Very exciting news for Southern Californians who are interested in green building! Quite possibly the coolest event is coming to the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, CA next year in 2013. Organized by the U.S. Department of Energy, The Solar Decathlon challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.

The Orange County Great Park is an awesome venue for hosting the Solar Decathlon competition and exhibition. This is the site of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, which the City of Irvine is turning into sustainable parkland for family recreation. The park features a paved runway which is perfect for our solar village, which should make set-up for teams easier while providing a pleasant experience for visitors.

The greatest problem is that our MLS systems and the web-sites that regurgitate MLS data to millions of home buyers and sellers do not adequately record and display very basic energy information. RIGHT NOW it should be mandatory that web-sites like www.realtor.com have the ability to display this important information so homeowners can make an educated decision when they shop for homes. This will help appraisers, banks and real estate agents in many ways as well. See this old blog post all about this VERY important issue. This is a massive opportunity for the United States to improve their energy efficiency. Miles per gallon rating on homes! Not required, but real estate agents MUST at least have the opportunity to display valuable certifications and most importantly a HERS Ratings, which is the most accurate way to measure a home’s efficiency and anticipated energy consumption costs.

Another industry problem is how the appraisal industry has been turned upside down. What are the chances that someone purchasing a green home will end up with an appraiser who is experienced or interested in this form? Not very good, in my opinion.

View and download the Appraisal Institute’s “Residential Green and Energy Efficient Addendum”

Guided Tour and Open House
Saturday, October 22nd, from 10am to 12pm

Tour a LEED for Homes registered custom home in Newport Beach while it’s still under construction with exposed studs. Builder John Steed of Maverick Home Builders, Project Manager Laura Sanders of Jeannette Architects in Long Beach, Interior Designer Rachel Hulan of Path Design, Consultant Evan Little of Permaculture Properties and other design team members as well as USGBC-OC volunteers will be on hand to answer questions and lead two scheduled tours through this cutting edge home. Targeted certification level is Platinum. Targeted certification level is Platinum. Light refreshments will be served.

10:15am – 1st guided tour begins
11:15am – 2nd guided tour begins

Parking:
Street parking is limited. Try parking at Grant Howard Park off Heliotrope and 5th.

Cost:
USGBC-OC Members – $5
Non-Members – $15

Registration:
Tickets are limited, so make sure to reserve your spot early. Contact the USGBC-OC chapter at 714-832-3616 for more information or go to our website at www.usgbc-oc.org to register.

I’ve been fortunate to work with developers who have a lot of experience in how a city can evolve into a more walkable city with greater connectivity and prosperity. It’s uncomfortable for a city to go from sprawling tract homes and strip centers that require a car to get to any basic service to a walkable, well connected community where someone can live with just a pair of tennis shoes, like many people my age (28) are anxious to experience. Orange County must endure more traffic and density before people can live without a car and before light rail and improved public transportation will make sense. If walking or riding a bike can be popular in cities with significantly worse weather, how can this strategy not thrive here?

Either residents need to demand this type of living or Orange County needs elected officials and their staff need to wake up and lead. It’s frustrating to see planning commission seats, redevelopment agencies or city council positions used as just a stepping stone for a career in politics instead of working hard to improve OC Cities.

Orange County, especially South Orange County, was designed around the automobile and cheap transportation fuel. Electric cars offer a promising hope, but until we get to hydrogen or another renewable transportation energy than we must recognize that all resources are finite and we must adjust our use of them to reduce how dramatic the change is when the tap runs dry.

Northern and Coastal Orange County Cities like Orange, Fullerton, Anaheim or parts of Newport Beach and Dana Point have a significant advantage as the County moves deeper into the Peak Oil Age. Orange especially has a very well planned city around Old Towne Orange with a train station, central plaza and grid designed streets.

Orange of all cities should be leading the charge towards the future of Orange County and they even have an affluent college university, Chapman University, to help support the transition. Poor City leadership and naive senior residents who continue to show up at planning meetings to fight density, traffic and Chapman’s aggressive expansion throughout Old Towne Orange. Well guess what narrow minded Orange residents, you’re making real estate less desirable for private developers by reducing density and requiring unrealistic parking restrictions. Developers can’t make money building anything in Orange. This gives Chapman University more time to gobble up more and more property since there’s little to no competition from private developers.

