City Ventures is having amazing success with our Greenkey program.  As a Company we’ve doubled in size the first two years of our existence.  We closed roughly 50 homes and did $25M in revenue the first year, 100 closings and $50M in revenue the second year and we’re on track to close 200 homes and $100M in revenue in 2012.  So we’re really busy but I enjoy writing the Blogs and will continue to no matter how busy we get.

So back to Greenkey.

Greenkey is our definition of what it means to be a Green Builder.   As I’ve said in previous Blogs, early on we used LEED certification as our defining Green strategy.  The LEED program certified that the home is Green by applying a point system to what the Builder puts in the home.  The problem is we discovered early on that LEED is expensive and cumbersome to utilize and worse, didn’t really offer the homeowner real cost savings for being Green.  We invented Greenkey as a means for defining Green Building by what we believe is the best.  Having done this for a few years, we feel we have a better gauge on what really matters to todays homebuyers when it comes to being Green AND saving money.  They want both.

So what makes a home Greenkey?

It starts by making our homes all electric.  That’s right I said ALL electric.  There is NO natural gas in our Greenkey projects.  At this point Gas and Electric are the only two sources of energy in the modern neighborhood.  Gas is the preferred choice because it’s cheaper than electricity.  The problem is that Gas won’t light your home or run your gadgets, computers and TV’s.  In most homes, Gas is used to heat hot water heaters, heat furnaces, run cooking appliances, and clothes dryers.  Obviously anything that needs heat.  There are electric versions of all this equipment, but the cost of the electricity to heat water, air, clothes, and food is WAY more expensive than Gas.  Thus Gas and Electric have been doing double duty in virtually all new homes.

As a Builder we have to install the infrastructure in each home that makes them able to provide Gas and Electric energy.  That’s not inexpensive and the cost is obviously built into the price of the home.  No one would buy the home if it were all electric because the cost every month to the homeowner would be so much larger than the Gas/Electric home.  I would venture to say the monthly electric bill would be triple to four times as great as the combination of a gas bill and an electric bill.  In fact it’s so energy INEFFICENT that in California, Title 24 would not allow you to even build the home because it wouldn’t meet State mandated energy efficiency requirements.  The utility companies would burn too much coal and fuel to provide the electricity needed to power all electric homes.

So how can City Ventures build and sell all electric homes?

That answer next month.  Hint:  The electricity cost will be zero, or close to zero.

Until then

Herb

If I put low flow plumbing fixtures in my house thereby using less water, that’s being Green. When we formed City Ventures we made it a mandate of the Company to push the envelope of building Green.  As we feel it’s clearly evident that Green Building is the future, we wanted to evolve our building process to include Green concepts as early as possible and stay ahead of the Green Building game.  We chose LEED as the program that would measure how Green we were building.  While LEED is a great way of measuring Green, we found after two years of using it that it’s cost to certify aren’t worth the bureaucracy and paperwork we need to go through to obtain Certification.  It costs over $1,000 just to get the LEED certification.  More importantly we felt we could provide our homeowners with a much more practical and money saving definition of what it means to buy and live in a Green home.

And that’s what our Greenkey homes are.

It’s OUR definition of Green.  We know enough about building Green now that we can better pick and choose among the unlimited number of individual Green ideas that result in a Green Home and do it in a way that we feel is best for our homeowners or potential buyers.  LEED and several of the other “Green measuring” programs all have their own definitions of Green.  Some are good ideas, all are definitely Green, and all of them cost money.  As the Builder, we’re basically spending that money for the future homeowners while we construct the home.  Therefore we’re choosing what Green will mean for those homeowners.

We’ve decided to choose differently than all those other ”Green measuring” programs.

And that’s what are Greenkey homes are.

They’re Green homes where City Ventures chose the components that make them Green.  Since almost all Green components cost money, we chose components that not only save natural resources from a Global perspective, but save the homeowner actual money from a monthly cost of living perspective.  It’s the best of both worlds because we’re helping save Mother Nature, and our homeowners save money while saving Mother Nature.  And I don’t mean save money from some nebulous “save money over time” concept.  I mean truly save money from their checking account every month.

