Building, leasing and living green in the city.

By Molly Dickinson

What’s your idea of a green city? Is it a smart-growing metropolis that will require new construction to meet green building standards? One that’s a proud “Tree City,” claiming the most forest of any urban area in the country, with a legacy of reforestation and preservation to match? How about one with a sustainable design plan for 100 years from now that’s nationally recognized as America’s “City of the Future?” Or is it a city with growing, green roofs crowning government buildings? In Atlanta, going green isn’t just in our future, it’s in our past and our present as a city that’s constantly growing, learning and building better and smarter. Where we live speaks volumes about who we are and what we love and value. We get that. That’s why the city has embraced a renewed commitment to eco-consciousness, starting right where it matters most—at home.

In this guide to green housing in Atlanta, you’ll find news on what builders and developers are doing to green the housing market, what eco-trends you’re likely to come across in the search for your next home, which standout condos, apartments and housing communities top the green list and what the city itself is doing to make green living our kind of living.

The Green Building Boom
Solar panels, living roofs and cisterns are all green building trends touted as rare eco-eccentricities just 30 years ago. Today, these amenities are well on their way to becoming standard in everything from single family homes to condos, apartments and even commercial buildings. “The [green building] trend won’t be dismissed. This is the way it’s going to be,” says Dave Radlmann, a green builder and developer with Atlanta’s Urban Green Properties (UGP).

As a leader in the urban redevelopment of the city’s neighborhoods, Radlmann has witnessed Atlanta’s green movement blossom and continue to grow faster than a wall of kudzu. And, according to Radlmann and like-minded builders and developers, the green building practices currently sweeping the city are a lengthening line of fading carbon footprints heading in the right direction.

Sustainable building certification programs like government-backed Energy Star (introduced by the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy in 1992) and Atlanta-based Southface Energy Institute’s EarthCraft are some of the most widespread and popular ways builders are going greener. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification also continues to gain significant momentum throughout the city. These programs encourage green building by providing third party certification through point systems evaluating the sustainability of a given structure, creating a standardized industry-wide “green” measure for builders and buyers alike. Among the more popular green aspects topping EarthCraft and LEED certification checklists are “walkability,” a community’s proximity and accessibility to public transport and destinations; the incorporation of green space through preserving or installing drought-resistant and native plant landscaping; the use of Energy Star high-efficiency appliances; choosing low- or no-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint and adhesives for improved air quality; and using sustainable, rapidly renewable building materials, like bamboo or recycled carpet, and sourcing them closer to home. Major green points are also earned through recycling construction waste (Radlmann says UGP recycles 80 percent of waste, often in innovative ways such as mulching wood studs on site or turning other scraps into sculpture for the final building), implementing community education programs and incorporating amenities like recycling centers, community shuttles, green cleaning services and natural saline, rather than chlorine pools (aspects that prove you can go green without sacrificing luxury).

Other more general trends to watch for, according to Robert Reed, sustainable communities design director for Southface, are a push toward “linking environmental and recreational features,” such as constructing a green roof for an underground parking deck that doubles as a courtyard or a community pond that doubles as a storm water retention area. “There’s always going to be a need for the recreational element,” says Reed, “and there’s plenty of opportunity there for improved environmental impact.” Water conservation—through the use of rain barrels, cisterns, gray water recycling programs, drip irrigation, etc.—is an issue both Reed and Radlmann foresee as becoming a major green building priority in the near future. “We [builders] are in the driver’s seat to push and work toward building all green. Beyond just selling houses, it’s the right thing to do,” Radlmann says.

Painting the City Green
The run-down of green city initiatives for Atlanta spans seven categories, nine pages and includes over 25 supporting organizations. And that’s just the overview. There’s no doubt Atlanta is poising itself to become one of the nation’s greatest, greenest places to live, and that the city is enthusiastically and pragmatically setting goals, taking action and working hard toward reaching that ever-brighter green glow on the horizon. For those of you who can only squeeze in a few minutes between calling realtors and packing boxes, here are the fast facts about how the city’s going big with going green.

Atlanta’s Beltline is easily one of the largest and most anticipated green projects the city has ever undertaken. This 25-year revisioning of Atlanta’s urban center (the ideal planned location is under three miles from downtown) is slated to transform over 20 miles and nearly 3,000 acres of neglected railroad corridors and underused developed land into a revamped, interconnected transportation and greenway system. The Beltline will feature parks and walkable mixed-used developments connecting 45 area neighborhoods and Atlanta’s public transit system.

A new Atlanta Green Building Ordinance, which builds on the 2003 ordinance requiring new construction and renovations of city-funded projects and city facilities over a certain size or cost to adhere to the LEED Silver Standard of sustainability, is scheduled to be passed in 2009. The expanded ordinance will require all new construction and renovation throughout the city (with the exception of low-rise residential buildings) to meet LEED Silver, Earth Craft II or comparable levels of green certification by 2012. If passed, this will make Atlanta one of the first major American cities to hold commercial development to green building standards.

Atlanta’s eco-improvement pipeline also includes plans for increasing green space through programs and organizations like Project Greenspace and the Piedmont Park Conservancy, which plans to add 53 acres to the park over the next decade or so, and Clean Water Atlanta, which has invested $3.9 billion toward claiming America’s cleanest urban waterways in the next 10 years. Ongoing and proposed projects under the umbrellas of sustainable development, energy and water conservation, local and organic food promotion, recycling and waste management, air and climate protection as well as environmental education and outreach are already greening Atlanta’s present and future. Read more online at atlanta.gov.