Thankfully we do have a least a few projects thanks to Olson Homes & City Ventures, but how many projects will builders be able to snatch-up and will this tear the peak oil band aid quickly enough. On sale now in Downtown Santa Ana by City Ventures is their Santa Ana Lofts. Shown below is one of their playful lofts with a dramatic stair case from the 1st to the 3rd floor where the main living space is found. No 2nd floor. Straight up to the top and you feel like you’re in a real downtown, which is what many Orange County natives like myself fantasize about.

After 347 long days on the market Westminster’s 1st LEED Certified home has been purchased for $529,000. Original list price was $764,218. It’s 2,410sq’ of living space with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.

In Orange County, green homes have struggled to gain any significant market share or be taken seriously by the County’s major players in the building world. Other than Olson Homes of Seal Beach & it’s rival offshoot, City Ventures, there has only been a handful of small speculative builders that have braved green building in resource devouring Orange County. Currently, there are less than 100 LEED Certified homes in Orange County with the majority of them being done by Olson Homes in tracts of around 30 units or one offs here and there by smaller builders.

Aside from Olson Homes’ repeated success in Orange County with their LEED-ND infill projects at Depot Walk in Old Towne Orange, Heritage Walk in Fullerton, and still for sale Sycamore Walk and Mosaic Walk in Garden Grove, luxury home builder Tresor Properties has also been successful with it’s 1st LEED Certified beachfront spec home in Laguna Beach that sold earlier this year for a cool $11,500,000 after just 7 days on the market.

So why did this Westminster home sit on the market for nearly a year before it sold? Did the design team have bad taste? Was it not promoted well enough? Was it because buyer’s who want LEED Homes have no access to an efficient online search to even find them? Maybe it was due to the demographics of the city it was built in or simply the location? Is it because there is just flat out no desire for LEED homes?

Personally, I feel the greatest contributing factor was the economy. The few single family spec homes that have hit the market in the last 4 years have been faced with the most challenging market that anyone living has ever seen.

Ugly Design?
Absolutely not! From sidewalk to master bedroom this home was well designed, has nice finish materials and fits the needs of nearly every home shopper searching in it’s price range. At least aesthetically. There are no wacky paint colors, funky counter tops or strange lighting fixtures. The builder’s taste was tasteful and just right for the targeted demographic.

Poor Promotion?
I’m not sure how much love this 2 home development received from press, but I don’t think it was able to reach as many green folks. However there have been similar green homes that have received hundreds of visitors and even a whole Network TV show that revolves around the construction of a luxury LEED Certified home in LA on the Discovery Channel’s Alter Eco and those homes failed to find a legit buyer willing to pay a little extra for the green improvements. So it’s possible that there the promotion and outreach may not have been as significant as it could be, but it’s more evident that successful promotion has not worked for other green homes in Orange County.

Not Search Friendly Online?
Would a home buyer who wants to buy a LEED home who’s shopping in Laguna Beach decide to live in Westminster instead because there’s a LEED Certified home? Most likely not. For the buyer who’s shopping in Westminster, how many of them understand what it means to have a green home? If the answer is not many than getting a functional online search will not make sense until there is a more substantial supply of LEED Certified or green homes. I don’t this effected finding a buyer, but it is effecting appraisal, data that supports green housing, etc.. [read more about greening the MLS here]

Bad Location?
Yes, I do think this was a poor location to build a LEED Certified home or any higher value home for that matter. It’s on a busy street, adjacent to a large concrete river and is surrounded by homes that are of less value. Culturally, Westminster does not lend itself to green building the way a coastal city like San Clemente, Huntington Beach or even Costa Mesa might. Location and culture are huge factors for the 1st round of green homes.

No Love for LEED?
Brand recognition for the USGBC’s LEED Certification has steadily grown due to it’s wide spread expectance in all building sectors like retail, commercial, municipal and especially schools. Companies have policies that all of their buildings must be LEED Certified, the State and Federal Government has also made a commitment to do all of their new buildings LEED. I think there is an added incentive for LEED as it stands for quality and a safer investment than a standard home as we move into an error where energy is significantly more expensive.

