ecohome guy

Hollywood Director Tom Shadyac's journey to greater happiness takes some interesting detours from the typical path in pursuit of the American Dream. 

Film Moguls aren't the only ones looking to downsize, simplify, and make community connections.

The lead article of the Winter 2012 issue of On Common Ground, a smart growth publication by the National Association of Realtors, documents the trend of "Building Community on a Small Scale and at a Slower Pace." With limited financing and consumers downsizing, small and slow is in when it comes to development today. The publication puts a lense on the rise of "pocket neighborhoods" in diverse locations like Washington State, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Pocket Neighborhoods are best described as cottages clustered around a garden or green space. The homes typically max out at 1,000 square feet with parking pushed to the edges of the property.

Atlantans who are looking for smaller, higher quality, lower-maintenance homes in a setting where they can easily know their neighbors and have access to organic food grown on site will be glad to know about some local initiatives to develop these type communities. Robert Reed, Program Manager for Sustainable Cities at Southface Institute and Greg Ramsey, Director of Village Habitat Design, are hosting a Cottage Community with Garden/Farm Workshop at Southface Institute on Tuesday, February 7th. The workshop is open to professional planners, developers, community activists and citizens interested in developing a cottage community, ecovillage, or cohousing community with gardening or farming.

Go here for more information on attending.

[Originally posted MLK day two years ago today]

MLK Day got me thinking about Van Jones and Bono.

Stay with me.

Van Jones, a black civil rights activist, is becoming a leading spokesman for the green movement. Watch the video above and you'll understand why.

Bono sings "I believe in Kingdom Come, when all the colors will bleed into one, bleed into one."

Could that one color be green?

Now watch the video below of Bono at the NAACP Awards three years ago. Bono, who has been heavily influenced by the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., is given the Chairman's Award. Watch this white, "almost pink," Irishman channel the spirit of Dr. King in his acceptance speech.

This Spring I will partner with Bicycle Tours of Atlanta to offer tours by bike to properties for sale along the BeltLine Eastside Trail.

My market focus goes beyond the energy-efficient, eco-friendly features inherent in a particular dwelling to include the community it is embedded in. My concentration is on properties that score high in location-efficiency [often more important than the building's energy efficiency]. These homes are generally found Intown Atlanta within some of the city's more bicycle-friendly neighborhoods and village settings, and often in proximity to MARTA, bike paths, and the coming BeltLine and Atlanta Streetcar. I call these properties "wheel estate." The BeltLine will eventually feature a 33+ mile loop of trail, allowing owners of wheel estate to enjoy a healthy lifestyle of connected communities with a reduced reliance on their cars. The first 2+ miles of the BeltLine Eastside Trail, extending from Irwin Street to Piedmont Park, opens in April, 2012.

Are you a buyer looking to burn more calories and less carbon? Are you looking to live a car-lite lifestyle on the BeltLine? Stay tuned for more information on my upcoming BeltLine Wheel Estate tours.

Get the flyer on Atlanta's Bicycle-Friendly Broker here.

SHINE [Sustainable Home Initiative in the New Economy] is a residential weatherization rebate program offering City of Atlanta homeowners the ability to receive up to $3,500 in rebates towards qualifying improvements. Improvements include, but are not limited to duct and air sealing, insulation improvement, caulking, weather-stripping, and the replacement of doors and windows that are the source of significant heating and cooling loss.  Incentives are also available for high energy efficiency domestic hot water heaters.

Go here for more...

The Eastside Trail construction is well underway. As depicted below, this 2 1/2 mile first phase has it's end points at Monroe Drive on the north end and Dekalb Avenue to the south.

Courtesy of BeltLine.org

The trail being constructed will hug the east side of the corridor to make room for the future transit. The future concept of the underpass at Highland Avenue [below] illustrates this well. This node will also feature ADA-compliant access to Highland Avenue.

Pictured below is the same view as construction of the trail begins in early June of 2011. 

All grocery stores have a percentage of their product that ends up as spoils due to expiration dates, damaged packaging, freshness, etc.  Best-case scenario is the spoils are donated. Worst-case they go in the dumpster and then end up in a landfill. If bagged in plastic they may take an inordinant amount of time to decompose. Decomposed organic material can serve a much better purpose than rotting in ever expanding landfills.

Trader Joe's is known for each store's neighborhood involvement. Midtown Atlanta is no exception as they have always donated their spoils to local charities and non-profits. Even so, a portion of the organic and vegetable spoils were still dumpster-bound due to advanced deterioration. But, because of Trader Joe's commitment to Kaizen [the Japanese concept of continuous incremental improvement], the Midtown store will now donate even the un-donatable. Wheat Street Gardens, a new urban garden located two miles away in the Old Fourth Ward, will take the spoils and compost it.

Compost is decomposed organic matter that is given new life as a fertilizer and soil amendment. It's the secret sauce of organic farming. All but forgotten in modern America, Wheat Street Gardens is reviving the ancient practice [dating back to the early Roman era] in their organic farming efforts. They employ vermicomposting, a specialized form of composting leveraging the seemingly lowly earthworm. By using Red Wigglers, they convert rotting vegetable matter into nutrient-rich humus in record time.

This obviously requires more effort than bagging "garbage" and sending it on it's way along the typical waste stream. Trader Joe's and Wheat Street Gardens are to be commended for their community leadership towards a more sustainable intown Atlanta.