smart growth: on common ground: summer08

SustainableThe

Future

• Green Homes

• Marketing Sustainability

• Eco-Friendly Schools

SUMMER 2008

2 ON COMMON GROUND SUMMER 2008

While many definitions for sustainable development have been put forward, the simplest test for sustainability may be “if we continue doing things this way, will future generations have food to eat, clean water to drink, a functioning natural environment and a functioning economy?” As the seriousness of climate change sinks in, sustainable development and its components, “green building” and smart growth, are increasingly seen not just as an improvement, but as vital to humans’ well-being now and in the future.

Three primary components of the built environment significantly contribute to the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change—the development of land, transportation, and the construction and operation of buildings. Our response to global warming must address all of these. Energy efficient buildings are achieving greater market acceptance, and many consumers are switching to vehicles with

greater fuel-efficiency. A more difficult task for most Americans is reducing the miles they must drive. It is smart growth that will help achieve this reduction, if coupled with more efficient use and conservation of land.

In this issue of On Common Ground, we present the many approaches that REALTORS®, home builders, school officials, environmentalists, public officials and concerned citizens are using to shape communities into sustainable human environments—communities that make better use of our resources and reduce the damage we leave behind. Green building is just the start; this issue also includes transportation alternatives, the local food movement, walkable neighborhoods, “green infrastructure” and eco-friendly schools. It will take all of these and more to create sustainable communities—sustainability requires substantial, and sustained, commitment.

Sustainable Smart Growth

Editor

Joseph R. Molinaro Manager, Smart Growth Programs NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® 500 New Jersey Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20001

For more information on NAR and smart growth, go to www.realtor.org/smartgrowth.

For more information on NAR and Housing Opportunity, go to www.realtor.org/housingopportunity.

On Common Ground is published twice a year by the Government Affairs division of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (NAR), and is distributed free of charge. The publication presents a wide range of views on smart growth issues, with the goal of encouraging a dialogue among REALTORS®, elected officials and other interested citizens. The opin-ions expressed in On Common Ground are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, its members or affiliate organizations.

Special Issue Co-Editor

Hugh Morris Smart Growth and Community Outreach Programs NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® 500 New Jersey Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20001

Distribution

For more copies of this issue or to be placed on our mailing list for future issues of On Common Ground, please contact Ted Wright, NAR Government Affairs, at (202) 383-1206 or [email protected].

3

What is a Sustainable House? 4

by Brad Broberg

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. SustainHere Comes the Green Neighborhood 10

by David Goldberg

Green Infrastructure 18

by Brad Broberg

Marketing a Sustainable FutureREALTORS® Connect Buyers with Energy Saving Homes 24

by Steve Wright

Seeking GreenREALTOR® Associations Provide a Helping Hand to Achieve Sustainability. 28

by Steve Wright

Two-Wheeled Sustainability 34

by Barbara McCann

Walk This WayAmerican Cities Test Strategies to Promote Alternative Transportation 40

by Judy Newman

Learning to ConserveEco-Friendly Schools Built for Future Generations 48

by Christine Sexton

A Growing TrendSmart Foods from Smart Growth 54

by John Van Gieson

REALTORS® Take Action 60Making Smart Growth Happen

Summer 2008

On Common Ground thanks the following contributors and organizations for photographs, illustrations and artist renderings reprinted in this issue: Art Allen, Transit for Livable Communities; Frankie Barker, Matanuska-Susitna Borough; Chris Bartle, Green Key Real Estate; Jacquie Berger, Just Food; Walter Brown and Loren Heyns, Green Street Properties; Erica Burt, Farr Associates; Chris Carrel, Friends of the Hylebos; Ted Chalgren, Cox and Dinkins, Inc.; City of Aurora, Ill.; Camila Clark, Maryland Office of Tourism; Paul DeMaio, Virginia Division of Transportation; Mary Ebeling, Sheboygan County Planning and Resources; Mark Gashler, Ecobroker®; Samnetta Gaye, Southside Community Land Trust; Lori Ito Hardenbergh, Sidwell Friends School; Bob Hill, Vermont Association of REALTORS®; Tricia Jumonville, ERA Colonial Real Estate; Ashley Katz, U.S. Green Building Council; Michael Kiefer, Green DC Realty; Matt Kolb, Pedal to Properties; Nathan Norris, The Waters; Caroline Novak, Lancaster Farmland Trust; Barbara Richey, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy; Rhonda Rosenberg, King County Housing Authority; Sarah Soczka, Boelter + Lincoln; and Craig Tackabery, Walk Bike Marin.

On Common Ground

What is a S U S TA I N A B L E H O U S E ?

Green used to be just another color. Now—like good schools and granite countertops—it’s also a primary con-sideration for homebuyers.

That’s true even when buyers aren’t sure what green means.

“Some people know what to expect, but other people say, ‘I want a green home. What does that entail?’” said REALTOR® Chris Boardman, a certified EcoBroker® with Intero Real Estate Services in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Boardman’s training—he earned his EcoBroker® certifi-cation through EcoBroker® International—makes it easy for him to answer that question. In fact, he often answers it before it’s asked. It’s a reflex. “When I walk through a house with people, I’ll point out that the windows are outdated or the attic needs insulation,” he said.

Yet not everybody is so well-versed. Greenwashing—the act of misleading consumers about environmental practices, products or services—is an ongoing problem. “Some home listings put green in there and there’s really nothing green about it at all,” Boardman said.

For buyers hoping to separate the green from the green-washed, one bit of good news is the increasing number of local green certification programs. More and more builders, seeking to promote their green building prac-tices, are joining these programs, which ensure homes reflect at least some shade of green. The catch is the sys-tems aren’t widely recognized outside their regions, and they don’t use a uniform rating or certification process.

As the demand for green homes grows, confusion about what it means to be green is cause for concern. Two organizations are helping buyers, builders and REAL-TORS® unravel the green riddle by offering nationwide green home rating systems.

Late last year, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) launched Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Homes. The National Association of Home-builders (NAHB) launched the National Green Building Program in February of 2008, which includes the National Green Building Standard (NGBS) begun last year.

While the nuts and bolts may differ, the basic mecha-nisms of the two programs—both voluntary—are simi-lar. Each mandates certain green features, awards points for optional features, requires independent inspections and has different levels of green certification. Whichever

By Brad Broberg

As the demand for green homes

grows, confusion about what it

means to be green is cause for

concern.


5

program a builder chooses, homes built to NGBS or LEED specifications deliver more than a green sheen.

What makes a home truly green? Common benchmarks include:

• Energy (effective insulation; high-performance win-dows; high-efficiency lighting).

• Indoor air (VOC-free finishes, adhesives and carpet-ing; radon-resistant construction; mechanical and natural ventilation).

• Water (low-flow toilets and showerheads; rainwater harvesting; graywater recycling).

• Landscaping (little or no lawn; native plants; limited irrigation).

• Building products (materials with recycled content; salvaged materials; lumber from certified forests).

• Siting/land use (conservation of natural features; com-pact development; access to transit).

Look for those features to become more and more main-stream with every passing year. By 2010, green homes will account for 10 percent of the new homes built an-nually, up from 2 percent in 2006, according to a Mc-Graw-Hill SmartMarket Report.

Besides the growing number of new homes being built green, many existing homes are getting a green make-over. Late last year, the National Association of the Re-modeling Industry (NARI) began offering an exam that

remodelers can take to become a Green Certified Profes-sional. NARI also offers a 12-session green education course that includes energy efficiency and conservation, indoor air quality, efficient use of resources, recycling of demolition material and renewable energy sources.

While NARI does not certify projects, the NGBS being developed by NAHB will include a rating system for green remodels. In addition, the USGBC and the Amer-ican Society of Interior Designers Foundation recently

A 2007 survey by NAHB revealed that “reduced energy costs” was the

number one reason respondents would choose to buy a green home.

ON COMMON GROUND

rolled out REGREEN, a set of guidelines for green re-modeling projects. REGREEN does not include a rating system. However, remodeling projects in which a home is gutted can seek a LEED for Homes rating.

Many of the benchmarks for new green homes are equal-ly applicable to green makeovers. Specific tips from the USGBC include: harnessing solar power; plugging air leaks; using readily renewable materials such as bamboo; switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs; replacing forced-air heating with radiant floor heating; installing a programmable thermostat; and switching to Energy Star appliances (more about that later).

Right now, the green feature with the most buzz is en-ergy efficiency. A 2007 survey by NAHB revealed that “reduced energy costs” was the number one reason re-spondents would choose to buy a green home or remod-el their existing home to make it greener. Next came “because it would be healthier” and it’s “the right thing to do for the environment.”

If energy efficiency is a builder, buyer or remodeler’s sole goal, the Energy Star program is a third nationwide cer-tification option. “Energy Star is very, very specifically designed to define highly energy-efficient products,” said Sam Rashkin, national director of Energy Star for Homes. “We set the bar.”

Energy Star is a joint program of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Ener-

Energy Star is very specifical-

ly designed to define highly

energy-efficient products.

Glenwood Park in Atlanta, Ga., is an entire community built around green building principles.

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7SUMMER 2008

gy (DOE). When it debuted in 1992, the first products it developed energy standards for were computers and computer monitors. Since then, Energy Star has estab-lished performance standards for more than 50 product categories, and the Energy Star label is now displayed on thousands of individual products.

Many Energy Star standards—encompassing everything from windows to lighting to ventilation—are referenced in the scorecards of local and national green home rating systems. In addition, builders can now earn an Energy Star label for an entire house.

To qualify for an Energy Star for Homes label, a home must be at least 15 percent more energy efficient than homes built to the 2004 International Residential Unit Code. It also must include additional energy-saving fea-tures—these typically make homes 20-30 percent more energy efficient than standard homes.

“A lot of green building programs use Energy Star as a blueprint,” said Rashkin. “We provide a platform for defining…energy efficiency.” In fact, both LEED and NGBS demand that homes achieve the same 15 percent improvement in energy efficiency as Energy Star.

A lot of green building programs

use Energy Star as a blueprint.

Courtesy of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, ©Boyd Loving

Pedestrian-friendly walkways are just one of the many benefits that sustainable communities offer, as highlighted by the Hudson River Greenway in New York.

Energy Star recently added a related label for indoor air quality and is creating another for water conservation. Together with energy efficiency, they form a bundle of standards that green building programs could use as a cornerstone for explaining their own rating system, Rashkin said.

After 15 years, Energy Star has built strong brand aware-ness. In a recent survey, 70 percent of the respondents recognized the label. “We offer a very clear definition to consumers,” he said.

Brand awareness is also a goal of the new green home programs launched by the USGBC and the NAHB. “They both very much want to be THE green program in the marketplace,” Rashkin said. “There’s a lot of de-bate about who’s the greenest. We stay away from it. We can work with both programs.”

If LEED sounds familiar, that’s because the USGBC intro-duced the program in 2000 as a way to rate the sustainabil-

ity of new commercial buildings. Over the years, it’s gained wide acceptance, leading to requests that it be expanded. “Many people were saying it would be great to have a certi-fication program for home construction,” said Ashley Katz, communications coordinator for the USGBC.

After concluding a pilot phase in spring 2007, LEED for Homes made its formal debut in the fall of that year. So far, more than 500 homes have been rated, with an-other 1,000 plus in the pipeline. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the program’s goal.

“We expect to have one million certified homes by 2010,” said Katz. With green homes expected to account for 10 percent of new home construction by 2010, that’s not as farfetched as it sounds, she said.

“People are becoming more and more interested in green homes and green building. They’re wondering, ‘how do I know if my home is green?’” said Katz. “That’s what LEED offers.”

Cox and Dinkins, a professional civil engineering and land surveying firm based in Columbia, S.C., developed the first commercial LEED certified building in South Carolina.

©2003 Brian Dressler Photography

©2003 Brian Dressler Photography

8 ON COMMON GROUND

9SUMMER 2008

LEED ratings are managed by a network of LEED for Homes Providers—local organizations with experience supporting green building. They contract with the US-GBC to market the program, review scorecards and oversee independent inspections.

Builders earn points for meeting LEED requirements in nine categories: innovation and design process; location and linkages; sustainable sites; water efficiency; energy and atmosphere; materials and resources; indoor environmental quality; awareness and education; and energy and atmo-sphere. Depending on a project’s total points, the USGBC awards a rating of certified, silver, gold or platinum.

The NGBS is based on Model Green Home Building Guidelines the NAHB published in 2005 to help its member associations create local green building pro-grams such as Triangle Green in North Carolina and the Green Building Initiative in St. Louis, Mo. Togeth-er, NAHB member associations have rated more than 100,000 green homes.

The idea behind the NGBS is to offer builders another rating option that is uniform as well as more demand-ing, said Calli Schmidt, director of environmental com-munications with the NAHB.

“You can still build a green home with the [2005] Guidelines,” said Schmidt. “But the new standard re-flects the most recent in technology and knowledge.” A key difference: ratings under the NGBS require an

Residents of The Waters community in Montgomery, Ala., enjoy a warm day on their porch, which was spe-cifically built to shade the interior rooms to cut down on energy costs during the hot summer.

LEED ratings are managed by a net-

work of LEED for Homes Providers—

local organizations with experience

supporting green building.

independent inspection. Ratings by local associations may or may not.

Like LEED, the NGBS relies on local professionals to manage the rating process—including inspections. The NAHB Research Center awards final certification—bronze, silver, gold and emerald—based on points awarded in seven categories: water efficiency; energy ef-ficiency; resource efficiency; lot and site development; indoor environmental quality; global impact; and hom-eowner education.

Working with the International Code Council, the NAHB is seeking certification from the American National Stan-dards Institute (ANSI) for the NGBS—a process that en-sures extensive public comment and consensus decisions. “This will be the first and only residential green building standard certified by ANSI,” said Schmidt. ●

Brad Broberg is a Seattle-based freelance writer spe-cializing in business and development issues. His work appears regularly in the Puget Sound Business Jour-nal and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

United States Green Building Council (LEED for Homes): www.thegreenhomeguide.org

National Association of Home Builders (NGBS): www.nahbgreen.org

Energy Star for Homes: www.energystar.gov


As every REALTOR® knows, most peo-ple who are looking for a place to live are shopping for more than four walls and a roof. They’re seeking a neighbor-hood that reflects what they value in life. But where does that leave the fam-

ily who is looking to live in a way that is as environmen-tally sustainable and energy-efficient as possible? It’s true there are plenty of cities with labeling programs designed to help buyers identify a “green” home. But how do you know when you’ve found a green neighborhood?

By David Goldberg

When you’re building a green

neighborhood, you’re fundamen-

tally concerned with the size of two

footprints: land and carbon.

Here Comes the (Green) Neighborhood

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Sustain.

11

The term “green neighborhood” is relatively new. Al-though there is no set definition, there appears to be a growing consensus around many of the most visible features a green neighborhood should have. There is even a new national program to certify neighborhoods as ecologically sound and energy-efficient. Yet at the same time, there is disagreement over how to make the neighborhoods sustainable over generations, and what green really means.

Green versus smartExperts interviewed for this article were unanimous on one point: collecting green-certified houses into a conventional subdivision on a former farm field at the edge of the metro area would not a green neighborhood make. Beyond that, there was little unanimity.

