SFS Projects and Best Practices

The Holiday Neighborhood > Project Description

PUSHING THE GREEN ENVELOPE IN BOULDER'S
HOLIDAY NEIGHBORHOOD PROJECT

When the Sustainable Futures Society (SFS) received an EPA Sustainable Development Grant in 2001 to help "green" the Holiday Neighborhood project in Boulder, Colorado, the non-profit group was open to all possibilities.

SFS project directors were excited that the Boulder Housing Partners – the lead agency in the project – envisioned a diverse neighborhood, where walking would be a pleasure and access to public transit would be excellent. These features would reduce automobile dependence. The project would further reduce transportation by incorporating a few stores, recreational opportunities, artist studios, parks, a community garden, and a mosaic of architectural types, designed by five innovative architecture/developer firms.

To receive a building permit, each of the five builders would be required by the City of Boulder to meet rigorous criteria specified in the City's Green Points program. Energy efficiency, water conservation, natural building materials, and other green building measures would be part of the project because of this forward-looking policy.

In addition, 40% of the housing was required to be permanently affordable. Clearly, this was a project that could demonstrate how to create a cost-effective, sustainable neighborhood by design.

Graywater (what flows from sinks, bathtubs and washing machines) was seen to be a resource well worth utilizing in Holiday Neighborhood landscapes. However, Colorado State law regulates graywater as if it were sewage, making the recycling of this resource difficult to achieve – especially since the project was already underway.

SFS then pursued the implementation of technologies to reduce the impacts of stormwater runoff and get greater value from precipitation -- a very scarce resource in Colorado. By using rain-absorbing designs such as swales (earthen, vegetated channels that convey and infiltrate water), pollution that runs off the site will be significantly reduced.

Several types of alternative stormwater management were designed by Wenk Associates and will be installed at the Holiday Neighborhood. A sand filter bed in one corner of the neighborhood's 2-acre park will enable multiple use of the landscape by capturing and cleansing runoff and also providing recreational opportunities when it's not raining. A similar design will be used in the courtyard of the Affordable Housing Alliance's Northern Lights project; and in the Wild Sage Cohousing development, small swales will capture and distribute rainwater from rooftops into growing beds.

According to CU graduate student Don Alexander, contracted by SFS to compare conventional stormwater systems with designs proposed for the Holiday Neighborhood, runoff volume can be reduced by a fourth by using soft-surface innovations like those at the Holiday Project. Life-cycle costs are comparable when avoided costs for piping and irrigation are included.

SFS convened a "meeting of the minds," facilitated by Rocky Mountain Institute and attended by SFS, the project's architects/developers, and city officials. The challenge EPA had given SFS was to select several key facets of sustainable design, incorporate them into the project, then evaluate their air and water quality benefits, as compared with conventional development.

SFS will calculate the overall benefits assuming the design choices in the Holiday Neighborhood are replicated on a wide scale, and will also produce educational materials including several written summaries, a video, and distribution of the design scenarios.

At the first meeting, the developers chose water quality, energy efficiency, energy systems analysis, and materials recycling/acquisition as key areas of focus. Jim Logan, architect of the Wild Sage Cohousing Community, pointed out that efficient design will be a great match with the Holiday project's affordability goals because utility bills will be lower than average without sacrificing comfort.

John Wolff of Wolff/Lyon Architects -- designers and developers of several different components of the Holiday neighborhood -- indicated great interest in designs that simultaneously conserved resources and created a sense of community.

In Search of Sustainability

SFS worked on several fronts to incorporate cutting-edge technologies to reduce Holiday neighborhood's impacts on water quality. Innovative systems that treat sewage on-site with plants, snails, fish, etc. (Living Machines) were investigated, but found to be too expensive to implement without subsidies or additional grants.

Energy Innovations at Wild Sage

Jim Logan, the architect for the Wild Sage Cohousing project, has long been known for his expertise in solar energy. Project developer Jim Leach of Wonderland has a stated goal of pushing the envelope of sustainable building a little further with each cohousing project, and they have now worked on more than ten.

Since cohousing includes future residents in neighborhood design, Logan, Leach, and Wild Sage members strived to make the homes as efficient as possible so solar energy could become a viable option. All homes were oriented to capture the maximum amount of passive solar energy, and some of the homes have flat roofs to conceal solar panels.

SFS grant funds enabled computer optimization of features like insulation, windows, and construction techniques, and a report on options for high-efficiency, high-quality lighting was provided with SFS grant funds by Clanton & Associates.

Most Wild Sage buildings will contain multiple dwellings, and each multiplex will house a common boiler. At least one of the buildings will have an active solar system to supply hot water and domestic heating. Wild Sage members salvaged used solar panels to make solar a more viable option. All homes will have solar plumbing installed for possible conversion to solar energy in the future.

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