So how does that happen??

Let’s talk about that next time.

Until then

Herb

I started this series of blogs by defining what “Green” means. That led to how one can “measure” being Green. I used the LEED certification process as one way of measuring how Green a project is, and then wrote several Blogs explaining in depth the LEED process and how they define Green. City Ventures is currently building 6 projects to a LEED Gold certification. In that evolution of green building we’re discovering and adopting a new way to be Green.

And it doesn’t involve LEED.

What we’ve discovered as we learn how to produce Green homes is that LEED, while an excellent program on some levels, falls way short on other levels. Being Green for the sake of being Green is one strategy and one that is best suited for using the LEED program. However there are excellent Green strategies available that fall outside the LEED program. As a builder if we choose a Green strategy that LEED does not recognize, than that strategy doesn’t receive any points. As virtually all Green strategies available today cost more money, we’ve found ourselves having to decide between strategies that are green and get LEED points and strategies that are Green that save the homeowner on costs of living but do not earn LEED points.

Which is why we’re taking this radical turn.

City Ventures is devising it’s own Green strategy. It’s called Greenkey. Our goal with Greenkey is to adopt Green strategies that actually save the homeowner money by producing actual cost of living savings. The “list” of what makes a Greenkey home will constantly grow and evolve as we discover new and innovative Green ways of saving homeowners money by building more efficient homes and neighborhoods. The ultimate goal will be when the first Greenkey home is net zero energy. Net zero energy is when the amount of energy consumed by the home is equal to the amount of energy the homes produces.

We believe everyone wants to be Green. If you polled people walking out of the supermarket and asked them if they’d pay more for a Green home, they’d all probably say yes. When the reality of actually having to pay more for something simply because it’s Green actually shows up, most people make a different choice. Mother Earth needs to be saved but not if I have to actually write a check. If the choice is between a $350,000 townhome that isn’t Green next door to a $360,000 townhome that is Green, the real world is that Mother Earth takes a backseat to most people writing that $10,000 check.

That’s why we’ve decided to move past LEED, which is a purely Green program, and towards one that is Green AND reduces the cost of living for each homeowner that chooses to buy. Next Blog I’ll go back to the beginning and bring everyone up to date on our Greenkey strategy and what our first group of projects looks like from a Green standpoint and then where were looking to go in the future.

Until then

Herb

The intent of this sub-category is to minimize long term environmental damage to the site during the construction process.  It’s actually kind of a “duh” aspect of the process because it’s so obvious to builders in California.  The extensive Storm water laws in California mandate that we protect the site during the construction process. I built in Texas for many years and there were no laws whatsoever aimed at limiting environmental damage to the site during construction.  In California you can face some serious fines if you ignore the law.

From the LEED perspective, Site Stewardship, has only two components to it; Erosion controls during construction and minimize disturbance to the site.

Erosion control during construction is kind of self explanatory but this is the one that can get you in big trouble in California.  There has to be a plan in place so that NOTHING from the site erodes off the site. In other words if it rains for 3 days straight, or 30 days straight, not one grain of dirt from the site can end up in the storm drain system.  Protections must be in place to safeguard anything on the site from ever leaving the site.  Sounds pretty onerous, I agree, but in reality if every construction site had no protections in place, then the storm drain system would be overrun with sediment during any kind of rain event.  The only way to fix that is every so often someone has to pay to go clean out tons and tons of sediment from the storm drain system, which is exactly what the State of California was doing for years and years.  Billions of dollars were spent dredging all this dirt from storm drain channels until someone finally figured out that if we make laws forcing all construction sites to make sure nothing erodes from the site we wouldn’t have to clean out the storm drain channels so often.  LEED awards points for doing just that, but in California you don’t have a choice.

The second component has more to do with design than construction but LEED awards points if those decisions “steward” the site towards minimizing disturbance of the site.  If the site was NOT previously developed, and you leave 40% of the buildable area completely undisturbed, you can get points. If the site was NOT or WAS previously developed and you develop a tree or plant preservation plan for the site, you can get points.  The best part of this component is if you design with a density of greater than 7 per acre you can receive all the points in this component without doing any of the other things. Being an infill builder, we rarely ever build anything at less than 7 units per acre so that part is easy to achieve.

