masonry wall around it. Therefore, all the main streets are lined with walls right behind the walks. Pretty sterile.

Water Conservation
On the plus side, Las Vegas is getting serious about water conservation. In all of the new developments I visited, there was very little turf grass, and what little there was, was located where it would actually be used. They are even giving existing homes and residents substantial cash incentives to take out their lawns. This is something that we should all be learning from. The landscaping they are putting in is very drought tolerant, and for the most part pretty attractive. One nice thing I noticed was the lack of weeds like we get here, such as bind weed and thistle! Nice Job!

Mesquite Trees
One thing I am jealous of in Las Vegas is they get to use Mesquite Trees. I absoloutely love these trees. They are light and airy, have interesting texture and forms, and also provide some good shade to boot. I wish we could grow them here!

The Press - The Best Spin Doctors!

During these rough economic times, I am continually amazed at how the press can spin news. I have a link on my main home page (Igoogle) I use that shows the major headlines. One headline will say that a companies profits fell by 40%...and doomsday is near. Yet another one will say that profits did not fall as much as expected, and so the sky is not falling. Reading the articles, one is very glass half empty, while the other is a glass half full. It is this seesaw attitude that is helping to drive the housing crunch further down. The press (and media in general) has a very big influeynce on how people percieve things. They read about prices falling 20% in California, panic, and decide not to buy locally, where prices may have actually risen.

I fall into this trap myself. I read all the national stories and fear that we will all go out of business. Of course, I then talk to local people, and they see housing getting better locally. Of course, when things do turn around, the press will be all over the rebound, which will encourage people to get out and buy, thereby spurring it on even more. You have to love it and hate it at the same time.

If I had it 'My Way'

Over the years, I have formed my own theories on how planning should occur. Imagine if you will, we were just now pioneers in this area with a totally clean slate. The water was pure, wildlife was abundant, the air was clean....yet settlers were ready to move in. What should we do differently? This is just my opinion of course, and is based solely on environmental and social concerns, my top 10 list if you will, not in any particular order.

1) River corridors should be given a mile wide corridor. The only development allowed would be recreational such as trails and parks, the occasional street crossings, and some public infrastructure, such as water and sewer plans. I propose this to protect our wetlands, floodplain mitigation, and to allow the rivers to naturally meander.

2) Stream and creek corridors are given a half mile wide corridor. Again, for the same reasons as above.

3) Land Ownership and political boundaries would follow physio graphic features. I understand that our grid system of land ownership made sense...in some areas. That is why we have arterial streets on section lines that are more like roller coasters going up and down hills. Roads should follow the lay of the land. Or, I know of one parcel and the neighboring parcel that both have a creek running across them. They both end up with unusable parcels on the opposite sides of the creek...the property line should follow the creek. Of course following the creek violates my rule above, but you get the point. This also is important in watershed management, wildlife management, resource management, and a myriad of other things.

4) Comprehensive planning, and mixed use would be the norm.

5) Communities would be smaller, around 2 mile radius, everything would be walkable, with all the shopping and most of the jobs easily accessible, reducing the need for private vehicles. There would be more communities at 5-10 mile spacings, with the areas in between for agriculture, recreation, etc. These communities would be connected by mass transit.

6) High emphasis would be placed on architecture, sustainability, and usability.

7) Placemaking would be the starting point...not an afterthought.

8) Designing for the pedestrian environment and socialization would be a priority over designing for vehicular circulation.

9) There would very limited development with a half mile of highway corridors, such as interstates. This is to keep them as a pleasant driving experience. The only development allowed would be occasional service centers. Also, no residential development within a mile of interstates.

10) There would be no urban sprawl. Period. End of Story.

Water Conservation

One of the things that I vowed to due this year was to cut down on my outdoor water use. We have a xeriscaped yard, so I decided it was high time that it actually perform that way. Of course, one of our big water users was our corn garden. In years past we watered it with a rotary sprinkler hooked on the hose. Problem is, I would turn it on in the evening, then forget about it. In the morning I would find it still on watering away! Our annual water allotment for our lot size is 240,000 gallons. The last few years we have zoomed past that by early August...and of course have paid dearly.

