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So, guess what!? Here’s another topic we would really love to hear your opinions on. (Imagine that!)

We are at the point (and actually a little beyond the point) with some of our projects where we need to make decision whether to try for a LEED certification or to pass. Our strong commitment to creating eco-urban may make this seem like a no-brainer, but the more we talk about it the trickier it gets.

Our conversation has been circling around three things:

First, Which program?
There are over 70 regional green building certification programs in the U.S. according to the USGBC website. With LEED, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) was the first to establish a comprehensive set of guidelines for rating the sustainability of a building. Since LEED’s formation, there have been quite a few new systems added to the mix. California Green Builder, and Build it Green are two other regional rating systems that are most recognized in California. Add the Energy Star certification and the local utility programs such as SMUD’s and PG&E’s energy efficiency and solar programs and there is an overwhelming amount of certification to be done. That is, of course, if it really makes sense to spend money on all the documentation!

Second, what is the trade off between the extra marketability, and the extra cost?
Let’s take B Street West for example. We have applied for the LEED ND pilot program that certifies the project as a whole - it is supposed to verify that the neighborhood we’re creating is an eco-urban place. It broadly rates the location and linkage, neighborhood pattern and design, and the green construction and technology equally with a 106 point scale. With everything included (application fees, consultant analysis, site verification and certification fee…) we are looking at about $1,800 extra a unit. That doesn’t sound too ridiculous, but when we think of all the cool possibilities of what we could do with that same $1,800 a unit, we are just not sure if it is a good trade.

LEED ND Certification or Paperstone countertops?
LEED ND Certification or higher efficiency insulation?
LEED ND Certification or a cork living room floor?

LEED ND and LEED for Homes
The analysis of the actual houses is not as intensive with the LEED ND program as with other building-specific rating systems. We could then go through the LEED for Homes process to certify that each home is built to LEED standard, which comes with its own set of fees and an even greater requirement to manage the certification process. This could be somewhat redundant due to the green construction and technology analysis that would have already been completed in the LEED ND certification noted above. The process is a 108 point scale that certifies a building Certified LEED with 30 points, Silver with 50 points, Gold with 70 points, and Platinum with 90 and above. A building is certified with 27% of the allowable points. Generally speaking LEED is a slow, cumbersome process- one that Micah estimates can take one person on the construction management team about a quarter of their time to manage the process (This is from experience in the commercial realm with LEED NC). So that could be $88,000 dollars in additional costs beyond the LEED ND certification fees. That makes the total closer to $4,300 per unit.

Build It Green’s “Green Point”: An Alternative
An alternative to the LEED for Homes program is the “Build it Green – GreenPoint” rating system. They use a 260 point scale which is comparable to the LEED Homes scale for rating the buildings. They have a lower threshold for “Green” and allow any home scoring 50 points or more into the club. So if you attain 19% of the points you are “green”. We have received a quote from Scott Blunk at Greenbuilt to manage and certify the process as a “Green Rater” through their program. This would cost substantially less, at about $650 per unit. So we could combine the LEED ND with a Build it Green certification for a total of $2,450 per unit.

For marketability purposes the LEED certification clearly stands out as the undeniable leader. This is not necessarily due to a better quantitative system but mainly name recognition. LEED does pay more attention to site and neighborhood planning issues than Build it Green does.

Finally, and most importantly, do we really believe a certification guarantees a greener home/neighborhood for our buyers?
There’s been a lot of debate about what LEED does and doesn’t guarantee. LEED has not only unquestionably filled a large need for a universally accepted standard for green building, but has also fueled a new level of demand and media attention to the issues of green building. But that’s not to say it has it’s own set of shortcomings.

One major limitation is that LEED is a prescriptive based program and not a performance based program. If our goal is a truly efficient, healthy home in a eco-urban neighborhood a prescriptive method does not necessarily guarantee this. One example of this is the way in which points are allotted. As others point out, there’s a problem when a point system weights a renewable-energy system about equal with a bike-storage room.