To sum up this component, we’re an infill builder in California.  Those two aspects alone make getting these LEED points almost impossible NOT to get.  By law we have to implement erosion controls during construction, and we wouldn’t even consider an infill project that yields less than 7 units per acre.

Next time let’s talk about the “Landscaping” sub-category of “Sustainable Sites”

Until then

Herb

But back to our discussion about LEED and how they determine “Greenability”. That’s my new word.

So the last few blogs we talked about Water Efficiency, one of eight LEED categories that garner points towards Certification as a Green Project. Now we’re going to spend a little time on another category. LEED calls it “Sustainable Sites”. Although the focus of green building is on the built structures located on a site, the design of the site and its natural elements can have a significant environmental impact. The Locations & Linkages category, which we’ll discuss next, rewards projects for choosing a preferable site location. The Sustainable Sites category rewards projects for designing that “preferable” site to minimize adverse impacts.

Early decisions about how to incorporate the homes “into” the site can have significant long term effects. The way in which a home is, or is not, integrated into the site can have various effects and the more those effects are minimized, the more LEED points, and thus more green, the project becomes. Site design should take into consideration not only the aesthetic and functional preferences of the occupants but also long term management needs, preservation principles, and potential impacts on local and regional ecosystems.

The category has six sub-categories. First is “Site Stewardship”, which is a fancy way of saying we minimize the damage to the lot during construction. Second is “Landscaping” which is kind of obvious but a pretty broad topic we’ll discuss later. Plus you’ll remember landscaping was a big component of the Water Efficiency” category. Third is “Local Heat Island Effects” which gets into how much of the site radiates heat. It actually has a pretty big impact. Fourth is “Surface Water Management” which is kind of self evident. As is the fifth which is “Non-toxic pest control”. Finally there is “Compact Development” which I’ll explain later.

In fact I’ll start dealing with each of the six sub-categories next time as I didn’t realize I’d be this wordy in the introduction.

Until then

Herb

Indoor water use efficiency differs from the previous two components in a way that up until now we haven’t had a chance or need, to talk about. Marketing. If you’ll remember the first component had to do with water REUSE. Other than infrastructure changes, for the most part this very green aspect occurs with little or no notice from the occupant. Even the second component, outdoor water use efficiency, can be implemented in a very green way without compromising anything in the how the property looks or functions. To be a successful green builder, you have to walk the fine line between being green and doing what’s best for the planet, and providing a product that the modern homebuyer has come to expect from a new home and how it lives. The reality of green building is that almost everyone SAYS they want to be green, but if they have to pay extra for it or it changes their way of life in a dramatic fashion, they’ll opt out of being green in a heartbeat.

Which gets us back to the Indoor Water Use efficiency component of LEED.

When it comes to indoor water use, its pretty simple. Wherever it comes out, try and make LESS of it come out, yet still accomplish its purpose. That’s the purest definition of efficiency…accomplishing the same with less. Showers, faucets, toilets, washers & dishwashers are pretty much the extent of our indoor water use, but can you think of five more important aspects of every day life in our modern society? Indoor water use efficiency is achieved by installing faucets and fixtures that lower the output of water to its designated use. Low flow fixtures and faucets definitely accomplish the goal of being efficient but this is where the tricky part of being a green builder in this aspect comes into play. People love their long luxurious showers, they want their dishes sparkling and their clothes soft and clean….and there can be nothing more annoying than having to flush a toilet twice to achieve its intended use. In other words purchasing low flow faucets and fixtures based on cost alone without researching which ones accomplish the goal of efficiency WITHOUT sacrificing function needs to be the absolute goal in this component. Being penny wise and pound foolish here can actually turn out to be very costly to a builder from a customer satisfaction standpoint. That’s why this aspect needs to be carefully planned out and implemented.

The very best low flow faucets and fixtures are NOT inexpensive. That makes this component of LEED a costly green aspect. As with all other products, I imagine the evolution will continue and low flow items will get better and cheaper. The Green Builder will continue to monitor the progress of this evolution but until function and cost become more realistic in how they can affect marketing and customer satisfaction, this expensive aspect of green building will have to be implemented with great caution.