Some argue that the criteria for a green neighbor-hood are fairly well satisfied by building according to the principles of smart growth. That means conserving land, focusing development first in areas that are already developed, providing transportation options other than cars, and creating mixed-use development that makes neighborhoods compact and walkable. Others say that smart growth, as it is typically discussed, does not quite touch all the bases of sustainability.

“When you’re building a green neighborhood, you’re fundamentally concerned with the size of two foot-prints: land and carbon,” says Walter Brown, a developer who strives to build green. The land footprint refers to the impact of development on once-natural areas—the amount of land consumed and how it is treated—while the carbon footprint represents the amount of fossil fu-els burned as part of daily life. “Smart growth focuses on the land footprint and efficiency of resources. Green neighborhoods marry that with concerns like tree preser-vation, storm-water management, energy-efficient heat-ing and cooling equipment…it’s taking smart growth to the next level, adding another layer.”

Others suggest that building green neighborhoods means following the old environmental mantra: Reduce. Re-use. Recycle. Reduce the land consumed, the miles trav-eled by car and the consumption of energy. Reuse the buildings and infrastructure of existing neighborhoods,

Glenwood Park will harvest approximately 35,000 gallons of water per week using a combination of storm water and well water, thus avoiding any use of potable water from the city of Atlanta for its drought resistant landscaping.

Smart growth focuses on the land

footprint and efficiency of resources.

ON COMMON GROUND

use waste as a source of energy, and reuse “gray” water to maintain landscaping. Recycle building materials, and even the land itself—the post-industrial brownfields and fallow parking-lot “grayfields” around defunct shopping centers.

Bert Gregory, president and CEO of Mithun, a Seat-tle-based urban design firm that has made green devel-opment a focus of its practice, defines a green neigh-

borhood with this thumbnail sketch: “It is compact, complete, connected and uses resources wisely. It needs to be appropriately located, respectful of environmen-tal conditions and connected to a transportation system that allows for a mix of travel options.”

Excellent human habitatGreen neighborhoods, first and foremost, should shine as examples of highly-valued human habitat, Gregory says. Only those places that meet the timeless needs and desires of human beings will succeed in the marketplace

generation after generation. Neighborhoods will always be regenerated to some degree over time, but the under-lying “bones” must be excellent, or else the neighbor-hood will fall into abandonment.

The next most important criterion is that the neighbor-hood be “walkable,” says Doug Farr, a Chicago archi-tect and principal author of the newly published book, Sustainable Urbanism. “Being walkable means more than

merely having the facilities for walking. The neighbor-hood has to be complete, with homes, stores and schools in the right balance so that you have a critical mass of destinations to walk to and enough families nearby to make them viable.”

Why is walkability so critical? “Fish swim, humans walk. There can be no more primary activity that benefits people more than walking. … And it’s eco-effective.” Designing a neighborhood with the intention of provid-ing a safe, inviting way to walk to many daily activities

The neighborhood has to be complete, with homes, stores and schools

in the right balance so that you have a critical mass of destinations to

walk to and enough families nearby to make them viable.

The Jim Wiley Community Center is a key piece in the Greenbridge redevelopment effort near Seattle, Wa. Green features include a cupola which regulates air flow and ventilation, a hydronic heat system, solar panels and a number of energy and water efficiency features.

Photo by Rick Keating

The Greenbridge Green drain demon-strates how gravity moves from the roof tops to a clean drain system that helps protect Puget Sound.

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13SUMMER 2008

automatically reduces both the land and carbon foot-prints, putting more destinations within a smaller geo-graphic area so that residents use less energy getting to and fro. At the same time, complete streets—designed to accommodate cars but also to make walking and bik-ing inviting and free of hazard—draw more people. This amounts to more “eyes on the street,” making the area safer from crime, Farr says.

The third principle, a corollary to being walkable, is high-quality public transportation. That means a com-prehensive transit network that connects residents of the green neighborhood to the broader region, providing access to the jobs and cultural opportunities that cannot be contained within a single neighborhood. Such a sys-tem also provides a hedge against oil dependence.

“The future is not certain and $10 gallon gas could be five years away or 20 years away,” Farr says. “It is not fair to give families no other choice but to accept what-ever hit to the budget the oil companies demand.” Some green neighborhoods might take the form of “transit-

The Greenbridge development project incorporated art in several different ways throughout the community while maintaining greener principles.

Green neighborhoods should

shine as examples of highly-

valued human habitat.



of infrastructure. (For more on green infrastructure, see story on page 18.)

“Links to nature should be in every neighborhood,” adds Farr. “One way to think about it is, how far would you have to drive your kids to go play with frogs in a stream?”

Walter Brown is senior vice president for development and environmental affairs at Atlanta-based Green Street Properties. Providing adequate greenery in a dense urban setting presents a thorny design challenge, he says, but

Residents of Glenwood Park gather together to celebrate the grand open-ing of the community.

Aspects of a natural environment

take the edge off of urban life in

myriad ways, and provide impor-

tant ecological services.

oriented development,” or TOD—dense housing and commercial nodes built around a high-capacity transit station, usually rail. Other green neighborhoods might be built farther away from a high-volume transit line and connect to that larger system via bus and streetcar.

Literally greenGreen neighborhoods should be literally green, Gregory says. There should be tree-lined streets, planting strips, pocket parks, forest preserves, community gardens, rooftop gardens and more. Aspects of a natural environ-ment take the edge off of urban life in myriad ways, and provide important ecological services. “Even the highest density environments—especially the highest density environments—should take advantage of natural sys-tems’ ability to process stormwater, to absorb carbon, or to curb the heat island effect,” says Gregory. This “green infrastructure” is as critical to long-term health of a neighborhood, city and region as every other kind

14 ON COMMON GROUND

15SUMMER 2008

not an insurmountable one. When his company built Glenwood Park, a green, new urbanist neighborhood on recycled industrial land in the city of Atlanta, they were able to find a single solution to storm-water runoff and green-space needs.

“Our houses have small yards and not a lot of green around each building, but we created a central green that collects all the rainwater and cleans it naturally, and gives each person a larger park and a place to play that exceeds what they could do on their individual lot.” There can be other bonuses to smaller private lots as well. “The remnant green that people have gets more intensive attention. People make beautiful spaces, much more interesting than the quarter-acre backyard,” the taming of which often means still greater carbon emis-sions, as well as lawn chemicals.

LEED for neighborhoodsOver the last several years the U.S. Green Building Coun-cil has administered the LEED certification program for the environmental performance of individual buildings,

which has been adopted with gusto by a growing number of architects, developers and local governments. Now, the Green Building Council is applying a similar set of stan-dards to green neighborhoods in a pilot program called LEED for Neighborhood Developments.

LEED-ND, as it is known, was developed in conjunc-tion with the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Natural Resources Defense Council, with participation from many other organizations. The rating system applies a three-tiered screen to development projects, evaluating them by “location and linkage,” “neighborhood pattern and design” and “green construction and technology.” Within those areas projects may win credits for compact development, affordable housing, reuse of historic build-ings, reduced parking footprint, solar orientation, prox-

We created a central green that

collects all the rainwater and

cleans it naturally, and gives each

person a larger park and a place

to play.

heavily represented—green neighborhoods are expected to play a strong role in that state’s ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet another element: Social sustainabilityWhile LEED-ND awards credits for the inclusion of af-fordable housing, accessibility to people of all income levels is not a prerequisite for certification. That omis-sion could encourage neighborhoods that are “green” but less than sustainable, especially if they end up being exclusive, says Stephen Norman, executive director of the King County Housing Authority in Seattle.

“Genuine sustainability will require social sustainability as well as environmental sustainability,” Norman said. “We’ve learned from hard experience that if people are isolated in concentrations of poverty or excluded from living where there are jobs and educational opportu-nities, the bricks and mortar don’t survive.” Norman’s agency is trying to create spaces that are both green and inclusive. One example is Greenbridge, a former hous-ing project that has been redeveloped into a mixed-in-come eco-village with shops, a school, and transporta-tion to a key commercial corridor.

Achieving the level of sustainability Norman envisions is the ultimate goal, says Brown, but it will require pub-lic/private partnerships. “It’s a continuum. There are so many layers you can address: affordability, life cycle of the buildings and the inhabitants, reuse over time. With

Genuine sustainability will require

social sustainability as well as en-

vironmental sustainability.

imity to housing and jobs, and a host of other features. All told, LEED-ND has nine required benchmarks and 49 possible categories in which to earn credits toward silver, gold or platinum certification. According to the Green Building Council, “LEED certification provides indepen-dent, third-party verification that a development’s loca-tion and design meet accepted high levels of environmen-tally responsible, sustainable development.”

The 200-plus projects accepted into the pilot phase come from 39 states and six countries. California is

16 ON COMMON GROUND

17SUMMER 2008SUMMER 2008

Glenwood Park, we were trying to address as many as we conceivably could.”

Will people buy it?In the U.S., few innovations succeed unless they can thrive in the marketplace. Green neighborhoods are no exception, Farr acknowledges. “If you’re a REALTOR® and you’re trying to sell a green neighborhood, you’re making a very different pitch from what we’re used to. It’s not granite countertops, or larger closets. It’s talking about a place of choices. You want to stay home and work, there’s stuff to do. If you want to age in peace and don’t want to mow your lawn, there’s a place you can move to. If you’re just starting out and don’t want to spend your money on a car, you can use a shared car and transit, or walk.”

Will that pitch work? In many places it’s already work-ing, says Brown. “I used to think, I’m going to do green because I want to do it,” adding that he did expect to receive some positive attention from both the public and the regulatory community. “But more and more, green is ‘in,’ and I do think there is a large and growing market. In the market I want to work with, the creative types, it is very important. It’s almost more of a question of, if you don’t do it, what section of the market are you losing? And that’s only going to grow in the future.” ●

David A. Goldberg is the communications director for Smart Growth America, a nationwide coalition based in Washington, D.C. that advocates for land-use policy reform. In 2002, Mr. Goldberg was award-ed a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University, where he studied urban policy.

Glenwood Park will plant more than 1,000 trees and thousands of other plants, flowers and shrubs creating shade and beauty for residents, while also significantly reducing heat island effects.


Freeways and forests. Bridges and bogs. Pow-er lines and pastures.

Gray or green, it’s all infrastructure—at least that’s the mindset of a growing segment of the planning community, from Alaska to South Carolina.

Think about it, said Ed McMahon, senior resident fel-low for sustainable development at the Urban Land Institute. If infrastructure is what society counts on to provide essential services, why shouldn’t the green stuff—trees that scrub the air, streams that filter run-off, fields that produce food—be mentioned in the same breath as the gray stuff?

Don’t get McMahon wrong. By and large, trees, streams and fields are part of most conversations about planning and development—just not for the right reason.

Most people appreciate the beauty and the recreational val-ue of open space. What they fail to recognize, said McMa-hon, is the nuts-and-bolts role open space plays in everyday life, and the need to plan for it with as much foresight as when laying out streets, sewers or power lines.

“It’s underpinning our society the same way as a road,” he said. “It isn’t just an amenity. It’s a necessity.”

Does that distinction really matter? McMahon believes it does. Ensuring that the environment can continue

delivering essential eco-services—a.k.a. green infrastruc-ture—demands a far more strategic approach than saving a wetland here or preserving woodlands there, he said.

McMahon ought to know. As co-author (with Mark Bene-dict) of Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Commu-nities, he literally wrote the book on green infrastructure.

While there’s more than one take on green infrastruc-ture—many people use the term to describe engineered systems such as green roofs, porous pavement and rain gardens—McMahon considers planning and conserva-tion to be the movement’s meat and potatoes.

His formal definition: an interconnected network of open space that conserves natural ecosystem values and func-tions, and provides associated benefits to human popula-tions. His informal definition: smart conservation.

Defined that way, green infrastructure becomes a power-ful engine for smart growth, providing a framework for planners to decide where growth should occur by first deciding—in a very strategic way—where it shouldn’t, said McMahon. Curbing sprawl, encouraging clustered development and limiting the need to build gray infra-structure are just some of the smart growth goals that green infrastructure supports.

An example of green infrastructure in action is the El Paso Open Space Plan. By looking at the community’s green

By Brad Broberg

GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE“Infrastructure: the substructure or underlying foundation…on which the continuance and growth of a community or state depends.” – Webster’s New World Dictionary

19

spaces through the lens of green infrastructure, El Paso was better able to identify areas that ought to be left un-disturbed as well as areas more suitable for development.

Another example is New York City’s approach to upgrad-ing its water treatment plants. Instead of spending $6-$8 billion to build new plants intended to meet future re-quirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the city spent $1.5 billion to buy land in the Catskills and protect the watershed from degradation in the first place.

Although the green infrastructure argument challenges conventional planning practices, it is proving to be an ef-fective way to address issues of growth and conservation in harmony, said McMahon. “When you can identify a lot of things and solidify them around one concept,

people get the, ‘Ah ha,’ moment,” he said. “I think it has helped push things forward.”

Smart growth and green infrastructure are “two sides of the same coin,” writes McMahon in “Green Infrastruc-ture: Smart Conservation for the 21st Century,” a paper he co-authored with Benedict. As communities strive to make better use of existing infrastructure and encourage more compact, walkable, mixed-use development, green infrastructure is precisely the right tool to shape where growth will go, writes McMahon.

Besides being smart, green infrastructure can increase the desirability of surrounding land. “There’s proof on the ground that smart growth and green infrastructure can sell real estate and make better communities,” said Bill Kre-

New York City is familiar with the benefits successful green infrastructure provides.

Ensuring that the environment

can continue delivering essen-

tial eco-services demands a

strategic approach.

ON COMMON GROUND

ager, a principal at Mithun, a Seattle architecture, design and planning firm that specializes in green projects.

Green infrastructure may be a relatively new term, but it’s not a novel concept. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead designed networks of connected parks 100 years ago. And wildlife biologists have long known that linking parks and preserves with natural corri-dors—or habitat highways—is the best way to protect native plants and animals.

Still, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the term green infrastructure emerged as part of statewide planning ef-forts in Florida—the Florida Statewide Greenways Sys-tem—and Maryland—the GreenPrint program.

In many ways, Maryland was well ahead of the curve with long-standing open space and farmland preserva-tion programs. But the land was being preserved with little consideration of its contribution to the overall eco-system. “We couldn’t say we were spending the money strategically,” said Bill Jenkins.

Jenkins, now with the Environmental Protection Agen-cy, was in charge of landscape and watershed analysis with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources when the state decided to rethink its conservation ef-forts. “What we wanted to do was identify areas of the state worth preserving, from an ecosystem perspective,” he said.

Maryland followed what has become the template for green infrastructure planning. First, it identified green hubs—sweeping areas hundreds of acres in size and vital to maintaining the state’s ecology. Then it connected the green hubs with green links—ribbons of land such as stream val-leys and ridge lines that function as habitat highways.

Today, the GreenPrint program steers public and private preservation efforts toward a system of hubs and links that support essential eco-services in ways that isolated fragments cannot. It’s all about the whole being great-er—and greener—than the sum of its parts.

Green infrastructure is an effective

way to address issues of growth and

conservation in harmony.

20 ON COMMON GROUND

21SUMMER 2008

“Green infrastructure is open space, but think of it as open space that is working for you,” said Jenkins. “It is providing you with essential services. That’s where the term infrastructure helps.”

