Shifting the Suburban Paradigm by Allison Arieff

Now that the housing market has bottomed out, what’s next? New ways of thinking about “home” are overdue.

Is there anything made in America that’s less innovative than the single-family home? While we obsess over the new in terms of what we keep in our houses — the ever-increasing speed and functionality of our Smartphones, entertainment options built into refrigerators, sophisticated devices that monitor, analyze and report on our sleep cycles, even the superior technology of the running shoes we put on before heading out the flimsy fiberboard door — we’re incredibly undemanding of the houses themselves. These continue to be built the same way they have for over a century, and usually not as well. Walls and windows are thin, materials cheap, design (and I use the term loosely) not well-considered. The building process is a protracted affair, taking far too long and creating embarrassing amounts of building waste (over 50 percent of all waste produced in the United States, in fact).

But the lack of innovation extends beyond the high-tech. Not so long ago homes were designed to make the most of their surrounding climate and terrain. Vernacular forms like the shotgun, in places like New Orleans, served a purpose that went far beyond aesthetics — they encouraged natural cooling by improving cross-ventilation. In Texas and New Mexico, thick adobe walls similarly kept heat in during the winter, and out during the summer. Houses were sited and windows placed to maximize or minimize sun exposure as needed.

No longer. Today, it’s essentially the same floor plan, sheetrock and construction that’s used coast to coast. Glossy brochures with stock images of smiling families advertise “Spanish Gothic” or “Tuscan Villa,” but what’s really on offer is the same dumb box with a stage set of a façade tacked onto the front. The reasons behind the advertised vernacular styles have long since disappeared, their function surrendered to ornament.

It’s not that the means don’t exist for better building. There have been significant advances in homebuilding: smarter, safer, more sustainable materials that contribute to healthier and more energy-efficient structures (less expensive to heat and cool); precision building technologies that reduce construction time and waste; and more enlightened planning principles that recognize the social, economic and health benefits of building homes within denser, more walkable neighborhoods (important as sprawl is associated with high levels of driving, which contributes to air pollution, and air pollution leads to morbidity and mortality).

Why? The reasons are complicated. Incentives received by commercial builders for doing the right thing are not extended to residential builders. But it’s also true that the homebuilding industry isn’t interested in risk or change, despite (in spite of?) dramatic slowdowns in residential construction, an anticipated surplus of thousands of homes, a market besieged by foreclosures and still-dropping home values. Even though there’s increasing demand for more diverse housing — especially smaller, more energy-efficient homes and multifamily units in more walkable communities — too many homebuilders are inexplicably committed to the status quo.

For many in the homebuilding industry, the current scenario is seen not as a call to action but as a temporary problem of the market (I found the same thing to be true in the world of shopping-center builders, who pine for — and fully expect the return of — a go-go consumer culture that is likely gone for good). To address current market realities, they don’t look to innovation but rather to an easier fallback strategy: a new marketing plan.

Five years ago, at the crest of the housing boom, I worked on a team consulting with a master planned-community developer who had asked us to help “revolutionize the way our homes are sold.” The developer had little interest in the work we proposed — namely, to revolutionize the way their homes were designed and built. That company, like most of its competitors, laid off nearly half its work force the following year, and ended or delayed most of its future development projects. Devoting energy to how best to market its inventory hadn’t been the most forward-thinking strategy for them then — nor would it be now.

But that’s what most developers continue to do. I read just last month about Fulton Homes, a homebuilding company that seems to be weathering the housing market better than its peers by selling homes the same way they’d sell clothing or computers, like any other retail product. In Builder online, Fulton’s vice president of operations, Dennis Webb, said, “If the buyer wants it, give it to him.”

Fulton hasn’t really changed anything about the homes they produce, regardless of what has happened over the last several years. They’ve simply hired more sales guys. No doubt you can “like” them on Facebook. In the short term, this has been a prudent move … but what about next year? The year after that?

Blu HomesDedicating millions to creating a better consumer experience for purchasing high-end single-family homes (like this one by Blu Homes) doesn’t help address the real crisis in housing the U.S. is facing.

Then there’s a company like Blu Homes, which has demonstrated a clear commitment to merging housing and high tech — to the tune of a $25 million investment, in fact. They recognized the tremendous inefficiencies in home-building and have developed 3D technology that allows for personal customization (clients can click a mouse to alter floor plans, choose green features and select finishes), as well as a proprietary building process and innovative steel-framing technology that allows their homes, as their Web site explains, “to be built to the highest aesthetic and environmental standards and be delivered quickly and economically nationwide.”

But following a long line of V.C. types dabbling in housing, Blu has set its sights on a small slice of an already niche market — high-end modern prefab, which accounts for maybe half of a percent of the less than 5 percent of architect-designed homes in the country. Devoting this much R&D and software development to so few homes feels akin to installing a $250,000 solar array on a garden shed. Why not devote that energy to transforming cookie-cutter developer homes?

Lake FlatoWith Lake Flato’s partially prefabricated Porch House, traditional vernacular architecture is more about functionality, less about decoration.

I like what Texas’s Lake Flato is doing in this arena, combining vernacular style with precision building technology for their Porch House. Though the firm is building custom one-offs, they are also working on a number of larger projects — one, in Louisiana, involves building nine homes on two blocks of infill property in a historic Baton Rouge neighborhood. The concept is centered around making better use of backyards (less lawn, more sustainable garden) and using the traditional architecture vernacular for that area — the “shotgun” house.

Lake FlatoThinking about how homes work together is key to the future of suburban communities. How can these neighborhoods become denser, more walkable and less resource-intensive?

And even more promising in terms of scale is KB Home’s announcement of the ZeroHouse 2.0, a greener version of the company’s standard home, which is expected to eliminate monthly electricity charges for homeowners. Model homes featuring the ZeroHouse 2.0 package (it should be but isn’t yet standard) open this month in Tampa, San Antonio and Austin. (Now, if KB would just start talking with the architects at Lake Flato.)

KB HomesKB Homes’ new ZeroHouse 2.0 is a step in the right direction on sustainability. But energy efficiency should be standard, not part of a home-design options package.

Even more prudently, a company like Blu could be directing all that R&D to multi-family housing, currently identified as the only bright spot in residential architecture and, to my mind, the only real path to truly sustainable housing.

As architectural designer Aron Chang discusses in one of the more intellectually rigorous and thoughtful pieces on suburbia that I’ve read of late, which appeared in Places journal last month, it’s time we focus on “suburbia’s essential component” — the freestanding single-family house.

Chang writes, “The disconnection between the rising diversity of housing needs and the monotony of housing production speaks to the tenacity of the postwar American dream — the enduring allure of the detached house with front lawn and backyard patio — as well as to the profitability of catering to these aspirations.”

Chang sees this moment — with millions of houses now in foreclosure, many deteriorating or abandoned — as one to seize, and I couldn’t agree more. It is possible, he considers, that once the economy revives we will simply return to home-building-as-usual:


But right now we have an opportunity to rethink suburban housing: to make it responsive not to dated demographics and wishful economics but rather to the actual needs of a diversifying and dynamic population — not only to the so-called traditional households but also to the growing ranks of those who prefer to rent rather than buy, who either can’t afford or don’t want a 2,000-square-foot-plus detached house, who are retired and living on fixed incomes and maybe driving less, who want granny or nanny flats, who want to pay less for utilities and reduce their carbon footprint, and so on.

