Green with Envy By Tracy Hanes
W
Photo by Spen
cer Wynne
hen Del Ridge Homes launched sales for its GreenLife East Markham II (GEM II) condominium in May, all 181 suites in the project sold out in 4.5 hours. That was the equivalent of one home sold every 90 seconds. As a Net Zero project, GEM II is one of the most sustainable or “green” residential buildings in Canada. (Simply put, a Net Zero building produces at least as much energy as it consumes). Did the brisk sales mean that homebuyers have seen the “green” light? “I’d say 20 to 30 per cent might be buying because there’s an environmental twist,” says Del Ridge partner Dave de Sylva, who figures most purchasers were attracted by the combination of location, price, and low heating and maintenance costs. Prices started at $247,900 for condos in one to three bedroom plans, ranging from 700 to 1,245 square feet in size. Del Ridge’s GreenLife condos use about 20 per cent of the energy that other new condo buildings use. De Sylva and his Del Ridge partner, George Le Donne, are passionate about sustainable building and have been building energy efficient homes for 25 years in places such as Thornhill, Milton, Markham and Burlington – and their next Net Zero condo project will be launched in Oakville this fall. They introduced their first green condo, Appleby Woods, which included geo-exchange heating and solar panels, in Burlington nine years ago. They’ve progressed to building Net Zero condos that incorporate features such as Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) construction, high R insulation values, triple-glazed windows, a geo exchange heating and cooling and solar photovoltaic panels on the roof to generate on-site electricity. De Sylva was sold on the merits of geo-exchange heating after he built a house for his parents in 1989 and was astonished at how inexpensively the system heated and cooled the home (see explanation of how it works below). Although Del Ridge was one of the early adopters of geo-exchange for condos in Ontario, more builders and developers are using the system that has been around for about 30 years. GEM II will be a carbon neutral project. That means Del Ridge will take action to remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as the building will put into it.