The green scene

Southwest Florida builders are taking the lead in green building in the state.

The local trend may be due to rising energy costs, fueling a growing market for more efficient homes, as shown by a recent survey by the National Association of Home Builders. Or it may be because — as some local company officials claim — the companies are making a commitment to the environment and its preservation.

Whatever the reason, two major local developers, the Bonita Bay Group and WCI Communities, are making significant strides in the field of green building.

Verandah is the first and only green community so far in Collier and Lee counties.

The 1,700-home community by Bonita Bay Group is on the banks of the Orange River in Fort Myers. All of the model homes in the newly opened community are certified green by the Florida Green Building Coalition, all the builders were required to attend green building training and in planning the community, and the developer relocated 100 oak trees and 1,300 sable palms.

A green community is coming to Collier.

Site clearing has begun at the 725-home Artesia community, near Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in southern Collier. WCI received its final approvals from the Collier County Commission on Wednesday. Construction on the first phase is expected to begin next month, with build-out targeted for 2010.

Photo by Garrett Hubbard, Daily News

Future Artesia resident Laura Jones listens to WCI Communities representative Darrel Baker describe the layout and nature around Artesia on Thursday, June 15. Once built, the development will be Southwest Florida's first all-green community.

Once completed, Artesia will be the first all-green community in Lee and Collier.

Higher standards

The National Association of Home Builders has set green building standards for the country. Florida has separate, more stringent standards, set by the Florida Green Building Coalition, said Karen Childress, environmental stewardship manager for WCI.

"We have our own issues with humidity and rainfall, and they are different from the rest of the country," she said. "So the coalition came up with a list of standards for homes that would have enough features to be considered a green home."

The standards fall into eight categories and homes get credit for green features that are incorporated into the design. To be certified, she explained, each home has to get a minimum number of credits. And the categories go beyond energy efficiency. They cover a range of criteria including health, safety and durability, and land management.

Designing a home, or a community, to be green from the ground up is more realistic and cost-effective than trying to redesign an existing home to be green, said Jennifer Languell, CEO of Trifecta Construction and director of green building for Florida Gulf Coast University.

Photo by Garrett Hubbard, Daily News

Artesia, to be located near Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in southern Collier County, is WCI Communities' fifth housing community next to an Audubon Reserve.

"Green building doesn't have to be more expensive," Languell said. "The ideal way to build green is from the ground up. Then you can start with the very design of the structure and work in things that are more energy efficient and healthy at little or no additional cost."

The industry standard, based on studies and his own experience, is a green home, if designed right, is about 3 to 5 percent more expensive to build than a traditional home, said Matt Belcher, president of St. Louis-based Belcher home and chairman of NAHB's Green Building Conference.

Belcher has been building green homes for around 15 years and says the 10-15 percent additional equity growth that green homes realize because of their durability and health benefits far outweigh the initial costs.

"I have homes that I built 10-12 years ago that still look great and that I take potential customers to," Belcher said.

It's good for the homeowner and it's good for his bottom line too, he said, because a component of building green is being aware of exactly what goes into each home. That awareness and a close relationship with his vendors has helped tighten his bottom-line, Belcher said.

Logistics of building green

Artesia is WCI's fifth community to be certified as an Audubon International Sanctuary, said Paul Erhardt, senior project manager for Artesia. And earning the certification meant adhering to strict operating policies.

Ground clearing began about five months ago, Erhardt said, and every month someone from Audubon International visits the site and monitors the progress. They observe things like silt fencing on the perimeters, procedures used for exotics removal and a project's impact on water quality.

The planning of the community took into consideration 20 mature oak trees as well as some sabal palms found on the property. They were worked into the landscape plans and relocated, he said. That meant the area had to be fenced off, a daily watering schedule set for the plants because the ground around them was being disturbed and hand removal of exotics in the areas around the trees. Hand removal is more expensive and time consuming than mechanical removal such as by bulldozer.

For Bonita Bay Group, building a green community meant reworking the development plan to impact as few trees as possible, restoring historic flow-ways and creating a buffer in the form of a conservation easement along the 1.75 mile stretch of the Orange River, said Kim Fikoski, environment manager for Bonita Bay Group.

Chief among the community's green building planning was the design of the clubhouse, Fikoski said. Instead of a large clubhouse that would have required removal of a lot of trees and complete ground clearing, the developer planned a group of individual buildings nestled within an oak hammock.

During the building of the community, all the construction waste was also recycled to the greatest extent possible. The same is being done in Artesia, Childress said.