Housing can’t be equated with high-tech: a home is, or was, a long-term investment not beholden to the dizzying speeds of change and innovation that drive say, Apple, which must continually reinvent and redefine its product to meet consumer demand. But housing is woefully behind the times, and now it needs to see opportunity in crisis, not wait it out by launching pop-up shops and interactive Web sites that empower consumers to such revolutionary things as customizing bathroom tile and kitchen backsplashes.

I don’t care if we’re talking Le Corbusier, Cape Cods or Corinthian columns, we can’t make any progress in housing until we stop thinking about the home as decorative object and begin considering it as part of a larger whole. How does it work on the street? In the neighborhood? How is it served by transit? Is it adaptable, allowing for the housing of extended families or the hosting of an entrepreneurial endeavor? Can the owner build an accessory dwelling (a.k.a. granny flat) to do so? (Most zoning, homeowners’ associations and CCRs don’t allow for it currently.) What needs to happen to zoning, to financing, to our very notions of resale value to change the suburban condition — and by extension, the American Dream as we know it?

We’re beyond the point of a fresh coat of paint and a new sales pitch. If we’re going to continue to hold on to the single-family home, we need to transform it. There is a demand for smaller, more energy-efficient homes in less car-dependent neighborhoods; all aspects of the industry, from designers to lenders to planners to consumers, should meet it. In this era of anti-government fervor, subsidizing the American Dream isn’t an option; transforming it is the only one we’ve got.

Can the World Feed Itself?

By BRIAN M. CARNEY
Vevey, Switzerland

As befits the chairman of the world's largest food-production company, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe is counting calories. But it's not his diet that the chairman and former CEO of Nestlé is worried about. It's all the food that the U.S. and Europe are converting into fuel while the world's poor get hungrier.

"Politicians," Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe says, "do not understand that between the food market and the energy market, there is a close link." That link is the calorie.

The energy stored in a bushel of corn can fuel a car or feed a person. And increasingly, thanks to ethanol mandates and subsidies in the U.S. and biofuel incentives in Europe, crops formerly grown for food or livestock feed are being grown for fuel. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's most recent estimate predicts that this year, for the first time, American farmers will harvest more corn for ethanol than for feed. In Europe some 50% of the rapeseed crop is going into biofuel production, according to Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe, while "world-wide about 18% of sugar is being used for biofuel today."

In one sense, this is a remarkable achievement—five decades ago, when the global population was half what it is today, catastrophists like Paul Ehrlich were warning that the world faced mass starvation on a biblical scale. Today, with nearly seven billion mouths to feed, we produce so much food that we think nothing of burning tons of it for fuel.

Or at least we think nothing of it in the West. If the price of our breakfast cereal goes up because we're diverting agricultural production to ethanol or biodiesel, it's an annoyance. But if the price of corn or flour doubles or triples in the Third World, where according to Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe people "are spending 80% of [their] disposable income on food," hundreds of millions of people go hungry. Sometimes, as in the Middle East earlier this year, they revolt.

"What we call today the Arab Spring," Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe says over lunch at Nestle's world headquarters, "really started as a protest against ever-increasing food prices."

Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe has extensive experience at the intersection of food, politics and development. He spent most of his first two decades at Nestlé in Latin America. In 1970, he was posted to Chile, where Salvador Allende's socialist government was threatening to nationalize milk production, and Nestlé's Chilean operations along with it. He knows that most of the world is not as fortunate as we are.

"There is a huge difference," he says, "between how we live this crisis and what the reality of today is for hundreds of millions of people, who we have been pushing back into extreme poverty with wrong policy making." First there's the biofuels craze, driven by concerns over energy independence, oil supplies, global warming and, ironically, Mideast political stability.

Add to that, especially in Europe, a paralyzing fear of genetically modified crops, or GMOs. This refusal to use "available technology" in agriculture, Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe contends, has halted the multi-decade rise in agricultural productivity that has allowed us, so far, to feed more mouths than many people believed was possible.

Then there is demographics. Recent decades have seen "the creation of more than a billion new consumers in the world who have had the opportunity to move from extreme poverty into what we would call today a moderate middle class," thanks to economic growth in places like China and India. This means a billion people who have "access to meat" for the first time, Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe says.

"And the demand for meat," he says, "has a multiplier effect of 10. You need 10 times as much land, 10 times as much [feed], 10 times as much water to produce one calorie of meat as you do to have one calorie of vegetables or grain." Even so, we are capable of satisfying this increased demand—if we choose to. "If politicians of this world really want to tackle food security," Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe says, "there's only one decision they have to make: No food for fuel. . . . They just have to say 'No food for fuel,' and supply and demand would balance again."


If we don't do that, we can never hope to square the drive for biofuels with the world's food needs. The calories don't add up. "The energy market," Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe argues, "is 20 times as big, in calories, as the food market." So "when politicians say, 'We want to replace 20% of the energy market through the food market,'" this means "we would have to triple food production" to meet that goal—and that's before we eat the first kernel of what we've grown.

Even if we could pull this off, we will never get there by turning our backs on genetically modified crops and holding up "organic" food as the new gold standard of safety, purity and health. Organic production is all the rage in the rich West, but we can't "feed the world with this stuff," he says. Agricultural productivity with organics is too low.

"If you look at those countries that have introduced GMOs," Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe says, "you will see that the yield per hectare has increased by about 30% over the past few years. Whereas the yields for non-GMO crops are flat to slightly declining." And that gap, he says, "is a voluntary gap. . . . It's just a political decision."

And it's one thing for rich, well-fed Europe to say, as Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe puts it, "I don't want to produce GMO [crops] because frankly speaking I don't want to produce so much food." That, he says, he can understand.

What's harder for him to understand is that Europe's policies effectively forbid poor countries in places like Africa from using genetically modified seed. These countries, he says, urgently need the technology to increase yields and productivity in their backward agricultural sectors. But if they plant GMOs, then under Europe's rules the EU "will not allow you to export anything—anything. Not just the [crop] that has GMO—anything," because of European fears about cross-contamination and almost impossibly strict purity standards. The European fear of genetically modified crops is, he says, "purely emotional. It's becoming almost a religious belief."

This makes Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe, a jovial man with a quick smile, get emotional himself. "How many people," he asks with a touch of irritation, "have died from food contamination from organic products, and how many people have died from GMO products?" He answers his own question: "None from GMO. And I don't have to ask too long how many people have died just recently from organic," he adds, referring to the e. coli outbreak earlier this year in Europe.