Chicago Wilderness, a public/private consortium working to protect natural ecosystems in the Chicago region, devel-oped a Green Infrastructure Vision that identified 1.8 mil-lion acres as resource protection areas. The nearly 2 million acres are within a 6 million-acre band that stretches across three states—Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

The resulting map provides a blueprint for connecting and conserving the large areas—500 acres and up—that represent the region’s remaining green infrastructure, said Dennis Dreher, a planner and engineer who was the project manager.

What’s not on the agenda is stopping all development throughout the entire 1.8 million acres, Dreher added. More than 360,000 of those acres are already protected as natural public lands. The Green Infrastructure Vision identifies opportunities to add to and tie together those areas, while also recognizing that development will oc-cur in and around them.

The vision suggests specific protection strategies for each area that includes accommodating growth where growth is inevitable. Take the 30,000-acre Kettle Moraine in

Green infrastructure is open

space that is working for you—

it’s providing essential services.

The 30,000-acre Kettle Moraine State Park features woodlands and prairies—one of the largest open spaces in the Chicago area.

the capper is that all of the open space is adjacent to a 2,500-acre preserve, making it part of a larger function-ing ecosystem.

Unlike GreenPrint in Maryland, the Green Infrastruc-ture Vision developed by Chicago Wilderness is not tied to any state or county conservation programs. Instead, it relies on local and regional decision-makers to weave the vision into their planning and conservation efforts. According to Dreher, Chicago Wilderness currently is working with the seven-county Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to incorporate green infrastructure into a new regional plan.

The same scenario is unfolding on a smaller scale in South Carolina, where the Central Midlands Council of Governments (CMCOG) published Keeping It Green

Wisconsin. Featuring woodlands, savannas, wetlands and prairies, it represents one of the largest open spaces in the Chicago region.

While many parts of the Kettle Moraine are already protected, the Green Infrastructure Vision recommends protecting additional areas through acquisition, con-servation easements and conservation development—a way of regulating development that allows growth while at the same time protecting important natural features.

What does conservation development look like? Prai-rie Crossing is a 362-home conservation development northwest of Chicago. The homes are located on a small portion of the site’s 667 acres, leaving 350 acres of open space. That’s a step toward green infrastructure, but

Natural green

infrastructure is a lot

cheaper than build-

ing gray infrastructure.

In and around Chicago, area residents work together to manage and conserve green areas.

22 ON COMMON GROUND

23SUMMER 2008

in the Midlands, a green infrastructure vision for a four-county region.

When Joe Ryan was asked to lead the project, the senior planner said, “Great. What’s green infrastructure?”

“It took me a while to get my head around it,” he recalled.

Since publishing an initial report and map introducing the concept, Ryan is sold on the green infrastructure ap-proach to conservation and planning. “It certainly does make sense,” he said.

Now it’s a matter of bringing local decision-makers on board. “The horse has left the barn,” Ryan said. “If we don’t do something now, it will be too late in 10 or 20 years.”

The timeframe may not be quite as tight in Alaska, but the Matanuska-Susitna Borough—a county the size of West Virginia—isn’t taking any chances. Located north-east of Anchorage, the borough is working on a plan that will identify exactly where green infrastructure needs to be preserved, said Frankie Barker, an environmental planner with the borough.

Although vast tracts are protected by the state and fed-eral governments, local conservation efforts have lagged and linkages are not well protected—hence the need for a green infrastructure plan, said Barker.

“We’re very fortunate that we still have most of our natu-ral green infrastructure,” Barker said. “If we can keep it, it’s a lot cheaper than building gray infrastructure.” ●

Brad Broberg is a Seattle-based freelance writer spe-cializing in business and development issues. His work appears regularly in the Puget Sound Business Journal and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

Green infrastructure and land-use planning:• Ensures that both green space and development are

placed where most needed and appropriate.

• Identifies vital ecological areas and linkages prior to development in suburban and rural landscapes.

• Identifies opportunities for the restoration and en-hancement of naturally functioning systems in al-ready developed areas.

• Enables communities to create a vision that is greater than the sum of its parts.

• Enables conservation and development to be planned in harmony, not in opposition to each other.

From: “Green Infrastructure: Smart Conservation for the 21st Century,” by Mark Benedict and Ed McMahon.


With soaring energy prices and shrinking pocketbooks abound-ing, sustainability can have a dif-ferent meaning to every different person—ranging from the sim-plistic to the transcendental.

Whether sustainability means checking for energy leaks around that craggy old front door, or adopting practices to safeguard the planet far into the next centuries for future generations, REALTORS® across the nation are taking major steps to help their clients go “green.”

REALTOR® Nathan Norris—director of marketing and design for The Waters, a new urbanist community on the fringe of Montgomery, Ala.—believes in a holistic approach to sustainability.

“In our development, we regularly sell people on the value of high-efficiency windows, spray foam insula-tion, metal roofs and tankless water heaters,” he said. “High-efficiency HVAC systems have been harder [to sell]—nonetheless, 20 percent of our first 100 homes had geo-thermal heating and cooling.”

“Essentially, our clientele look at the long-term ramifica-tions of their decisions. We did an energy audit on the first two years of utility bills and we used the conclusions drawn from that analysis to educate prospective buyers on the items they should include in their homes.”

Norris believes that sustainability includes energy effi-ciency within a house’s walls plus a walkable, traditional neighborhood development.

“To me, sustainability means doing things that make sense over the long run,” he said. “In 1998, I first heard of the Native American principle that we owe a duty to ensure the survival of the seventh generation beyond us. It was wise a long time ago, and it still is today.”

Marketing a Sustainable Future

Norris said even if gasoline spirals above five dollars a gallon and the price of heating/cooling energy contin-ues to skyrocket, homeowners won’t go broke—they’ll simply learn to adapt.

“Spray foam insulation, energy-efficient windows, solar energy, tankless water heaters, energy-star appliances and high-efficiency HVAC systems are available to own-ers of new homes as well as old homes. The combination of these technologies permits us to create zero energy homes,” he said. “The big change will not come from self-interest in the seventh generation, it will come from an economic self interest.”

Alexandria, Virginia REALTOR® Candace Lightner, a world-renowned opinion leader who responded to a family tragedy by founding Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), is now at the forefront of helping buyers become more energy efficient.

The sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage gives each buyer a free home energy audit, a process valued at $350.

“I was trying to think of ways that would set me apart from other REALTORS®,” she said. “I discussed the concept of an energy audit and told my buyers if they waited until the close of escrow, it would be my gift to them.”

The audit takes about two and a half hours and focuses on identifying major energy leaks in a house. Techni-cians measure everything from gaps around doors and windows to whether insulation has been properly in-stalled in attics, basements and crawl spaces.

The homeowner receives a report that identifies prob-lems and explains how to fix them.

“Most people here are doing remodeling,” said Light-ner, who worked on an efficiency project with the U.S. Department of Energy and started addressing problems

By Steve Wright

REALTORS® Connect Buyers with Energy Saving Homes.

25

in her own 60-plus-year-old house in old Alexandria. “If you plan on being in the home a number of years and if you’re already remodeling, you can do a retrofit to boost energy efficiency.”

Lightner said when going green, it’s best to speak in plain English.

“We’re doing REALTOR® roundtable discussions around the country and most REALTORS® are some-what aware of the issue of green or energy efficiency and they are interested in it, but they don’t know what to do next,” she said. “We asked ‘how many of your cli-ents are interested in energy efficiency?’ and no hands go up. Then we ask ‘how many are concerned about utility bills?’ and the hands go up—the light bulb goes on.”

Instead of talking about sustainability and hard science, Lightner suggests REALTORS® talk to consumers about making homes healthier and safer, as well as more com-fortable, cost effective and durable.

“Green sounds too far out there,” she said. “Energy effi-cient is more interesting, more something you can touch.”

REALTOR® Michael Kiefer—founder and principal of Green DC Realty, an affiliate of Keller Williams Realty Capital Properties in the Washington D.C.-Maryland area—said sustainability requires buyers to look at a bigger picture.

“I believe we are in an era when we will see oil rise to $200 a barrel in the near future,” he observed. “I think part of the problem I am seeing is that the consumer is not entirely sure where to start. Purchasing a home for many is a challenging matter filled with lots of anxiety and since for many it is their first home, they have not been trained to think about what I refer to as the exter-nal costs of owning a home.”

Kiefer said the shrinking energy supply and rising cost doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom—it can be an op-

portunity for REALTORS® to sharpen their focus and add to the crucial information they supply to clients.

“Most consumers are qualified based upon credit and are given a picture of PITI as part of owning. But from my experience, I know of very few REALTORS® that ever mention the costs of utilities or home maintenance,” he said. “Even though utility bills are a reflection of lifestyle use, I think it would ultimately be useful for consum-ers/homebuyers to be able to review utility bills before placing an offer on a home. It is very important for con-sumers, when working with a REALTOR®, to ask about such matters and request copies. As you can imagine, when that first month rolls around and the gas/elec-tric/water bills start rolling in—you begin to realize that owning a home is so much more than PITI.”

To reduce automobile dependency, Green DC Realty gives its clients a Zipcar membership and mileage vouch-er. Zipcar members can rent automobiles by the day or hour from many urban locations. Zipcar supplements public transit with individual automobiles available for a fraction of the cost of car payment, maintenance, insur-ance and fuel.

“I look at efficiency as being more than just the home. It’s about evaluating the consumer’s current life and seeing where cost effective, efficient improvements can be made,” he said. “In the Metro area, we have ride-sharing firms that take the hassle out of owning a car. I continually look at ways of providing home ownership through the removal of inefficient expenditures and proving incentives to the con-sumer through [Zipcar] vouchers as part of the purchase.”

San Francisco, known as a hotbed of progressive think-ing and acting for nearly a half century, actually has a fairly small inventory of green houses.

REALTOR® Chris Bartle, president and broker of Green Key Real Estate, aims to boost the number of green homes in the City by the Bay as well as nationwide.

Sustainability means doing things

that make sense over the long run.REALTOR® Mike Kiefer , Certified EcoBroker®, evaluates homes for energy efficiency.

ON COMMON GROUND

get calls from buyers who have an allergy to formalde-hyde or a certain pesticide. Now there are a lot of new products that don’t give off any harmful emissions.”

Bartle’s brokerage recruits highly educated people from a diverse background and makes sure all of them get EcoBroker® training. EcoBroker® is an on-line training course that allows REALTORS® to attain green certi-fication. (For more information on EcoBroker®, please see the story “Seeking Green” on page 28 in this issue.)

“We’re certified green-building specialists—we want our agents to be greenest of the green. We’re in classes learning from architects and builders,” he said. “We’re also very in-terested in teaching buyers how to green their homes. We look at green as being equivalent to high-end property.”

“REALTORS® have great influence on the spending patterns of their clients. The greening of houses has only been going on a few years. To introduce best practices to our buyers, we need more data,” said Bartle, whose firm gives buyers a certificate for a home energy efficiency and air quality analysis worth $250.

Bartle, whose mission is to make San Francisco the most sustainable city in the world, will soon open branches of Green Key Real Estate in other parts of Northern California as well as Seattle, Portland, Ore. and Boulder, Colo. The ultimate goal is to sell Green Key franchises to like-minded brokers across the United States.

Janet Rosenberg, a REALTOR® with Intero Real Estate Services in Santa Cruz, Ca., lists her EcoBroker® certi-fication when signing her e-mails—before the essential office, mobile and fax numbers.

“REALTORS® are in the perfect position to educate people, and entire communities for that matter, on how to make homes more energy efficient,” she said. “The reason for this is that in our profession we are talking to homebuyers and home sellers every day, and we’re also touring homes regularly. With our background as Certi-fied EcoBrokers®, Intero Real Estate can offer not only suggestions on ways to improve a home’s efficiency, but ways to reduce utility bills.”

Rosenberg integrated her EcoBroker® training into her two offices by forming a green business network called Green Performance Network (GPN). The network includes ap-praisers, builders, inspectors, landscapers, material suppliers, lenders and other professionals who have gone green.

“I found that I wanted to refer my clients to local busi-nesses that offered green products and services, and I needed to know who those folks were,” she said. She offers GPN members a free half-page ad in the GPN di-

“We’re a mission-driven company. Of course we’re about selling houses and making money, but we’re also about increasing the inventory of green homes,” he said.

Bartle’s firm works with Build It Green, a California nonprofit, to promote green building and green remod-eling. He also notes that the California Association of REALTORS® has a Green Task Force to raise member awareness on environmental issues, green the associa-tion’s business practices, and create alliances with other organizations on green issues.

“In an old home, if the client is concerned about energy efficiency, the solution includes double-paned windows and energy-efficient appliances. That’s not a hard sell—you make a $10,000 investment now and make it back in five or 10 years,” Bartle explained.

Bartle said sustainable housing goes far beyond a capital investment in energy efficiency.

“People are thinking about indoor air quality, people are thinking of their families,” he said. “A lot of building materials, finish materials, paints, varnish, sealers and cabinetry with particle board held together with formal-dehyde—have toxic elements. That’s not just a horrible paint smell, it’s a chemical that isn’t good for you. We

That’s not a hard sell—you make a

$10,000 investment now and make

it back in five or 10 years.

REALTOR® Tricia Jumonville is known as the Texas “agent with the horse sense,” helping clients with both urban and rural properties.

26 ON COMMON GROUND

27SUMMER 2008SUMMER 2008

rectory, which is distributed to clients and in businesses throughout Santa Cruz.

“This makes my company very visible in the ‘green’ front, and it builds a referral network back to us.”

Every six weeks, Rosenberg hosts public events that in-vite community members to introduce themselves and tell about their product or service. Everyone passes out business cards.

“Obviously, I hope that when people are making a deci-sion about Real Estate, they will come to Intero Real Estate Services for help,” she said. “Additionally, we teach Intero Community Classes in my office—taught by EcoBrokers® and open to the public. The classes cov-er topics such as ‘Sustainable Building Showcase’ and ‘Green Living Seminar.’”

For REALTOR® Tricia Jumonville, a self described “old hippie,” sustainability has been woven into her life as far back as she can remember.

“An astute REALTOR® can always help a buyer or seller find affordable ways to add to the sustainability factor of more traditional construction,” said Jumonville, who works for ERA Colonial Real Estate in rural Texas about a long hour’s drive out of progressive Austin. “You can’t change the way an existing building is placed on the lot, for example, but you can add rainwater harvesting systems, solar attributes, screening that helps with the energy demands for cooling, landscaping to decrease en-ergy usage and quite a few other affordable aftermarket tweaks that will increase sustainability of even tradition-al construction.”

“Clearly, energy auditors are going to be an important partner in the real estate professional’s life in the future. As will lenders familiar with the energy-efficient loans that are available and make sustainability more affordable for the average person,” she added. “I’m currently looking for

one of each locally to add to my team of home inspectors, mortgage lenders, contractors and others to serve clients.”

To delve more deeply into holistic sustainability, Ju-monville suggests REALTORS® pick up a copy of ar-chitect Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language. The groundbreaking 1977 book, in its own words, deals with “the large-scale structure of the environment: the growth of town and country, the layout of roads and paths, the relationship between work and family, the formation of suitable public institutions for a neigh-borhood, the kinds of public space required to support these institutions.”

Jumonville, whose e-mail includes a picture of herself with her horse, notes that sustainability reaches beyond the urban core and suburbs.

