Living Green

When you hear the term “green building,” do visions of strange-looking homes, insulated with hay bales, built out of recycled cardboard and landscaped with a plain, low water usage rock garden enter your mind? While most of us have heard more and more about green building in the media and in our communities, too few of us really know what the term includes—and what the benefits truly are.

The scoop

According to Build It Green, a professional, nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to promote healthy, energy- and resource-efficient buildings in California, and which also developed a home rating program, green buildings are “sited, designed, constructed and operated to enhance the well-being of occupants and to minimize negative impacts on the community and natural environment.” Build It Green states, “Green buildings provide a healthier and more comfortable environment, improve long-term economic performance, incorporate energy- and water-efficient technologies, use recycled materials in their construction, reduce construction and demolition waste, bring higher resale value, are landscaped for water and energy efficiency, include renewable energy technologies, improve indoor air quality, reduce environmental impact and are easier to maintain and built to last.”

For Geof Syphers, chief sustainability officer for Codding Enterprises, green building ultimately meets two primary objectives: “Green building, as it’s applied in California by most folks, is a way of measuring two primary goals,” he explains. “One is the building’s health, air quality and so forth. Things that would play into health would include low-emission carpet and low-odor paint. The other primary goal is high performance or high efficiency things, like water, energy, reduced waste, reduced pressure on landfills and reduced air emissions. High efficiency also means better for the environment because we’re having a lower impact but achieving the same or better results.”

How green is it?

Any builder can claim their home or development is a “green building,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s “certified green,” a regulated term meaning the building has been evaluated and has achieved a certain standard. Indeed, California’s Code of Regulations “Title 24,” which stringently mandates energy efficiency standards for both residential and nonresidential buildings, ensures all new developments have some green aspects to them.

To complicate matters further, there is (as of yet) not one federally mandated standard for green building, and the one standard used most often—the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED system (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)—only applies to commercial, not residential, buildings. This loophole has left home developers with the option to decide between several rating systems.

“In the residential world, there are more possible ways of rating a building,” explains Syphers. “Here in the Bay Area, the one that’s winning out is something called ‘Green Point.’ ‘GreenPoint rated’ is a phrase used for certifying single- and multi-family homes. Cities like Cotati, Sebastopol and Santa Rosa require a certain number of points on that scale for any new home being constructed.”

In December, the Rohnert Park City Council conducted a hearing about adopting similar regulations. A final vote wasn’t scheduled before press time, but according to Geof Syphers, the proposal was boasting unanimous support.

Lookin’ good

While there may not be one universally recognized and regulated certification process yet, most green developers agree that green building is about much more than just using non-VOC paint [paints that release no, or minimal, volatile organic compound pollutants, and are virtually odor-free] and installing dual-flush toilets.

“Everybody has an idea of what green is, but when you really talk about green, I suspect the first things people think about are the more obvious things, like solar panels, heat-resistant glass and so forth,” says Richard Pope, CEO of St. James Properties, which is building a cutting-edge, multi-family residential community known as Celsius 44 in downtown Petaluma. “But we look at these things with a holistic approach. One of the things we consider is whether it’s possible to have a walkable community. Could someone live there without having to use a car every day? Because if you can take cars off the road, obviously that’s one of the biggest things you can do to help—especially if you look at the bigger global warming and gas emissions picture.”

Keeping this holistic approach in mind, Celsius 44, located between First and Second streets and F and G streets in downtown Petaluma, is focusing on providing an example of smart development. Plans include minimizing sprawl, reducing the reliance on cars and incorporating resource-saving technologies and environmentally friendly guidelines.

“[Celsius 44] is located near the town center and public transportation, it’s walkable and you wouldn’t have to use your car every day—we believe these are some of the prerequisites of a green community,” says Pope. “The other thing is, it’s being built on an old site [industrial buildings] that had an existing use. So what we’re doing is recycling—we’re not going back in and destroying farmland; we’re recycling an existing site.”

Similarly, Sonoma Mountain Village, Codding Enterprises’ huge mixed-use development in Rohnert Park, is environmentally friendly, not only through its use of green building tactics, but also by its very nature of being mixed-use, which focuses on minimizing the need for cars and giving individuals the option to work near to where they live.  