Next time we’ll begin our discussion of another of LEED’s eight categories. We’ve discussed energy and water efficiency over the last several blogs.

Next we’ll tackle “Sustainable Sites”

Until then

Herb

This week I’ll talk about one of the other two sub-categories; outdoor water use.

Outdoor water use has to do with the irrigation system for the landscaping. You’d think that the landscape design and the kind of plants etc would dictate how much water gets used and to a certain extent it does. But in reality it’s possible to have a completely inefficient irrigation system watering an expertly designed LEED certified landscape plan. That’s why landscape is part of another LEED category called “Sustainable Site”. To earn LEED points for outdoor water use, Irrigation systems must be designed and installed to minimize the amount of water needed to maintain the landscape. Although a lot of this is kind of obvious, you’d be amazed at how much is overlooked and ignored in most of the irrigation systems installed.

There are two ways the maximum amount of points can be earned for outdoor water use. One is install a high-efficiency irrigation system and have a third party verify its efficiency. The other is to use a formula that calculates the amount of water needed to irrigate a specified landscape area that takes into account species, microclimate factors and irrigation equipment and then reduce that amount by 45%. If that sounds complicated and subject to serious interpretation issues, I agree. The first way is much easier to comprehend and implement. Here you get points for adopting at least three of 7 “strategies” that create an efficient irrigation system. Obviously it would be most efficient to adopt all 7 but LEED at this time gives max points if you adopt three.

Design a system with head to head coverage is one. Doing this keeps the water coming out of the heads from overlapping each other causing some areas to be watered more heavily than others. A second way is to use drip irrigation on at least 50% of the landscape beds. This puts more water in the ground and less in the air through evaporation. A third is to create separate zones based on the bedding type. More porous bedding types obviously absorb water quicker and can stand longer watering times while non-porous beds will create runoff in the same time frame. Installing a timer is a fourth way. This allows the landscape zones to be watered at the best time of day to avoid evaporative effects and to only water for a specified time related to the needs of each zone. Fifth is to install pressure regulating devices to maintain proper pressure and avoid misting. Misting water never hits the ground and ends up as humidity in the air. Sixth is to use high efficiency nozzles that control distribution uniformity so areas within the zone receive the same amount of water. And seventh is to install a moisture sensor controller that shuts the system down in case of rain. How stupid is it when you see someone’s sprinklers on while its raining.

As I said its best to use all 7 seven strategies but for LEED purposes you max out in terms of points at three. I think over time in locales that have water issues, all these strategies will be law instead of optional, and in reality they should be. As I said before most of the growth in this country is occurring in areas with water issues and learning how not to “waste” water now, makes it easier in the future.

Next time we’ll talk about indoor water use.
Until then

Herb

Remember I also said last time that growth can be severely limited by access to water. As a region tries to grow, if it can’t get water, it won’t grow for long. As the costs of getting MORE water to an area increase, it will eventually become a situation where those costs will exceed the ability of that region to grow. If the costs of getting MORE water are prohibitive, then the only way to grow is to use the water that you ARE getting more efficiently.

LEED awards points in their certification process for building new homes and neighborhoods that use water more efficiently. There are three areas points can be earned.

First is the reuse of water. And there’s three ways points can be earned there. First we can capture and reuse rainwater. Obviously it can’t be used for everything as it isn’t treated for drinking or bathing purposes, but it can certainly be harvested and used for landscaping. Of course it’s a little expensive and impractical to try and harvest rain in an area that has little or no rainfall so we haven’t looked at this option very seriously.

Second is the use of “gray water”. Gray water is untreated household wastewater that has not come into contact with toilet waste, kitchen sinks or dishwashers. It includes used water from bathtubs, showers, bath sinks, and clothes washers. Toilet waste and used water from kitchen sinks and dishwashers is called black water. It cannot be reused. Gray water absolutely can be reused for landscaping purposes. A sewer system must be devised that separates black and gray water and diverts them to different areas. This is where the cost comes in. In most communities ALL wastewater goes into the same sewer system and ends up in city treatment facilities. LEED will award points for a project that devises a system to separate and capture gray water so it can be reused.