“I’m working not only on urban issues but rural issues—how to make your horse property more environmentally sustainable. For example, it’s just as important to site the barn correctly on the property as it is the house. Rain-water harvesting for livestock watering is a no-brainer and using soil biology versus fertilizer/weedkiller is more sustainable long term,” she said. “I’m constantly looking for rebates and other benefits that the utility companies and city, state and federal government offer for clients interested in upgrading their new or existing home to more sustainable standards.” ●

Wright frequently writes about smart growth and sustainable communities. He and his wife live in a re-stored historic home in the heart of Miami’s Little Ha-vana. Contact him at: [email protected]

REALTORS® are in the perfect position to educate people

on how to make homes more energy efficient.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:www.thewatersal.comwww.cbmove.com/candace.lightnerwww.greendcrealty.comwww.greenkeyrealestate.comwww.interorealestate.comwww.TexasHorseAndHome.com


By Steve Wright

Rainwater harvesting is one of the many environmental practices members of Seattle’s TREC promote.

Members of Seattle’s TREC take a day to plant trees in the Hylebos Wetlands.

Consumer demand for sustainability

has also prompted companies to

create coursework and certification

programs for REALTORS®.

SEEKING GREENREALTOR® Associations provide a

helping hand to achieve sustainability.

Not that long ago, if a buyer asked a REALTOR® to search for a green house, it could have meant only two things—the shade of paint, or a glassed in structure perfect for grow-ing flowers and vegetables.

Now green means environmentally-friendly, energy-ef-ficient, healthy and sustainable.

And, as more and more buyers are seeking homes with everything from better air quality and insulation to solar power and rain catch basins, REALTORS® are recognizing the need to be knowledgeable about going “green,” as a way to grow both their client base and sales commissions.

To separate the junk science from best practices, a num-ber of large regional REALTOR® Associations are creat-ing green councils, trainings, conferences, certification procedures and partnerships.

Consumer demand for sustainability has also prompted companies to create coursework and certification pro-grams for REALTORS®.

“We have developed a brochure, Green Living: A Re-source Guide for Residents of King County,” said Russell Hokanson, CEO of the Seattle King County Associa-tion of REALTORS® (SKCAR). The brochure is avail-able on SKCAR’s Web site, and members are encouraged to provide a copy to new homeowners. “The brochure provides valuable information and resources relating to energy efficiency inside and outside of homes, improv-ing vehicle fuel economy, recycling, calculating carbon footprints and other valuable green tips.”

SKCAR partners with a local instructor to offer a class-room course—Green Cities & Housing. It also is col-laborating with the Independent Brokers Association to offer a new course—Selling Green Homes.

29

EcoBroker® Inter-national team in Evergreen, Colo. Front row left to right: Kyndal Lee, Vicki Rosa, Linda Besler, Jennifer Shank, Kim Young. Back row left to right: John Beldock, Ryan Moehring, Mark Gashler, John Stovall

“Our association lobbies state and local officials for jobs-housing balance. Recognizing that one-half of all green-house gas (GHG) comes from transportation, one of the best approaches to address climate change is to lobby for jobs-housing balance. This concept advocates for hous-ing opportunities near employment centers.” Hokan-son said of the necessity to combine smart growth with green housing: “Jobs-housing balance helps prevent sprawl, provides housing opportunities for workers near their jobs and greatly reduces the vehicle miles traveled and GHG.”

SKCAR conceived and created The REALTORS® En-vironmental Council (TREC), an organization pending nonprofit status that Hokanson believes is the first of its kind in the nation. In his words, TREC was created to:

(1) Improve the congruence between public perceptions and the fact that the REALTORS® are sensitive to, and supportive of, well-grounded and responsible environmental stewardship.

“Many folks don’t know that the REALTORS® are a founding member of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition and for many, many years have annually contributed thousands of dollars to the Coalition’s efforts to secure environmental and rec-reation project funding for jurisdictions throughout Washington State.

The TREC is a natural fit with our strong support for schools, infrastructure and housing, which—like a quality environment—are all prerequisites for qual-ity of life.”

(2) Accomplish projects that provide on-the-ground benefits for the environment.

“The project at the Hylebos (a watershed conserva-tion area) was the first such project to be undertaken by TREC…[Hylebos] is one of the outstanding envi-ronmental assets in the entire Pacific Northwest and the Friends of the Hylebos, with whom we partnered on this project, have a superb reputation for their en-vironmental remediation and enhancement efforts.

The REALTORS® would not be content to only talk about the environment and raise funds for en-vironmental projects, as some environmental efforts have done…As part of our local board’s centennial celebration, this fall TREC will work on the ground or provide environmental stewardship to improve a significant greenbelt or park within King County.”

(3) Enhance REALTOR® understanding of environ-mental issues, particularly as they relate to regula-tion, conservation, enhancement and remediation that affect the sustainability, utilization and develop-ment of real property.

“This is being accomplished through state-approved clock-hour classes REALTORS® must complete in order to renew their real estate licenses.”

(4) Develop and provide to REALTORS® brandable point-of-sale brochures that members can download and use with clients and customers.

“For instance, ‘How To Be An Earth-Friendly Ho-meowner,’ [which can] be downloaded from the SKCAR Web site at http://www.nwrealtor.com/as-sociations/1563/files/TREC.cfm.”

(5) Undertake the advancement of important environmen-tal policies, and/or environmental projects, that other environmental organizations have failed to undertake.

Members of TREC learn ways to preserve and restore the North Fork open space of the Hylebos Wetlands.

We wanted to help our members

understand that this is where the

market is going.

Hokanson also strongly believes that association boards should work to add green information to their area Multiple Listing Service. Agents can high-light green features for homes that meet third-party certifications for Built Green®, Energy Star® and LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards.

There are checkboxes for identifying energy-efficient heating and cooling systems including solar and for renewable floor coverings such as bamboo or cork. In a listing’s details about the house lot, a REAL-TOR® can note sustainable features such as drought-resistant landscaping.

Recently, The Northwest Multiple Listing Service, the largest full-service MLS in the Pacific Northwest, added information on sustainability to its database. In Portland, Ore., the Regional Multiple Listing Ser-vice (RMLS) introduced green listings to much fan-fare in 2007.

“Green and energy-efficient features have emerged as some of the most important and sought-after by buyers in our RMLS service area,” said RMLS CEO Beth Murphy. “With the help of their REALTORS®, homebuyers now will be able to pinpoint homes with those features.”

The RMLS forms include details such as:• Home performance and green home certifications such

as Energy Star®, Earth Advantage®, LEED for Homes and others.

• High-efficiency 90 AFUE furnaces.

• Energy Star appliances.

• Source of electrical power, including specific utility service and solar features.

• Additional home modifications, including sustainable materials, water filters, rain collectors and solar tubes.

When the RMLS rolled out green features for its list-ings in Oregon and Southwest Washington, it empha-sized the industry-wide benefits:

• Homebuyers, 78 percent of whom say they would choose one home over another based on its energy ef-ficiency, will be able to search for homes with lower energy costs and environmental impact. Four out of five of the same homebuyers recognize the value of the Energy Star label and 67 percent of them recognize the Earth Advantage brand.

• Home builders, nine of 10 saying they incorporate en-ergy-saving products or features into new homes, will be able to differentiate themselves from the compe-tition at a time when the market is cooling. Accord-ing to a recent survey by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), 64 percent of home builders will either be heavily or moderately involved nation-ally in green building projects.

• Home sellers, who have invested money into energy-saving and sustainability features, can better promote their home’s higher resale value.

30 ON COMMON GROUND

31SUMMER 2008

REALTORS® can also be instrumental in showing clients how green

improvements can increase the value of their investment.

• Real estate agents have new ways to better meet their clients’ needs whether representing the buyer or seller. Seventy-five percent of those consumers that have used a REALTOR® in the past confirmed that they would turn to a “green” REALTOR® if there was a mecha-nism for searching and tracking homes built to energy efficient and green building measures.

• Appraisers will grow in their ability to incorporate en-ergy efficient and green home features into a home’s appraised value.

SKCAR is also an advocate of the EcoBroker® certi-fication program, developed by Dr. John Beldock, former director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Environmental Analysis Program.

Beldock, currently president and CEO of EcoBro-ker®, calls it “the first and only international provider of green designation training that provides a unique energy and environmental curriculum to licensed real estate professionals, leading to the EcoBroker® desig-nation.”

There are certified EcoBrokers® in 42 states, four Ca-nadian Provinces and the Caribbean. Based in Ever-green, Colo., outside Denver, EcoBroker®’s accredited coursework consists of three six-hour on-line classes. Topics include:

• Constructively addressing environmental issues such as radon, asbestos, lead, water, mold and indoor air quality. Reducing liabilities and saving deals by learn-ing to work through environmental issues.

• Energy efficiency technologies, sustainable energy op-tions and mortgage options that award up to $15,000 worth of energy efficiency improvements for a home at the closing. Green home certification programs, such as Built Green® and Energy Star® Qualified Homes.

• Energy and environmental training that can add value to transactions with consumers both green-minded and not green-aware. Identifying new markets where the EcoBroker® Designation will have appeal and im-pact, generating more business.

EcoBroker® Vice President John K. Stovall was a fea-tured presenter at the Vermont Association of REAL-TORS® (VAR) 2007 statewide convention, which fo-cused on going green.

Robert D. Hill, executive vice president of the VAR, said that, “when the Legislature spent the entire session last year on global warming and attempted to institute mandatory energy efficiency standards on all housing, it was a natural opportunity to make sure our members are conversant with the concepts and adequately prepared to respond to customers who are looking for green real estate. We wanted to help our members understand that this is where the market is going and not just a ‘nerdy idea,’ so they should be professionally primed to provide assistance when their clients ask.”

VAR has also worked with Smart Growth Vermont on a project to demonstrate that well-planned communi-ties can fit the Vermont landscape. However, Hill said, acceptance of the concept is moving slowly due to strin-

Green and energy

-efficient features have

emerged as some of

the most important and

sought-after by buyers.

gent permitting processes. But even if some government codes are slow to adapt, he said, the bottom line is that green is here to stay. He feels REALTORS® should em-brace the change.

“Just as REALTORS® have been at the forefront of edu-cating homebuyers and sellers on the hazards and miti-gations of lead paint, they can also be instrumental in showing clients how green improvements can increase the value of their investment,” Hill said.

The green turning point for Tampa Florida-based Kerry Mitchell was when she was diagnosed with emphysema in 2003. She came to Florida in 2005 to manage two real estate offices and started to read about poor indoor air quality and related topics.

She took a year off and founded Green Real Estate Educa-tion in 2006. In a little more than a year her firm has “green certified” more than 3,000 professionals in nine states.

“We train our students to learn of local initiatives from utilities and to get involved in promoting MLS addi-tions for energy efficiency and fast track permitting (for green building),” said Mitchell, whose students earn a Green Certified Real Estate Professional certification. The program utilizes local utility and green-standard experts, keeping its training relevant to REALTORS®’ home states.

Mitchell said green branding can help revitalize sluggish real estate markets. Underscoring the need for REAL-TORS® to become knowledgeable about sustainability, Mitchell cited a Consumer Energy Study by www.ener-gypulse.org that found:• 86 percent of Americans would choose one home over

another based on energy efficiency.

• 78 percent of Americans who have bought property say nobody talked to them about energy efficiency.

• 62 percent of people want energy efficient dwellings.

• 63 percent say energy prices have increased enough to make them consider changing their consumption habits.

“Actually, 95 percent of the consumers have no clue what is available for them,” Mitchell said of green building materials, energy efficient appliances and other means toward sustainability. “It is their REALTOR® who needs to educate them. REALTORS® can effect [green] change faster than any other profession. They represent the built structure!”

Mitchell has conducted trainings for the Sarasota As-sociation of REALTORS® (SAR). In 2007, SAR formed the Green REALTORS® Alliance of Sarasota (GRAS), which operates as a steering committee.

“The mission of the Green REALTORS® Alliance of Sara-sota is to be a resource for the preservation of our environ-ment and natural resources as it pertains to real estate. The premise of the group is that being a good steward of the environment and the community is good for real estate and future development,” said Catherine L. McCaskill, director of professional development for SAR.

“Sarasota County has a long and proud history of pro-gressive governance in protecting our natural resources and leads the state in green building initiatives. This county gave birth to the Florida Green Building Coali-tion and has the largest ‘green’ development in the U.S., Lakewood Ranch,” she continued.

Lakewood Ranch, a 7,000-acre master-planned con-servation community, has won Florida Association of

32 ON COMMON GROUND

33SUMMER 2008

area and historic waterfront Lido Key, making the con-nection between urban redevelopment, preservation of the environment, and future real estate opportunities.” ●

Wright frequently writes about smart growth and sustainable communities. He and his wife live in a re-stored historic home in the heart of Miami’s Little Ha-vana. Contact him at: [email protected]

REALTORS® can effect

[green] change faster than

any other profession.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:www.nwrealtor.comwww.ecobroker.comwww.greenrealestateeducation.comwww.sarasotarealtors.comwww.lakewoodranch.comwww.vtrealtor.comwww.rmls.com

From left to right: REALTORS® Kristen Greenlaw, David Crowell and Jim Luckey en-joyed their experience restor-ing the Hylebos Wetlands.

REALTORS® “ENVY” awards for both its residential and commercial components. ENVYs honor developers who make a significant contribution toward building in harmony with Florida’s sensitive environment.

“Every new [Lakewood Ranch] home is certified by the Florida Green Building Coalition Green Home Stan-dard,” McCaskill noted, adding that new residents are often attracted to Sarasota because of the county’s anti-sprawl and anti-waste initiatives.

McCaskill praised Sarasota County for passing legislation that limits lawn watering to once per week and requires sod to be less than half of any landscaped area. In addi-tion, the county has a strict water conservation ordinance for golf courses and conservation water rate structures. These measures have resulted in a per-capita water usage that is 40 percent lower than the rest of the state.

To bolster these efforts, SAR held a Smart Growth Con-ference in conjunction with the Florida Association of REALTORS® and Florida Atlantic University in 2006.

“Augmenting the information presented by speakers, commissioners from the city of Sarasota took conference participants on a guided tour by trolley of the downtown


By Barbara McCann

Two-Wheeled

Bicycling provides the same health,

social and environmental benefits as

walking, but has one big advantage

over simple shoe leather—people

can go much farther much faster.

Sustainability

When REALTOR® Matt Kolb meets with a client to show properties in and around Boulder, Colo., they often leave the car in the parking lot and ride bicycles from house to house.

“People get a new perspective from slowing the process down,” says Kolb, “Riding through neighborhoods, they see things more like they would once they actually live in the neighborhood.”

Kolb is so excited about showing via bicycle that he and his partner established a firm for that purpose. Pedal to Properties is a full service firm, but specializes in showing homes via “cruiser” bikes—comfortable, fat-tired bicycles that are famously easy to ride. Kolb and his partner are currently looking to expand into other markets.

The firm is just one indication that bicycles are wheeling their way into the consciousness of Americans searching for ways to live more sustainably. Commercially success-ful bicycling innovations and changing development patterns have helped make bicycles ‘cool.’ In some areas, bikeability is as sought after as walkability.

