E-Newsletter from ZED Earth - May 2014
Earth Watch
BETWEEN US ... It is a ZED Earth resident member who pointed out astutely in his feedback to the last Earth Watch edition, The programme of campus progress that you have outlined for the campus is ambitious, but doable if there's planning and coordination. He couldn t be more right. Some of the targets we set for the month of May are in progress, and at a good pace. Among the lot of things getting done is the hydropneumatic system for water distribution in Phase 1 for the homes. This should be completed by end May or early June. It s a day s job once the energy efficient genset is installed at the Eco fest area near the ZED Earth campus entry.
EVOLVING WITH TIME 1. Floorings. We have had wooden floors for the last about 14 villas. This is what we had recommended ourselves in the beginning. However, in the course of completing the work in these houses, we have found that because of Bangalore s sharp diurnal variation in temperature of 20-22 degrees, the wood behaves very badly and causes expansion and contraction. This seems like bad work for the normal resident. However it is to do with the behavior of the material itself. Its an excellent option in coastal cities like Mumbai and Chennai where the variation is not more than 5-7 degrees. Wood is rich but it takes at least 2 years to settle down. What might seems like snags to you in terms of joinery and corrections will have to be patiently waited out for those 2 years before u begin to see them as mistakes. We have therefore recommended a wood textured tile, which is a high-quality marble-like finish and an expensive material used for luxury homes. We don t mind the cost, but we want to offer you the best finishes with the least of maintenance challenges for you into the long term future. We therefore recommend that you go with this tile. I have attached pictures of the tile. It might be difficult for you to judge on the basis of the pictures. If you leave it to us, we will take a decision on your behalf, and we will make the best decision for the luxury villa that your home is. 2. The Windows. French windows and other windows in these homes are particularly large by any villa standards. These are homes that we design especially in order to see that we have a lot of natural light and also to see that you get great views of the great green outdoors. We are finding that wood again is a challenge for these windows, apart from the fact that the larger frames obstruct views. Besides, there is also the disadvantage of errant wood behavior, thanks to our being in Bangalore. In a coastal city where temperature varies only between 28 and 32 degrees use of wood is a good practice, but not in cities like Bangalore. Projects with villas over Rs.5 crores in the city have used this same type of simulated wood finish that is engineered. I have enclosed some pictures of these luxury windows. We are letting you know as a matter of transparency that we go with these. 3. There are two pictures I have attached of roofs where we have used lush green turf grass for the sloped roof. The other picture has an earth-toned tile that we have used for a few other houses. The choice is yours. We believe that aesthetically the green grass is very appealing. It requires a bit of maintenance, which is part of the commitment that we have already offered you for the next 10 years as part of the campus maintenance and your individual home maintenance. This will come under the individual maintenance of your house. We will take care of that with the Aftercare team. If turf has to be maintained, it will require access to your home for the gardeners. It will have a small irrigation system which will take care of the watering needs of the roof lawn.
KEEPING PEACE AND QUIET FOR RESIDENTS Sorry folks, to the fistful of families who have already made home here. You've had to live with a good bit of noise and dust in the last two weeks. By the time this reaches you, that would have settled down. We have to complete this work, in the interest of the campus; you will have to bear with us for the inconvenience that we are causing you. For just a while.
CHANGING SPACES The existing canteen would be demolished therefore by mid-June or so, and in its place will come what was originally envisaged to be a park with shrub and vegetation. That will enhance the aesthetic and visual harmony of the area spanning from the open air theater to the golf putting patch next to villa 11, and flanking villa 10. That location now promises a nice and quiet wooded area for the odd resident to want to sit down and read a book. The landscape of that area abutting Villa 10 and 11 will be done up by June-July. The wall or road programme that we have taken up and will complete in the next 6 to 7 weeks will be the CDP road flanking to the north side of the campus running from the main Doddabalapur road down in a westerly direction. This will be an asphalt road in keeping with Govt. regulations. We've taken up the near-3 km peripheral wall work. It's a large campus at nearly 25 acres in all. We've finished the east end of it. The southern border hems the biodiversity corridor that runs right down to Club ZED and beyond into the lake that fringes the Club on the far western front. ZED is seeking to adopt that lake to rehabilitate the lake and restore the lakeside. It's a longer term project. We'll bring you more on this in a future edition when we get to working on it. It s a great ecological value and as a company and as residents, we believe that we owe this to the local neighborhood and the larger community of people that the Suradenapura village represents and of which we are a part. With eminent experts among ZED Earth members like Mrs. Uma Bharat (who worked on the Puttenahalli lake which was the first in the city to develop a lake as a community led initiative) and Prof.Ganeshaiah, the dean of the GKVK campus (who has been doing ecological mapping for many decades)
ZED EARTH PHASE 1 MOVES TO CLOSURE The last month has seen a bit of traction from about the time we shifted gears on the quantum of tasks that we will identify and execute. Those of you who have not come to the campus yet, will be greeted by a very large hoarding (insert picture here) of ZED Earth. It s unmistakable for anyone passing that road. There is a second less prominent one which turns the logic on the old knowledge seeing is believing to make for even older wisdom that says Believing is seeing. As for the rest of the work, we have done up the front periphery wall of nearly half a km. We are planning a dense line of trees in front of the campus. We have also got to do up the road toward the Phase 2 entry which work should be completed by mid-June. We are preparing ourselves for exit from Phase 1 by about July end. The idea is that none of the workers, as we said in the last Earth Watch, will be permitted into Phase 1 of the campus. The few residents, who have moved in, have to be respected for the privacy that they need. There are more families set to move in through July-August. We'll bring you those updates in the next Earth Watch editions.
