Just Do It!
We have a long way to go, but thet shouldn't stop this area from preparing for our future. Please check out this article and check our www.ReconnectingLeeCounty.org
Group shares its ‘lofty’ transit ideas for Lee County with Bonita council members
By TARA E. McLAUGHLIN
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Imagine streets lined with storefronts instead of parking lots, and trains that connect Florida Gulf Coast University and the airports. Imagine the next wave of homebuilding centered on electric train stations instead of behind gates.
If the group called Reconnecting Lee County has its way, Lee County’s development future lies in urbanization instead of sprawl, including a light rail and rapid bus system to connect some of the county’s most vital services.
"We’re trying to advance an alternative form of development," said land development attorney Mike Ciccarone, who heads the group of more than a dozen individuals from the public and private sector.
"There’s nothing wrong with gated subdivisions. There’s plenty of demand for that," he said. "We can’t continue to develop only that to the exclusion of what all the experts tell us is coming."
What’s coming is a trend that’s been gathering steam in U.S. communities for about 10 years called transit-oriented development, walkable, sustainable communities near public transportation services, said Bill Spikowski, a planning expert.
The group has been meeting every week for about a year and boasts lobbying efforts responsible for the recent decision by the county’s Metropolitan Planning Organization to apply for a $48 million federal stimulus grant for mass transit.
Thursday afternoon, the group met in Bonita Springs to present and discuss its platform with interested City Council members. Janet Martin, John Spear and Bill Lonkart attended.
The city’s policy makers have been or soon will be hashing out plans for the Bonita Springs’ downtown and development in the environmentally sensitive lands called the Density Reduction Groundwater Resource.
Martin said she was encouraged by the group’s ideas.
"I’m going to be able to walk to a train and get to Coconut Point (mall)," said Martin, who lives close to downtown Bonita Springs where a potential train stop was discussed.
She said some constituents have told her they aren’t interested in public transportation until she reminds them about connections to the airport.
Spear said City Council is enthusiastic about mixed-use developments, which is used in transit-oriented centers, but it tends to make decisions that contradict the concepts.
"The two things that scare the hell out of us are density and height and the two things that create urban sprawl is low density and low height," Spear said.
The ideas are lofty and a long way off, Spikowski said, but planning needs to start now.
"This is as dreamy as the high-speed rail but ideas start somewhere," he said, adding that groups such as the Urban Land Institute and the National Association of Realtors "are basically telling us we need to prepare for it because economic conditions will drive us to it."
Connect with Tara E. McLaughlin at www.naplesnews.com/staff/tara-mclaughlin/
© 2009 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online
Monday, November 23, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Is Solar & Wind Cheaper?
Kate Galbraith has an excellent post in the 11/13 NYT:
“Solar is cheaper than coal today,” asserts Jigar Shah, the founder of Sun Edison who now heads the Carbon War Room, a new nonprofit group.
This is a provocative statement, given that — as my colleague Matthew L. Wald reported this year — studies by the Electric Power Research Institute and elsewhere show that solar thermal technologies are far more expensive than coal, and photovoltaic rooftop solar panels, in turn, generally produce more expensive electricity than solar thermal.
Mr. Shah’s argument in fact relies on combining solar with several other technologies: smart grid, energy efficiency and energy storage.
Together, he argues, those four technologies can substitute for a large, base-load coal plant that provides power around the clock — at a lower cost.
“All of the four technologies can be employed in small bits and chunks, it can be done on a scalable basis to meet exactly the need but not more than we need,” Mr. Shah said.
Technologies like energy efficiency, solar and wind, Mr. Shah noted, may have high up-front costs but their running costs are low, because (in the case of solar and wind) the fuel — the air or the sun — is free.
However, “we insist on continuing to invest in technologies that are exactly the opposite — high capital costs, subject to volatile fuel prices,” Mr. Shah said.
(Of course, if coal plants are subject to carbon pricing in the coming years as part of the nation’s effort to combat global warming, their costs will go up, too.)
Mark Pinto, the chief technology officer of Applied Materials, a company that makes equipment for solar projects, offered another vision of the price of solar.
“Solar competes against peaking,” Mr. Pinto said. In other words, because the sun shines during the day, when air conditioners and lights are cranked up and demand on the grid is heavy, solar power competes directly against natural gas plants that only get turned on to meet that peak demand.
“When you compare solar costs to other peaking electricity costs,” in some cases solar is ahead of gas, Mr. Pinto said.
