If you have been by the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors office at 1415 Chapala St. lately, you will be treated to an evolution that matches our ideals in reducing waste, beautifying our environment and creating a sustainable landscape for the future.

As is the case with many commercial buildings in Santa Barbara, the SBAOR building had a grass lawn in front. We have had high water bills, and some unfortunate “drainage” in our basement that needed to be rectified. With these ideas in mind, as well as some guidance from our Board of Directors and resident “green” guy Bob Hart, our association executive, we have recently employed our affiliate Wilson Environmental Contracting to change our landscape.

Daniel Wilson shared his goals for the project:

» Aesthetic enhancement — beautify. Increase color, texture and shapes over the lawn.

» Reduce water consumption, petrochemicals and fuel, and maintenance (estimated to cut water use by 80 percent in this area).

» Significantly and simply reduce flooding under the building by redirecting roof and landscape runoff away from the building toward a suitable area of the landscape where the water can infiltrate and deep irrigate the plants.

» Reduce stormwater runoff from the property to Mission Creek and the nearby ocean by maintaining stormwater onsite.

The work is in progress, but soon will become a demonstration garden for others in the community to see how landscaping can be beautiful and yet use less resources. We will now have a plethora of native, drought-tolerant plants thoughtfully planted for beauty as well as alternating blooming cycles, all of which will significantly cut our water consumption and use of fuel and fertilizer.

Realtors are proud to be setting an example and hope that others will benefit from it.

— Laurel Abbott is a real estate agent with Prudential California Realty and president of the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors. Contact her at laurel@laurelabbott.com or 805.879.8050. The opinions expressed are her own.

This is a problem. There were 302,000 housing units in New York City’s Sandy surge area, and more than two-thirds of those units were in multifamily buildings. Even in more suburban New Jersey, multifamily buildings constituted a large share of the affected area. In Hudson County (home of Hoboken and Jersey City), nearly a third of the units were in multifamily rental buildings.

Resilient design after Hurricane Sandy

Adding to the retrofit challenge, many of these buildings are occupied by lower-income residents. Our analysis of data from the 2011 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey shows that in New York City, the median income for households in multifamily rental properties was $36,000 in 2011, compared with $61,200 for all other households. Of the 2,697 multifamily rental buildings in the surge area, 839 buildings contain rent-stabilized units, 402 are New York City Housing Authority public housing buildings, and another 248 are other forms of subsidized, multifamily rental properties.

In total, these affordable, multifamily properties contain over one-third of the housing units in the surge area.

These buildings remain vulnerable to future—and inevitable—storms. That puts their tenants at particular risk. Lower-income households struggle the most to recover and rebuild after being displaced by natural disasters. It’s painfully difficult to find safe and affordable alternative places to live, especially in high-cost cities.

We need to pay special attention to protecting these kinds of homes. One way to do this is to carry out targeted retrofits. Most housing experts recommend moving utility systems off the floor and waterproofing elevators, which would reduce the risk of building damage. But even these relatively simple strategies are costly, and owners may try to pass the costs on to rent-burdened tenants or else cut back on maintenance and improvements. Many of these properties also have aging building systems, which may be difficult or impossible to move. And building codes can constrain an owners’ ability to move utility systems.

Some architects have proposed more significant retrofits, such as moving utility systems to the second floor and compensating for those lost units by adding extra floors to the tops of buildings. Another idea is using on-site landscape designs to keep flood waters at bay. However, many of these creative solutions face regulatory barriers such as height restrictions and building codes. They also come with very high price tags.

The regulations that govern the subsidies these building owners receive, through programs such as the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit or Section 8 may also limit the kinds of retrofits an owner can undertake. If nothing else, the federal programs that subsidize many of these buildings demand an additional layer of approval.

But while retrofitting multifamily buildings is a significant challenge—and urgent priority—it’s an opportunity as well. Because of their scale, multifamily buildings may actually allow for retrofitting solutions unavailable to single-family housing. For example, redundancies in basic building systems are often simply not economical for single-family homeowners, but building-level heat and power generation systems make more sense for larger buildings and can provide an alternate source of electricity if the main grid fails. The greater density of multifamily buildings may also make landscaping solutions and flood barriers more feasible and affordable, because a barrier or a planted area of a given size will protect a far greater number of people.