This spring I reworked the irrigation system in the regular garden, and installed one in the corn garden, so no more overhead sprinklers. In the corn garden, I have hooked it up to the irrigation system, but havn't actually put it on the clock. I have discovered that all I need to is to turn it on for about 15 minutes every few days, and with the soaker hoses, that is all I need to do. I use that time to week the garden and do pruning, so I don't forget it. I have also put washers in all the hose bibs and hose connections, dramatically cutting back on the leaks. I have also cut back on the overall watering.

So far it is working. Yesterday we recieved our water bill. Last year we used 41,000 gallons in June, this year, only 14,000 gallons. I think, our running total for the year is about 100,000 gallons. I think we will have a good summer for water use!

Oh, we also made it all the way to June 25th before we turned on the A/C!

Gas Prices and Development

Well, it has finally happened. As we all know, gas prices have shot through the roof, and it is hitting us all in the pocket book. In my opinion, we have been living on borrowed time for a long time with relatively low gas prices, and it is finally time to pay the bill. People have been asking me a lot lately what this will mean for the development industry that is already down and out for the most part. To me, it basically means that most of the things I have been predicting for the last decade are finally going to come true, and we will have a paradigm shift in the way people live their lives. We are finally going to have to recognize resource conservation, and not just gasoline. Anyway, here are a few of my thoughts.

DOWNSIZING
No, I am not just talking about the empty nester's who don't need all that room now that the kids are gone. People are going to start realizing that they don't need the McMansion's on the hill, 5-6,000 square feet with 1 acre and more lots. Not only is this a lot of house to heat, cool, and maintain, but that is a lot of ground to maintain, water, fertilize. People are going to look for smaller homes, I say in the 1,800 to 3,000 square foot range on smaller lots. They might even become adjusted to raising families in townhomes, condos, or other high density living areas. The "Not so Big House" phenomena will become the norm, not just the latest fad.

But even more importantly, people are going to downsize there neighborhoods. They are going to want to live, work, and shop in relatively small geographical areas. People are going to become increasingly more willing to live in New Urbanism style developments with mixed income, mixed product, and mixed lifestyles all wrapped together. The one size fits all mega-burbs with the look-alike homes are going to be a thing of the past. People really want a sense of community and belonging. And the with cost of transportation, they won't want to drive 5 blocks to the pool, or 5 miles to the grocery store. They will walk or ride there bike.

Which leads me to my next point. I think we are going to see the rise once again of the corner grocery store...in the 10-30,000 square foot range. This supports the concept of sustainability and not having to drive for miles to pick up a gallon of milk. Of course, only denser development can support this kind of store.

This is happening now. As proof I offer up Stapleton, Lowry, and a host of other New Urbanism projects. In a down housing cycle, these projects are still selling well, and at a premium also. Stapleton is now about 1/2 built out, in only 6 years.

SUSTAINABILITY
Of course, this is hardly new, as being "green" is what it is all about. But there are multiple levels of sustainability. One level is building homes and commercial buildings that are energy efficient. This has been happening for some time now, and it keeps getting better. Of course, when I started building homes back in 2000, I was focusing on energy efficiency. Back then though, nobody wanted to pay the premium for that. I am always ahead of my time it seems.

However, another level of sustainability involves land conservation, redevelopment, higher density development, reduced sprawl, water conservation, etc. I think we will see community gardens become more popular. Maybe we will see edible landscapes. People are going to have to get used to more native and wild landscaping...and not the manicured lawns with lollipop shrubs.

We are already seeing recycling becoming a way of life...now people are getting into composting. All of this keeps stuff out of the landfill. I think we are starting to see a paradigm shift of quality versus quantity. People will buy things that will last for years, and not look at products as being disposable. If it breaks I will just get a new one. I know I have been guilty of that myself.