Third is utilizing a Municipal Gray Water system. Some forward thinking cities have their own systems in place that separate gray and black water. Building a project that hooks into that system gets LEED points as it helps use water more efficiently.

The other two areas LEED awards points for has to do with outdoor and indoor use. I’ll address them next time

Until then

Herb

Last time I left off talking about LEED which has become a common standard for measuring and certifying “how” green a home actually is and that it has 8 performance measurements that make up the Certification process. Energy is one of the eight measurement components and was the subject of my last few blogs. I’m going to spend the next several blogs discussing the other 7 LEED measurement components.

Today I’m going to talk about Water Efficiency.

I find water efficiency one of the more interesting aspects of the “green” movement. First, unlike coal, natural gas or most other natural resources, the supply of water is actually unlimited. And it keeps getting made every day. Second, and probably most important, we actually NEED the stuff to survive. You could make an argument that we couldn’t “survive” as a modern society without the other supply-limited natural resources we’ve grown to rely on in everyday life, but without water we actually CAN’T survive. Our bodies need it to function.

So why do we need to be efficient with an unlimited resource?

The answer to that question is its the procurement and delivery of water that causes the issue. As I said, there’s enough water on the planet to take care of our needs… plus more gets made every day. Actually it recycles itself in a never ending circle whereby even the water we use today ends up falling out of the sky at some point in the future, available to be “used” again. The crux of the issue is it doesn’t always fall out of the sky or end up in the places where we need it the most. At least not today. Before modern civilization, humans ALWAYS chose to live where there’s water. After all our bodies need it to survive and before modern technology made it possible to get water where we want it, if you weren’t close to it, you didn’t last very long. Now that we’ve figured out how to procure and deliver it pretty much wherever we want it, we’ve been able to live in areas of the world that actually have no source of natural water, or a source so small it limits how much growth can occur without modern technology.

At the end of the day the simple answer is that growth of any kind is limited by the amount of water, or more realistically the access to an amount of water, necessary to sustain the population. Especially since the population NEEDS the water for their own biological survival. The more efficient we are with the use of water, the more growth that a given city, state, nation, whatever, can support. As the population grows and the demand for water increases, its obvious that if you don’t become more efficient with the use of that water, over time that population will need more water. The cost of procuring and delivering water to a given population, especially one where water isn’t naturally abundant, can be enormous. And sometimes physically impossible. Becoming more efficient with the use of water becomes a necessity, not an option.

Next time I’ll spend some more time on water efficiency and discuss some of the techniques LEED encourages, and City Ventures utilizes, to gain that efficiency.

Until next time

Herb

So what are those other resources? Well LEED has 8 separate measurements in defining a green home. Of course we’re already familiar with the first and largest component which is “Energy”. The others are; Innovation and Design Process, Sustainable Sites, Locations and Linkages, Water Efficiency, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, and finally Awareness and Education.

Now at first glance you’re probably asking “how the heck does Innovation and Design Process make a home greener or use natural resources more efficiently?”. Well that’s why I’m here…. To be the answer man. Let me go back and remind you that way back in Blog #1, I defined “green” as any effort and any strategy taken to reduce the DEMAND of natural resources. Any effort. Any strategy. Any natural resource. Reduce demand of natural resources and you’re being green. Period.

I also said that being green is a great short term strategy for Mother Earth, but it still won’t solve the problem. More people means more demand no matter how green everyone is being and eventually we still run out. Mother Nature isn’t making any more natural resources, so supply is limited. We keep making people, so demand grows. Eventually those lines will cross on the graph of bad news.

Whoops… now I’m backtracking.

The point I was going to try and make was that when you’re talking about Green Homebuilding, its not always obvious how certain practices or strategies can be considered green. Especially as it relates to how LEED scores and certifies projects. And that’s actually why I started this blog. So when you hear some news story or some builder claiming to be doing something green you’ll have a reference point from which to challenge them and decide if its true …or if its hype.

But now my rambling has left me no more room for this excerpt.

Until next time

Herb