Even though Sonoma Mountain Village (SMV) boasts the largest privately funded, solar-powered system in California—90,000 square feet of solar panels generating 1.14 megawatts, enough to power 1,000 homes during peak periods and 700 homes year-round—Geof Syphers believes the principal green aspect of SMV, beyond any specific green building tactic, is the lifestyle that will be created by building a community where cars won’t be an everyday necessity.

“There’s still plenty of places to park, it’s still very easy to use a car…but the idea is, the streets are narrow, the blocks are short, there’s a cluster of practical services around the town square and no one in the community lives more than a five-minute walk from that square,” says Syphers.

“The idea is to make it easier to be environmentally conscious but not to force it on people. It’s a choice. And if you make it easy, then people will take you up on it. That’s the underlying philosophy [of SMV]—designing a village that really works.”

The home turf

Fortunately, it appears many developers in the North Bay are taking heed of concerns impacting both the environment and homeowners and are striving to meet the top tiers of green building standards.
As one of the first players on the “green scene” in the North Bay, Christopherson Homes is now engaged in six green communities, including Olive Ridge in Novato, West Haven in Petaluma, and the Oak Hollow, Grasslands, Sagewood and Linwood communities in Santa Rosa. Since its first green project, Manes Ranch in Santa Rosa, became available in 2004, the company has been busy refining and perfecting its green building tactics. It now uses many green features, including low-VOC paint, solar panels, wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, formaldehyde-free insulation, upgraded furnaces, low water use landscaping, built-in recycling centers and fly-ash in concrete, just to name a few.

“We now finally have a template for our green features down,” explains Amy Christopherson Bolten, director of community and public relations. “Many projects were developed before our template was completed. But we’ve committed to continue to build everything green in the North Bay with the vision of ultimately taking that to our Sacramento projects as well.”

Indeed, all of the developers interviewed for this article expressed a commitment to green building—not just for one home or development, but for all projects moving forward, despite existing challenges.
“The ultimate goal of the green movement is that green building will become the way everything is built,” says Michael LeValley, principal of Live Oak Design Group, which is currently constructing Live Oak Estates, a luxury residential project in San Rafael consisting of six estates on 30 acres. “When you go to the green conferences, the focus is not so much on ‘How do I certify this?’ Rather, it’s ‘How do we implement this into the way we do things?’ which is really more important. The ultimate goal is that green building isn’t the exception but the rule.”

Michael McCutcheon, president of McCutcheon Construction and builder of Live Oak Estates, agrees that green building will continue to gain popularity, driven by consumer demand.

“Green building is the future of construction because it means simply ‘best practices’ at its most fundamental level,” says McCutcheon. “Who doesn’t want a more energy-efficient, cost-saving, comfortable, resource-conserving, high-quality home that will last a very long time?  Or, put another way, who wants toxic, inefficient construction?  No one. There will be ‘shades of green’ from minor improvements—light green—to major—dark green. Major will include the more exotic and expensive items, such as photovoltaic systems [lighting systems that use photovoltaic cells to directly convert sunlight into electricity]. While these will become more common, not everyone will have them. Less expensive green options, such as low- and no-VOC paints will be universal.”

It’s not always easy

While it may seem like a no-brainer to build green, given the benefits to the environment and to the building occupants, building green isn’t necessarily easy. To start, it’s still more expensive for both green materials and labor, especially in an already tight building market, and subcontractors are often unfamiliar with green building materials and techniques. In addition, with green building gaining in popularity and new improvements and technological developments occurring rapidly, developers need to ensure that new products will be durable and manufacturers will be around for the long term.

“That was one of the problems that occurred in the ’70s,” explains Doug Hilberman, President of AXIA Architects, which is designing the West Entry project, a green, mixed-use development in Santa Rosa that’s planned to be completely “carbon neutral” and was accepted into LEED’s pilot program for a new residential certification process. “You have these companies that started up, and then as soon as the tax refunds were cut, nobody could service their solar panels. So as a design professional, I want to make sure the homeowners and commercial occupants can find parts and have service for the products we’re installing. We’re building things intended to last, and so we need to make sure the products we’re installing are just the same.”