Shifting Gears: From Recreation to TransportationBicycling provides the same health, social and environ-mental benefits as walking, but has one big advantage over simple shoe leather—people can go much farther much faster, increasing the places they can reach with-out climbing into a car or waiting for the bus. A rule of thumb used by designers of transit-oriented develop-ments is that people are willing to walk a quarter mile to reach a transit stop—maybe half a mile if they are truly motivated. In contrast, a one- or two-mile bicycle ride takes approximately the same amount of time, and

35

Pedal To Properties of Boulder, Colo., gives potential buyers the opportunity to travel by bicycle to prospective homes and properties.

Sustainability

requires less effort. (Unless there happens to be a steep hill along the way.)

For many years, bicycles have been seen primarily as a recreational vehicle. Bicycling for transportation, partic-ularly for commuting, has been limited to two groups: Low-income workers who have no other way to reach a job, and a smaller group of usually highly-educated, high-income individuals. The latter often ride for rec-reation as well. For both groups, the ability to bike to work has long been a factor in deciding where to live. But the portion of all workers getting to work by bike has remained well under one percent in most cities. That percentage is starting to increase. The number of participants in Bike to Work Day events, usually held in May, has grown from the hundreds to the thousands. The Denver metropolitan region, which includes Boul-der, experienced a 14 percent surge in participation last year alone, with 21,000 registered participants—7,500 of them commuting by bike for the first time. About half of Americans already live within five miles of their workplaces, a perfect distance for a bike commute.

The U.S. bicycle industry, long focused on recreation, is producing more bicycles designed for transportation and commuting. It’s also shifting how it markets those bikes, taking into consideration rising gas prices and obesity rates, as well as global warming.

“The bicycle is a simple solution to some of those com-plex problems,” says Rebecca Anderson, Advocacy Di-rector for the Trek Bicycle Corporation. “Forty percent of car trips are less than two miles. That is easily, clearly, a bikeable distance.”

Trek, the largest American bicycle manufacturer, is fo-cusing on trips under two miles in its campaign, “One World, Two Wheels.” The campaign seeks to increase the percentage of short trips made by bicycle in the United States from one percent to five percent by 2017. Americans make 65 percent of their very short trips, those under a mile, in their cars. These short trips are also the most inefficient, as ‘cold starts’ burn more gaso-line and emit more pollutants.

“The concept of bike use for short trips seems more prominent and more fashionable,” says Tim Blumen-thal, head of the bicycle industry group, Bikes Belong. “The bike is a positive symbol of independence, free-dom, spontaneity and fun. It stands for something, for making your own decision, for doing what you want when you want to do it.”

Cyclists at all levels of skill and experience are advocat-ing for more bike-friendly cities. Lance Armstrong, not-ing the urban renaissance underway in his hometown of Austin, Texas, recently told the Austin-American States-man, “This city is exploding downtown. Are all these

Cyclists at all levels of skill and

experience are advocating for

more bike-friendly cities.

people in high rises going to drive everywhere? We have to promote (bike) commuting.”

The five-time Tour de France champion is in the process of opening a bicycle store in Austin. The shop will cater to commuters and everyday riders, not just racers.

Connecting New and Existing DevelopmentThe trend toward compact development is another con-tributing factor to the increased popularity of bicycling. As people move into new, mixed-use developments, they can reach more of their destinations by foot. But decades of spread-out development mean many destinations remain too far for an easy walk, and transit service may still be

lacking or inconvenient in those areas. Bicycles are seen as a natural solution.

Portland, Ore., has been encouraging both compact devel-opment and bicycling for decades. The city has added 277 miles of bikeways since the 1980s, much of it in the form of bike lanes that are integrated into existing roadways. The Portland City Auditor reports that six percent of commut-ers in Portland travel into the city by bicycle, and another 10 percent use a bicycle as their secondary means of com-muting. Neighborhoods closest to downtown report bi-cycle commute rates approaching 30 percent.

In addition, Portland requires secure indoor bicycle parking in new residential buildings. Developers are even beginning to market new homes based on bicycling amenities. Portland-based Realty Trust Group is devel-oping a number of condominium buildings marketed to cyclists and those who want to make cycling part of their daily life. The signature image of the South Waterfront development is a bicycle commuter, coffee cup in hand, speeding along a waterfront bicycle trail.

Realty Trust promotes another of its projects with an ad campaign calling on consumers to “Kill Your Car.” The firm sees its bicycle-friendly marketing and development as part of a larger commitment to sustainability—all of its projects seek LEED certification. (The new LEED-ND, which looks beyond the individual building to in-clude neighborhood sustainability, awards one point to buildings that are within three miles of essential destina-tions, assuming these destinations can be reached safely via bicycle.)

Ease of Use—A Critical ComponentThe biggest barrier to widespread bicycle use in the United States is the lack of safe, convenient bicycling routes. The prospect of negotiating a six-lane suburban arterial on a bicycle, with cars speeding past at 55 mph, is something few Americans relish. When safer routes are introduced, their popularity hints that it’s the road, not the biking itself, that dissuades people from riding. In many communities, multi-use paths suffer from congestion as cyclists go out of their way to use the paths in place of roadways.

Bicycle advocates across the country are seeking to in-crease cyclists’ options. The Thunderhead Alliance, based in Washington, D.C., represents a coalition of local advocacy groups across the country that work for better facilities and greater respect for cyclists’ rights. With support from Trek’s One World, Two Wheels cam-paign, the League of American Bicyclists is expanding its Bicycle Friendly Communities program. The program recognizes communities where bicycling is safe and convenient, and supports other communities in their efforts to become more bike-friendly. Counties, cities and towns interested in the designation undergo an ex-tensive application process, which evaluates everything from bicycle lanes and multi-use paths to secure bicycle parking and even showers for commuters. The program also looks at a community’s efforts to educate adults and children on safe cycling, as well as its record of enforcing laws that protect cyclists’ rights.

36 ON COMMON GROUND

37SUMMER 2008

REALTORS® Matt Kolb and Chris Sweeney of Pedal To Properties of Boulder enjoy showing their clients homes the old fashioned way.

In the U.S. and BeyondArlington County, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington D.C., was recently awarded a Bicycle Friendly Communities Silver designation. (The program operates on a tiered system—Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze—to encourage communities to continue to im-prove resources for cyclists.) The county has adopted a complete streets policy to ensure that the road network is safe for all users, including cyclists. There is also an extensive, and popular, network of bike trails. Paul De-Maio, Bicycle Promotions Manager for the county, says local real estate agents frequently request a map showing bicycle trails and on-street bike lanes.

“Having a trail nearby is becoming important to home-buyers, in the same way that being located near a metro station is important, or being located along I-395 is important,” says DeMaio. The county requires secure indoor bicycle parking in residential buildings, and pro-motes bicycling and other forms of alternative transpor-tation through informational kiosks in the lobbies of most large condo and apartment buildings.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Metropolitan Trans-portation Commission awards funding for transit ame-nities to communities that allow increased housing den-sity. One of the commission’s programs, Transportation for Livable Communities, is increasingly funding bicy-cle-related projects. Another program called Safe Routes to Transit is aimed at helping people reach major transit hubs via foot and bicycle, rather than by car—the pro-gram has even helped expand the bicycle-carrying ca-pacity of Bay Area Rapid Transit trains.

There is evidence that more residents ride when a com-munity devotes resources to making bicycling a safe and attractive option. In a study of 35 typical U.S. cities with a population over 250,000, each additional mile of bike lanes

per square mile was associated with a roughly one percent increase in the share of workers commuting by bicycle.

The international effort to promote cycling as a form of transportation received a big push last year with the introduction of the Vélib system in Paris. More than 20,000 bicycles were placed at check-out stations throughout the city, and within a month residents and visitors made more than a million trips on these shared-use cycles. The mayor of London recently announced his intention to build a series of bicycle ‘highways’ into the center of town. European cities are turning to such programs to ease congestion and pollution, and similar programs are popping up in the United States. Arling-ton County, Va. is starting a short-term bicycle rental system designed to dovetail with the county’s car-shar-ing initiative. Bicycles available for rent will be locked to the poles used to mark the parking spaces reserved for the county’s shared cars.

Matt Kolb acknowledges that his Pedal to Properties con-cept will only work in places where bicycling is seen as safe and convenient. In Boulder, bicycling is such a part of the lifestyle that one new development is named The Peloton, a reference to the main pack of riders in a road race such as the Tour de France. But racing in a crowd is not what the new surge toward bicycling is all about.

“Most of the people finding us are out for a casual ride, to the grocery store or the coffee shop,” says Kolb. “They’ve adopted cruiser bikes as their second vehicle.” For Kolb, the bicycle’s role as a sustainable, convenient and cool vehicle is working—his sales since he launched the new firm a year ago have grown by 40 percent. ●

Barbara McCann serves as Coordinator of the Na-tional Complete Streets Coalition. She also writes on transportation and land-use issues and is co-authored of the book Sprawl Costs from Island Press.

and reinforced all the plaster ceilings in the house with lath-strips nailed every few inches. Below that, they installed canvas ceilings. The thinking was that if the passing trains cracked the ceilings, they would not be noticeable since they would be above the taut, but flexible canvas. When we came onto the scene 130-odd years later and restored the house, two rooms still had these canvas ceilings.

The village of Florence is like many others in southern New Eng-land. It was laid out in a grid pattern in the mid-19th Century with houses close together. As you get further from the village center, the feel is suburban, with typical 1950s to 1970s-era housing. One different feature in our community is that shortly after the railroad stopped running in 1969, some local visionar-ies suggested that the derelict corridor become a linear park.

At that time, the corridor was filled with trash, and known as a place where some in the community went to drink or use drugs. The idea of converting something bad into something good, namely a bike path (the term “rail trail” wasn’t even in-vented back then), was a “new fangled idea,” and something that not everyone supported.

In fact, the woman who owned our house at that time was the leader of the opposition to the idea of a bike trail. She would regularly trot out her then toddlers before the TV cameras and say that their lives would be endangered by the proposed con-

In the mid 1990s, I authored my first book on rail trails. It was around this time that I started to get more involved in the advocacy end of the rails-to-trails movement. My wife and I were living in a suburban community in western Massachusetts that shifted from farms to sprawled-out subdivisions shortly after WWII. Sadly, with single-use zoning in effect, it is a place where many residents have to spend nearly a gallon of gas to get a gallon of milk.

We were so smitten with the healthy lifestyle possibilities as-sociated with living near a rail trail that we started to look for a house that was near one. Besides, as an advocate, it was im-portant for me to not just “talk the talk,” but to actually “walk the walk,” so to speak.

We were also looking to live in a community that still had a vi-brant and functioning downtown. Hmmm... A house close to a trail, plus a decent downtown nearby? A tall order to say the least.

Well, one night while returning home from one of my lec-tures before an embryonic group of rail-trail advocates in New Hampshire, I decided to stop off in Northampton, Mass. More specifically, Florence, a village within Northampton. I wanted to see if any houses were for sale near the rail trail. Low and behold, there was one. I stumbled upon an old revival style farmhouse that was barely visible from the street, hidden be-hind years of neglected brush and overgrowth. The best part was that it sat eight feet from the rail trail.

We called the REALTOR® the next morning, toured the place and found it to be in even worse condition than it looked from the outside. Nevertheless, we saw the potential and jumped right into a bidding war with three other bidders. We prevailed, and in September of 2001, we moved in and started to restore the 1865 house.

We (and a slew of contractors) spent the next 14 months restor-ing not only the interior and exterior of the house, but also the grounds. This landscape work included the installation of “period gardens” with plants and themes that were common to the Civil War era. Although we had many surprises in the restoration, most of them unpleasant, one oddity was particularly interesting.

It seems that in 1868, three years after this house was built, the railroad came to Florence. The railroad was built so close to the house that the railroad officials offered a creative mitigation for the homeowners who were wary of cracked ceilings from the shaking the house was sure to experience. The railroad came in

Life adjacent to a rail trail

Above: Students in Massachusetts enjoy riding to school on the rail trail.

By Craig Della Penna, REALTOR®, The Murphys REALTORS®, Inc. Northampton, MA

38 ON COMMON GROUND

39SUMMER 2008

version of the corridor into a trail. She was not alone in that thinking. Most of the neighbors also thought that the construc-tion of a formal path would only invite more bad guys.

After several years of discussion, the rail trail opened in 1984. Things have not been the same since, but the change has been a positive one.

The rail trail in Florence is hardly a regional anomaly. One of the most notable things about New England that most people do not realize is the super-abundance of unused former rail-road corridors. There are about 200 railroad-corridor projects underway right now within a 100-mile radius of Northamp-ton and Florence. Since the 1960s, more than 70,000 miles of former railroad corridor has been taken out of the nation’s inventory of operational railways. The majority of this mileage is here in the Northeast. The network of off-road paths that can be built in eastern New York and New England is simply unmatched anywhere else in the U.S. These paths connect the places where people live, work and play.

Each day on our particular rail trail starts pretty much the same way. Around 5:30 a.m. or at the crack of dawn, joggers and power walkers pass by. By 7:30 a.m., the dog walkers are out and by 8 a.m. school kids stream past. In fact, there are scores of kids. Most are walking, but a substantial number are on bikes and there is even a smattering of roller bladers. So many kids here walk, bike or blade to school that I hazard to guess one or two fewer school buses are needed, thanks to this “Safe Route to School.”

Around 8:30 a.m., utilitarian bikers ride by—people biking to work. In the middle part of the day, the users are mostly retirees and mothers pushing baby carriages. The dog walkers are back out late in the afternoon. Then the evening strollers, joggers and walkers. My wife, who is a dedicated power-walker, is on the trail twice a day for a two-mile walk with our Scottish Terrier, Ivan.

On weekends the complexion of the path changes. There are more bicyclists, who tend to be tourists, although local joggers,

power-walkers, strollers and dog walkers are still out in force. To call these rail trails simply bike-paths is a misnomer. In fact, to call them recreation trails is a misnomer as well. They are genu-ine transportation facilities. The city has come around to this realization. A few years ago they began plowing the trail in the winter, so that it can remain open as a “Safe Route to School.”

After the restoration of our house, we were honored to receive the city’s Historic Preservation Award. Our work was also fea-tured on House & Garden Television’s (HGTV) acclaimed se-ries, “Restore America.”

During the restoration, we decided to go one step further and open a bed & breakfast. We call it Sugar Maple Trailside Inn. SMTI is the first bed & breakfast in New England that sits next to a rail trail—and also heavily markets to the bicycle tourism industry.

Our house was one of the closest to a working railroad—and it is certainly one of the closest to a rail trail. In addition, as an advocate, I view it as the perfect place to showcase rail trails’ benefits to those fearful or concerned about the rail trail in their community. We offer complimentary rooms to rail trail opponents. We make only weeknights available because we want people to wake up to the laughter of children biking to school. The sight is something they remember, and something they probably don’t see anymore in their community.

Many people living in suburban-style developments, as we used to, feel a longing that cannot easily be explained. I think it is the longing for neighborhoods like those many of us grew up in. Places where you knew your neighbors, places with porches, and certainly places with sidewalks.

This longing might also be explained by the lack of quality “third” places in society today. The first place is your family life. The second place is your work place. The third place is the place where people meet outside of the first two places. This concept of ‘third place’ was brought forward by Ray Olden-burg—an urban sociologist from Florida—who wrote about the importance of informal public gathering places in his book The Great Good Place.