Nestlé itself has at times been painted as an enemy of the world's poor—for 30 years it has contended with a sporadic boycott movement over the sale and marketing of infant formula in the Third World, a push that some rich Westerners find unethical. On the other hand, under Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe, Nestlé's corporate strategy has emphasized that all food markets are intensely local. Americans may increasingly buy all drinks by the gallon and chocolate bars by the pound, but in many parts of the world a trip to the store might yield a single Maggi cube—the Nestlé-made bullion cubes that are ubiquitous in many countries. In these countries, single servings of many products are sold in little foil packets to allow people to match their spending to their cash flow.

This is, Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe contends, an extension of Nestlé's original reason for being. Nestlé exists, Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe says, because as Europe's population "urbanized," as people moved to the cities and traded their ploughshares for time cards, "somebody had to ensure that people" who worked 12 hours a day in a factory could feed themselves. For the first time in history, "you need[ed] a food industry. You need[ed] somebody who takes a product, who treats it so that its shelf life allows it to be transported, to be brought into the consumption center. That's why we have canning, that's why we have pasteurization, that's why we have all these things."

The vast majority of us would have no idea any longer how to feed ourselves if we turned up one day to find the supermarket empty. We rely on industrialized food production, distribution, preservation and storage to make our urban lifestyles, our very lives, possible. And "it was not the state that took care of this thing. It was private initiative." Today, Nestlé employs some 300,000 people, takes in some $100 billion a year in revenue—and yet represents just 1.5% of a global food industry that feeds billions.

But for private initiative to work that kind of miracle, you need a market. Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe even worries about the absence of a functioning market for water. Some 98.5% of the fresh water the world uses every year goes to agricultural or industrial use. And in most cases, there is no market for how that water is allocated and used. The result is waste, overuse and misuse of the water we have. If we don't do something about that, Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe fears, we will soon run ourselves dry.

Up to now, he says, our response to water shortages has focused "on the supply-side": We build another dam, or a canal to bring water from one place to another. But "the big issue," he contends, "is on the demand side," and the "best regulator" of demand is prices.

"If oil becomes scarce," he notes, "the oil price goes up. But if water does, well, we still pump the same amount. It doesn't matter because it doesn't cost. It has no value." He drives this point home by connecting it back to biofuels: "We would never have had a biofuel policy—never," he contends, "if we would have given water any value." It takes, Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe says, "9,100 liters of water to produce one liter of biodiesel. You can only do that because water has no price."

He cites Spain as an example of an agricultural sector in need of adjustment. "The total [output] of the Spanish agricultural system," he says, "is less in value than the subsidies they receive between the Common Agricultural Policy, the subsidies for tax relief, the subsidies for water."


'Take away the emotion of the water issue," Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe argues. "Give the 1.5% of the water [that we use to drink and wash with], make it a human right. But give me a market for the 98.5% so the market forces are able to react, and they will be the best guidance that you can have. Because if the market forces are there the investments are going to be made."

The world's population is projected to hit nine billion by mid-century, up from 6.7 billion today. So, can we feed all those people? Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe doesn't hesitate. "We can feed nine billion people," he says, with a wave of the hand. And we can provide them with water and fuel. But only if we let the market do its thing.

Mr. Carney is editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe and coauthor of "Freedom, Inc.," (Crown Business, 2009).

The Best Legislature Money Can Buy

BY CARL HIAASEN
CHIAASEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM

I once referred to a past Legislature as a festival of whores, which in retrospect was a vile insult to the world’s oldest profession. Today’s lackluster assemblage in Tallahassee is possibly the worst in modern times, and cannot fairly be
compared to anything except a rodeo of phonies and pimps. It’s impossible to remember a governor and lawmakers who were more virulently anti-consumer, and more slavishly submissive to big business.

The list of who’s getting screwed in the state budget battle is long and sadly familiar: the schools,college students, foster children, the poor, the elderly, the sick and the jobless. The happiest faces, of course. belong to lobbyists for corporations, insurance companies and utilities, who are getting almost everything they want. It’s astounding that so many voters were suckered into thinking that this new generation of Republicans was going to fight for the common man instead of the fats cats and their special interests.

What a joke. The so-called leadership was plainly bought and paid for by the time their shoes hit the steps of the Capitol. The House is swiftly moving to deregulate 20 different types of business, including intrastate movers and telemarketers — two occupations that aren’t exactly famous for being scrupulous and undeceptive.
Deregulation is estimated to cost the state about $6 million in revenue (and who knows how much it will cost consumers in rip-offs), but just think of all the terrific new jobs it will create. That’s what supporters claim. Seriously.
Just what Florida needs — more telemarketers!

Bills are also sailing through the House and Senate that will allow Florida Power & Light to raise your electric rates for the next five years while at the same time giving the utility a controlling grip on the state’s future solar energy market.
GOP leaders who otherwise love to cheer free-market capitalism have already voiced support of the monopolistic bill, which gives FPL and four other major utilities exclusive rights to develop solar projects, eliminating pesky bids from smaller firms.

FPL achieved this coup the old-fashioned way, by hiring 30 lobbyists and donating about $4 million in campaign contributions to certain lawmakers and candidates for governor. Renewable energy would be good for Florida, but competition among providers would actually hold down electric rates. Not happening.

More bad news: If your home is one of 1.3 million insured by Citizens — the state-run pool that was established after Hurricane Andrew — your premiums could soon rise by as much as 25 percent.

A Senate subcommittee last week voted to let Citizens jack up its rates and start dumping policies on homes valued at more than $1 million. The idea is to eventually close down Citizens and shunt all Floridians back into the private insurance market.
That would be a swell idea except for the many thousands of residents who live in coastal areas where private insurance companies will not offer coverage, or will provide it only at outlandishly high rates. Citizens is indisputably a mess, but if the Senate bill becomes law, many Floridians could be facing a future hurricane season with no homeowners’ insurance, and with their mortgage companies breathing
down their necks.

You might be wondering what the new Legislature has accomplished so far for the greater public good. The answer is not much. But to benefit themselves, lawmakers resurrected and decriminalized a scummy little gimmick called “leadership funds,” which allow special interest groups to give gobs of money to special campaign
accounts controlled by the leaders of both political parties, who can spread it around as they see fit. Outlawed by a long-ago Legislature, leadership funds are simply a sanitized way of buying votes, slightly less sleazy than taking cash in a paper bag.

This time around, donors to the politicians will be listed by name, which is supposed to make us all feel not quite so betrayed. However, there has been at least one instance this spring when the issue of ethics raised its timid little head in Tallahassee. Sen. Mike Fasano of New Port Richey introduced a bill that would have toughened penalties for crooked officeholders and public officials. However, the measure was quickly snuffed in the Rules Committee by Fasano’s fellow Republicans and Democrat Gary Siplin of Orlando, who all felt that the current laws are quite stern enough to discourage corrupt behavior.

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or vomit. On a faintly positive note, at least one terrible scheme that took seed in the Legislature will not become law, at least for now. A few weeks ago, Sen. John Thrasher of St. Augustine and Rep. Pat Rooney of West Palm Beach launched legislation that would have let Jack Nicklaus build golf courses in several state parks, starting with the beautiful Jonathan Dickinson tract near Stuart. No one is a bigger Nicklaus fan than I am, but this truly was one of the nuttiest ideas of all time.

Naturally, Gov. Rick Scott loved it.