MORE HOMES TO DELIVER AT PHASE 1 Once Phase 1 is completed, of these 36 homes before end-June or early July, we would have only five more such homes left here to be completed. This bunch of five in Phase 1 will take a few more weeks to endSeptember for us to complete. Effectively therefore, we would have moved out of Phase 1 in all ways in the next 3-4 months. It's a relief for us. It's a relief for you. Let's not look back. Let's look ahead at what we can do, together. That'll leave just 3 more villas in Phase 1. They have not found members yet. We can start work on these 3 homes only after those new members are found. We'll take every precaution to ensure that the construction is done with utmost sensitivity to your need for privacy, security and quietness.
WORK AT PHASE 2 GATHERS PACE Phase 2 currently has 23 homes under construction. About five are to be handed over by September. Then starts the long haul for completion of the campus. The canteen, or the project office, that has existed for the last three years is being dismantled by early or midJune. We are working on how the Eco Fest area, immediately to the right of the ZED Earth main entry bay, will be made into a functional office. It is hard to describe it now, but in the next 30 days we would have completed the work in a way that it will serve as project management office for the next 14 to 18 months that it will take for us to complete Phase 2 of the ZED Earth enclave. We can complete the entire set of homes in Phase 2 by Dec 2015. But that will mean we find owner-members for the residual 38 villas. All the rest are sold. There are then those elegant townhouses, about 30 of them, that are looking for buyer-occupants.
CONVENIENCE STORE Our plan is to see how we can have one part of the Eco Fest center transformed into a convenience store for shopping for residents. We are looking at possibilities like Nilgiris. Raja Chidambaram, the first resident at ZED Earth, suggests we consider Sara, an all-products organic store. There are other options we can look at. We plan puncture the front wall that faces the main road and offer a well-designed entry into this area. We can then invite such a convenience store brand to set up a store at Eco Fest--after we secure appropriate plan approvals. The market catchment is wide and rapidly growing with over 10,000 houses that are coming up 2 3 kilometers after ZED Earth. And in this entire lot of houses ZED Earth stands out as a beacon with values unmatched by all the rest of the thousands of homes beyond ZED earth in the larger neighborhood. And the small township of therefore about 100,000 middle- and higher-income buyers growing in the next three years will make for a viable market potential for such a convenience store. It will of course serve ZED Earth members. We are hoping that it will be a 7/11 sort of store. If there are ZED Earthers who can help us find the right brand, which can run this place, we will be happy to pursue it further. We will be mindful of the priority for the convenience store and relegate our need for a project management office to second priority. We ll relegate project needs to the more primary need of the convenience store.
CLUB ZED OPENING PAST SUMMER Work on Club ZED has been moving but not at the pace that we targeted. We've brought in further value engineering in order to enhance the aesthetic appeal and the quality of what we will be building there. The features remain the same. I will not recount them here for it has been stated in Earth Watch #1. All the contracts have been signed on. We hope to see them all completed in the next 60 to 90 days in progressive stages. We should be opening the fitness center first along with the large water body with underwater lights, and the second to open would be the restaurant bay. The third will be the badminton court along with the swimming pool. That would complete the work that we have taken up on the two-acre wooded expanse of the Club ZED area. We call it Silent Spring, as a tribute to that doyen of environment battles, Rachel Carson. (read more on her)
PHASE 1 AFTERCARE. By end September when the dust has settled down at the first part of the campus, we will start the process of creating ZERA, the ZED Earth Residents' Association. It'd comprise members of Phase 1 to start with. The corpus fund so far collected will be transferred to an account that ZED Aftercare will manage with a contract we sign on a not-for-profit base with ZERA. There's a set of FAQs on ZERA and your concerns that of the use of the corpus fund, we'll share with you for a granular understanding of the mechanics of maintenance. Harikrishna President Communities
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