Wen-I Chang, founder and president of Atman Hospitality Group and owner and developer of the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa, the first green hotel in California (and second in the United States), encountered many roadblocks in the five years it took to see his idea come to fruition (the hotel officially opened in November 2006). Despite lack of city support at the initial site in Half Moon Bay, additional fees for green consulting services and inflated building costs for green materials, Chang managed to stick to his vision of beauty and a healthy lifestyle without compromising on his beliefs concerning sustainable use of materials, creation of energy, conservation of resources and waste management.

“Recycled lumber costs about four times as much as commercial lumber because there isn’t as much demand or supply,” says Chang.  “But the more we support them, the more the price will go down. For example, I just came back from [the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo presented annually by the United States Green Building Council in Denver], and there used to be only one roof garden supplier. This time, I collected information from about 15 suppliers.”

Chang hasn’t just seen an increase in green building material suppliers since attending his first green conference in 2002 but also a dramatic increase in attendees as well. This increase proves more and more developers and consumers are interested in and demanding green building.

“Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia are all ahead of us in green building. But just by seeing things happening during the last four or five years, I know the United States is making a big move,” says Chang. “The first time I joined the green conference, there were about 400 people. The second time there were about 800 people. Two years ago, there were 7,000, and last week in Denver there were 12,000 people. It’s exponential growth. I’m particularly happy to see a lot of young people, which means the next generation will be sensitive to green practices.”

While public awareness is growing, some developers still point to it as a major challenge in marketing green homes. “I think the biggest challenge is how you market them [green homes] because, when people think of green buildings, their thoughts kind of vary, from something that’s really ugly to ‘Am I going to live in a house of straw and hemp?’” quips Pope, who, besides working on the Celsius 44 project, is also the project director on Codding’s Sonoma Mountain Village.

“There isn’t anybody, if you say, ‘Here’s a beautiful house that you’ll love living in and will be pleased to show your friends, and will also help save western civilization and keep you healthy,’ who wouldn’t choose that. If you can do that, everything would be environmentally acceptable. But you’re going to have to market this to the general public in other ways besides just saying it’s green. For this to be successful in the future, and for people to do this and keep doing this, we’re going to have to educate everybody that this is a great thing to do—without having to give anything up.”

Some developers have even downplayed the green aspect in their marketing materials for fear of discouraging people from checking out the homes. Perhaps that’s why most green certification programs include an aspect of education in their rating systems.

“The educational process is one LEED criteria where you get LEED points,” explains James Soule, general manager of the Gaia Hotel, which, because it’s a commercial building, is hoping to receive the “gold” rating in the LEED system. “It’s a point system, and one of the points is based on educating the public. So when you come into our lobby, we have a touch-screen display that actually shows guests how much we’re saving in electrical and water usage based on our practices.”

Besides just educating the public to achieve a high certification rating, however, Wen-I Chang is hoping his hotel will act as a medium to “change the world, one traveler at a time.” Because of his strong belief in conservation and sustainability, he’s hoping the Gaia Hotel will be a messenger that will educate its guests on the importance of saving the earth’s resources.

A green future

As public awareness grows and demand for green materials, techniques and buildings increases, supply will inevitably grow to meet demand, ultimately driving down costs. And as more green suppliers and developers emerge in the marketplace, innovation will flourish. New techniques will emerge that will continue to provide healthy alternatives to standard building practices.

“People are really starting to get it, and they’re starting to figure out they can’t really build the old way for very much longer,” says Syphers. “Environmentalists are increasingly getting more attention because environmental problems are increasingly costing us money. So we’re trying to create a model that recognizes the fact that we’re going to be forced to do this within a decade anyway, and we want to be doing it before we’re forced to because we want to be good stewards, be responsible and be good businesspeople. But we also know it’ll be less expensive, and we’ll make a better profit, in the long run. Because if we’re forced to do it, it’s going to be very expensive and a shock to the system, so we want to be leading that.”