But Mr. Shah argued that the solar-is-good-for-peaking argument “just pigeonholes us” as meeting only a particular need. Solar power, he said, can be positioned as part of a broader solution.
Readers, we’d love to hear your thoughts: What is the best way of looking at the price of solar today?
“Solar is cheaper than coal today,” asserts Jigar Shah, the founder of Sun Edison who now heads the Carbon War Room, a new nonprofit group.
This is a provocative statement, given that — as my colleague Matthew L. Wald reported this year — studies by the Electric Power Research Institute and elsewhere show that solar thermal technologies are far more expensive than coal, and photovoltaic rooftop solar panels, in turn, generally produce more expensive electricity than solar thermal.
Mr. Shah’s argument in fact relies on combining solar with several other technologies: smart grid, energy efficiency and energy storage.
Together, he argues, those four technologies can substitute for a large, base-load coal plant that provides power around the clock — at a lower cost.
“All of the four technologies can be employed in small bits and chunks, it can be done on a scalable basis to meet exactly the need but not more than we need,” Mr. Shah said.
Technologies like energy efficiency, solar and wind, Mr. Shah noted, may have high up-front costs but their running costs are low, because (in the case of solar and wind) the fuel — the air or the sun — is free.
However, “we insist on continuing to invest in technologies that are exactly the opposite — high capital costs, subject to volatile fuel prices,” Mr. Shah said.
(Of course, if coal plants are subject to carbon pricing in the coming years as part of the nation’s effort to combat global warming, their costs will go up, too.)
Mark Pinto, the chief technology officer of Applied Materials, a company that makes equipment for solar projects, offered another vision of the price of solar.
“Solar competes against peaking,” Mr. Pinto said. In other words, because the sun shines during the day, when air conditioners and lights are cranked up and demand on the grid is heavy, solar power competes directly against natural gas plants that only get turned on to meet that peak demand.
“When you compare solar costs to other peaking electricity costs,” in some cases solar is ahead of gas, Mr. Pinto said.
But Mr. Shah argued that the solar-is-good-for-peaking argument “just pigeonholes us” as meeting only a particular need. Solar power, he said, can be positioned as part of a broader solution.
Readers, we’d love to hear your thoughts: What is the best way of looking at the price of solar today?
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Chinese Wind Turbines
This is a great post by Tom Zeller, Jr. from the NYT. Should stimulus money be kept inside the US as much as possible? I believe so!
Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat, is calling on the Obama administration to block the use of stimulus funds for a utility-scale wind farm in West Texas that would make use of turbines manufactured largely in China.
As Green Inc. reported last week, the $1.5 billion wind venture — announced by a coalition of American and Chinese companies — was planning to seek $450 million from funds set aside in the economic stimulus package for clean-energy development.
The rest of the financing would come from Chinese commercial banks, and the turbines themselves would be manufactured by A-Power Energy Generation Systems of Shenyang, China.
Citing an analysis by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, which found that 84 percent of “green” stimulus funding has thus far gone to foreign companies building renewable energy projects in the United States, Mr. Schumer vowed in a telephone interview to introduce legislation if such funding isn’t reconsidered.
The stimulus money “is supposed to create jobs in America,” Mr. Schumer said. “We’re not saying every nut an every screw has to be made in America, but the majority of these manufacturing jobs should be located here.”
Mr. Schumer said he had sent a letter on Thursday to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, urging him to “reject any request for stimulus money unless the high-value components, including the wind turbines, are manufactured in the United States.”
Organizers of the project have estimated that more than 2,000 manufacturing jobs would be created in China as a result of the project, while a little over 300 would be created in Texas.
The purpose of the stimulus program, Mr. Schumer wrote in his letter, “was to jump start the economy to create and save jobs — American jobs.”
Walt Hornaday, the president of Austin-based Cielio Wind Power, the largest independently owned wind power developer in the United States and a partner in the Texas wind deal, said in a statement that the project would be unable to move forward without stimulus funding, and that it was vital to “engineers, contractors and suppliers who will see millions of dollars of work at a time when energy based jobs are difficult to find.”
“International partnerships are essential to the development of low cost renewable energy in America,” Mr. Hornaday added.
China’s reputation for blocking foreign access to its own burgeoning clean-energy sector has been fueling anger over the planned project in Texas.
China has vexed multinational corporations and American officials by imposing not just a 70 percent “local content” requirement for wind projects on its own turf, but by steering virtually all wind contracts issued by the national government to Chinese-owned companies, even when foreign companies meet the 70 percent requirement by opening factories in China.
