"LJUrban & Newton Booth: Sustainability in Motion"
by Rob McQuade, ABR, Sacramento REALTOR®
Sacramento CA Real Estate
Sacramento has many walkable urbane neighborhoods, but in Midtown--the granddaddy of walkability in the region--the core issue becomes preserving local history and the fabric of the community while meeting the needs of growth, sustainability, and quality of life.
More and more people are returning to some of Sacramento's oldest neighbors, choosing livability over square footage and lively variety over, well, shades of beige. Certainly the trend towards larger and larger homes over the past decades has been driven by market "wants", but we're now seeing a generation--my generation--that feels fewer ties to the Leave-It-To-Beaver suburban vision and more of a desire to steer clear of the grinding car-based existence of its parents.
And smart developers are paying attention.
In the Newton Booth neighborhood (the southeast section of Midtown adjacent to Poverty Ridge), local eco-urban and sustainability-minded developer LJUrban has been hammering out the details and working through the approval process on what is shaping up to be the next generation of projects that the wildly popular Metro Square on the north side of Midtown helped lead the way toward.
Not Just the Color of Money
A lot of people talk about going "green" but what does being or going green entail? The ideals are relatively straightforward: conserving energy, preserving natural resources, improving sustainability, and maintaining open space.
Developers are finding more ways to do this. Open space is conserved by building a smaller "footprint" (the built-up portion of land) and adding height to achieve similar space. Energy is conserved at the structural level in attached housing and common walls use fewer resources, improved photovoltaic cells make harnessing solar energy cheaper and easier so that fewer coal- and gas-powered energy sources are needed, and more energy-efficient appliances are being installed with the understanding that a up-front cost is mitigated by the energy savings over time.
Unlike in paved-over areas--you know, those areas covered entirely by roads and buildings--new projects are being built to allow water to return to the ground through openings and in greenbelts instead of running off to streams and rivers where it is lost. While I don't know exactly what the LJUrban crew has in mind, I'm willing to bet at least a few of these features will be a part of the Newton Booth project.
Why? Because it's the right thing to do. ♦
» You can visit the LJUrban website here ››.
» As always, you can email Rob here.
Rob McQuade, ABR, Sacramento REALTOR®
McMartin Realty - Sacramento CA Real Estate
2031 K St Ste 100
Sacramento, CA 95814-4216
Tel (916) 444-7577 or Toll Free (866) 720-CITY (2489)
Fax (916) 444-7977
On the web at http://www.RobMcQuade.com/
Visit my blog at http://www.CentralCityGuy.com/
You can email me at Rob@RobMcQuade.com
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