The third place experience in many lucky communities today is the pathway known as a rail trail. The need for third places is why these projects are so successful. And it is one of the reasons we love living next to our rail trail.Craig Della Penna and his wife Kathleen operate Sugar Maple Trail-side Inn located in Northampton, Mass. He was the New England representative for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, but today is a REAL-TOR® in Mass.—working for The Murphys REALTORS®, Inc. specializing in the sale of residential property next to or near to rail trails and oth-er greenways all over Massachusetts: http://www.CraigDP.com. His innovative real estate practice garnered national attention when it was featured in REALTOR® magazine. ●

©Bryce Hall

Courtesy of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, the Burke-Gilman Sammamish Trail in King County, Wa.


The simple act of leaving your car in the ga-rage and taking mass transit, riding a bicycle or walking to your destination could help save the planet.

Building communities designed to minimize the need to travel and to encourage alterna-

tive modes of transportation is a smart growth concept that can have a huge impact on limiting greenhouse gases, experts say.

A new book, Growing Cooler, says planning for growth based on sustainable neighborhoods, where residents can work, shop, play and eat within walking or biking distance of their homes, can go a long way toward re-

By Judy Newman

Walk This Way:American cities test strategies to promote alternative transportation

Courtesy of Rails-to-Trails, ©Jessica Leas

41

ducing carbon dioxide emissions, considered a major factor in global warming.

“What we’re talking about is really compact develop-ment,” says Reid Ewing, co-author of Growing Cooler and a research professor at the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth, in College Park.

“People want more walkable environments. A shorter commute, plus the ability to walk to a store—that’s a pretty attractive combination,” Ewing says.

At the same time, communities across the country are embarking on a wide variety of projects aimed at chang-ing Americans’ car-oriented mindset.

In one of the larger-reaching experiments, a federally funded pilot project is targeting four cities, providing money to help pay for improvements that will make them more bike-, bus- and pedestrian-friendly. In 2010, the results will be delivered to Congress, determining if “complete streets” and other changes in Marin County, Calif.; Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.; Columbia, Mo.; and Sheboygan, Wis. can alter the public’s gas-guzzling ways and curb global warming.

“We are seeing a lot of energy around this,” says Joan Pasiuk, program director of the Bike/Walk Twin Cit-ies initiative for Transit for Livable Communities, the group handling the Minneapolis-St. Paul segment.

Some cities have been trying to wean their residents away from motorized vehicles for years. Portland, Ore., was among the leaders, adopting car-curtailing policies in the 1970s. Today, even though Census Bureau fig-ures show Multnomah County’s population has grown 20 percent since 1990, from 584,000 to 702,000, its

The United States sends more

greenhouse gases into the

atmosphere than any other

country in the world, and

transportation is to blame for

one-third of those carbon di-

oxide emissions.

Children in Sheyboygan County, Wis., participate in the county-wide Walk to School Day.

Courtesy of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

increase in the nation’s population during the same pe-riod, and it far outpaces the gains expected from more efficient vehicles and lower-carbon fuels.

Ewing says the answer lies in the way our communities are laid out and where they are located. They should be high density, mixed-use and pedestrian-friendly, and their proper place is within urban neighborhoods, not in outly-ing areas farther from employment centers, he says.

Offering financial incentives and establishing rules that will promote infill development can help accomplish that. “Infill development has a smaller carbon footprint than almost anything you can envision in an outlying area,” Ewing says.

But how do you create neighborhoods with a ready-made base of employment when so many of the biggest employers are in well-established areas?

Since 1980, the number of miles

Americans drive each year has

grown three times faster than the

U.S. population, and almost twice as

fast as vehicle registration.

greenhouse gas emissions have scaled back to 0.1 per-cent above 1990 levels, according to Portland’s Office of Sustainable Development.

“That’s pretty astounding,” Bob Stacey, Portland native and executive director of the 1,000 Friends of Oregon nonprofit group, says proudly.

Tactics to discourage driving in other parts of the country have not fared so well, though. New York City Mayor Mi-chael Bloomberg proposed an $8 weekday fee for rush-hour drivers heading into the notoriously traffic-clogged Manhat-tan, but the plan died when the New York State Assembly refused to vote on it by the midnight, April 7 deadline.

A Particular Challenge for U.S. CitiesThe United States sends more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other country in the world, and transportation is to blame for one-third of those carbon dioxide emissions. Every gallon of gas burned produces about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Although automakers are developing more fuel-efficient vehicles—such as hybrid cars, electric cars and cars op-erating on hydrogen-based fuel cells—and lower-carbon fuels, those alternatives are not enough to counteract the accelerating amount of driving, or vehicle miles traveled.

Since 1980, the number of miles Americans drive each year has grown three times faster than the U.S. popula-tion, and almost twice as fast as vehicle registration.

A major reason for the increase is the way development has occurred in urban areas, Ewing contends. “Ameri-cans drive so much because we have given ourselves little alternative. For 60 years, we have built homes ever farther from workplaces, located schools far from the neighborhoods they serve, and isolated other destina-tions—such as shopping—from work and home.”

The Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy projects that the number of miles driven will jump 48 percent between 2005 and 2030. That’s more than twice the anticipated 23 percent

42 ON COMMON GROUND

43

A PALETTE OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Ewing says as newcomers move into a community, new homes begin to replace the old, and nonresidential buildings follow similar trends even faster than homes.

“We estimate that by 2050, two-thirds of the develop-ment on the ground will have been built between now and then. So there’s a whole lot of building going on. I can’t think of any reason why some of that couldn’t be close to those employment sites,” Ewing says.

Guiding Cooler GrowthEwing cites Portland as a model for weaning residents from behind their steering wheels.

Portland took on the mission of targeted growth in the early 1970s, 1,000 Friends’ Stacey says.

Portland’s downtown was falling victim to the lure of the suburban shopping mall, with vast stretches of free parking, easy interstate access and a gathering of stores and eateries all under one roof. The local bus company was on the verge of bankruptcy.

City officials, led by then-Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, cre-ated a new design for downtown Portland, with a re-tail and office core and trails leading to the Willamette River. Traffic was barred from the streets designated for the highest density office buildings; they became transit malls, allowing only buses, bikes and pedestrians.

Parking construction was limited: new buildings could contain only three-quarters of a parking stall per 1,000-square-feet of office space, a rule that stood nearly 20 years, from 1975 to 1993. Since 1971, the number of jobs in downtown Portland has doubled, but there’s been no net increase in the number of parking stalls.

Also in the 1970s, Portland installed its first light rail line, financing it by trading in a U.S. Department of Transportation grant that had been designated for a new freeway to the suburbs. The city now has four rail lines with a fifth under construction. Light rail provides about 100,000 rides a day; buses carry another 250,000 passengers a day. Streetcars and an aerial tramway plug additional gaps.

At the same time, tight limits have been in place on ru-ral development, and 30 miles of low-traffic bike boule-vards and 70 miles of bike paths have been created.

Light rail provides about 100,000 rides a day; buses carry another

250,000 passengers a day. Streetcars and an aerial tramway plug

additional gaps.

Portland, Ore., has four rail lines with a fifth under construction.

SUMMER 2008

“Arguably, [the policies have] made the city more attrac-tive,” Stacey says. “There’s probably no other explana-tion for the city’s population growth.”

Portland recently ranked No. 1 on Popular Science mag-azine’s list of America’s 50 Greenest Cities, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Geo-graphic Society’s Green Guide. It is No. 6 in Fortune magazine’s list of Best Places to Live and Launch, and was titled the most sustainable city in the U.S. in 2006 by SustainLane, a green-oriented Web site.

Program Proves Effective for Twin CitiesIn Minneapolis/St. Paul, three of every 10 trips that resi-dents take for work, school or pleasure (29.3 percent) al-ready employ a transportation mode that doesn’t include driving a car. It’s the highest level of non-auto travel among the four communities participating in the federal govern-ment’s Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program.

Each area is getting more than $20 million in federal funds to build “nonmotorized transportation infra-structure,” such as sidewalks, bicycle lanes and pedes-trian trails that connect with transit stations, businesses, homes and other activity centers.

Even before those additions, though, people in the four pilot communities are reducing the amount of driving they do by a total of as much as 156 million miles a year as a result of the walking, bicycling and transit-riding they already do, the program’s research team estimates.

Each area is getting more than $20 million in federal funds to build

“nonmotorized transportation infrastructure.”

Bicyclists take advantage of the convenient bike paths near downtown Minneapolis.

44 ON COMMON GROUND

45SUMMER 2008

In Minneapolis/St. Paul, some of the grant program’s first projects are getting underway, Bike/Walk Twin Cities’ Pa-siuk says. Bike lanes will be added along several streets and bike/walk ambassadors are being hired to visit schools, businesses and community groups. The ambassadors coach people about how to navigate city streets on two wheels, and also offer maintenance and safety classes.

“Minneapolis has a pretty good history of investing in cycling and pedestrian facilities,” Pasiuk says. “We see pretty significant amounts of bicycle travel, even in the winter.” The Census Bureau’s 2006 American Commu-nity Survey ranks Minneapolis 2nd of 50 cities—behind only Portland—in the number of people who bike to work, 8th in those who walk to work and 11th for com-muters taking mass transit.

Other Twin Cities projects will involve adding bike/walk streets that accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. They may include traffic diverters that would create a throughway for cyclists but force cars to turn off at cer-tain points, Pasiuk says. For pedestrians, more benches and lighting could be in the works.

“The idea is to create a mainstream mentality and culture for bicycling and walking as transportation,” Pasiuk says.

Still Seeking SolutionsBut it takes more than mass transit and bike lanes to make a comprehensive, long-term reduction in green-house gases. It requires serious planning to find ways to condense development rather than allow it to sprawl, with mixed-use projects instead of purely residential subdivisions or office parks, interconnected streets in-stead of cul de sacs and smaller housing lots, says re-search professor Ewing.

The results are clear: in Portland, residents drive less than 24 miles a day, on average, while in sprawling At-lanta and Raleigh, they drive more than 30 miles a day, according to a sprawl index Ewing conducted of 83 met-ropolitan areas.

To get on the path toward stabilizing the climate, car-bon dioxide emissions will have to fall 33 percent be-low 1990 levels by 2030, a sharp turnaround from the nation’s longtime trends.

“We’re moving in the right direction,” said Ewing. “It’s going to be hard to get there, though.” ●

Judy Newman is a business reporter at the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, Wisconsin.

Winter in St. Paul, Minn., does not hinder bicyclists from their travels.

The idea is to create a

mainstream mentality

and culture for bicy-

cling and walking as

transportation.

Americans are worried about climate change, urban sprawl and traffic congestion, and they’d much rather improve mass transit than build new roads.

Those are some of the results of the 2007 Growth and Trans-portation survey sponsored by the NATIONAL ASSOCIA-TION OF REALTORS® and Smart Growth America.

Asked about their concerns related to growth and devel-opment, 71 percent of those polled said they are worried about the increase in global warming. Only 14 percent said they are not at all concerned about the problem, which is linked to rising amounts of carbon dioxide emissions.

Urban sprawl is also a priority issue. Four of every five people polled—81 percent—said they would rather see older urban and suburban areas redeveloped than have new suburbs sprout into rural areas. The survey found 72 percent are uneasy about the loss of farmland to de-velopment, while 70 percent expressed concerns over the loss of open lands such as fields, forests and deserts.

David Wluka, past president of the Massachusetts Asso-ciation of REALTORS® and 2006 chairman of the NA-TIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS’® Smart Growth Working Group, said he’s surprised that global warming, new to the survey, ranked as high as traffic problems and open space, the perennial poll leaders.

“They’re not joking when they say [former Vice Presi-dent] Al Gore’s movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ made the difference,” Wluka says.

A 2005 Massachusetts state budget provision, Chapter 40R, offers communities financial incentives for mixed-use, com-

pact-design developments that preserve open space and are aligned with smart growth policies. “It’s amazing how many communities have picked up on it,” Wluka says.

At the same time, though, Wluka says it’s hard to con-vince suburban homebuyers to opt for smaller proper-ties. New homes in Massachusetts often are built on nine-tenths of an acre while in states such as Texas, they are built on three-tenths of an acre, Wluka says. He is a member of a group working on new rules aimed at encouraging smaller land lots.

The survey also found that congested roads and long commutes distress 70 percent of the people polled, and 61 percent said they are concerned that Americans have to rely on their cars more to get around because their destinations are spread over a wide area.

They don’t, however, support higher taxes as a way to dis-courage driving. Only 16 percent would support raising gas taxes. About half of those surveyed (49 percent) said

Urban Sprawl, Congestion and Climate Change Are Top Concerns

46 ON COMMON GROUND

47

they believe improved public transportation is the best long-term solution to reducing traffic in their communi-ties. The poll found that 26 percent believe the best solu-tion is to develop communities where people don’t have to drive as much. Only one in five, 21 percent, support building new roads as a solution to traffic congestion.

“We’ve seen a growing number of people responding to surveys like this come to the conclusion that more paving

is not going to solve the problem,” says David Goldberg, communications director for Smart Growth America.

“That has really come home since gas prices started to rise. You can almost mark it from Hurricane Katrina, in late 2005,” Goldberg says. In a separate poll for Smart Growth America, 92 percent agreed that gas prices are going to keep rising. That topped their list of personal concerns, Goldberg says.

Requiring the auto industry to develop more fuel-effi-cient vehicles and mandating homes and other buildings to be more energy efficient won the support of nine out of 10 respondents.

The 2007 Growth and Transportation Survey, conduct-ed by telephone by Public Opinion Strategies in Octo-ber 2007, questioned 1,000 adults around the United States. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. ●

SUMMER 2008

We’ve seen a growing number

of people responding to surveys

like this come to the conclusion

that more paving is not going to

solve the problem.

Loss of farmland development

Increase in global warming due to energy use of fossil fuels, carbon

dioxide and loss of trees

Loss of open land such as fields, forests and deserts

Increase in traffic congestion and length of commute

Loss of historic landmarks and neighborhoods

Loss of the individual character of communities

Increased reliance on cars because everything is spread out

72%

71%

70%

70%

66%

64%

61%

55%

58%

54%

55%

47%

44%

40%

Strongly Concerned Total Concerned

Americans are concerned about growth and development and how it affects our climate, neighborhoods and communities.


Green and sustainable practices are increasingly shaping America’s schools—not just the curricula, but the design and construction of the schools themselves.

The argument that eco-friendly, sustainable schools are too expensive to build is heard far less often these days. Even the most cost-conscious school officials are deciding it’s time to move ahead with “green” schools designed to reduce energy consumption and damage to the environment.

Rachel Gutter, U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) schools sector manager, said that 750 facilities across the nation contacted the USGBC to say they’re seek-ing the new LEED for Schools certification. Another 87 buildings, she said, have already met the new LEED for Schools guidelines, which were finalized last spring.

“We’re having a pretty significant uptake,” Gutter said.

Among the schools “in the pipeline” for LEED certifica-tion is T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va.

The public high school, which opened the doors of its new building on September 4, 2007, recently received the Green Innovation Award for the Best Institutional Project from the Virginia Sustainable Building Network.

The T.C. Williams project is ongoing, according to Mark X. Burke, director of planning and construction for the project. Once the entire project is complete, the school will be able to put in its official application for LEED Certification. But the school is already enjoying the benefits of its new, green home.