Anyway, I had some other thoughts, but at the moment they escape me. Of course, none of this will come about overnight, but I do believe that with the cost of transportation now, it will happen faster than it would have otherwise.

Woodworking

As some of you know, I thoroughly enjoy woodworking. Now I am getting into building furniture more and more. My current project that I just started yesterday is building my daughter a Futon for her room. Last fall, I built side tables for our bedroom (see the picture). I have also built a craftsman style columns and covered the beam that runs the 60 foot length of our house. So far I have only built stuff for ourselves, but would like to start building things for other people. If you know of anyone that wants something built, let me know!

New Computer

Have I mentioned how awesome the Mac's are? I am so impressed to be using a machine and operating system that actually works! Everything works together, and it is fast! Only a minute to boot up versus going out for a cup of coffee while windows boots up. Of course, I still have windows in order to run CAD....but even it is integrated!

Mac OSx...the only way to go.

June 2008 Fugglies

OK, this belong more in the WTF category than ugly. I found this playground in a New Urbanism community. Not just any community, but a very celebrated one that prides itself on its high end and well regulated architecture. So why on earth would they fence in a playground....much less with a chain link fence? I haven't seen chain link fences anywhere else in the community, so I didn't think they were even allowed.

Now I can understand wanting to keep kids out of the street...but there are far better ways of doing it...wrought iron fence comes to mind, with some openings to actually get into the playground. I don't know, all I do is shake my head.

New Spring Time Pictures

I have added more springtime pictures to my album that I listed in the previous post.

Spring Garden 2008

Spring has finally sprung, and with all the recent rains, everything is really green and beginning to bloom! With the dry winter, the Iris have been simply fabulous this year! Our Hawthorne tree actually bloomed this year. All the color, makes our red house really stand out! I actually built our compost bins this year, 4 bins total measuring 4 feet x 4 feet square, by 3 feet tall. One of the bins is for table scraps and I have planted red worms in that one. As the worms multiply, I will add some to the other bins to aid in the composting.

Unfortunately, the dry winters have also cost us a lot of die back, and even some lost plants. The most notable one is our green grape. This weekend I am going to try to take it out and plant a new one. All of the red grapes survived, but we will miss the green grapes. Those were great to eat! See the link below for some pictures from our yard.

Spring Garden 2008

What I Have Been Up To

Sorry to everyone for being out of it for awhile. We have been pretty busy lately with a lot of submittals, and I have been having to write a lot of design guidelines, zoning codes and such, so I havn't been inspired to write in my blog too!

Tomorrow I leave for Vegas for the International Council of Shopping Centers conference. I am going primarily for one of my clients. It should be an interesting experience. I am also looking forward to getting lots of fodder for my Fugly awards, and checking out the local development scene. I know that they are really hurting right now...but they have had an excellent ride for a couple of decades now. There are some really good projects going on there though that I want to check out. I will keep you all updated.

New Computer

Well, I finally did it. After thinking about it for a couple of years, I finally broke down and got a Macbook. I love it! The Mac OS is far superior to Windows, it runs faster, is easier to work with...and it all works together! Fantastic! Of course, I do have to use windows programs, such as CAD, so I have set this system up for a dual boot, with virtual machine software. In other words, I can run both the Mac and Windows at the same time, more or less seamlessly. There are some nuances I am still getting used to, but it is pretty smooth.

Rigden Farm Cottages

For the past 6 months or so, we have been hard at work developing a new concept for Habitat for Humanity here in Fort Collins. They had purchased a few adjoining multi-family lots that allowed a total of 8 units. However, with there experience at building the last multi-family building (see previous blogs), they did not wish to build any more. So working together we came up with an innovative concept that clusters 8 single family cottage homes on the 3 multi-family lots. Three of the units face a street, but the others are clustered around a central greenbelt.

