With three of our homes now complete, we’ve decided to have a little house closing bash this Sunday at 2:30pm. Realtors, potential homebuyers, and neighborhood residents will be able to walk through the homes and see for themselves the finished product in all its glory.
SO feel free to drop by the 1400 and 1500 blocks of Bond Street this Memorial Day weekend– we throw a good party.
Check out the below for more info on an organized March some of our One Green Home team members are participating in– if you have any questions or would like to participate, feel free to use the contact info listed.
AND if you or your loved ones are interested in becoming more involved with our youth initiatives, click on the below to access our Mastermind Community Junior Ambassador permission slip– kids are welcome to join in and actively participate in the revitalization of the Oliver Community each Saturday at our Mastermind Youth meetings.
In the interest of keeping updated on the progress of our homes on Bond and adjacent streets, take a look at the above—cabinets are in, and appliances are on their way! With twelve houses in the works, and at least nine of those aiming for a deadline of June 30th (which, if we play it smart, really means June 15th), we’re performing surprisingly well under pressure.
See you at the finish line!
Yesterday One Green Home held its first community meeting—a gathering of residents from Bond St. and the surrounding blocks encouraged to voice their concerns about the neighborhood. Members of the audience, fueled by punch and doughnuts, were very enthusiastic about some of our recent projects. Our plans to adopt the lot behind 1515 N. Bond for a community garden, and to plant curbside trees, were especially well received. Our intentions for senior care were also praised—several of the residents cited family histories in Oliver dating back 30+years (with one 88 year-old matriarch claiming twice that), and much emphasis was placed on senior assistance and bridging the gap between generations.
Most important, however, was input provided by a member of the city’s weatherization team. Though all of the houses we have built as part of the One Green Home project have been high-quality, energy efficient homes, the majority of properties on Bond and adjacent streets are in dire need of retrofit. Through the city’s weatherization program, homeowners can get access to a free home assessments followed by free repairs and upgrades. Already proving his mettle by coming out on a Saturday afternoon to speak to the group, the city rep stayed to help our residents go through the weatherization paperwork page by page, encouraging them to share the material with their neighbors and promising to personally deliver forms to those who could not make the trip to his office. At the conclusion, the group agreed to submit as many applications as possible at our next meeting, with the intention of scheduling bulk assessments for the whole block as opposed to individual properties.
Once done with the logistics, our very own Lloyd Williams stepped up to the plate with a stirring speech covering everything from green homes to neighborhood crime—let’s just say that had the residents not already been on board, his oration would most definitely have tipped the scale. Repeating promises to bring neighbors, family, and friends to the next meeting, the residents left with a slight sugar high and what I’d like to think of as a greater sense of purpose—all in all, a great start.
If you’re a resident of Oliver and you missed out on this last meeting, no worries—just email anna@onegreenhomeatatime and we can get you applications for our gardening contest, a general needs assessment form, and information on the weatherization options available to you.
Catching up on one of my favorite bloggers, Kaid Benfield of the NRDC, I came across a post about Baltimore City “Virtual Supermarkets”. Conceived by the Baltimore City Health Department in March, the program targets Baltimore City’s “food deserts” (neighborhoods with little to no access to supermarkets or any viable source of healthy food). In short, subscribers to the program can visit a local public facility, access an order form online, input their grocery list, and then return the next day to pick up their goods.
Currently, the program is being operated out of two Baltimore City library sites—the Washington Village branch (West Baltimore) and the Orleans Street branch (East). Healthy edibles are scarce in both areas, and with approximately 50% of residents lacking their own means of transportation, getting to and from the distant Safeway seems an unwelcome burden and stopping of at the local Popeye’s a more attractive alternative. As a solution, the Virtual Supermarkets program is comprehensive. Santoni’s Supermarket (an old-school grocer) has been tapped to supply foodstuffs at a cheaper rate than most cornerstores, delivery fees are kept down because the orders are processed in bulk and delivered to a single drop-off point, and processing the order itself is free. Not to mention the fact that the libraries themselves are likely to benefit from the additional traffic.
Funded by $60,000 in federal stimulus money, the program already boasts a couple of dozen subscribers. With The Center for Design Practice at MICA working on marketing strategies for the project, and a potential new order/delivery site within the city’s recreation and parks system, I think it’s likely that number will grow. Here’s hoping.
Read Kaid’s post here, and visit the official project site at the Baltimore City Health Department page here. You can also access the original project proposal powerpoint (which includes some interesting stats about the city’s other “food deserts”, along with screen shots of the order form) here.