At a more fundamental level, multifamily buildings represent some of our most energy-efficient residential structures. Studies show that residents of multifamily housing consume far less energy than their counterparts in single-family homes due the smaller size of their units, their shared utility systems and their shared walls. In the longer run, then, investing in making multifamily housing more resilient will also help to reduce collective energy use and thereby potentially reduce associated climate risk as well.

The ongoing efforts to rebuild the areas devastated by Sandy, and efforts to prepare for future climate change related disasters must address the needs of all kinds of housing, especially the multifamily housing in which so many of our most vulnerable households live.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. –  The fall season is upon us.  But how do you get your house and yard prepped for fall?  What can you do to make your landscape stand out with those vibrant fall colors?

Joe Blackshere, the manager of the Lee’s Summit Westlake Ace Hardware store, stopped by Monday’s FOX 4 Morning Show with ideas to help you fix up your landscape for the fall season.

Want even more ideas?  Fall Fest is being held on Saturday, Oct. 5 at  all Westlake Ace Hardware stores.  For more info, go to westlakehardware.com

If you know the phenomenon that is Eat, Pray, Love, then you know Gilbert has never been one to shy away from transformation. Since the 2006 memoir about her angst-ridden search for self in Italy, India and Indonesia exploded onto the scene, leading to frequent Oprah dates, legions of disciples and a place on Time’s 100 most influential people list, it’s been her trademark.

Welcome to the second grade period, Carlé!

Several students took the ASVAB test. ASVAB stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. The ASVAB is a series of questions that can help you make a good career choice. Carlé is proud to be able to offer this to its students each year.

Students who took the ASVAB were Melyssa Moreno, Cody Perdock, Malia Askew, Marisa Gilbert, Sienna Norton, Lance Thurston, Blake Von Rekowski, Alvin Wilder, Isaac Soto, Craig Stephens, Yasmine Wilcox, Jeremy Hunter and Dane Pearson.

Carlé has had a record number of gold level students this grading period. Twenty-one gold level students got their gold level cards.

Gold level students for the first grade period were Kelly Alvarez, Jay Brown, Lukas Carlson, Kasandra Colwell, Shelby England, Kevin Fisher, Savanna Golden, Jeremy Hunter, Jonathan Lansdowne, Jasmine Mcgee, Timothy Mcguire, Deandre Morris, Dane Pearson, Cody Perdock, Alyssa Peterson, Daniel Salvante, Chenoa Schmidt, Christopher Stutz, Blake Von Rekowski, Amaree Whiley and Alvin Wilder.

Silver level students were Ty Ty Beasley, Gage Beck, Nathan Frigge, Alyssa Garnett, Summer Gunn, Cody Hoss, Troy Lamburth, Michael Lanigan, Jessie Mason, Kobi Mathies, Marla Mitchell, Sienna Norton, Nathan Oakley, Isaiah Piazza, Esperanza Roberts, Steven Tracy, and Yasmine Wilcox.

Student Council: Carlé High School will be having a barbecue on Monday, Oct. 7. Student Council members will decide what activities they want like football, baseball or ping pong.

Advisors will give students a survey to see what kind of music students would like to hear at the barbecue. The Student Council will have a See’s Candy fundraiser.

Student of the week was Jonathan Lansdowne. He came back to school this year with a fire to graduate and has been a real asset to our community.

Interact Club: The club is working on getting the plants in the garden for the safe house. Members of the club will be doing cleaning and landscaping at the safe house. Both of these events will take place in October.

Upcoming events for Interact Club: In November the Interact Club will have lunch with the Rotary Club. On Dec. 14, the Interact Club will have its annual Christmas Dinner. On Feb. 21, 2014, the members will set up tables for the annual seafood boil, which takes place the following day.

Angie Siegel, the science teacher, and Dr. Burger, the school principal, went to a workshop on Monday, Sept. 23. The workshop was called “Restorative Practices.” The workshop is about looking at ideas for discipline other than suspension.

Timothy Mcguire is a student at Carlé Continuation High School in Lower Lake, Calif.

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DUNKIRK – Residents and community leaders filled the large meeting room at the SUNY Fredonia Incubator Center on Central Avenue in Dunkirk to talk about planning, promoting and marketing Dunkirk.