On the other hand, there’s also some potential validity to the increase in value for the homebuyer with green-certified house. Will houses with green certification appreciate at higher rates than houses without? If so, certification would certainly help the overall market acceptance and demand for green-built housing which would lead to more and more eco-friendly housing.

Since this post is already getting long, we’ll just refer you to a really well articulated article from 2005 that covers all this and more at grist.org.

So, the jury is still out. Give us your feedback/experience, please!

Micah and Vanessa

As people, we need a way to quantify things. We need all the things in our life to fit in our basic little boxes and we are constantly simplifying complex things so that we can measure them dice them up and put them where we can understand them.

We take mortgages and narrow them down to the monthly payment when really we should be taking in to account things like, neighborhood trends, unemployment rates, gas prices, the real estate cycle and its timing, not to mention what the federal reserve board might decide to do next month.

We are, in effect, looking for a way to simply understand the complex.

Similarly, we do it with our health. We measure weight or body fat and then base important health decisions on things that more accurately affect our appearance than our health.

We talk constantly about the price of gas going up to its highest price ever, when adjusted for inflation the real peak happened sometime in the summer of 1981. Again, the number itself is more important that what it symbolizes.

We vote for a President based on whether or not we like the guy (or gal) and his ability to present himself, or often what marketing team he hired to make him into what we believe he is, when those might not even be the things that make a good president.

It seems the reason for this is our inability to compute more than a few variables at the same time. The human brain is simply unable handle all the processes, so we create ways of coping. We build for ourselves measurements and ways of counting and then we look to them to give us answers.

All of that is ok until you start oversimplifying and allowing unmeasured impacts to your actions.

Ok, so we all have this bent as people towards finding the simple math, the easy measure of progress, what we do with that is go towards the money. And why not? I know I do it all the time. It’s the easy way to know if what you are doing is successful or a complete failure. But the problem is when you do that, you leave out so many other factors.

Like, what resources am I using that my grandkids will no longer have because we used them all up? What other countries are allowing child labor or unfair pay to get this product into my hands? Further, what garbage am I allowing to be put into the air to get this product built? Or what am I doing to my health be using this product?

We assume that someone is making all these decisions for us and since it’s on the shelf it must be a good product.

The reality, however, is that the only thing the company who offered it to you is looking at is whether or not it made them money. And who can blame them? Its the only thing public companies are allowed to look at.

When Walmart™ decided to go “green” last year, they made all sorts of statements about their plans for energy consumption to be reduced and organic food to be offered in their supermarkets, etc… but before they could go that route, they had to first prove to shareholders that the plan would be economically viable. Or essentially, that the market would support these efforts with increased sales.

Again. Its always about the money. And though I applaud their move, I know that if the market were heading away from green technology, so would they.

The fact of the matter is, the current financial system in America promotes the simple measurement of the dollar alone and encourages the exploitation of people their quality of life. We have built a system that says the market is always right and that if people want it we have to give it to them.

I beg to disagree. I think in the end the reward will always go to the product that takes as many factors into account as possible, the company that tries its wholehearted best to bring a good product to its customers without a bunch of skeletons hiding in the closet.

How many things do you consume that you just don’t want to know how they are produced. How much of your lifestyle is subsidized by third world countries and if you really knew that answer could you continue living this way? I know that for myself I have no idea of the real effects of my lifestyle are.

Globalization has the ability to bring the quality of life up for so many developing countries that are desperate for it, but not before we start caring and taking on more responsibility for our actions. Globalization also has the ability to further widen the gap between the rich and poor by giving the tools to the rich countries to further exploit the developing ones.

I think we need a new currency, one that is based on more than its value in gold. One that has built in the true cost of a product. Every purchase made with the currency would also pay for mitigation of the effects created during production of the item. It could be global and internet based and give real value to everyone involved. I know there are a lot of problems with this idea, but it does get you thinking about a way to measure more than just money and its imperative that we figure out a measurement or we will just keep in the way we already do.