Check out this recent press release on Newswire announcing $1 Million in grant funds allotted to Civic Works for green job training! Formerly unemployed graduates will learn to “energy retrofit a house”, and “receive job readiness and placement services”. They will also be placed into entry-level positions in the green building industry, in an effort to simultaneously lower the unemployment rate and boost the number of energy efficient retrofits across the city. Part of the funding will also allow Civic Works to move their base of operations (now dubbed the Baltimore Center for Green Careers) to a new facility in Moravia Business Park.
As with all such programs, there’s a chance that high student volume will compromise the quality of the training and the ability of Civic Works to place all of its graduates—but let’s hope for the best.
At yesterday’s weekly builders’ meeting the group was introduced to a representative of Enterprise Community Partners. Enterprise’s mission? To “create opportunity for low- and moderate-income people through fit, affordable housing and diverse, thriving communities.” Not only that—the Enterprise rep expressed enthusiastic interest in OGH’s efforts in the Oliver Community, soliciting our help in establishing a Baltimore-specific standard for the green renovation of rowhomes.
To elaborate, Enterprise has a program dedicated explicitly to Green Communities—one which, though similar to LEED, focuses specifically on low-income, affordable housing. In cooperation with other developers working in Baltimore (for example, Habitat for Humanity and Empire Homes), members of our team would participate in a charrette to chisel away at the current requirements of the Green Communities certification process. With some helpful resources provided by Enterprise, we would then implement those practices as we move on to our next batch of houses. Ultimately, the certification guidelines we would help to create and carry out would be used as the basis for beneficial green building legislation—an admirable pursuit.
Given our expertise in adapting LEED standards to affordable building practices, as well as our uniquely holistic approach to widespread community development, I think we’ll have something valuable to contribute to the process—and, thankfully, something to learn from our partners. All in all, I think I can accurately speak for everyone at OGH when I say we’re looking forward to a symbiotic new relationship.
Read more about the Enterprise Green Communities Program and its individual projects here.
NYC Roofs Going Green – Click here for more free videos
There have been a couple of posts on this blog about green roofs– we’ve covered how they benefit the environment through consequent improvements in air quality and the reduction of the urban heat island effect. We’ve also covered how costly they are to install and maintain, and how difficult it is to fully understand how to do either. So, as an alternative to green, why not try white? Today I came across the above video outlining NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s recent initiative, the NYC Cool Roofs Program, which to be honest seems viable. City funds are used to coat the roofs of municipal buildings white, and to provide incentives to private owners to do the same. The idea is that lowered utility bills in the summer months will compensate for the initial cost of the white paint and supplies.
Of course, there are downsides—given the winter we had this past year, one must acknowledge Baltimore’s need for extra warmth during the colder months, and white roofs reflect light and heat as much in January and February as in the summer. What’s more, installing a white roof is not as easy as expected, while maintaining them (which are easily dirtied) can also be a pain. Still, studies have shown that the reduction of the heat island effect due to white roofs can’t be denied, and it seems only logical that we give it a try.
To read more about white roofs and how they might affect Baltimore’s environment, check out this article published by the Baltimore Sun. You can also get access to some interesting stats on the urban heat island effect at the EPA website here. And, if you’re feeling really inspired, try calculating the potential energy savings for your own roof with the Department of Energy’s Cool Roof Energy Calculator—to calculate accurately for Baltimore, use a solar reflectance of 83 and an infrared emmitance of 94.
Haven’t taken advantage of Maryland’s “Cash for Appliances” program yet? Or, do you simply not know what it entails? As the Baltimore Sun succinctly puts it, “pick a qualifying supersuper-efficient fridge, washing machine or electric heat pump water heater, buy it from a Maryland retailer or online, apply to your utility or the Maryland Energy Administration for a rebate, and enjoy the savings on your utility bills as well as the rebate check in the mail.” State residents can get:
- $50 back on qualifying refrigerators
- $100 for qualifying clothes washers
- $300 on electric heat pump water heaters
Specs on fridges and washing machines are the most stringent, with the former required to be 25% more effiocient than the federal standard and the latter required to meet the Consortium of Energy Efficiency’s Tier 2 standards.
We’ve already gone over some of the rebates offered by BGE—here are links to some of the other participating companies:
- Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative customers
For more details on the application process in general (and for the forms themselves) visit the Maryland Energy Administration page, as well as their Maryland municipal utilities and electric coops page.
In the interest of engaging the youth of Oliver, One Green Home will be hosting a Youth Mastermind Rap Session tomorrow morning (Saturday, May 8th) at 1101 N. Gay St.—staff members will be on hand to encourage attendees to voice their opinions musically and to generate a dialogue about neighborhood improvement. Relegating adults to the background, we want to hear more from our younger generation, who (we hope) will use this event to meet and network with other youth that may want to or may already be active in the community.
The rap session will be held from 10am to 12pm, and will include refreshments and an overview of the community’s history. Looking forward to it!
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