The Saturday morning gathering was coordinated by the city and members of the Academy Heights Neighborhood Association to promote the city and get new ideas on how to improve.

George Grasser, of Buffalo, brought a team of people involved in urban-planning projects.

Team members included experts in urban engineering, marketing and promoting the concept of “complete streets.”

They said that streets should be friendly for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists.

Mayor A.J. Dolce was pleased by the turnout.

He estimated that 80 residents showed up to share ideas and participate in the walking tours with the planning group.

“I am really pleased to see so much interesting revitalizing our city,” Dolce said.

The mayor said he believes that active participation from community groups will encourage business growth and attract new residents to the city.

Grasser prefaced the walking tours by asking people to scan the neighborhoods and look for ideas to promote walking and encourage small businesses and services within short distances to residential areas. Members of the group walked around the harbor area, the First Ward and Central Avenue.

After the walking tours, the planning team members pointed out that the harbor attractions but said they are not easily found. They recommended better signs and marketing near the recreational areas along the waterfront. They also recommended promoting the areas and their attractions on social media as a way of attracting younger visitors.

City residents should form a planning group and target specific projects throughout the city, the experts said.

Also, the team members suggested landscaping along the Route 5 corridor near Central Avenue and repainting the railroad bridges in the city.

When budgets are squeezed the office greenery is the first thing to get axed. Kenneth Freeman suggests that entrepreneurs ought to be spending their cash on plants for the office.

There is plenty of evidence to show that well-being at work affects efficiency and productivity. But what does this have to do with interior plants, you ask? Research carried out by Craig Knight and Tom Postmes at the Universities of Exeter and Groeningen has shown that items such as plants and art, or even fragrance, increases productivity, engagement and well-being. 

Furthermore, work carried out in the 1980s and 1990s by Roger Ulrich has shown significant health benefits when people are exposed to scenes of nature or views to gardens or plant displays. There is also a huge body of scientific literature showing that symptoms of sick-building syndrome (SBS) are reduced when interior plants are brought into buildings. Such effects were initially thought to be related to the physical characteristics of plants, but the main benefits seem to be psychological.

Simple pleasures such as a walk in the woods or a visit to a park have been shown to reduce stress and feelings of anxiety. Anti-social behaviour in inner cities has been linked to the lack of access to open green space (so-called “Nature Deficit Disorder”) and doctors are even prescribing walks in the countryside as part of a healing regime. 

Our need for nature was identified by the American biologist, Edward O Wilson, who found that when given the freedom to choose their ideal environment, people gravitate towards a location that combines three major features: positioned at height, overlooking the landscape (with open terrain and scattered trees), and being close to open water, such as streams or lakes. 

Wilson’s ideas have been adopted by architects and designers for some time. In a book by Stephen Kellert, Biophilic Design, we see how architects have used these principles to connect their buildings with nature. But by using combinations of plants, art, lighting and sound effects as well as a more naturalistic style of design it should be possible to make significant improvements to well-being and employee engagement at a very low cost.

Creating a healthy and nature-connected working environment can pay huge dividends in terms of well-being, productivity and business effectiveness – a real return on a relatively small investment in interior design.

Kenneth Freeman is the head of innovation at office landscaper Ambius

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One of Austin Trautman’s heroes is Joseph Eichler, a midcentury California developer who brought beautiful architecture to the masses.

Eichler, however, didn’t bear the burden of knowing how energyinefficient all those expansive glass walls, skylights and atriums could be.

Trautman, an environmentalist with a degree in kinesiology from Arizona State University, does.

He has spent the past three years researching the best way to build a net-zero energy home, east of downtown Phoenix, that produces all the power it consumes.

Trautman tagged Valley architect Matthew Salenger of CoLAB Studio and builder James Trahan of 180 Degrees, known for building some mammoth modern luxury homes, to create a prototype that celebrates both modern design and green building.

“I like big puzzles,” Trautman, owner of Vali Homes, said from the finished house, where he talked in detail about its airtight building envelope, lack of waste during construction and its efficient wall system with “half the wood and three times the insulation of a typical home.” Because the home is relatively small, with airtight walls and well-placed windows, a 3.6-kilowatt photovoltaic solar-energy system will power it.

Although the Valley has plenty of inefficient older houses, Trautman’s project is one of many that is challenging standard homebuilding practices and pushing energy-efficient technologies.