Because as long as we can prove on paper that the system is working we will keep going the same way, and when the only factor is money then the system works great.

I read a great post a few days back about the job of a marketer and how they are responsible for their actions.

So it is with the rest of us: we are responsible for our actions. However, I believe that until we have a way to quantify our impact, we will continue down the same path.

Blind enjoyment can be fun for a while, but eventually the truth catches up with you. It always catches up with you.

Levi

Daniel Pink is a keynote at the ULI Multifamily Trends Conference that Micah and Steve are at today.

Here’s something I pulled from an article he wrote for Wired, “The Rise of the Neo Greens”.

Hybrids as Symbols of Identity
Reporting on a UC Davis study on consumer motivations for buying a Hybrid, lead by Ken Kurani he writes…

They discovered that the cars were “symbols of identity.” Buying a Prius or Honda Civic hybrid was less about careful economic reasoning than about self-expression and self-understanding. “People construct their identities as a narrative. The project of our lives is to tell a more interesting story about ourselves,” says Kurani. “In large part that’s what we see happening with hybrids.”

For most buyers, the goal wasn’t fuel economy. It was to produce fewer emissions, to minimize external harm - and to let everyone else know that they’ve made a deliberate choice to do so. “Lower resource consumption is part of an identity people are constructing. They want to be seen as someone who’s concerned about the world around them,” Kurani says. At the same time, “they want others to see that they’ve done this, so that others might see themselves doing this.”

Researchers have found similar motivations for the early adopters of that other staple of the neo-green movement, solar power.

Apple Application?
While there’s nothing really strange about a car as a symbol of identity, the integration of the eco-sensibility into this mix really strikes a chord with me.

Another company I admire, Apple, has long aligned itself as a symbol of identity”: look no further than its “I’m A Mac” campaign for telling evidence. Perhaps this neo-green identity is the social pulse Apple was tuning into when it recently announced its “Greener Apple” policy. The graph at the top is theirs and represents their past, present and forecasted percentage of weight recycled as a percentage of past sales.

What About Houses?
Makes me wonder how this plays out with home buyers? Thus far, research about green building has indicated that home buyers respond first and foremost to the bottom line question of energy-efficiency and value/cost benefits, followed by “health” benefits and lastly “preservation” issues. However, I’ve always wondered if these variables adequately describe why people make eco-related decisions. Perhaps there’s more going on than current research about home buying indicates…

Jason

We’ve heard some great things about the phenomenal success of Earth Day two weekends ago. I’m curious, did anyone see other developers there? I ask because we’re going to be at the Whole Earth Festival coming up, and I’m wondering whether or not we’ll see other developers there.

Honestly, I hope there are a few others– that would be a good sign of healthy changes for the region– although I have to admit to some strong doubts. While “sustainability” and “green building” are definitely getting a lot of attention in the national industry organizations (NAHB and ULI, both of which have annual green-building conferences), despite this groundswell, we’ve only come across one other local residential developer (Treasure Homes) with a truly green-built project (Fallen Leaf). This has to change if we’re going to see healthy, livable communities in the future.

LJUrban’s mission to make cities better has multiple expressions, one of which is doing whatever we can to be a catalyst of change within the industry. Local developer, Sotiris Kolokotronis, showed Sacramento the potential of urban infill and downtown residential development before anyone else would risk it. We want to do the same with eco-urban development.

So, I’m also guessing (hoping) that, if we do stand alone this year at the Whole Earth Festival, this won’t be the case in future years, as green building hits the tipping point in the next year or so. Let’s all hope that’s true. And actually, if LJUrban fulfills its mission successfully, there should be more developers tuning into this kind of opportunity in the upcoming years.

Anyways, we’re planning to be there Friday and Saturday with a booth, lots of eco-urban handouts, information on our projects, eco-urban fortune cookies, and, of course, our company car.