It set even higher local-content requirements earlier this year for solar-power projects.
World Trade Organization rules allow governments to set high local-content thresholds for what are deemed demonstration projects, and China has labeled its solar projects in particular as such; with as few as 10 megawatts, they are tiny compared with the 600-megawatt and 1,200-megawatt coal-fired plants being built across the country.
The Chinese government has further shielded itself from challenge by never signing the trade organization’s agreement extending free-trade rules to government procurement. But this means that the United States government also does not have to follow W.T.O. rules in deciding whether to include Chinese companies in its own government spending programs, according to Alan Wolff, the chairman of international trade practice at Dewey & LeBoeuf, a Washington law firm.
“If this is government procurement, we don’t owe the Chinese anything” under the W.T.O. rules, said Mr. Wolff.
China did ease its local content requirements for wind turbines in a bilateral commitment to the United States government last week, when Chinese and American trade officials met in Hangzhou, China, as part of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.
And China’s top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, has moved to remove local-content regulations in the renewable energy sector and has concluded several deals to import equipment.
But Western renewable energy companies have remained skeptical that they will see much change given the way Chinese officials have mentioned in speeches for months the importance of raising the market share of Chinese-owned companies. And Western executives complain that the same Chinese officials continue to show preference for domestic companies when awarding contracts.
In response to complaints sent to us by readers, Cappy McGarr, a managing partner with the U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private-equity company and a partner in the Texas wind deal, suggested in an e-mail message that the extended benefits to Texans — and to the wider American economy — were being overlooked.
“Many of the parts for the turbines will be made by General Electric, an American company,” Mr. McGarr said. “The people of Texas will directly benefit through major increases in tax revenue to support schools, fire departments and local governments. This wind farm will also generate millions of dollars in royalties for Texas landowners over the next 25 to 30 years.”
Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat, is calling on the Obama administration to block the use of stimulus funds for a utility-scale wind farm in West Texas that would make use of turbines manufactured largely in China.
As Green Inc. reported last week, the $1.5 billion wind venture — announced by a coalition of American and Chinese companies — was planning to seek $450 million from funds set aside in the economic stimulus package for clean-energy development.
The rest of the financing would come from Chinese commercial banks, and the turbines themselves would be manufactured by A-Power Energy Generation Systems of Shenyang, China.
Citing an analysis by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, which found that 84 percent of “green” stimulus funding has thus far gone to foreign companies building renewable energy projects in the United States, Mr. Schumer vowed in a telephone interview to introduce legislation if such funding isn’t reconsidered.
The stimulus money “is supposed to create jobs in America,” Mr. Schumer said. “We’re not saying every nut an every screw has to be made in America, but the majority of these manufacturing jobs should be located here.”
Mr. Schumer said he had sent a letter on Thursday to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, urging him to “reject any request for stimulus money unless the high-value components, including the wind turbines, are manufactured in the United States.”
Organizers of the project have estimated that more than 2,000 manufacturing jobs would be created in China as a result of the project, while a little over 300 would be created in Texas.
The purpose of the stimulus program, Mr. Schumer wrote in his letter, “was to jump start the economy to create and save jobs — American jobs.”
Walt Hornaday, the president of Austin-based Cielio Wind Power, the largest independently owned wind power developer in the United States and a partner in the Texas wind deal, said in a statement that the project would be unable to move forward without stimulus funding, and that it was vital to “engineers, contractors and suppliers who will see millions of dollars of work at a time when energy based jobs are difficult to find.”
“International partnerships are essential to the development of low cost renewable energy in America,” Mr. Hornaday added.
China’s reputation for blocking foreign access to its own burgeoning clean-energy sector has been fueling anger over the planned project in Texas.
China has vexed multinational corporations and American officials by imposing not just a 70 percent “local content” requirement for wind projects on its own turf, but by steering virtually all wind contracts issued by the national government to Chinese-owned companies, even when foreign companies meet the 70 percent requirement by opening factories in China.
It set even higher local-content requirements earlier this year for solar-power projects.
World Trade Organization rules allow governments to set high local-content thresholds for what are deemed demonstration projects, and China has labeled its solar projects in particular as such; with as few as 10 megawatts, they are tiny compared with the 600-megawatt and 1,200-megawatt coal-fired plants being built across the country.
The Chinese government has further shielded itself from challenge by never signing the trade organization’s agreement extending free-trade rules to government procurement. But this means that the United States government also does not have to follow W.T.O. rules in deciding whether to include Chinese companies in its own government spending programs, according to Alan Wolff, the chairman of international trade practice at Dewey & LeBoeuf, a Washington law firm.
