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The EarthCraft House program has traditionally
focused on sustainable residential construction. The expanded
EarthCraft House Communities program encompasses all stages
of the community development process, including community
design, site modification, construction methods and community
education.
“I think the EarthCraft Communities program
has the potential to finally establish a more comprehensive
approach to green building that also looks at the context
of the development itself,” said Walter Brown of Green Street
Properties. “In our case, Green Street Properties has chosen
a highly disturbed urban site and is planning on a high level
of mixed use and higher density to achieve specific transportation
and quality of life goals that reduce air pollution,” said
Brown, referring to the Glenwood Park development that includes
1.2 million square feet of construction on a 28- acre brownfield
site.
“In addition, we are implementing a variety
of water quality measures and landscaping that will greatly
improve the quality of water…and reduce urban heat island
effects,” Brown said. “On the building side, we plan to adhere
to EarthCraft construction standards for the majority of our
homes and to pursue other environmental programs including
LEED™ for our commercial buildings. An EarthCraft Community
designation, or pilot designation, can help bring attention
to the environmental quality of our projects and also, with
the large amount of public attention paid to the Glenwood
Park project, help to promote the EarthCraft label and the
goals of that program.”
During the charrette, participants gathered
in small groups to brainstorm best practices, and ultimately
workable guidelines, for each stage of development. Each of
these smaller groups will continue to meet periodically to
refine the EarthCraft House communities working guidelines.
These guidelines will create a “pilot” version to use in future
development projects.
“The most important outcome of the charrette
is that we have developers excited about the potential for
the new program,” said Jim Hackler, EarthCraft House director.
“We generated a long list of environmental practices which
can be applied to almost any community.”
Determining the need to get more developers
involved and deciding the most important elements of EarthCraft
House Communties for review were important final stages of
the charrette. Jeff Rader of the Greater Atlanta Home Builders
Association, Shannon Kettering of ECOS Environmental Design,
and Robert Reed of Village Habitat Design volunteered to serve
as point persons for the smaller “element groups” whose preliminary
pilot versions should be ready by August 1, 2003.
To learn more about participating in the EarthCraft
House Communities program, contact Jim Hackler at Southface,
404-872-3549.
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