“One of the first things the teaching staff mentioned is the amount of daylighting,” Burke said. “And the indoor air quality. In the old building, the indoor air quality was so poor that the original plan was to update the H-VAC system. The new building has a 100-percent fresh air system.”

The discussion of the costs associated with updating the old building, he said, eventually led to the decision to tear down the old school and start fresh. From the out-set, the project had green components.

By Christine Sexton

Learning to ConserveEco-Friendly Schools built for future generations

Ken Wyner Photography

Cunningham Group Architecture

49

“In the B-1 phase of the project—the demolition phase—we recycled the steel, the copper, and everything else we could from the old building. We sent the con-crete to be crushed and used as aggregate. The bricks are being reused as well.”

Issues related to water were a major focus—how to use less water, how to utilize stormwater, and how to filter and control runoff. Much of the rain that falls on the T.C. Williams campus is fed to a 450,000-gallon un-derground cistern for storage. The water is then used for irrigation and for the school’s air conditioning systems, and provides the water needed for the school’s toilets as well. Burke estimated the school saves $30,000 to $40,000 a year in potable water costs.

To filter ground runoff, Burke said, the campus will have a rain garden. “We also have what are called down-stream defenders. It’s a filtration system to remove pol-lution from runoff before it reaches a nearby stream, which eventually feeds into the Potomac River. There’s a device to separate the large materials like cups and plas-tic bottles, things that make their way into storm drains, and then there’s a cartridge filter to trap nitrogen and other pollutants.”

The school has a rooftop garden to help manage precipi-tation. During warm months the garden absorbs heat, limiting the building’s need for air conditioning. There is also a sampling trough to collect rainwater. Chemistry students test the water before and after it’s filtered by the garden, to learn how plant systems reduce acidity.

The school’s shift toward green is providing additional learning opportunities, Burke said, and so did the con-struction of the new building.

“We had earth science students performing soil reports. Physics classes used what they were learning to measure the height of the cranes. Our photography classes pro-vided photos for the Web site to update the community on how the project was progressing. We have a building trades class—so that was a natural fit.”

Students interested in masonry, electrical and other build-ing trades had the opportunity to gain institutional expe-rience, Burke said. It was a unique opportunity, because the program is mainly aimed at residential construction.

Students will soon be able to keep track of the building’s green systems in real time. A display screen in the stu-dent commons will show exactly how much energy is for

Issues related to water were a

major focus—how to use less wa-

ter, how to utilize stormwater, and

how to filter and control runoff.

T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., received the Green Innovation Award.

Photo by Taki Sidley

ON COMMON GROUND

lighting, cooling and other individual components of the building, and will also show the water-levels in the cistern. A similar screen in the office will allow visitors to view the data, and provide background information about the building and how it operates.

One school already certified under the LEED program is Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. A private day school for students in pre-K through 12th grade, the $28 million Sidwell project included renovating a 55-year-old, 33,500-square-foot building and building a 39,000-square-foot addition.

Between the older renovated school and the new build-ing sits a manmade wetland that treats wastewater from the kitchen and bathrooms. The treated water is eventu-ally reused in the toilets and cooling towers. The wet-land also serves as a science laboratory where students can learn about biology, ecology and chemistry.

Sidwell is the first institution to earn a LEED platinum rating. Gutter called it an example of “dark green.”

The green movement incorporates many hues, however. To be considered green, a facility doesn’t need some-thing as elaborate as onsite wastewater treatment in the form of manufactured wetlands. “Are there lots of ‘light’ green things at the school that can be done? Absolutely,” Gutter said.

Quick ways to go green include adding an environmen-tal curriculum, establishing energy and water patrol pro-grams, and promoting walking or bicycling to school. With gas prices near $4 a gallon, and worries over high rates of childhood obesity, there is already a strong movement to reduce the dependence on cars and buses as kids’ primary form of transportation to school.

The federal government launched the Safe Routes to School Program nearly three years ago and will spend $612 million through fiscal year 2009 to encourage modes of transporta-tion that help students stay active.

Quick ways to go green include

adding an environmental curricu-

lum, establishing energy and wa-

ter patrol programs, and promot-

ing walking or bicycling to school.

Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. is certified under the LEED program.

Photo by Kieran Timberlake

50 ON COMMON GROUND

51SUMMER 2008

Florida Safe Routes to School coordinator Pat Pieratte said the state’s SRTS money will fund at least 177 individual projects. The majority of those projects, she said, will be sidewalks within one mile of schools. The first sidewalk funded with SRTS dollars is slated to be built next winter.

Students in Florida return to school in August, when temperatures are still near the 100-degree mark. While walking might prove challenging in the beginning of the academic year, Pieratte said, it’s pleasant in the winter and spring. More important than nice weather, she said, is the desire to walk to school. “Where there is motiva-tion, the weather doesn’t seem to dampen things.”

Pieratte also said that Florida is using its money to en-courage bicycle and pedestrian education programs. These include in-school education programs, as well as

support for parent-supervised “bike trains” and “walk-ing school buses.”

Nationally, the support for building green and thinking green is mounting. That hasn’t eliminated concerns over cost, however. Green school construction is estimated to cost as much as an additional $3 per square foot to build, but on average saves $100,000 per year, according to the report Greening America’s Schools: Costs and Benefits 2006. The report was sponsored by the USGBC, The American Federation of Teachers, The American Lung Association, The Federation of American Scientists and The American Institute of Architects.

In Connecticut, voters in Lyme-Old Lyme rejected a $48 million referendum for a new green high school. Lyme-Old Lyme board of education member Russ Gomes op-posed the referendum. Gomes—an entrepreneur and real estate developer—said the amendment went down, in part, because the advocates never quantified the sav-ings associated with building green.

Gomes currently heads up a committee charged with recommending ways the county can meet its additional space requirements. Gomes said the committee may recommend the county build a new wing onto existing facilities. The new wing, he said, would be all green.

Gomes is keen on geothermal power. He recently visited two facilities in Iceland to see how they use the earth’s natural heat for energy. While he’s willing to travel far

for research, Gomes is also tapping into homegrown ideas: those of Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School technol-ogy teacher Jennifer Caffrey and four of her students. The group met after school for three months with the goal of designing a green building of the future.

For the second consecutive year, Mrs. Caffrey and her stu-dents won the School of the Future design competition for the northeast region. They traveled to Washington, D.C. to compete against other regional winners for the national prize—an honor Lyme-Old Lyme students took in 2007.

“Students have a way of looking at things with a lot more clarity than adults do,” Gomes said. He has asked

Nationally, the support for building green and thinking green is mounting.

That hasn’t eliminated concerns over cost, however.

Great Seneca Creek Elementary School in Germantown, Md., is highlighted by the USGBC.

Photo by Eric Taylor Ken Wyner Photography

Caffrey and her students to present their project to his committee for consideration. “They may have some in-novative ideas that we could use.”

They may indeed.

For the 2008 competition, the students designed a school that uses geothermal, solar and wind-powered systems. It uses hydropower as well—even its gutters provide a green benefit.

“They are a brand new idea,” Caffrey said of the gutters. Developed by Alex Kashtan, one of the four Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School students who worked on the proj-ect, the gutters would contain turbines to harvest the hydropower of rainwater. Water traveling through the gutter would drive the turbines, and the energy would then be stored in batteries. In addition, the system would collect and reuse water for sinks and toilets.

The use of solar, hydro, wind and geothermal energy means that “no matter what the weather conditions, there will be some sort of power,” said Caffrey.

The School of the Future competition is part of School Building Week, sponsored by the Council of Education-al Facility Planners International Foundation & Chari-table Trust, and the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, among other groups.

After taking first place last year, Caffrey said this year’s club really stepped up the emphasis on building green.

“We like to think that we addressed as much as 12-year-olds possibly could with green technology,” she said. ●

Christine Jordan Sexton is a Tallahassee-based free-lance reporter who has done correspondent work for the Associated Press, the New York Times, Florida Medical Business and a variety of trade magazines, including Florida Lawyer and National Underwriter.

On May 2, 2008, the National Association of REAL-TORS® and the Council of Educational Facility Plan-ners International announced the winners of the School of the Future design competition. The annual com-petition, open to middle school students, challenges teams to redesign their schools to create better learn-ing environments that are environmentally responsive. Six regional winners traveled to Washington, D.C., for the week of April 28 to present their designs to a jury of architects, school administrators and other experts.

The winner of the grand prize was Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School, from Old Lyme, Conn., which won for its design that incorporated ergonomic classroom furni-ture; hydro, solar and wind power; energy-efficient ap-pliances; and a hydro gutter system that provides electri-cal power as well as collects rain water for reuse.

Second place went to Norwalk Middle School, Norwalk, Iowa, and the third place winner was Imago Dei Middle School in Tucson, Ariz. Honorable mentions went to

Students Imagine Schools of the Future

The School of the Future stu-

dent design competition is a

chance for students to re-imag-

ine their schools.

52 ON COMMON GROUND

Members of the School of the Future awards jury choose winners based on design aspects such as minimizing the schools’ impacts on local ecosystems.

53SUMMER 2008

the Gereau Center, Rocky Mount, Va.; Olympic View Middle School, Mukilteo, Wash.; and Westland Middle School, Bethesda, Md.

The School of the Future student design competition is a chance for students to re-imagine their schools. Teams from 141 middle schools across the country took up the challenge in 2008, designing sustainable schools that take multiple “environments” into consideration. Stu-dents seek to improve the learning environment—safe, healthy classrooms and school facilities. They also fo-cus on the local environment, designing a building that minimizes impact on local ecosystems, and makes the best use of things like available sunlight and precipita-tion. Finally, they examine the school’s impact on the larger, global environment, which means ensuring the building operates efficiently and conserves resources whenever possible.

The finalists were honored at an event on Capitol Hill, where they were joined by their respective members of Congress. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RE-ALTORS® hosted an evening reception to recognize the students for their accomplishments and honor their

The students examine the

school’s impact on the larger,

global environment.

hard work. The schools also received cash prizes donated by the REALTORS®.

“This initiative gives students an opportunity to think about the environment and to express their creativity,” said JoAnn Poole, a Maryland REALTOR® who served as a judge for the national awards. “I’m hoping that more REALTORS® will want to participate—as a program mentor in the classroom, as a local, regional or national judge, or as a presenter of the program information to their local schools.

Throughout the competition, students work with mentors—architects and architecture students, REAL-TORS®, construction managers and school planners among others—who help guide them through the de-sign process. Students plan the projects from the con-cept phase through the completion of the project, docu-menting their work at each step. They are required to produce a project model, a short video or PowerPoint presentation, and a narrative description of the design process and the rationale behind their design decisions. The competition guidelines also address the national math standards for middle school students.

To learn more about how to participate in next year’s School of the Future student design competition, go to http://sbw.cefpifoundation.org, or contact Bob McNa-mara at the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REAL-TORS® at [email protected]. ●

1st Place Winners

Lyme-Old Lyme Middle SchoolOld Lyme, Conn.

2nd Place Winners

Norwalk Middle SchoolNorwalk, Iowa

3rd Place Winners

Imago Dei Middle SchoolTucson, Ariz.


A G r o w i n g T r e n d

• Purchase of Development Rights (PDR). Local govern-ments and nonprofits purchase development rights to farms endangered by development, keeping the farms in production. PDRs are based on conservation easements—farmers retain full ownership and use of the property for purposes other than real estate development.

• Transfer of Development Rights (TDR). This method allows local governments to direct or focus develop-ment. Developers pay farmers for development rights that are then “transferred” to areas targeted for high-density development. TDRs preserve the farm land while at the same time allowing farmers to recoup the value of their development rights. The attraction for developers? The transferred rights allow them to increase the density of development at targeted sites, usually to above current zoning restrictions.

The local food movement has attracted the attention of major smart growth advocacy organizations, many of which have revised their procedures to incorporate local food elements. The Congress of New Urbanism has added local food production elements to its model,

Urban gardening, a growing trend, so to speak, in a country where eating wholesome, healthy food is becoming a national obses-sion, has enabled Laotian refugee Vou Yang to shun supermarkets while at the same time honoring the customs of her culture.

Yang grows her own food, including Laotian favorites ginger and lemongrass, at Glenham Community Gar-dens, a small urban garden serving a lower-income area of Providence, R.I. The garden is part of an extensive network operated by Providence’s Southside Commu-nity Land Trust (SCLT), a pioneer in the burgeoning Local Food Movement.

“Glenham Community Garden is my supermarket,” Yang said in an interview for an SCLT publication. “I always tell all my friends how much money I save and how they need to do the same thing I am doing. I not only save, but I eat healthy and know that my food is always going to be safe and fresh. I am living a stress-free life and I hardly ever go to the store.”

Urban gardeners who eat, share or sell what they grow are only one aspect of the Local Food Movement. The move-ment is transforming the way Americans eat and grow food, and the way farmers get their produce to consum-ers. Other key aspects of the movement include:

• Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a process through which urban residents pay farmers in advance for delivery of food baskets during the growing season. In many cases, CSAs deliver weekly batches of farm fresh produce directly to members’ homes.

By John Van Gieson

S m a r t F o o d s f r o m S m a r t G r o w t h

55

Smart Code for Smart Growth. The updated model now includes backyard, community and rooftop gardens.

The Southside Community Land Trust includes urban gardens, also known as city farms, and two CSAs. Execu-tive Director Katherine H. Brown said the trust includes 10 community gardens (farmed by 210 Providence resi-dents), two school gardens, a one-half acre City Farm that produces food for farmers markets and other busi-nesses, and a 20-acre Urban Edge Farm.

The idea of transforming vacant lots into lush urban gar-dens originated in 1981, Brown said. A group of Brown University graduates bought a rundown Victorian in a poor neighborhood and partnered with Southeast Asian immigrants to develop the city’s first urban garden.

Southern Wisconsin has become a hotbed for CSAs. Ac-cording to Erin Schneider, director of the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition, 34 farms affiliated with MACSAC distribute food not only in and around Madison, but also as far away as Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Schneider said the CSA farms in the coalition serve be-tween 12,000 and 15,000 members, who typically pay the farmers $25 to $30 a week during a 22- to 26-week growing season. The farms produce up to 32 different kinds of vegetables. Some offer fruit, herbs and eggs. Some even offer cheese, chicken, pork and beef.

MACSAC also helps members learn how to prepare their CSA bounty, offering them a cookbook titled “From As-paragus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh, Seasonal Produce.”

“CSA makes sense for your health,” Schneider said, “It makes sense for the earth, and it makes sense for your pocketbook.”

Urban gardens and CSA have become major factors in the food scene of the nation’s No. 1 food city, New York—the Big Apple. There are more than 600 commu-nity gardens in the city, many located within city parks or on other city-owned land.

Just Food describes itself as a “nonprofit organization that works to develop a just and sustainable food sys-tem in the New York City region.” Executive Director Jacquie Berger said the organization works with 35 city farms and nearly 60 CSAs. Members of CSAs pay from $350 to $550 a year for their food.

Berger said the CSA farms are typically located in New Jersey, Upstate New York and Long Island. Instead of delivering food directly to members—a problem in high-rise apartment buildings—the farmers deliver it to churches, synagogues, schools and other community centers that serve as distribution points.

New Yorkers who work the city farms sell much of their produce at farmers markets which were created to make locally grown, organic food available to city residents.

Community Supported Agriculture makes sense for your health. It

makes sense for the earth, and it makes sense for your pocketbook.