In all, we developed three plans for Habitat. Plan C, the ranch plan, is designed for ADA accessibility, has a 2 car attached garage. The other two plans, A & B are story and half designs with a main floor bedroom and two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. All plans are designed for an optional basement that would could accommodate additional bedrooms if family size dictates. These two plans have a detached one-car garage that is accessed from an alley type private drive.

We are hoping that this concept will become a new model for higher density construction that provides some of the economies of scale as a town home design, but with being single family construction allows flexibility in family selection, funding, and sponsor assignment.

Fugglies March 2008

I found this during one of my wandering adventures the other day. Now I admit this isn't particularly ugly, but just plain stupid. In this development I found several blocks of homes that had an alley running behind them. That is all fine and good. Trouble is, most of the homes were built with front load garages, and not alley load garages. In this particular development, this is a waste of resources since the front load homes require a fairly substantial setback. This leaves the homes with a very small backyard. The few rear load homes that were built, had shorter front setbacks, and bigger backyards. The second problem is, this was just a waste of land and resources to build the alley, that won't get used for its intended purpose. Sometimes, I wonder what developers/builders and homebuyers are thinking.

LEED for New Development

Here we go! We now have a residential project where the client wants to follow the LEED ND checklist as much as possible in the hopes that the development may become LEED certified when the LEED ND checklist comes online in 2009. We are just starting the project, so I am not certain yet what all we will be doing. It is a smaller development, only 28 homes, but that size should be good for testing this. Over the next few days we will develop concept plans and review the LEED ND checklist in more detail and see what we can and cannot do. As part of this process, we will also be evaluating the market feasibility of LEED ND.

Another component of this that we will be studying is which green home building tool that will be implemented along with the development. This might be following the built green program, energy star, and LEED for New Homes. Whether a specific program will be implemented, or wheaher that gets left up to each builder will be decided at a later date.

Real Estate Forcast 2008

Tonight I attended the Group Inc's real estate forecast presentation for 2008. For those of you not in Northern Colorado, The Group is the largest real estate firm in Northern Colorado. The main thing I got out of it, which is what I have been thinking, and have been hearing from many people, is that our local market has "bottomed out" for lack of a better term. Things are going to start improving. It won't be booming by any means, but it will be more balanced. The latter half of the year looks to be better than the first half, and that will carry over into 2009. For the next year, they are predicting that sales will be slightly over 2007, which was down a little from 2006, which in turn really dropped from 2005. That points to a bottom of the market. It is funny though how things are in perspective. For Fort Collins, they are predicting about 3,700 home sales. For everyone concerned that is a down market for around here. Interestingly, that is only 300 sales less than the peak back in 2004, and is similar to the sales pace in 1998. I remember 1998 being a pretty good year. It is amazing how it is all relative.

They also stated that in some neighborhoods, price points, etc. there is actually a shortage of homes available, which can happen in any market, good or bad.

Now for what I wish they would have done. I wish they would have spent some time talking about the various market segments, where is the activity? I wish they would have spent some time talking about what buyers are looking for, where they are coming from...what product is selling. Is the only thing selling homes Granite Kitchen counter tops, or are buyers looking for something else.

Now, for my predictions. Overall, I feel the market will continue to improve, though at a sustainable pace, not a torrid pace. I think the markets will be there for infill product, niche product, and amenity based communities. I think people are going to demand more from good design and architecture. They will want their homes to be unique and individual, a reflection of who they are...even from production builders. The street scape will become more important, with a variety of architectural styles, colors and materials. The look alike homes of the past decade will become a thing of the past. I predict buyers will become more interested in mixed use and mixed income neighborhoods...intermixing products within blocks, and not so segregated as they have been in the past. Buyers are going to continue to look for homes and neighborhoods that are designed within the context of the green movement, and that are energy efficient.

Well, that is all for now. I would be interested to hear what your thoughts are!

