We can debate the optimal density for energy-efficient development (See “Urban Heat Islands and Optimal Density Levels“), but the only way we’ll find out for sure is through trial and error in the marketplace. We’ll have an interesting case study to look at soon: The Belvedere project north of Charlottesville, which its developers are touting as the greenest project yet built in Central Virginia. Bob Burke has the story here, “Making Green from Green.”
Belvedere will fit 400 housing units plus retail-commercial space into 207 acres about 2.5 miles north of the Charlottesville city line. The developers, Charlottesville-based Stonehaus, plan to build townhouses and single-family dwellings modestly above the median housing price point in the region, but they estimate that the energy-saving appliances and other house design features will reduce energy costs by one third. Employing New Urbanism community design principles — mixed uses, lofts over storefronts, pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, etc. — they hope to promote walking and reduce driving. Ample green space and bio-filtration techniques will reduce the impact of storm water run-off.
Coming down the pike are similar projects, combing New Urbanism and green engineering, like Roseland in Chesterfield County and Summit Crossing in Spotsylvania, just to mention two projects I’m acquainted with. Each of these planned communities, I would suggest, comes closer to the energy-efficiency optimum than either central cities or the pattern of scattered and disorganized development that predominates across Virginia.
But here’s what I have yet to see from a self-described green developer: green neighborhood power sources, whether based on windmills, solar panels, recycled bio-waste or a cogeneration plant that generates electricity and recycles the waste heat for productive uses. Developers can install those technologies on a mass scale far more cost-effectively than can individual home owners retrofitting houses one at a time. Once we see renewable energy getting worked into these communities, then I know the green talk is real.