Backed by popular demand

Partnering on green building and guidelines

By Michelle Madison

ITUELED bY consumer demand. .l-' there's no doubt that green building is the hottest building trend in the country. But the market isn't the only thing driving it: production homebuilders and public agencies are partnering to further the movement as well.

These partnerships allow builders to network and offer input on what they can realistically do to build green, while agencies use their feedback to create more practical guidelines.

"It's given us a great avenue to network with other builders and jurisdictions-we're becoming part of the process," said Jeff Jacobs, project manager for Centex Homes Northern California.

The division of Texas-based Centex has joined Build It Green (BIG), a non-profit in California whose mission is to transform the building industry so that buildings are remodeled and built using green practices and products.

Green building practices incorporate resource and energy conservation. sustainable building products and waste reduction to create energy-efficient, healthy and environmentally sound buildings.

"One of our strategies is to get stakeholders to work together, rather than have adversarial relationships," said BIG executive director Brian Gitt.

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For the past year and a half, Gitt noted, public agencies, builders and other stakeholders have been working together to develop a set of voluntary green building guidelines for new home construction in California. BIG has acted as a bridge between the public and private sectors in this partnership.

As demand for green homes grows, builders "want to make sure they have a voice" in creating guidelines, which furthers public/private partnerships, Gitt said.

"Builders are very interested in this because from their standpoint, they want the opportunity to network and get to know public agencies," he said. "We want to know, tiom a builder's perspective, what's realistic and what they have control over. There's no point in having voluntary (green building) guidelines if builders aren't going to use them."

In the Northern San Francisco Bay Area, Christopherson Homes credits the City of Santa Rosa with helping the company become a green homebuilder.

The city contacted Christopherson in 2004 when it formed a stakeholders' committee to draft green building guidelines.

Santa Rosa-based Christopherson, which recently completed and sold out its first 500-unit green home subdivision, Mane's Ranch, decided in August to build all of its homes green, said Amy Bolten, the company's director of community and public relations.

Along with Santa Rosa's Mane's Ranch, Christopherson has three other single-family home developments coming online in the Northern Bay Area.

"They're getting progressively greener with each development," said Bolten, noting that the newest project in Novato, Ca.. will have standard solar-powered homes.

Christopherson also opened an Eco Center in August to help educate new homebuyers and the general public about the benefits of green building. The company plans ro build 387 homes in 2005 and 599 homes in 2006 throughout the North Bay and Sacramento regions.

Green building "is rapidly becoming more well known, so I'm sure at some point we would have decided to do it," Bolten noted. "But it was really the city contacting us about it that got us interested."

Dell Tredinnick, projects manager for the City of Santa Rosa, said several other homebuilders have followed Christopherson's lead in green building.

"We're actually helping each other," he said. "I rhink ir's absolutely critical that any municipality, especially if it's a voluntary program, find a partner in the private sector that they can work with."

Tredinnick said builders "can add a reality check" to the planning process "so it becomes doable, because they're dealing with this in an on-the-ground way."

"We can provide help, and perhaps some incentives" to build green, he said. "The other side of it is that we get great input as to what can work."

"It's been a remarkable alliance between the public and private sector," he noted. "It's iust worked out

- beyond anyone's expectations."

Gitt agreed that the partnership "is absolutely essential."

"Unless we are all working together and collaborating," he said, "we're never going to get anything done. It takes the private sector, the public sector, and nonprofit agencies working together."

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