Florida already has more than 1,000 golf courses, many of them losing business. Meanwhile our state park system draws 16 million visitors annually and is recognized as one of the country’s finest, a reputation that would disintegrate with the intrusion of driving ranges, fertilized fairways and golf carts(not to mention hotels, which the bill idiotically allowed). The outcry was loud and instant, and within days both Rooney and Thrasher bailed. The golf-in-theparks bill got shelved.

In such dreary political times, it’s good that Floridians can still come together and make themselves heard. The shocker is that they weren’t ignored.

Sea Glass wins AIA Award

Sea Glass of Sanibel, created by Benchmark General Contractors, received the 2010 Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects Florida (AIA) in the Unbuilt Design category. In the picture above, Martin Gold, Director at the University of Florida’s School of Architecture (center), accepted the award on the team’s behalf from AIA President Richard J. Logan (left) and AIA Immediate Past President Gerald Steven Jernigan

Mark Anderson, owner of Benchmark General Contractors, and business partner Ron Rosen announced that the design for Sea Glass of Sanibel, a 12-acre sustainable residential community, received the 2010 Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects Florida (AIA) in the Unbuilt Design category. The award was presented recently at the AIA convention in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.



The jury of architects, chaired by Kirsten Murray, AIA of Olsen Kundig Architects and the 2009 AIA Firm of the Year, said AIA is excited to see this type of project in Florida.



“The use of new urbanist ideas is ideally suited to this climate and informal lifestyle,” Murray said.



In collaboration with the University of Florida’s School of Architecture and the Florida Community Design Center (FLCDC), the neighborhood includes approximately 12 single-family homes along Periwinkle Way on Sanibel. 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.



Other highlights of the eco-friendly community include allocated nature areas, cluster development, a civic green promenade, butterfly meadow, water harvesting, and a community building dedicated to environmental education and shared resources.



“Our unique, groundbreaking lifestyle concept will reduce our footprint on the environment, an environmentally sensitive design that could become a model for future coastal communities in our region,” said Anderson.



Martin Gold, director of the University of Florida’s School of Architecture and executive director of the FLCDC, leads the design team which has submitted the schematics that integrate coastal ecologies, social connectivity, permaculture and sustainability as core principles of the neighborhood planning and architectural design.



Building is expected to begin later this year.

Copenhagen Wheel

It is not easy to reinvent the wheel, but researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are giving it their best shot.

The Senseable City Laboratory at MIT has designed a wheel that captures the kinetic energy released when a rider brakes and saves it for when the rider needs a boost. While technically sound, the wheel’s true challenge may be in winning over cyclists. For centuries, bikes have been beloved for their simplicity, not their bells and whistles.

But, said Carlo Ratti, the laboratory’s director, “biking can become even more effective than what it was”. What the lab is working on, he said, is “Biking 2.0”.

The new wheel uses a kinetic energy recovery system, the same technology used by hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius, to harvest otherwise wasted energy when a cyclist brakes or speeds down a hill. With that energy, it charges up a battery inside the wheel’s hub.

The sleek red hub, called the Copenhagen Wheel, was to be unveiled on Tuesday in Copenhagen. It can be retrofitted to any bike’s rear wheel, and it includes sensors that track air quality, a meter that logs miles and a GPS unit to track routes. All that data can be sent via Bluetooth to a rider’s smartphone and shared with others.

The laboratory is trying to eliminate the clunkiness of other electric bikes with heavy batteries and unwieldy wires by placing all the technology into the wheel, said Christine Outram, the project’s lead researcher. “It’s a technology that can get more people on bikes,” she said.

This is a period of change in the bicycle design world, said Jens Martin Skibsted, a Danish designer who owns the biking company Biomega and the design firm Kibisi. Skibsted believes that over the next few years several popular new designs will emerge to serve an increasingly urban population trying to wean itself off cars.

In such periods of change, he said, “the winner will seldom be the one that’s most functional, but rather the one that can become an inherent part of our culture”.

“This wheel looks nice,” he continued. “Whether it will be long lasting, I cannot say.”

Back at MIT, another research group is hedging its bets on a different wheel model, spurning regenerative braking as an excessive addition. “Regenerative braking hardware adds mass, complexity and cost, and the energy efficiency gains from it turn out to be surprisingly limited,” said William Mitchell, who runs a lab at MIT called SmartCities.

One of Mitchell’s doctoral students, Michael Lin, is also building an electric bike wheel, but it has to be plugged in to charge. Lin is considering adding regenerative components as an external accessory, but not as a component embedded into the wheel’s hub.

Reprinted from CopenhagenWheels.com

A House Too Big

When I’ve heard clients over the years refer to home amenities needed for “resale value”, I’ve often wondered who these potential buyers are. Apparently from the decisions I’ve seen clients make to appease this crowd, these buyers must like monochromatic off-white walls, bath tubs that admittedly rarely get used, a formal dining room that sits empty while everyone hangs out in the kitchen, and a living room that seems to never get lived in. Of course there’s other items that seem to collect dust also like a fireplace in the master bedroom, a “morning kitchen”, or a master bath the size of a small garage.

It’s interesting that most clients lament about designing for “resale” and yet most give in to this unknown entity and add the bathtub or formal dining room or whatever. I usually tell clients that unless they have very bizarre tastes, if they like it, most likely some future buyer will also.

Our homes should be designed for us, efficiently and economically, for the way that we live. Unneeded space is a waste of resources and costs money. The costs for these “unneeded” amenities have been rationalized over the years by the belief that someone will come along who wants and demands this extra space and stuff because the “marketplace” mandates it. We seem to have fallen prey to some sort of Martha Stewart Ponzi scheme where we have kept adding beautiful and expensive products and amenities that we’ve been led to believe will forever help to maintain the high market value of our home. Apparently not so, many of the “hot buttons” have gone cold! The “marketplace” appears to be telling us something.

But are we listening? Old habits are hard to break. The first step is to develop a new vision of the needs and expectations of a home and lay a path towards that goal. It’s absolutely necessary to develop an exciting plan that functions effectively for the way we live while still honoring our past and the emotional relationships that we have with our homes. The old models of building and development were overdone because builders and owners perceived them as “safe” alike. This way of thinking is apparently collapsing because of it’s own weight; a change is upon us. Build what you really want, be creative, and most of all, be brave. The time requires it!

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

Aurora Gold Award for Benchmark project

We are pleased to announce that one of our projects “The Stephens Residence”, located in South Seas Plantation on Captiva Island, was recently awarded the Grand Gold Award (best in show) at the 2010 Aurora Awards. Designed by K2 Design Group, from Bonita Springs, Florida, this Gulf Front home was completed in 2009.