“If this is government procurement, we don’t owe the Chinese anything” under the W.T.O. rules, said Mr. Wolff.
China did ease its local content requirements for wind turbines in a bilateral commitment to the United States government last week, when Chinese and American trade officials met in Hangzhou, China, as part of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.
And China’s top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, has moved to remove local-content regulations in the renewable energy sector and has concluded several deals to import equipment.
But Western renewable energy companies have remained skeptical that they will see much change given the way Chinese officials have mentioned in speeches for months the importance of raising the market share of Chinese-owned companies. And Western executives complain that the same Chinese officials continue to show preference for domestic companies when awarding contracts.
In response to complaints sent to us by readers, Cappy McGarr, a managing partner with the U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private-equity company and a partner in the Texas wind deal, suggested in an e-mail message that the extended benefits to Texans — and to the wider American economy — were being overlooked.
“Many of the parts for the turbines will be made by General Electric, an American company,” Mr. McGarr said. “The people of Texas will directly benefit through major increases in tax revenue to support schools, fire departments and local governments. This wind farm will also generate millions of dollars in royalties for Texas landowners over the next 25 to 30 years.”
Friday, November 6, 2009
Energy Jobs and American Power Act
Clean Energy Jobs And American Power Act Clears Senate Committee
in News Departments > Policy Watch
by Jessica Lillian on Thursday 05 November 2009
S.1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, has been approved by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) by a vote of 11-1. The bill, sponsored by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., will now advance to the full Senate."S.1733 addresses a crucial issue of our time and advancing the bill is a necessary step on the road to garnering the 60 votes we need for a comprehensive bill that will be melded together from various Committees and Senators from different regions of the country," said Boxer, chairman of the EPW committee."This bill is already being worked on by Senators Kerry, Lieberman, Graham and others," she added.Among other measures, the bill instructs the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a program that will provide grants and other forms of assistance to renewable energy projects in states with renewable portfolio standards (RPS), according to a summary published by Kerry's office.In addition, the bill includes a 3% overall RPS that will increase to 15% by 2021. Efficiency measures can satisfy up to 26.67% of a utility's RPS requirement - a stipulation that the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has criticized. SEIA has also expressed disagreement with the bill's exemption for utilities selling under 4 million MWh annually.S.1733 also establishes programs for awarding educational grants to train workers in green energy jobs, requires the EPA to set a comprehensive strategy on carbon capture and sequestration and introduces a greenhouse gas reduction program with cap-and-trade provisions.All seven Republican members of the committee were absent from the vote, in an effort to prevent the bill's passage. Led by Sen. James Ihofe, R-Okla., many Republican senators had called for further study of the bill, stating that its effects on the economy had not been sufficiently studied, Bloomberg reports. Boxer called Republicans' actions a stalling tactic. "We found, after questioning the EPA extensively, that the Republicans' demand for another EPA analysis now would be duplicative and a waste of taxpayer dollars," she stated. "We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott, we have been able to move the bill."
in News Departments > Policy Watch
by Jessica Lillian on Thursday 05 November 2009
S.1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, has been approved by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) by a vote of 11-1. The bill, sponsored by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., will now advance to the full Senate."S.1733 addresses a crucial issue of our time and advancing the bill is a necessary step on the road to garnering the 60 votes we need for a comprehensive bill that will be melded together from various Committees and Senators from different regions of the country," said Boxer, chairman of the EPW committee."This bill is already being worked on by Senators Kerry, Lieberman, Graham and others," she added.Among other measures, the bill instructs the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a program that will provide grants and other forms of assistance to renewable energy projects in states with renewable portfolio standards (RPS), according to a summary published by Kerry's office.In addition, the bill includes a 3% overall RPS that will increase to 15% by 2021. Efficiency measures can satisfy up to 26.67% of a utility's RPS requirement - a stipulation that the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has criticized. SEIA has also expressed disagreement with the bill's exemption for utilities selling under 4 million MWh annually.S.1733 also establishes programs for awarding educational grants to train workers in green energy jobs, requires the EPA to set a comprehensive strategy on carbon capture and sequestration and introduces a greenhouse gas reduction program with cap-and-trade provisions.All seven Republican members of the committee were absent from the vote, in an effort to prevent the bill's passage. Led by Sen. James Ihofe, R-Okla., many Republican senators had called for further study of the bill, stating that its effects on the economy had not been sufficiently studied, Bloomberg reports. Boxer called Republicans' actions a stalling tactic. "We found, after questioning the EPA extensively, that the Republicans' demand for another EPA analysis now would be duplicative and a waste of taxpayer dollars," she stated. "We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott, we have been able to move the bill."