Another was just completed in north Phoenix, where a team of architecture, engineering and construction students from ASU and the University of New Mexico collaborated to create a net-zero energy home — one that is also transportable.

On Thursday, the ASU/UNM team will compete against 19 other entries at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon in Irvine, Calif. The event is a Super Bowl of sorts for solar-powered homes aimed at creating a new generation of builders who think green.

The event is held every two years, because it takes that long to dream up, engineer and construct these sustainable homes, which are judged on performance, affordability and livability.

One of the biggest innovations in ASU/UNM’s 850-square-foot SHADE home (an acronym for Solar Homes Adapting for Desert Equilibrium) is a radiant heating and cooling system that uses water-filled capillaries above a plaster ceiling as a way to cool or heat the home. The capillary system is made by Beka USA in Goodyear.

“It’s an effective system,” said Alia Taqi, an ASU graduate student on the decathlon team. “It works really well in dry climates, and it’s a little more costly than a traditional HVAC cooling system. But, in the long run, it uses almost 40 percent less energy.”

SHADE cost about $285,000 to build and will produce all its own energy, saving an estimated $150 per month compared with a conventionally built home of the same size. Net-zero homes tied to the grid pay only the minimum monthly fee to their utility company — about $10 to $17 per month for billing and meter reading.

The team is also testing material in the floors that absorbs energy when a room is warm and releases it when the temperature drops, evening out a room’s thermal profile.

SHADE also is testing a thermal battery (used in some commercial buildings) that freezes water at night and uses ice during the day for a glycol and water solution carried to the cooling systems.

Interior walls coated in clay plaster help regulate humidity in SHADE, and a tilted solar array serves as a roof over a 200-square-foot porch that extends the living space. An exterior screen of 2-by-4s, meant to mimic the look of cactus needles, helps shade the exterior walls.

Next year, a SHADE home will be installed at Steele Indian School Park as an example of sustainable living as part of the city’s Phoenix Renews development plan.

C.R. Herro, vice president for environmental affairs at Meritage Homes in Scottsdale and an industry leader in green-building technology, said he believes heating and cooling systems that use liquid rather than forced air may be the future. They’re considered more efficient and more comfortable. But, he said, it will take time for the systems to become affordable.

Herro, who will speak at the Department of Energy’s net-zero energy summit during the Solar Decathlon, said he remembers when the event’s net-zero energy homes seemed like spaceships.

Today, he said, net-zero is a no-brainer. Since 2011, Meritage sells only Energy Star-certified homes that, with optional Echo photovoltaic solar-power systems, can achieve net-zero status.

Meritage’s net-zero homes start affordable — in the $200,000 range, depending on location. And several local homebuilders offer solar packages. Herro admitted it’s not the average customer who understands and opts to invest about $30,000 in solar panels to create a net-zero Meritage home.

Local utilities and Arizona SmartPower, a non-profit that helps educate homeowners about solar choices, say it’s hard to find many true net-zero homes in the Valley that create all their own power, because air-conditioning uses so much energy in the summer months.

Ed Fedoruk, a custom homebuilder who used to sell photovoltaic systems, is a net-zero homeowner. Fedoruk said he pays Arizona Public Service Co. $10.54 per month — the utility’s minimum monthly charge for meter reading, billing and having an account — to power his 3,000-square-foot Carefree home.

“It’s not science fiction,” Fedoruk said of living in his net-zero home, which is well-insulated and powered with a 6-kilowatt Sanyo solar-power system. “It’s like living in any home, really. … You don’t have to worry about scrimping on the air-conditioner. When you don’t have big electricity bills, it helps with the budget.”

Herro said the challenge going forward is educating consumers and adopting technologies that continue to make homes increasingly energy-efficient and extremely durable — even stormproof.

For that, many companies are testing new wall systems that are superior to standard wood framing with fiberglass-batt insulation.

This past spring, in time for Earth Day, Meritage unveiled a new prototype green home in Goodyear using a poured-on-site wall system of insulated concrete panels by the Arizona company HercuWall. The 7-inch- thick walls are quiet, watertight and resistant to mold and termites.

Nathan Day, a luxury-home developer at Sterling at Silverleaf in north Scottsdale, is testing energy-efficient wall panels by i-Frame Building Solutions in Scottsdale (used mostly for commercial buildings) that employ steel studs and embedded interlocking insulation.