The Aurora Awards is a architectural and interior design competition sponsored by the Southeast Builders Conference and the Florida Home Builders Association. The awards were held at the recent SEBC convention in Orlando, Florida. This is the second Benchmark project to receive an Aurora Award, the Larson Residence, located on Sanibel Island, received an Aurora award in 2002.


http://www.theauroras.com/winners/index.cfm?method=cWinners.main&thisYear=2010&sortOrder=winnerType

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

Paralyzing the PACE

Paralyzing the PACE: Florida’s property assessed clean energy program likely strangled by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Posted on July 19, 2010 by greenbuildingsubcommittee

The Florida legislature recently took a step towards creating a more sustainable future for our state. On May 27, 2010, Governor Crist signed into law House Bill 7179, which created Florida’s version of the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program.

lorida’s PACE bill enables local governments to levy non-ad valorem assessments to fund improvements related to energy efficiency,conservation,renewable energy and wind resistance. This type of program is more commonly known as a land-secured financing district or special assessment, which Florida municipalities have long used as a tool to finance projects that serve a public purpose, including street paving and the creation of parks. The novelty of the PACE program is that it is not a mandatory ad valorem property tax, has minimal fiscal impact on local governments, is not linked to the financial credit status of the property owner, and is completely voluntary. The program shows promise as an innovative, no-taxpayer subsidy approach to financing individual energy efficiency and renewable energy projects without the traditional barriers: large upfront costs and difficulty of financing them.

Under a PACE program, property owners borrow money from a newly established “municipal financing district” to purchase eligible technologies that are determined at the local level.

PACE programs are funded through the issuance of local revenue bonds. A PACE bond is a bond where the proceeds are lent to commercial and residential property owners to finance energy retrofits (efficiency measures and small renewable energy systems) and who then repay their loans over 20 years via an annual special assessment on their property tax bill. The bonds therefore act as a lien on the property until the amount is paid off. If the consumer sells the property, the tax would then be paid by the new owner. For many home and business owners, the annual energy cost savings from the retrofitting will exceed the cost of the annual repayment.
Unfortunately, on July 6, 2010, the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA), the agency that regulates mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, issued a letter effectively bringing PACE programs across the Country to a screeching halt. The July 6th letter expresses FHFA’s new requirement position that it will not purchase loans subject to PACE liens. The tension lies in FHFA’s concern with the “senior liens” or “first liens,” which result from the tax assessment on properties participating in a PACE program. The significance of the senior PACE lien is that if the property goes into foreclosure the PACE lien must be satisfied before the mortgage lender gets any money. In short, FHFA has “safety and soundness concerns” resulting from a combination of “first liens that disrupt a fragile housing market and longstanding lending priorities, the absence of robust underwriting standards to protect homeowners and the lack of energy retrofit standards to assist homeowners, appraisers, inspectors and lenders [to] determine the value of retrofit products.”

From a practical standpoint, FHFA’s blanket rejection of residential loans subject to PACE liens eliminates or restricts one of the most appealing aspects of the PACE program: the ability to make energy efficient improvements today and either pay the costs off over time or pass the costs off to future purchasers. Banks generally want to sell their loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, so under FHFA’s new rules, whenever a homeowner with a PACE loan seeks to refinance, the homeowner will have to pay off the PACE lien in full. In addition, whenever a homeowner with a PACE loan seeks to sell their home to a buyer using financing, the homeowner will have to either pay off the PACE loan or negotiate full payment of the PACE lien by the purchaser. The restrictions created by the FHFA’s position and the orders it has issued to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks have served to bring PACE programs everywhere to a complete halt.

There will have to be a significant push in favor of PACE programs on a state and federal level if one of the most promising renewable energy programs to date is going to be saved. Some commentators believe the only way to cross the proverbial “line in the sand” drawn by the FHFA is for Congress to take action on this pressing issue. If implemented in Florida, PACE programs could rev-up the state’s economic engine. The promises of an accelerated rate of renewable energy production, energy independence, green job creation, and greenhouse gas emissions reductions are all reasons to fight for PACE programs.

Submitted by Stephen A. Liverpool. Mr Liverpool is a third year law school student from Tampa, Florida. This December, he will graduate from the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida with a certificate in environmental and land use law. He is currently a summer associate at the law firm of Hill Ward Henderson and can be contacted at salpool@ufl.edu.

Opportunities and Dangers in Developing Florida's Solar Potential

Opportunities and Dangers in Developing Florida's Solar Potential

Big House-Small House

For most of us baby boomers, chances are great that the houses we live in now are bigger than the houses we lived in when we grew up. Nothing is more cost effective in controlling energy usage and carbon impact than good design. It’s no coincidence that many of the rating systems, such as LEED for Homes, Florida Green Building Coalition and others give credits to encourage smaller home sizes. Our culture's thirst for oversized homes, which have been so fashionable over the last few decades, have many homeowners realizing that maybe too much space is not so great after all.

Is it possible to live smaller with a higher quality of life? Is there a greener future for our homes? Sarah Susanka, author of the “Not So Big House”, believes that anything that is well designed will stand the test of time and will sustain our inhabitant. The wise use of both energy and monetary resources is a core element of good design, since over 20 percent of our carbon emissions come from our existing housing stock.

Sarah Susanka has been credited to have started the small house movement. In The Not So Big House, Susanka urges people to create homes that are designed for themselves and the way they live by carefully considering comfort, detail, and the importance of space and the spatial use to the residents. She encourages homebuilders to discover what ceiling heights and overall room shapes bring them into a peaceful state of mind. She stresses the importance of ceiling heights being in proportion to the rest of the room and giving every adult occupant a private place of which they can take ownership. Certain architectural details are central to her philosophy, such as stair railings, moldings surrounding windows and doors, and built-ins. Small does not necessarily mean plain. A basic concept is smaller and more personal spaces but still retaining a high level of quality, detail and craftsmanship. Sarah hopes that people building homes will discover what they like and what makes them feel at home--not just naming certain square footage or a number of bedrooms and bathrooms, or picking a generic plan provided in a builder’s set of fixed options.

The finishes and types of building materials are also important in her construction. Susanka stresses the use of renewable materials, building with energy efficiency in mind, and constructing homes to last for future generations to enjoy. Knowing and understanding what rooms and spaces one likes, the use for the space, and how often that space will be used are some of the building blocks Susanka utilizes for planning a home. Some examples include determining which rooms are public and private or which need to contain spaces for both, such as a window seat in an otherwise public room in which two persons may sit and converse away from others. Addressing the issue of the use of space, Susanka also discusses the duplication of functional spaces throughout the house, such as multiple dining areas, somehting most can probably relate to. One would translate these ideas and concepts into reality by determining one’s wishes and the feasibility of ideas, as well as considering what she calls the “three variables” of “quality, quantity, and cost”.

These factors form the basis upon which she makes decisions finding that one of them will often dictate another. For example, the size or number of rooms and the quality of interior finishes will decide the cost of space and materials. As one works with an architect and builder, Susanka believes persons building their home must determine which of these “three variables” is most important to them and their lifestyle.

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

A Truly Green Device

Since residential energy use comprises about 26% of all the energy used in the state of Florida and in south Florida, about 35% of this annual residential energy expenditure is for cooling the home during Florida's 5- to 7-month-long summer, I started to look for a new device that I could use to reduce the energy consumption of our home. I got ideas from an AC guy and I learned a lot about insulation and glass shading co-efficients and such, but I found what I was looking for in my back yard. A tree!