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Dow Unveils Solar Shingles
By Todd Woody
Dow Chemical Solar shingles that any roofer can install.
Dow Chemical has unveiled a residential roof shingle in the form of a solar panel designed to be integrated into asphalt-tiled roofs.
Jane Palmieri, managing director of Dow’s Solar Solutions unit, said the Powerhouse thin-film shingle slashes installation costs because it can be installed by a roofer who is already building or retrofitting a roof.
“As a roofer is nailing asphalt shingle on roof, wherever the array needs to be installed he just switches to solar shingle,” said Ms. Palmieri, who said the solar singles are similarly attached to the roof with nails.
“You don’t have to have a solar installation crew do the work or have an electrician on site,” she added. “The solar shingle can be handled like any other shingle – it can be palletized, dropped from a roof, walked on.”
An electrician is still needed to connect the completed array to an inverter and to a home’s electrical system, but unlike conventional solar panels that must be wired together, the solar shingles plug into each other to form the array.
Dow plans to begin test-marketing the solar shingle in mid-2010, initially targeting new-home construction. Ms. Palmieri said the market could be worth $5 billion by 2015 and noted that 90 percent of homes in the United States use asphalt shingles.
Dow designed the shingles, which will initially be manufactured at the company’s Midland, Mich., facility. Global Solar of Tucson, Ariz., is supplying the thin-film solar cells.
Thin-film has generally not been used for residential systems because of its relatively low efficiency – Global Solar’s cells are 10 percent efficient. That means a larger array is required generate the same of amount of electricity as conventional solar panels.
But Dave Parrillo, the senior research and development director for Dow Solar Solutions, said the solar shingles can offset between 40 percent and 80 percent of a home’s electricity consumption.
Ms. Palmieri said a solar shingle array is 10 percent to 15 percent cheaper than a standard rack-mounted solar panel system and about 40 percent less expensive than competing building-integrated photovoltaic products.
“Our objective is to prove that this can be a mainstream adopted product,” she said.
Another innovative product going to market!
Jeff Good
www.benchmarkgencontractors.com
By Todd Woody
Dow Chemical Solar shingles that any roofer can install.
Dow Chemical has unveiled a residential roof shingle in the form of a solar panel designed to be integrated into asphalt-tiled roofs.
Jane Palmieri, managing director of Dow’s Solar Solutions unit, said the Powerhouse thin-film shingle slashes installation costs because it can be installed by a roofer who is already building or retrofitting a roof.
“As a roofer is nailing asphalt shingle on roof, wherever the array needs to be installed he just switches to solar shingle,” said Ms. Palmieri, who said the solar singles are similarly attached to the roof with nails.
“You don’t have to have a solar installation crew do the work or have an electrician on site,” she added. “The solar shingle can be handled like any other shingle – it can be palletized, dropped from a roof, walked on.”
An electrician is still needed to connect the completed array to an inverter and to a home’s electrical system, but unlike conventional solar panels that must be wired together, the solar shingles plug into each other to form the array.
Dow plans to begin test-marketing the solar shingle in mid-2010, initially targeting new-home construction. Ms. Palmieri said the market could be worth $5 billion by 2015 and noted that 90 percent of homes in the United States use asphalt shingles.
Dow designed the shingles, which will initially be manufactured at the company’s Midland, Mich., facility. Global Solar of Tucson, Ariz., is supplying the thin-film solar cells.
Thin-film has generally not been used for residential systems because of its relatively low efficiency – Global Solar’s cells are 10 percent efficient. That means a larger array is required generate the same of amount of electricity as conventional solar panels.
But Dave Parrillo, the senior research and development director for Dow Solar Solutions, said the solar shingles can offset between 40 percent and 80 percent of a home’s electricity consumption.
Ms. Palmieri said a solar shingle array is 10 percent to 15 percent cheaper than a standard rack-mounted solar panel system and about 40 percent less expensive than competing building-integrated photovoltaic products.
“Our objective is to prove that this can be a mainstream adopted product,” she said.
Another innovative product going to market!
Jeff Good
www.benchmarkgencontractors.com
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Sea Glass Community
Benchmark General Contractors takes next steps for
sustainable residential development
Collaborative process inspires plans for Sanibel’s
eco-friendly community, Sea Glass
SANIBEL ISLAND, FL (July 29, 2009) – The vision of Benchmark partners Mark Anderson and Ron Rosen began to take shape as a team of 20 experts shared ideas about the builders’ 12-acre sustainable residential community, Sea Glass.
