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It's not happening in the DC area, I took some time off and went for my Master's in the Netherlands hoping things would improve, came back and it wasn't. Left for California because they were supposed to be the most progressive. I am having the hardest time finding a job as a green building designer. Net Zero or bust.
It seems Del Ridge homes are building a few in the Toronto area, although some of the condo locations could be better. It's mostly 60-70 walkscore locations in the outer suburbs, usually near strip malls and small to mid-sized shopping centres. I guess that's not too bad, bringing residential closer to commercial, even if it's in an auto-oriented environment (they also have commercial and institutional projects). They did have one project in one of the suburbs' older downtowns though.
Areas they're building in (not sure if all of these are net zero but at least the most recent ones seem to be):
Bunjee well I'm in SoCal (LA), but I just moved here and am kind of squatting so I'm not really tied down to a specific place. Although I do love SoCal and would like to stay here for a while.
I am having the hardest time finding a job as a green building designer. Net Zero or bust.
Look in LEED instead. Net zero is not realistic. Besides, there are lots of things you can do as a regular building designer to decrease the energy costs. Don't think perfect is the enemy of good.
It's not happening in the DC area, I took some time off and went for my Master's in the Netherlands hoping things would improve, came back and it wasn't. Left for California because they were supposed to be the most progressive. I am having the hardest time finding a job as a green building designer. Net Zero or bust.
CA may have a lot of socially liberal cities, but we're as rigid as anyone in terms of development. We've set up our cities so that the mildly bored and irritated can be the staunch enemy of good development.
I am a LEED AP BD+C, designers and builders are annoyed by the "checklist" of prerequisites and credits. LEED did a great job in drawing awareness to environmental design, but it's blanket design requirements turn a lot of people off. Each building is unique.
Talk about perfection, now that's the Living Building Challenge. Requiring net zero energy AND water, only allowing materials that are not on the banned "red list".
Since energy involves dollars and cents, net zero energy will be what is attractive to building owners. And it's not unrealistic. Proper site orientation, energy model the design for proper insulation, glazing, daylighting, high efficiency lighting/appliances, power with solar pv, and voila... Net zero (possibly positive!)
I don't really know what net zero means in terms of what it includes, but the building examples I gave are not that expensive for Toronto. It seems the low rise condos are typically going for around $300-350/sf which is not bad at all for new construction. Most of the new construction condos in Toronto are high-rise, and actually more expensive ($450-700/sf depending on location, sometimes even around $1000/sf for very luxurious units). Lowrise new construction that isn't net zero might be more like $250-300/sf but will have higher maintenance (i.e. condo/HOA) fees. So it seems like it could be viable.
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