Glass windows and doors can account for between 30 and 60% of a building's total heat gain in the summer. As much as 270 Btu’s of direct and diffused solar radiation can enter a home or building through each square foot of glass on the east and west sides. For example, direct sunlight on a clear glass window on a west wall can require more than one ton of air conditioning to remove the heat gained from this source alone. This is more than eight times the heat gain caused by conduction and infiltration. We don’t use clear glass anymore, but you can get the point.

So what would be a more aesthetically pleasing way to shade this window than a tree. Naturally this assumes that this doesn’t place a tree between your window and the Gulf of Mexico. Placing a tree to shade a home involves consideration of the angle of the sun's rays in summer and winter, mature tree height and structure height. In general, the target areas for shading during Florida's warm months are the walls on western, eastern and southern exposures, in that order. Though an exposure facing due south receives little direct sun on June 21, by August the sun will be lower and as we Floridians know, it’s real hot in August.

It’s possible to achieve as much as a 30% reduction in cooling and heating costs through careful landscape planning. Landscaping can reduce direct sun from striking and heating up building surfaces. Trees can prevent reflected light from carrying heat into a house from the ground or other surfaces. Shading the air conditioner can also improve its efficiency by as much as10 percent. Trees can shade a roof and walls from the hot summer sun. They can also create a cooler atmosphere around the home, cooling sidewalks and driveway that normally reflect heat.

So again it’s possible to trump the use of technical gadgets with good design and common sense! Go plant a tree!

Get the Lead Out

Lead is a neurotoxin and even in very small dosages it can be a very dangerous substance. It’s right up there with mercury as far as bad stuff to have in us and it is especially damaging to children under age six whose bodies are still developing. Lead can cause nervous system damage, stunted growth, and delayed development. It can cause kidney damage and affects every organ system of the body. It also is dangerous to adults, and can cause reproductive problems for both men and women. It’s also been linked to ADHD. I do remember my brother chewing on the door casing, come to think of it.

Anyway, the ban on lead paint started in 1897 when Australian doctors discovered that there was a connection between lead paint and childhood illnesses when they noticed that children who were eating lead paint from porch railings were getting sick. This conclusion led European countries, such as France, Belgium, Austria and Great Britain, to ban lead-based paint in the early 1900s.

“Lead” paint was banned in US homes in 1978 by the Consumer products Safety Commission somewhat after our European neighbors got the lead out. At one time, the majority of homes in the US had lead based paints at their interiors and especially exteriors, as lead was (is) an excellent additive for durability. Less and less lead paint was used as we progress through the 1900’s until it’s removal from the marketplace in 1978.

A very small amount of lead, even a gram or less, can be very dangerous. One myth related to lead-based paint is that the most common cause of poisoning was eating leaded paint chips, like my brother. In fact, the most common pathway of childhood lead exposure is through ingestion of lead dust through normal hand-to-mouth contact during which kids swallow lead dust dislodged from deteriorated paint or leaded dust generated during remodeling or painting.

Like it or not, the EPA has taken a very strong step towards controlling the presence of lead “dust” in construction projects. Owners of houses built before 1978 or contractors who work on such homes should pay special attention. Supposedly, on or after April 22, 2010, companies working on pre-1978 homes as well as child-occupied facilities must be certified and use lead-safe work practices during any renovations.

The rule applies to remodeling projects that disturb more than six square feet of painted surfaces inside, or 20 square feet outside, of residential structures built before 1978. It requires that the contractor and certain subcontractors be certified to work with lead-based paint under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule (RRP), and follow specific "lead-safe work practices" to prevent lead exposure to humans. That includes testing for the presence of lead-based paint in the work area.

The rule does not apply to homeowners working on their own houses. If one is a contractor who is not certified, they can be fined $37,000 per day per rule violation. The EPA licenses certain organizations, such as local building organizations, to administer training and certification courses to become a Certified Renovator.

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

The True Cost of Oil

The recent and ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is just one tragic and ugly incident in the history of the world oil industry, as miners’ deaths are to the coal industry. To be fair, most industries have a dark side to some extent.

Usually when the subject of using alternative energies, such as solar or wind, to wean us of our “addiction to oil” comes up, there’s always the complaint that such technologies only work if they are subsidized and can’t be competitive with oil and coal.

The Gulf oil spill is just a small example of the peripheral costs of the oil industry. But wait, there’s more! To get a true idea of the cost of a gallon of gas, we need to look at such things as the cost of oil-related defense expenditures, the loss of jobs and economic activity because of the trade imbalance (foreign oil imports are a significant part of our chronic trade deficits), the loss of government revenues, and the cost of periodic supply disruptions.

The National Defense Council Foundation has estimated that after 2006 the annual cost to defend Persian Gulf oil was approximately $140 billion a year, the loss of domestic employment from sending our money overseas was approximately $118 billion a year, and the cost of spending our industry reinvestment money overseas was close to $400 billion a year. When we spend our dollars overseas, our jobs go with it. The Department of Energy has estimated that every $1 billion dollars of trade deficit costs America 27,000 jobs and that we have spent over $7 trillion dollars on our oil dependency over the last 30 years.

The estimated cost per gallon for our oil dependency would add anywhere between $5.00 to $8.00 per gallon on top of what we pay at the pump. This doesn’t include, by the way, the lives of our soldiers and others who have died protecting our oil supply. So the next time someone, be they Democrat, Republican, Tea Partier or whatever, complains that we shouldn’t support domestic home grown energy technologies because they cost too much, have them do their homework. Maybe they can take their laptop to the beach!

Who/what is TED?

The Energy Detective, also known as TED, is an energy demand feedback device that promotes energy conservation by making residential consumers aware of how much electrical energy is being used in their homes. Reportedly, this device can help reduce energy consumption by 10%-20%. This device provides immediate feedback on your energy usage so you can decide where and when to reduce your consumption. But of course, like all advice, you must take it in order for it to work.

Essentially, TED is no different from the utility company energy meter on the outside of your home, but it’s displayed indoors at a place where it can be more conveniently read, and displays some extra information of interest to the user. This device comes in two parts - an electromagnetic transducer that sits at the power mains to measure the total power usage and transmits it over the power wiring, and a receiver device that receives the signal and displays it to the user.
TED tracks kilowatt-hours, and optionally computes cents per hour and estimates the month's electric bill.

TED's transmitter only transmits its signal over a single phase of household wiring. Most houses have two incoming phases divided evenly throughout the house. TED's receiver usually can only receive if it's plugged into an outlet on the same phase as its transmitter. A phase bridge, such as one compatible with X10 home automation equipment, can overcome this limitation. Despite TED's ability to only transmit over a single phase, it does include the necessary equipment to properly measure power usage on both phases.

A research project by the Florida Solar Energy Center has successfully used the device to develop a protocol which can be used to inventory the electrical demand of all household appliances. This same research has installed the device in twenty households with the intention of evaluating pre/post household behavior after a year of having the device available.

