Project: The Meadow Farm, Santa Cruz, California
Project Type: Residential
Project Team: Sherwood Design Engineers, William McDonough and Partners, Bernard Trainer and Associates, Redhorse Constructors Inc.
Goals for this greenfield residential project are to reduce waste, minimize demand for potable water, and use 100% renewable energy, regional materials, and native drought-tolerant plantings. On-site materials will be used as subbase for slab foundations and for earth rammed walls within buildings. Rainwater will be used in toilets and laundry, blackwater waste will be treated for use in irrigation, concrete pour tailings will be recycled into landscaping pavers, and an edible garden will be created.
The Meadow Farm project was designed with site based sustainability as a key goal; however despite the importance of sustainability to our client we have had trouble moving forward with the SITES certification. We have had three large hurdles with the SITES work: difficulty complying with the specifics of prerequisite 1.1 (limit development on various farmland soils), not having full team / client support, and not being involved with SITES early enough in the design process,
First of all, our main difficulty has been that the Meadow Farm project does not meet prerequisite 1.1; limit development of soils designated as prime farmland, unique farmland, and farmland of statewide importance. The NRCS designation is not consistent with local zoning classifications which made it difficult to understand. An alternative compliance path of mitigating farmland soil disturbance is allowed through purchasing an agricultural conservation easement at a 5:1 ratio. Despite the design of the residence only disturbing approximately 20% of the site (and restoring much of the undisturbed areas) because our project site is almost 100% designated farmland of statewide importance we must follow the alternative path. The project does qualify for all of the requirements of this pathway, however it has been very difficult for the design team to determine how to go about creating or purchasing an agricultural easement. Almost no information was provided by the SITES team in the pilot resources (webinars, FAQs etc.), the resources provided have been vague and misleading; it is a very complex topic to understand. The team’s extensive research has still not been able to determine how to acquire a conservation easement in a reasonable scale, cost and timeframe.
Secondly, this certification program was something that a few of the consultant team members decided to take-on with their own internal resources and was not a primary goal for the project from the beginning, thus not garnering the full commitment and resources that was applied to the LEED process. Sherwood has taken on the prime certification manager, learning the prerequisites and credits from scratch and informing / teaching the other members. The project owner has been very supportive of the program in principle but has not committed beyond this. This has made discussing things such as creating an agriculture easement on land already owned by the client an additional challenge.
Lastly, most of the design work was complete before knowing about and being selected as a SITES pilot project. While the SITES team has been very understanding in giving some leniency in credits which require work in the design stage, project specifications need to be very carefully written in order to ensure that contractors will follow SITES requirements and proper materials are used. Because this project is already in construction many credits which may have been easily obtained are not available.