Are You Funding Green Sprawl?
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Today’s post is dedicated to all our euphoric green finance and investment friends who are suffering from PEWS — post-election withdrawal syndrome.
Here’s a delicate question:
>>Are you funding green sprawl?<<
Sustainable Industries recently published an article about the dilemma of having green homes and buildings built in suburban locations.
Their set-up:
While the profusion of buildings that use at least 15 percent less energy and reduce water usage as well as other non-sustainable resources is good news for a country searching for energy independence and a planet combating a variety of environmental ills, some are starting to think more needs to be done.
Top of the list: Considering whether sprawling architecture and 4,200-square-foot McMansions can truly be considered “green.â€
For us here, the article highlights some challenges for those builders and investors who have business models focused on commuter-oriented suburban markets, that now invest in green homes and buildings but ignore the overall smart growth principles that come with sustainable real estate investing.
Here’s an example from the article of a financial opportunity that is buried within implementing smart growth principles in tandem with green building:
Reducing sprawl and its attendant reliance on cars also increases the spending power of individuals, according to a study prepared by Portland-based Impresa Consulting in July 2007. According to the study, residents of Portland travel 20 percent fewer miles per day than the average American. At $3 per gallon, this equates to $1.1 billion saved or $800 million that stays in the local economy each year.
Essentially, funding green buildings in locations without smart growth principles might make a good return for the builder/owner, but it also imposes a quantifiable, lifelong tax on the residents and businesses who move in to those developments. And as some builders and investors are finding out in these tougher economic times — people can move, the real estate can’t.
As always, we welcome your comments.
Pursuant to the following quotes from the article:
“For all the efforts being made to encourage green building from within the industry, changing consumers’ buying habits is key to driving homebuyers into cities and urban centers and away from sprawling development, “green” or otherwise.”
“All these things are part of the issue. It’s part of the holistic view of neighborhood design and taking into account the needs of not just the neighborhood, but the entire community, or an entire city, or an entire region.”
Sustainable Land Development International welcomes industry holistic perspectives and, as pointed out in the following newsletter article, SLDI supports all sustainable land development - whether it is urban, suburban, or rural…
National Association of Home Builders Embraces Sustainable Land Development
August 2008 http://www.sldi.org/newService/SLDIAugust2008.html
The July special issue of NAHB’s Builder magazine has a provocative double cover that features an illustration of a pristine earth on one side with the headline - “Can Builders Save The Planet?” On the flip side is a contrasting cover with artwork depicting the despoiled world made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio film The 11th Hour and the headline question asking - “Will Development Destroy The Planet?”
Builder’s editorial director set the tone of the magazine in More Than Enough by admitting that “Sustainable development may be in vogue today, but over-consumption has driven the market for the last two decades.” Builder’s editor-in-chief followed up by concluding, “If you haven’t started building sustainably, it’s time you did.” The subsequent articles all provide additional evidence of the dangers of growth gone wild, along with some encouraging signs that the home building industry is finally beginning to make sustainability a priority.
What’s particularly encouraging is that in embracing sustainable development, NAHB continues to broaden its original focus on homebuilding to now include a more holistic realization that “No House is an Island.” Builder stated that, “…where these homes are built and in relation to other things – will be just as important as what the homes are made of and how efficiently they operate.” This realization, of course, is also the intellectual battleground of the ongoing development industry debate - urban vs. suburban. While maintaining that we need to build places for people to live that minimize the impact on the ecosphere, Builder now admits that 92 percent of growth since 2000 has occurred in the suburbs, and an increasing number of jobs are migrating outside city limits. As stated by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, an original founder of the Congress for New Urbanism, “Suburbia as we know it will remain.”
The admission that sustainable land development is essential, and that the suburban lifestyle will continue to be popular, is a healthy evolution of thought in the industry. SLDI salutes the efforts of the NAHB and we will continue to promote and enable sustainable land development – whether urban or suburban.
Your participation and comments are welcome.
Terry Mock
Executive Director
Sustainable Land Development International
http://www.SLDI.org
Promoting land development worldwide that balances the needs of people, planet & profit - for today and future generations.
It is not realisitic to suggest that we all live within mega-cities. Sprawl is not just about buying cheap land on the outer edge and cookie-cuttering endless subdivisions that consume our land - however often that is exactly why developers choose to go 10, 20, 30 or 40 miles out. Well developers who have gone that far out have crashed and burned… unless of course sprawl was driven by a cities choice to grow. In this country, a city, say a farming community near a larger city can choose a growth path - encourage industry to move in, employees, consumers and turn farmsville to a thriving new community with services and schools. Often their vision turns into blandless and characterless sprawl where the only winner is the developer. The reason this happens is those good intentioned farmers who sit on the council have no knowledge of what effecient design that is both affordable, safe, attractive, environmentally sound and efficient looks like… why? That is because the planning consultant (sometimes an engineering firm that knows more engineering than planning) who suggests growth use methods that have not changed much since the late 1940’s, this we are building entire cities based on obsolete dumb growth. Come TND and New Urbanism - the first answer in decades to solve all of our problems - but after two decades it has not worked out as planned - why? First New Urbanism sardines residents into compressed space - into very expensive homes - and where are many of tyhese tight claustrophobic neighborhoods built? Far out in the farm fields 10,20, 30, and more miles away from the cities. And that ignores the reason families go so far out - they desire the most space they can afford, so many of these urban neighborhoods on the outer edge fail, or simply are replatted with larger lots and morph into something that resembles more like - the suburbs. Of course there are no articles about failed “Smart Growth” neighborhoods - as that might offend the 3,000+ members of the “Congress of New Urbanism”.
To prevent sprawl it’s simple - regulation requiring communities to remain as they are and not expand would be the only answer, but that of course would amke us something quite opposite to a free country.
Smart Growth - it’s not that smart - Just drive through a “Smart Growth” neighborhood - where are the low income people who are supposed to intermix with the rich? Every home has chairs sitting on the front porch, but nobody sitting in them, and the reality is there will be no more people (OK, maybe a little more) walking in the neighborhood 4′ wide narrow walks along the curbs of parked cars to a park or store than a PROPERLY designed suburban neighborhood.
Sprawl… The fuel prices have currently destroyed the outer suburbs, but that is temporary, as land prices have plummeted and new vehicles are just around the corner with three times or more efficiency than the SUV’s 12 MPG. The three years it will take to mass produce the new generation will make it cheaper to commute as it is today (at 12 MPG , current $2.00 pricing) even if gas hits $8.00 a gallon!
In a few years we will be seeing new suburban growth - the question is do we use the existing platted patterns based on the 1950’s or retool to more sustainable communities and begin the replatting (reconfiguring) of new functional “smarter” neighborhoods during this downtime- in other words retool.
Sprawl will happen, how we sprawl is the important thing.
Rick Harrison
Rick Harrison Site Design Studio
http://www.rhsdplanning.com