The TED receiver displays power measurements with a resolution of 10 watts, and updates every 1 second. The actual measurement hardware in TED may have a higher resolution, with a granularity as low as 1 watt. All data is stored in nonvolatile memory, so there is no data loss on power outage.

One of the coolest aspects of the TED is the use of the “Footprints” software which allows you to monitor your usage on your PC. The software will cost you $50+/ -. There is a brief You Tube video which explains this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l_XIOp19kk.

Although ours is being installed, it is supposedly easy to install by a “qualified” homeowner, whatever that means. When I open an electrical panel, I personally prefer to have an electrician standing next to me! The cost for the TED 1001 is about $150.

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

Luxury Home Quarterly

There's a short article on Benchmark and our work on Sanibel in a great new magazine, Luzury Home Quarterly. Go to:

http://www.luxuryhomequarterly.com/lhqmarapr1/pages/86.php
http://www.luxuryhomequarterly.com/lhqmarapr1/pages/88.php

to read this. Also, check out the magazine, it's a beautiful edition.

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

Leaking by design

Leaky Attic?

We can spend a lot of money on technology that improves efficiency and gets to showcase some cool toys. But nothing beats just having good design.

Do you have a house where the insulation is laying against the ceiling drywall and there’s a big old attic above where your ductwork lives? There’s probably a bunch of recessed lights and other things penetrating the ceiling drywall and anyone who’s had the fun of crawling around in a Florida attic knows that the insulation doesn’t really seal all that well like it should.

Most air ducts leak, some a little, some a lot. When you have leaky ducts in the attic described above, guess what the air leaking out of the ducts does? As the air is being drawn out by the air handler and some leaked into the attic, a negative pressure field builds up in the house. A negative pressure field draws attic air not just into interior framing but also down exterior walls, adding humidity as it goes. It also picks up contaminants. There’s also humid air coming from every conceivable opening your house, be it doors and windows, mysterious holes in the slab, etc. The end result, besides inefficient AC, is discomfort, mold, and all the problems that eventually come with damp building components.

Is there an easy fix? I say yes. Just change the attic from an unconditioned space to a conditioned space by installing an open cell or closed cell foam insulation system to the underside of the roof deck and making the attic “unvented”. This puts the air distribution system within the conditioned space and reducing the major adverse effects of system leakage. This also improves the durability of the AC equipment and ductwork and adds to the efficiency.

Give us a call if you need more information.

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

Sanibel Land Use Plan

The Sanibel Comprehensive Land Use Plan is a groundbreaking document. The City of Sanibel has been successful in preserving its unique character and beauty thanks to our “founding fathers and mothers” and the plan they developed back in the 1970’s and have improved upon since then. We’ve been given the plan some scrutiny and we’ve realized that portions of it actually discourage certain beneficial activities. These portions of the code, especially in a “unified cluster development”, can be roadblocks to concepts and technologies that can have great benefit to our island and the conservation of it’s resources:

New Section 126-855: While the intention of the CLUP is to limit development on building sites on Sanibel, the definition of “developed area” is limited to portions of the property that is covered by impermeable structures as well as “used” by permeable areas (i.e. walkways, permeable driveways, etc.) In fact the vast majority of areas on most parcels is subject to construction activity to accommodate vegetation relocations, landscaping arrangements, water retention and drainage systems.

Cisterns, for example, are part of a mechanical system that conserves water, for potable or non-potable uses, and enhances the drainage and water retention function of the property. Their coverage area should not be calculated as part of the developed coverage anymore than a perimeter swale or water retention area would be. The size of cisterns can be as simple as a rain barrel or a tank that may be 50 to200 square feet or larger. Also, many cistern systems can have a sub-surface installation similar to a septic tank or chambered septic drainfield. Before the installation of sewer through most of Sanibel, these domestic waste system enjoyed exclusion from developed coverage calculations.

Ground mounted solar thermal heaters for pool or domestic water or photovoltaic arrays have the obvious benefit of reducing electrical demand and reducing the “carbon footprint”. In cases where these products can not be mounted on a roof plane, it seems counterproductive to conservation principals and counter to the mission of the CLUP to count the areas covered by these devices as either impermeable or developed areas.

Likewise, in many cases a solar thermal or photovoltaic system that is mounted on a roof plane may be considered above the maximum building height. These devices are appliances and should be given the same exception as other appliances, such as fireplace chimneys, are. Again, these situations appear to counterproductive to conservation principals and counter to the mission of the CLUP.

The intention of this new amendment is to encourage the use of resource saving technologies and systems, the present interpretation application of these uses in fact discourages their use and penalizes the user.

Amendment to Section 86-112 Setbacks (b) and Amendment to Sec 86-134 Single Family Dwellings: Roof overhangs should not be considered as part of the building setback for the obvious reason that larger overhangs greatly add to the sustainability and efficiency of a building, Sanibel City Building being a prime example. Conversely, smaller overhangs add to a buildings exposure to the degrading effects of rain and sunlight. Also, the installation of solar thermal and photovoltaic devices can require large roof surfaces because they generally work best on unshaded and properly orientated surfaces.

The present system of counting the overhang as part of the structure discourages the use of larger and more protective overhangs.

There are no access, life safety or fire code standards that are jeopardized by exempting roof overhangs from setback and building requirements.

In a unified cluster development, exempting roof overhangs from building setbacks and building separations provides for the creation of more open and “green” space to the project.

Amendment to Section 126-854 Recycling and Trash Disposal Facilities: This exemption has already been passed for the resort housing district. Unified Residential Cluster Developments should receive the same consideration. Centralizing the storage and collection of trash and recyclables is a more efficient means of collection, decreases vehicular traffic, and can minimize neighborhood trash contamination from careless human activities and animal disruptions.

Amendment to Sec 126-976: Good planning with the intention of creating the most efficient and best use of properties through the aggregation of two or more ecological zones make this amendment necessary. Present regulations can encumber the conservation process, encourage the use of planning strategies that have greater negative impact on a subject property, and penalize development strategies that attempt to conserve the natural resources of the property.

Amendment to Sec 126-077: Part of the mission of the CLUP is to effectively create and preserve habitat on Sanibel for plant, bird and animal life. The expansion or creation of such habitat, all as approved by the Natural resources Dept and Planning Commission should be encouraged and given a priority.

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

East meets West

When I lived in rural Maine in the 70’s, land use planners were considered to be “communists”. Mainers, like most of us, don’t like being told what to do. Unlike in the now gone Soviet Union, most of us have come to realize the benefits of good planning.

The City of Sanibel was formed in 1975, about the same time the “commies” were conspiring to deprive Mainers of the use of their land. Sanibel residents fought back against not "commies" but lax county development standards to protect Sanibel from overdevelopment and a potential rapid unsustainable population growth by establishing the Sanibel Comprehensive Land Use Plan in 1974. This was done to help maintain a balance between development and preservation of the island's ecology. On a national level, this was a major initiative and a progressive step in land use planning. Now, in 2010, there is little doubt that Sanibel is a better place because of the CLUP.