Date and Time
Friday, May 11th: 12:00pm - 10:00pm
Saturday, May 12th: 9:00am - 10:00pm
Sunday, May 13th: 9:00am - 6:00pm

Location: UCDavis Quad

Mission Statement
The mission of the Whole Earth Festival is to envision and create a community driven festival of education, music, and art. We will ensure that as little ‘waste’ as possible is generated during this festival. We will cultivate amazing organic produce grown in the WEF garden into tasty, nutritional meals to feed volunteers, staff, & performers, while making it both yummy and educational. Frugality and ecological sustainability come hand in hand, as we educate and engage the festival goers, we are careful with the resources we create and consume. We will rely on each other more and rely on corporations and oil less, by carpooling and sharing our homes. Most importantly, we want to create a safe, educational, and inspiring environment not simply just for the three days we set up on the Quad. We want to develop a conscious community that will go out into the world after the festival and encourage the values that we hold dear. We are all equal participants in the conscious creation that is the Whole Earth Festival.

If you go, do drop by and say “Hi.” We’re a pretty friendly group.

Jason

This is a little late coming but the Bee reported last week that Thomas Enterprises, the developer for the railyards, wants community suggestions for street names.

The qualifiers: historic, sophisticated… nothing Disneyland.

Your thoughts?…

Although a small gesture, I personally find it refreshing to see such a massive development engaging in some community outreach and soliciting civic involvement. Street names add much to a city’s “sense of place” and become an enduring characteristic of the city; so being intentional and community-focused about this is important.

One of our core values states, “We believe that our responsibility as developers is first to the community and future generations.” That being the case, its important that we see the communities in which they build as partners and fellow citizens and not as opponents. Sure, its a given that there will be never be consensus and there are those times when certain communities or community members can’t see beyond the present or past or their own immediate self-interest, but the dialogue is really important and welcoming community members to the table is a vital component of healthy development process. If a developer has the best interests of the community in mind, it behooves them to educate the community and try to help them work past the inevitable fear of change.

That said, we’re not perfect at this either. Community engagement and dialogue is extremely important to us but we make mistakes in it just like anyone. It can be a rather complex dance and like any beginning dancer, you start out somewhat clumsily, occasionally stepping on toes and tripping on your own feet.

It’ll be interesting to see the level of competency the railyards development has at this dance…

So, if you’ve got some “historic but sophisticated” street suggestions, send them to Carlos Alcala at calcala at sacbee dot com and he’ll get them to the right people.

And while you’re brainstorming, if you have some suggestions for project names in the Washington Area in West Sacramento (we have five we’re working on besides B Street West, including the currently dubbed “Discovery Center”), we’re all ears. Qualifiers: urban, sophisticated… nothing Disneyland, nothing pretentious. Think about it as if you were living there yourself.

And hey, you don’t even have to go through anyone else, “spokesperson” or otherwise. Just e-mail us directly: jason at ljurban dot com.

Jason

A little photo-comparison.

versus

Jason

Sacramento developers fall into an interesting pool of reputations; sometimes perceived as local heroes; other times, perceived as the devil incarnate. Some prefer to avoid any public interaction; others put up as much flash and glam as a celebrity.

To the degree that we believe in dialogue and engaging the community, we certainly won’t be “invisible” but we also don’t see ourselves falling into “celebrity” ranks.

It’ll be interesting to see how our reputation develops.

We really want to do this right. But, as much as you try, you can’t work in this industry without facing some kind of over-arching “developer reputation.”

So, in the spirit of dialogue and community engagement, let’s talk about reputations. What are we up against?

Here’s a few questions to start out. Pick any or all.

What is that generic “developer reputation.”

What do they do wrong? Is there a “developer achilles heel?” What drives you crazy about developers? What should they be doing that they aren’t?

Conversely, what can/could they do right?

We’ve all heard enough name-bashing from the elections, so let’s keep names out of it, unless you’ve got special props to give.

And if you’re tuning in outside of Sacramento, we’d love to hear your thoughts as well.

Jason