Just Food’s City Farms program works to increase food production, marketing and distribution via community gardens throughout New York City.

“They grow their own food, they run a weekly farmers market from July through October and they tend to in-vest all their earnings back into the garden,” Berger said.

“I think we’re helping New Yorkers eat well in a lot of different ways,” she added. “We are working to improve the system by which New Yorkers get food. We’re help-ing to provide additional markets to keep small local farms and organic farms in existence.”

Rosie Koenig, an organic farmer who has a Ph.D. in plant pathology from the University of Florida, start-ed the Plowshares CSA in Gainesville, Fla., in 1996. Plowshares has since grown to 90 members, including a group of families in need, who receive subsidized sea-sonal produce. Koenig grows and harvests the produce with the assistance of her husband and volunteers. Her 17-acre organic farm sits on the edge of Gainesville.

“Our farm was zoned for agriculture when we purchased it, but it now lies within the municipal service boundar-ies of Gainesville,” she said in an article posted on the Web site www.newfarm.org. “The biggest cash crop for the remaining farms around us appears to be new sub-

divisions, and soaring land values have made it impos-sible for us to purchase adjoining land to create a more holistic farm system.”

The Local Food Movement is catching on in some U.S. super-markets, although not yet to the extent to which local foods are available to shoppers in United Kingdom supermarkets.

California-based Safeway, the fourth largest U.S. super-market chain, has been a leader in offering local food to its shoppers. Safeway has been converting its older stores into “Lifestyle Stores” featuring expanded produce sec-tions under signs such as “Fresh from the fields,” and “Vegetables—Local Growers.”

There are standards for organic food grown locally, but the definition of “local food” is a matter of interpretation. Is it food produced in the same county? The same state? Or the same region of the country? Waitrose, a UK super-market chain, has the answer—it defines “local food” as food produced with 30 miles of the store that sells it.

The American Farmland Trust reports that the nation is losing 1.2 million acres of farmland a year to develop-ment, which is usually driven by urban sprawl. Serious ef-

New Yorkers who work the city

farms sell much of their pro-

duce at farmers markets which

were created to make locally

grown, organic food available

to city residents.

Lancaster County, Pa., is home to more than 5,000 working farms.

Phot

o by

Car

olin

e A

. Nov

ak

56 ON COMMON GROUND

57SUMMER 2008

forts to protect farmland from development began about 30 years ago. A variety of methods developed, with Pur-chase of Development Rights (PDR) fast becoming one of the most prevalent and effective. The American Farm-land Trust reports that more than 27 states and 50 local governments have launched PDR programs.

In typical PDR programs, local governments rely on a combination of local, state and federal funding to pur-chase development rights for the land. Farmers retain full ownership and can still farm the land, but the con-servation easements prohibit development of the land in perpetuity.

Lancaster County, in the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country and home to a large population of Amish farm-ers, launched its farmland protection program in 1980. It joined the Pennsylvania PDR program in 1989. The county, according to Karen Martynick, director of the Lancaster Farmland Trust, has “the most fertile non-ir-rigated soil in the world.” But Lancaster is within com-muting distance of Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa., and Wilmington, Del., and has experienced intense de-velopment pressure.

Matt Knepper, executive director of the county’s Agri-culture Protection Board, said the county has preserved 58,485 acres of farmland, out of a total of about 400,000. Doing so required purchasing 658 conservation ease-ments. He said conservation easement prices have been running about $3,000 an acre over the last several years.

“We feel like we’re doing very well, but we still feel like we have a ways to go,” Knepper said.

The Lancaster County farmland protection program primarily serves “Plain Sect” farmers—the Amish, along with a smaller population of Mennonites. At first, Mar-tynick said, the Amish weren’t interested in selling de-velopment rights, but the program now has 300 Amish farms under easement.

They [Amish farmers] are selling

something that has real value—

development rights.

Farmers in Lancaster County work hard to preserve their farm land for future generations.

Photo by Caroline A. Novak


“They really viewed it as getting something for nothing, which is against their beliefs,” she said. “Now they real-ize they’re selling something that has real value—devel-opment rights.”

In Lancaster County, and many other places across the country, the federal Farm and Ranchlands Protection Program (FRPP) of the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCP) provides funding to help local govern-ments purchase development rights. NRCP Chief Arlen Lancaster said the FRPP has helped to preserve 536,936 acres on 2,764 farms.

Increasingly, local governments are using both PDRs and TDRs to preserve farmland. Lancaster County is working with several municipalities to develop TDR programs. Montgomery County, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C., has the most advanced TDR pro-gram in the country. It relies on a PDR program to in-crease its options.

Under TDR programs, the farmland where the rights origi-nate is called the “sending” parcel. The land where those rights will be used is called the “receiving” parcel. The

A development right equals one

housing unit, but there are dou-

ble-density bonuses for condo-

miniums and garden apartments.

58 ON COMMON GROUND

The Incredible, Edible…Schoolyard


farmer sells development rights—in accordance with local regulations—to a developer who can then use the rights in areas designated by the local government for development.

John Zawitowski, director of planning and promotion for the Montgomery County Agricultural Services Divi-sion, said developers can obtain 16 development rights with a TDR agreement on a 100-acre farm. Basically, he said, a development right equals one housing unit, but there are double-density bonuses for condominiums and garden apartments.

The average price for TDRs peaked at $42,000 an acre several years ago, but has since leveled off to about $8,400 an acre, Zawitowski said. He noted that Mont-gomery County has preserved more than 58,000 acres of farmland through TDR agreements.

“Our goal is 70,000 acres, and between TDR and PDR we’re going to hit 70,000 later this year.” ●

John Van Gieson is a freelance writer based in Tallahassee, Fla. He owns and runs Van Gieson Media Relations, Inc.

Remember the food they served in the lunchroom when you were in school? Pretty awful, right? Well, that was then, and this is now—in Berkeley, Calif., at least.

Inspired by celebrated local chef Alice Waters, the Berkeley schools are at the forefront of a national movement to teach children the value of wholesome, nutritious food. Schools around the country are joining the movement, including many colleges that have committed to serving local, organic food on campus. Some are even growing their own.

Waters ignited a food revolution in 1971 when she opened her Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse. The menu emphasizes fresh, local, seasonal, organic food. Over the years she devel-oped an interest in teaching children to eat right. In 1994 she began working with the principal of Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley to launch the Edible Schoolyard project.

The Edible Schoolyard comprises a one-acre organic garden and a kitchen classroom. Students grow the food, primarily vegetables, and learn how to prepare, cook and serve it. Ac-cording to the Edible Schoolyard’s mission statement, this serves “as a means of awakening their senses and encourag-ing awareness and appreciation of the transformative values of nourishment, community and stewardship of the land.”

Instead of the mystery meat you might remember from your school cafeteria, the kids at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School are whipping up dishes such as “Jerusalem Artichoke Fritters, Pumpkin and Kale Soup, Cucumber Sushi, Sweet Potato Biscuits, Seasonal Harvest Soup, and Brown Rice Salad in Red Chard Leaves.”

Makes your mouth water, doesn’t it?

Marsha Guerrero, director of special projects for Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation, said lessons learned from grow-ing, preparing and cooking the food are fully integrated into the school’s curriculum. Part of the Foundation’s mission, Guerrero said, is to encourage school gardens and food edu-cation programs at schools all over the country.

After the middle Gulf Coast was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Foundation opened a second Edible Schoolyard project at the Samuel J. Green Charter School in New Orleans. A third Edible Schoolyard is in the works at the Monte del Sole Charter School in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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“We are affiliating ourselves with schools that have a program in place,” Guerrero said. “There are hundreds and hundreds of schools across the country that have gardening programs.”

Another outgrowth of Water’s interest in teaching children to appreciate good food is the School Lunch Initiative in all of the Berkeley schools. Backed by a $10 million bond is-sue approved by Berkeley voters in 2000, the School Lunch Initiative states schools’ commitment to serving fresh fruits and vegetables at every meal, banning processed food and ensuring that kid favorites such as pizza and Mexican food are made from fresh, local produce.

In 2003 Waters helped to conceive the Yale Sustainable Food Project, a higher education local food program that has set an example for colleges and universities na-

tionwide. Yale purchases fresh produce from local farm-ers, enabling it to provide sustainable food menus at all of its campus dining facilities.

Josh Viertel, co-director of the Yale Smart Food Proj-ect, said the university enters into agreements with local farmers, in some cases agreeing to purchase everything they produce. He said the university guarantees one lo-cal farmer it will buy his entire tomato crop. A local pro-cessor turns the tomatoes into salsa and a local printer makes the labels for the Yale Salsa brand.

Local grass-fed beef is also served on campus. Viertel said Yalies tell him the grass-fed beef burgers are the best they’re ever eaten.

At Yale and other colleges, local food is part of a larger com-mitment to sustainability and reducing carbon emissions.

“If Yale is going to meet the carbon reduction goals it set out, it really has to engage with the foot it eats,” said Josh Viertel, co-director of the Yale Smart Food Project.

Yale has its own organic garden on campus. Students grow salad greens—served on campus—and have a weekly wood-fired pizza party featuring produce from the garden. Most of what’s grown, however, is sold at local farmers markets.

One of the benefits of fresh local food, as Waters once noted in a speech, is the pleasure of eating it. “I realize that our society is uncomfortable with the notion that education might teach our children how to experience pleasure; but the sensual pleasure of eating beautiful food from the garden brings with it the moral satisfaction of doing the right thing for the planet and for yourself.” ●

REALTORS® Take ActionMaking Smart Growth Happen

job—it was designed to educate REALTORS® about how smart growth can offer residents more choices in housing and transportation, while giving businesses new opportunities to grow without adversely affecting the environment.

Aurora, Ill., outside of Chicago, is a city with “good bones”—a beautiful downtown core nestled alongside the Fox River. But the city has nonetheless suffered over the last several decades as factories closed and activity moved into the suburbs. The community is determined to turn that around, however—and local REALTORS® are part of the action.

“REALTORS® are very much the sales force of the cities they live and work in,” says Sharon Gorrell, who works for the Illinois Association of REALTORS® and serves as local government affairs director for the Fox Valley and Aurora Tri-County areas. “For revital-ization to be successful, the city has to train its sales force, like any company. REALTORS® need to know how to sell their product.”

That training was the primary goal of the Aurora Downtown Showcase, a day-long expo supported in part by a $3,000 Smart Growth Action Grant from the National Association of REALTORS®. More than 200 commercial real estate agents and other guests gathered on June 5, 2007, to hear speakers, learn about city efforts to revitalize parks and the riverfront, and enjoy a luncheon. During the afternoon the RE-ALTORS® took part in extensive walking tours and visited open houses in several downtown buildings. The day started off with a welcome by Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner and finished with a reception.

While the event focused on the advantages of invest-ing in downtown Aurora, it was more than a sales

Aurora, Illinois: Downtown Showcase


The featured speakers included Douglas Farr of Farr Associates, who spoke of the potential for building “green” by participating in the Leadership in Ener-gy and Environmental Design certification process. NAR’s Hugh Morris detailed the potential for down-town revitalization, and the role of REALTORS® in making it successful. Noted architect James Loewen-berg related his experience designing highly successful urban residential and mixed-use developments in the Chicago region.

The expo was coordinated with Seize the Future—a re-development foundation that has pooled community resources to revitalize the city of 170,000. David Dor-gan of Seize the Future says the event, and an event held the year before for residential real estate agents, have been critical educational tools for a real estate community that had focused on suburban subdivision development. “There hasn’t been a housing market in

downtown, and the point is, I have to make people be-lievers in downtown. We’ve been supported very well by the REALTORS®.”

Aurora’s downtown makeover is well underway, with revitalization of the riverfront and the city’s train sta-tion (which features a Metra commuter train into Chicago). A 2,000-unit housing development and another 150-unit condominium project that is a tran-sit-oriented development, are currently under con-struction.

The ‘high-end’ nature of the Aurora Downtown Showcase event wouldn’t have been possible without the NAR support, but Gorrell says what was even more valuable was the knowledge that the national as-sociation recognized the event’s importance. “It spoke volumes that we had this large million-plus member organization willing to come to the city and be part of the action.”

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REALTORS® Take ActionMaking Smart Growth Happen

York/Adams County Bus Trip Leads to TND HandbookIn York and Adams Counties in southeastern Penn-sylvania, REALTORS® have rolled up their sleeves and are working closely with elected officials and city planners to influence the shape of development with the help of two NAR Smart Growth Action Grants.

The region is known for its rural beauty, but is threat-ened by sprawling housing developments as people who work in neighboring Maryland seek less expensive housing. The REALTORS® Association of York and Adams Counties saw a solution in the form of Tradi-tional Neighborhood Developments (TNDs)—com-pact mixed use developments that can accommodate growth while minimizing the impact on open space. The concept was a new one for the area, and educa-

tion was the first order of business. “A lot of times when people hear about high density, they think you are bringing the city to a rural area, and they become very alarmed,” says Shanna Wiest, government affairs director for the association. Pictures of TNDs don’t tell the whole story, Wiest added, because it’s difficult to get a sense of how high the density actually is from photographs alone.

The Association decided that if seeing is believing, they would need to take local officials to see a real TND. They used their first Smart Growth Action Grant to sponsor a bus trip for elected officials and staff from several local jurisdictions to see Kentlands in Maryland outside of Washington D.C. in May of 2006. Kent-

62 ON COMMON GROUND

lands is a neo-traditional community that features a mix of detached homes, townhomes, condos and apartments with a neighboring retail center. The participants arrived prepared: prior to the bus trip the Association held eve-ning workshops in both counties to help participants understand TND design. The workshops featured a builder using TND design, and a planner from nearby Eastland Township in neighboring Lancaster County, where TND techniques are being used. The Association wanted to be sure that the municipal officials who were the target of their efforts heard from their peers about the potential of this alternative form of development.

“What was really great was that we had one municipal-ity that was in the early adoption stage on TND regula-tions. They sent five municipal staff members [on the bus trip] so they could see what TND would look and feel like. It was extremely beneficial to them.”

Once the trip was over, the REALTORS® Association realized there was much more work to be done. “There were lots of discussions in our community—‘we need to save open space.’ And another: ‘we have a big issue around affordable housing.’ Then others, ‘what kind of development should we be doing?’” says Wiest. “All of these discussions were taking place separately, but we needed to have them all together. Land use, open space preservation and affordable housing are all re-lated to each other.” The Association realized that the REALTORS® alone could not answer these questions, and so took the lead in forming the York/Adams Re-gional Smart Growth Coalition. The Coalition has invited Chambers of Commerce, Economic Develop-ment Corporations, affordable housing groups, build-ers and others to join.

The new Coalition wanted to help municipalities adopt TND ordinances—but with 106 townships,

boroughs, and cities between the two counties, the task looked daunting. The Coalition decided to create a model TND ordinance and found support through a second NAR Smart Growth Action Grant. The idea for a model ordinance evolved into a handbook to help localities write their own ordinances. A 12-per-son committee with help from a consultant has writ-ten a draft of the handbook.

The REALTORS® Association and the Smart Growth Coalition plan to create a companion PowerPoint to help introduce the new tool to local officials; they hope it will result in development that will preserve the beauty in two counties that are among the fastest growing in the state. Wiest says the projects supported by the Action Grants prove that “REALTORS® don’t just sell homes, we build communities.”

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