Fisker of Orange County opened next to the Best Buy off the 5 Freeway at 16163 Lake Forest Drive, Irvine, CA 92618. See map people for exact location, if you’re not familiar with the area and visit Fisker of Orange County at www.fiskeroforangecounty.com

Orange County, CA based Fisker Automotive is working towards releasing their hybrid named the Karma seen below on Road & Track

Yeah… I know, it’s not a house or anything that relates directly to green building, but I’m REALLY looking forward to the day when electric vehicle ownership introduces some radically different ways of managing the supply and demand of energy in California. With an outdated electrical grid and a Country on the verge of financial collapse. So back to positive innovation… imagine that your electric vehicle is capable of trading energy at predetermined settings that you’ve determined are reasonable. Selling energy from your car to the grid during peak hours when demand is high for a lucrative cost per kilowatt and charging your car back up, taking power from the grid and storing it in your electric vehicle, during the evening when demand has cooled off at a drastically lower cost per kilowatt. This could very well be a reality if residents speak up and get passionate about common sense and what some of our logical next moves aught to be in regards to energy. Although Fisker’s Karma is a plug-in hybrid and still requires dinosaur blood to go 0-60 in just under 6 seconds, it’s poised to make an impressive 1st showing in the hands of it’s CEO, Henrik Fisker.

For all the positive things that a handful of employees are doing at large utility companies, the monopolized utility companies receive a tremendous amount of money from tax payers and municipalities to either re-nvent themselves and/or to a certain extent, put themselves out of business. So you see, it’s not just big oil that can expect to see a dip in their profits when electric vehicles begin to take flight… AGAIN (Watch Who Killed the Electric Car). Well… maybe not the oil companies, but the auto mechanics that rely on drama queens like the high maintenance internal combustion engines to provide their livelihood, the service stations at the corner quickie mart that will no longer be in demand because their petrol junky customers will now be able to get their fix in the safety of their own home, and many other ICE related businesses will suffer as we move into the electric car age. New careers will evolve, of course and is movement is without a doubt a positive move for the middle class. I’m thrilled about the idea that someone will be able to create their own electricity at home or work via wind, solar, etc.. and choose to either charge their car, sell it the power back to the grid, or use it to watch an important TV show about America’s next sweetheart who’s indulging in her newly appointed fame as a result of their sex tape that “accidentally” leaking out recently.

And you thought this was just going to be a Fisker shout out about their new showroom, didn’t you?

Navigating the LEED for Homes point checklist is a lot easier with the new LEED for Homes Self Scoring Tool. Viewers are able to fill in blanks and work through different sections of the checklist instead of fumbling through workbooks and chicken scratch writing from their design charrettes. It can be complicated what to count and what not to count, if you score points here than you can’t score points over here, and so on. With this new system design teams can glide through the process making the whole precess much more enjoyable.

About the Scoring Tool – from www.leedforhomes.org

The LEED for Homes Scoring Tool is an easy way for anyone to get acquainted with green building and the LEED for Homes rating system. There are two main components to the scoring tool, a Quick Score path and a Credit by Credit path.

The Scoring Tool is also useful as a project management tool for project teams that are working on multiple projects or are looking to see how different iterations of the same project fare in the rating system.

Check it out for yourself at www.leedforhomes.org

To be far, the appraisers have been tossed around, turned upside down, much more than any other real estate related field that I can see so it’s not a huge surprise that they’re one of the last to come up with green education.

There are 2 new courses called “Introduction to Green Building: Principles & Concepts”, “Case Studies in Appraising Green Residential Buildings” and “Case Studies in Appraising Commercial Green Buildings”. The Appraiser Institute is now an Education Provider with the US Green Building Council as well so both of their shinny new courses can earn eager class takers Continuing Education Units (CEUs) towards the LEED Credential Maintenance Program.

The course is currently only offered in a classroom and not yet online so assimilation to the future will take some time. The closest classroom is in Sacramento for any Southern Californians reading this. How sad that we’re not important enough to be part of the 1st group, right?

If you’re looking for a green appraiser The Appraisal Institute suggests you go to this page on their web-site and look for an appraiser with expertise in green building valuation, select “Sustainable Green Buildings” in the Special Purpose Property Types menu. Good luck enlisting someone for this specialty anytime soon though as there are very few appraisers who have received this education.

Pretty brilliant and exactly what we need, if you ask me!

All rebates and incentives from the Federal Government, State, Utilities gathered up and updated for you in one nice and convenient place online. No longer will you sift through each web-site for looking for a $50 rebate to replace your refrigerator.

Possibly the most unique feature the program does is reach out for the contact information of the online viewer who’s interested in improving their building’s energy efficiency. Eventually this could be an ultra efficient method of tracking a building owner’s energy profile and how to help them improve their efficiency.

The program also reaches out to help educate viewers about potential financing.

Moe Fakith of AEF, a Former Chair and heavy supporter of the USGBC-OC Chapter and it’s Existing Buildings, Operations & Maintenance (EBOM) Committee, among others who took part in the design and construction will be present to share and exchange ideas over wine and hors d’oeuvres