WCI is also using longer lasting materials such as concrete roofing tile that lasts up to 50 years as opposed to asphalt shingle, which needs to be replaced every 10 years.

"The other advantage of a concrete roof is the tiles, if carefully removed, can be reused, or if they are broken, crushed and used for other projects like roads," said Kitty Green, regional vice president for Bonita Bay Group.

Recycling construction material also has a financial benefit to the builder, Belcher said.

"It keeps that material out of the landfill but it also cuts down on costs," he said. "Building green has meant my waste has been cut down to half or even closer to a third of what it used to be and I don't have to bear the costs of storing or removing that waste."

The homes also use environmentally friendly low volatile-organic-compound-emitting paint and carpeting, Erhardt said.

Artesia will also have a sophisticated computer-controlled irrigation system that will collect weather data from around the region and regulate watering times based on the amount of rainfall received.

"We are also trying to hit a higher-than-80-percent mark for use of native plants in the landscaping to minimize irrigation needs," he said.

More than just energy efficient, to be certified green a home has to go farther than just having energy-efficient appliances. Safety features include higher impact-resistant windows, high-impact garage doors and braced gabled roofs that are less likely to be lifted off during a hurricane.

Both communities also focus on preserving wildlife habitat or creating habitat where it has been disturbed or destroyed. Both also have large amounts of green space and preserve areas. Other green elements include better health and safety features in the homes, Childress said.

In Verandah, all the homes are 10 to 30 percent more efficient than the standard Florida building code calls for. In Artesia, developers are shooting for 30 percent greater efficiency, Childress said.

Building green also means using resources more efficiently.

In Artesia, for example, steel studs made from recycled material are widely used. The studs can be reused or recycled yet again, Childress said.

The swimming pools in the community use an electrolytic cell to convert table salt into natural chlorine and use that to purify the water instead of the chemical form of the compound, said MacKay Jimeson, a WCI spokesman.

That makes it not just more environmentally friendly but also a healthier option for the user — a fringe benefit of green building.

"The community also reinforces the green focus by being not just a golf course community but having nature trails, volleyball and other active recreational areas and nature-driven activities," Jimeson said.

Verandah takes advantage of its location on the Orange River to have a canoe and kayak launch and a riverwalk, Fikoski said.

A market force

The NAHB study shows that green building is no longer just a fad, it is a trend that is here to stay.

According to the study, 2006-07 is expected to be the tipping point for green building. In 2005, the number of green builders increased by 20 percent and this year that number is expected to grow by 30 percent. The value of residential green building is expected to grow from $7.4 billion in housing starts last year to $19 billion to $38 billion and 5 percent to 10 percent of all residential activity by 2010.

According to data compiled by FGCU's Languell, 59 percent of builders believe energy efficiency — a key component of green building — is important to their customers and 91 percent of consumers say it is extremely important.

Her report also states that 78 percent of consumers would choose one home over another based on its energy efficiency and 55 percent are willing to pay an average of $9,600 more for an energy-efficient home.

"It's getting out of being a trend and becoming a market force," Belcher said. "We just had a training session for selling green and we had a packed room. And next year's conference on green building will be our largest one yet."

Whether a consumer is interested in a green home because of its energy efficiency also depends on the target market for a home, Languell said.

"Someone buying a $300,000-$400,000 home is going to be more aware of rising energy costs than someone buying a $3 million home," she said. "For them, the energy cost isn't going to be that great a driver."

For those people however, the benefit that a green home is also a healthier home might be important in the decision.

Educating buyer and seller

Developers such as Bonita Bay Group and WCI are finding — as are builders across the country — a growing interest in green homes and communities.

"People love when they find out Verandah is a green community," said Green of Bonita Bay Group. "They don't always know what that means but they want to feel that they are doing something positive for the environment."

But their not knowing what green building actually means also requires developers to educate them.

"Most customers will still buy a granite countertop over a HEPA filter," which improves the air quality of a home, Green said. "But the demand for green is growing. Ten years ago most people didn't even know what green building was."

Both developers have taken extensive steps to educate their salespeople — and in Bonita Bay's case, their builders — about green building.

"I have seen market demand go way up. I am getting more and more referrals all the time," Belcher said. "Consumers are starting to realize that green building is not just friendlier for the environment but the indoor environment is friendlier for those living in it, too."

The changing attitudes are reflected to some extent in WCI's sales figures. Since the first 165 homes in the first phase were released for sale in March, Erhardt said, almost half have been sold. Not a bad achievement in a slowing market.

"They don't come to Artesia because it is green," Erhardt said. "But they come here and when they find out what it means for it to be a green community, they like what they see."