Designers, architects, green building consultants, engineers, Realtors and community representatives gathered at the Sanibel Harbour Resort & Spa to participate in creative brainstorming, and to pore over preliminary design plans to offer their recommendations.
“This collaboration ensures that we have a brain trust comprised of the best of the best as we plan this community,” said Anderson. “Our unique, groundbreaking lifestyle concept will reduce our footprint on the environment, and we are developing an environmentally sensitive design that could become a model for future coastal communities in our region.”
Martin Gold, Associate Professor at the University of Florida’s School of Architecture and Executive Director of the Florida Community Design Center (FLCDC) facilitated the two-day charrette (French for cart). Fort Myers based Benchmark General Contractors, UF’s School of Architecture and the FLCDC have contracted to plan the sustainable residential cluster of approximately 12 single-family homes along Periwinkle Way on Sanibel Island. The property was previously the site of the Old Schoolhouse Theater and the home of the Sanibel Landscape Company, the first landscape nursery on the island.
At the charrette, Gold and his team submitted a series of schematic designs for a residential enclave that integrates coastal ecologies, social connectivity, permaculture and sustainability as core principles of the neighborhood planning and architectural design. Participants broke out into groups to analyze and comment on each design.
Some ideas that grew out of the meeting include allocated nature areas, cluster development, a civic green promenade, auto court, butterfly meadow, water harvesting, and an “eco-villa” dedicated to environmental education, just to name a few. Gold said the project will engage in the best practices for low impact development and sustainable community design. During future planning, experts will be consulted regarding stormwater strategies, storm resistant designs, building materials and energy efficient design where site resources – breezes, rainwater, solar radiation and natural vegetative systems – are optimized.
“This is only the beginning,” said Anderson. “Our goal is to protect and preserve the environment while creating a close-knit community that reminds homeowners of growing up in simpler times.
“We decided on the name Sea Glass because it suggests something very unique and beautiful, created by nature and resulting in surprise and delight upon discovery.”
sustainable residential development
Collaborative process inspires plans for Sanibel’s
eco-friendly community, Sea Glass
SANIBEL ISLAND, FL (July 29, 2009) – The vision of Benchmark partners Mark Anderson and Ron Rosen began to take shape as a team of 20 experts shared ideas about the builders’ 12-acre sustainable residential community, Sea Glass.
Designers, architects, green building consultants, engineers, Realtors and community representatives gathered at the Sanibel Harbour Resort & Spa to participate in creative brainstorming, and to pore over preliminary design plans to offer their recommendations.
“This collaboration ensures that we have a brain trust comprised of the best of the best as we plan this community,” said Anderson. “Our unique, groundbreaking lifestyle concept will reduce our footprint on the environment, and we are developing an environmentally sensitive design that could become a model for future coastal communities in our region.”
Martin Gold, Associate Professor at the University of Florida’s School of Architecture and Executive Director of the Florida Community Design Center (FLCDC) facilitated the two-day charrette (French for cart). Fort Myers based Benchmark General Contractors, UF’s School of Architecture and the FLCDC have contracted to plan the sustainable residential cluster of approximately 12 single-family homes along Periwinkle Way on Sanibel Island. The property was previously the site of the Old Schoolhouse Theater and the home of the Sanibel Landscape Company, the first landscape nursery on the island.
At the charrette, Gold and his team submitted a series of schematic designs for a residential enclave that integrates coastal ecologies, social connectivity, permaculture and sustainability as core principles of the neighborhood planning and architectural design. Participants broke out into groups to analyze and comment on each design.
Some ideas that grew out of the meeting include allocated nature areas, cluster development, a civic green promenade, auto court, butterfly meadow, water harvesting, and an “eco-villa” dedicated to environmental education, just to name a few. Gold said the project will engage in the best practices for low impact development and sustainable community design. During future planning, experts will be consulted regarding stormwater strategies, storm resistant designs, building materials and energy efficient design where site resources – breezes, rainwater, solar radiation and natural vegetative systems – are optimized.
“This is only the beginning,” said Anderson. “Our goal is to protect and preserve the environment while creating a close-knit community that reminds homeowners of growing up in simpler times.
“We decided on the name Sea Glass because it suggests something very unique and beautiful, created by nature and resulting in surprise and delight upon discovery.”
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