Computer Woes Part 2

You would not believe it, but on Thursday, my back up laptop went down for the count. At first I thought it was the power cord as I have had issues in the past. But it turns out it was the internal power system. I am seeing if that is fixable, or even worth fixing.

So I went and bought a new hard drive for my main laptop, got it all setup again, only to find that I was having the exact same problem with the same program as I had before. Arrgghhh. I did some online research, and discovered that it was a software problem, and there was a fix available. So I was able to get it fixed, and moved on with life. Now the question is, why did it quit working in the first place? I had been using the same settings and hardware configurations for some time. Why would it work one night, and not the next morning?

Technology...you love it and hate it at the same time. On the bright side, during all the rebuild I discovered that my laptop has bluetooth capability. Now if only I can get my Blackberry connected by bluetooth, life will be good.

Licensure

Today I finally received notice that my licensure application was approved. I am now Landscape Architect #290 in the State of Colorado. This is a follow up to my earlier ranting about the State government misplacing my application!

Computer Woes

It must be Murphy's law, the best laid plans of mice and men. Yesterday I had a big deadline trying to get 3 home plans out the door to structural engineers. I had my whole day planned out, with no meetings scheduled. The day started at 5:30 am when my daughter came in crying with an ear infection. Since my wife was a teach parent at the preschool with my son that day, I was the one who had to take our daughter to the doctor. So I got on my computer to work on my deadline, and I couldn't get into CAD. After trying several times, I came to the conclusion that my hard drive was failing. I realized this, because this has happened to everyone one of our laptops. So instead of working on my deadline, I spent the day backing everything up (which I do anyway), and getting my back up computer up and running again. Fortunately, I didn't lose anything, and I did manage to get everything out, though a few hours late!

Home Building Green vs LEED

Recently a friend of mine and I were discussing what I was going to do with my LEED accreditation and discussing LEED in general. I actually have thought about this, and what I would like to do is specialize in LEED for New Developments, as well as New Home Construction. This will be in addition to what we do for commercial projects, but I want to specialize in the residential end.

With new development, particularly residential neighborhoods, there are very few standards for green development, other than doing what is right to minimize the impacts of development and creating them to be more sustainable than the current development patterns. In this respect, I think LEED-ND will be very beneficial and I want to be in the forefront of this. Convincing developers to go this route will not be easy, and it will also require municipalities, utility providers, and contractors to all think differently. One of the first projects I want to test with this will be own development. Right now, LEED-ND is in the pilot process, and will not be brought online until early 2009, so we will follow the pilot guidelines and hopefully become certified as we go to construction.

LEED for homes is an entirely different matter. There are many green building standards for residential construction. Locally, we have the Built Green program administered by the Metro Denver HBA, Energystar, the upcoming ANSI national standards, and some others. All are good programs with varying degrees of market acceptance. When I was building several years ago, I followed the Built Green program, and even listed some of the homes. At the time, that program was unknown in Fort Collins and it had little market viability.

Both the Built Green and Energy Star programs focus more on the building, mostly favoring energy and water consumption. I think where LEED might be different is that it looks at a more comprehensive picture from site development all the way through indoor air quality. It is also designed to dovetail with LEED-ND. With our development, we will also require the builders to follow some kind of green standard. Whether we want to dictate which standard, or allow flexibility we will have to decide. Of the measures that we will have to evaluate will be market acceptance of the various standards, and the cost of implementing those standards. LEED in particular can be quite expensive. Just the fees paid to USGBC and to have a third party rater involved can run from $3-7,000 per home depending upon the level of certification (taken from Green Builder magazine, July 2007). This is pretty steep for the typical home where every dollar counts for affordability and buyers compare prices per square foot more than features. That being said, there could be some economy of scale achieved if a builder has stock plans that are repeated several times, or uses the same materials and specs from home to home. This would in theory reduce the paperwork that is incurred. I don't know if this is possible, but will look into it further. If USGBC wants LEED to be a viable standard for home building, they will have to address the cost issues.