There was another place in the US going through similar changes, Boulder, CO. If you thought there were “commies” in running amuck in the woods of Maine, you obviously hadn’t been to Boulder. In 1978, Boulder adopted its own land use plan (BCCP). This was developed "to respond to the widely accepted principle that the myriad of future land use decisions affecting the county’s lands should be made in a coordinated and responsible manner." It implemented such things as channeling growth to the municipalities, protecting agricultural lands, and the preservation of the environmental and natural resources being a high priority in making land use decisions. Sounds like Sanibel to me.

So Sanibel had a sister community out west. Sanibel is a special and great place to live and visit, as is Boulder. Now thirty years later or so, Boulder has changed and adjusted to the times, Sanibel not so much.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave or one of those people who think we all will be after the government has its way, most realize the importance of implementing sustainable and efficient planning and technologies into our homes and communities to lessen our dependence on foreign resources and generally make where we live a better place. Call it “green” or whatever, we all know what it is in concept.

In November 2008, Boulder implemented a mandatory “Green Building and Green Points Program”. This requires all commercial and residential construction to conform to increased energy efficiency standards. All buildings must follow a “Green Building and Green Points” program. You can view the required document at:
http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/files/PDS/green_points/902.pdf .

Essentially, this requires all homes and building to meet certain HERS ratings, based on size, and to attain a certain number of points from a variety of site development, building technology and design areas. The scoring template Boulder uses is reminiscent of a simplified Leeds program, Florida Green Building Coalition standards and others (there are many). Most of the scoring items “make sense” and many of the possible points are things that Sanibel already mandates such things as the use of native vegetation, irrigation standards, recycling, etc.

Is this the time for Sanibel and other local communities to become leaders and raise the bar? I believe so.

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

What's a RESNET?

RESNET

What’s a RESNET? You’ll probably be hearing more about it in the years to come, or not. Or not because RESNET is an organization that nationally oversees the development and administration of residential energy analysis software that provides your home with a HERS rating (“home energy rating system”). Actually, it’s a HERS rating you’ll either be hearing about or you’re already familiar with it.
RESNET’s (Residential Energy Services Network) mission is to ensure the success of the building energy performance certification industry, set the standards of quality, and increase the opportunity for ownership of high performance buildings. RESNET is a 501-C-3 non profit organization.
A HERS Index of 100 represents the energy use of the "American Standard Building", or an average home, and an Index of 0 means that a proposed building uses no net purchased energy (a Zero Energy Building). You’ve probably heard the term Energy Star, developed by the Department of Energy. Presently an Energy Star home has to meet a HERS rating of 75. Although the HERS rating is not perfect, it can be used to measure the energy impact of specific changes to a given home. For example, if a solar water or upgraded AC equipment is added, the energy savings can be quantified.
Find a rater and have one done on your home today!

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

What water?

Where’d the Water Go?

There are some legendary “wasters” of water. How about Celine Dion using a whopping 6.5 million gallons of water in 2007 at her home on Jupiter Island, Fla., according to a study done by the Palm Beach Post. Cry me a river! There’s also the estate of wealthy Atlanta investor Chris G. Carlos whose property consumed 440,000 gallons (1.67 million liters) in September 2007 alone. After a public outcry, Carlos dramatically reduced his monthly usage to just 12,000 gallons.
Some of our biggest and most unusual “wasters” of water aren’t all that glamorous. The Scientific American recently compiled a list of some interesting water sucks. Here they are:

1. Doing the Dishes: By Hand or Dishwasher?
A typical by hand session will go through about 20 gallons or so. But if you leave the water running while scraping at those last grisly bits on your fine china, you may use more than twice that amount. Modern electric dishwashers, in contrast, need less than 10 gallons (38 liters) per average load.

2. Washing the Car (and the Driveway)
According to a west coast chain, a home car wash can go through 80 to 140 gallons of water, whereas a wash at one of its garages will take about 30 to 45 gallons. Many professional car washes also utilize methods that recycle water.

3. Slipping Through the Cracks
A swimming pool naturally loses about 1,000 gallons a month to evaporation, although the local climate and the pool's overall surface area determines the amount that's actually lost. A bigger problem arises from the leaks that pools often develop during their lifetimes from cracks in a pool’s foundation, liner tears and pipe damage.

4. Lawn Sprinklers: Fountains of Backyard Verdure or Pernicious Aquifer Guzzlers?
The water sprinklers that keep our grass green and flowers growing can consume 265 gallons an hour. Landscaping usage generally rivals or exceeds estimates of what an average U.S. household uses daily. A good tip: unless you’re going to eat what you grow, don’t plant that which needs copious amounts of water to live.

5. Well-Watered Desert Resorts
You don’t see a lot of water around Las Vegas. The Venetian canals of the Bellagio, as well as the Mirage's water-and-fire volcano, seem to be on the “most wanted” list of water wasters. This is not as bad as it seems though. Apparently the Las Vegas Strip accounts for just three percent of local water use. Nearly 70 percent of the Las Vegas water supply goes toward irrigating the 60-plus golf courses and the many residential lawns in the area. Grow rocks; they don’t need so much water.

6. Biofuels' Hidden Downside
Just because biofuels burn cleaner than fossil fuels and therefore emit less carbon dioxide into the air doesn’t mean that there’s a dark side. Plant-power sucks up ridiculously large quantities of water compared with oil and natural gas production. For example, producing a gallon (3.79 liters) of corn ethanol consumes 170 gallons of water in total, from irrigation to final processing. Soybean biodiesel manufacture needs some 900 gallons of water per gallon of fuel. On the other hand, the water requirement to make a gallon of regular gasoline is just five gallons.
7. Agriculture in the Arid Southwest
much of the U.S. Southwest is a desert and about 90 percent of the Colorado River's water is today diverted into the Southwest for agricultural irrigation. It’s been estimated that almost half of the water could be lost through evaporation and seepage. Many farmers rely on flood irrigation, which, though inexpensive, is a highly inefficient means of delivering water to crops. The Colorado's dwindling water flow threatens the supplies of at least seven states; water rights are the new range wars.

8. Alfalfa Farming Woes
many think of alfalfa mainly in terms of the sprouts that end up on sandwiches, but most of the alfalfa crop feeds livestock. The relatively low-value crop uses up about a quarter of California’s irrigation water but contribute only 4 percent to the state's total farm revenue. The main issue is that farmers grow alfalfa year-round in what is essentially a desert climate in the southwestern U.S.

9. The Ruin of the Aral Sea
The Aral Sea in central Asia was once the fourth largest body of freshwater on the planet. Where did it go, did they drink it. Well sort of… But by siphoning off waters from the massive lake for irrigation, local farmers and governments in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have drained the Aral Sea to about 10% of its original size. The Aral has split into three parts, two of which are so salty that all the fish in them died!

10. Saving the Saddest for Last
Ah beer! It may be refreshing and cool but it's likely to leave you less hydrated than you were before you started. Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it makes you want to go. And when you go, you have to drink more water to make up for that which was spent. Alcohol suppresses an antidiuretic hormone called vasopressin that tells our kidneys to reabsorb and conserve water. The more you drink, the more the hormone level falls, and thus the more water you lose. Don’t blame the beer, it’s the dehydration.