In Phoenix, Trautman’s spec home has another feature that Herro has mentioned as a homebuilding technology of note: vented siding.

From the outside, the Vali home looks like a modern, steel-wrapped rectangle. The envelope of perforated steel panels keeps radiant heat off the insulated exterior walls and vents heat. Under the steel siding, the walls boast foil-wrapped rigid-foam insulation, blown-in cellulose insulation and wooden studs placed 24 inches apart rather than the typical 16 inches.

Trautman said they took great pains during construction to seal any air gaps using flashing tape, rubber gaskets and polyurethane foam. He also installed a fresh-air system that helps eliminate dust and contaminants and recirculates the air in the home every three hours.

“The airtight construction, less wood (because wood is a poor insulator), more insulation and a fresh-air system are currently somewhat specific to green building, but I’m certain (they) will be standard in the next 10-20 years,” Trautman said. “Minimum codes are moving steadily in this direction, and many of the ideas we have used are already standard in places like Canada.”

A lot has been cleared for construction on another Vali home. Trautman has listed the first 1,500-square-foot home for $400,000 — $266 per square foot, or more than 2.5 times the median Valley home price.

Ultimately, Trautman hopes to continue building, making the modern green houses more affordable. A good portion of the initial cost is research and development, but Trahan, Trautman and Salenger say that after months of running the plans through modeling programs that estimate cost and energy efficiency, they were able to get the initial building cost down to about $140 per square foot — or about $210,000, not including the landscaping and steel cladding around the courtyard.

“It did become a big balancing act,” Trahan said. “We went through hundreds of line items of cost.”

Trautman would like to find a city lot large enough to build several at once, further lowering the cost to customers.

Overall, he said, his goal is to create houses that are so peaceful, comfortable, durable and well-designed that the green features don’t call attention to themselves — they simply work.

“Apple and Tesla are probably my favorite companies as examples,” he said. “It’s not so much about all the features (the iPhone) has — it’s extremely simple, it’s got one button, somehow it intuitively works well, and I use it because it’s not a pain. … Hopefully, that improves your life rather than adds complication to it.”

That, he said, is how we should build a house.

PRYOR, OK —
Final preparations are being made for Great Days of Service Mayes County and the excitement is catching on.

The week-long event began in 2007 and features county-wide participation in a food drive as well as community projects.

More than 17,000 pounds of food was gathered last year. Volunteers complete beautification projects around their communities. Blankets and quilts are made and distributed.

This year, the food bags will arrive at residences on Monday, Oct. 7. Each paper bag will have a letter attached with instructions as to the pickup of food as well as suggestions of food pantry items.

“All of the food collected in each community will stay in that community,” Pryor Area Chamber of Commerce President Barbara Hawkins said. “Every participating community has a local food bank that can be helped by those donations.”

Grocery pickup will be Saturday, Oct. 12, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Thunderbird Youth Academy cadets will join other volunteers to canvas communities picking up food donations.

Pryor’s Your Place Church is hosting a backpack program food drive to benefit the Boys Girls Club who send backpacks full of food and snacks home with their kids weekly.

Several beautification projects are taking shape in Pryor. Volunteers will clean up welcome signs and do some landscaping. Pryor Rotary Club has adopted Centennial Park for a day of cleanup on Oct. 12.

Participants in the latest Mayes County Leadership Academy recently completed their extensive project at the Mayes County Fairground. The group secured funds to construct a new entrance to the exibition building, including painting and wood staining in the entryway and repair of the bathrooms.

High School Leadership students will be paired with L.O.F.T. (Leadership of Future Tigers) fourth, fifth and sixth graders in the coming weeks to do cleanup projects at the local elementary schools.

The O.D. “Jock” Mayor Foundation has been key in funding assistance for Great Days of Service, not only in Mayes County but in Grayson County, Texas.

Because of available grant money, Hawkins was able to share the funds.

“If the chambers in the other communities want to plan a project, we can offer them up to $1,000 with matching funds and it can be in kind,” Hawkins said. “In kind” means that the communities who participate can match funds with labor provided by volunteers for the project.

“The Great Day project must benefit the entire community,” Hawkins said. “For example, if volunteers wanted to paint a building on Main Street, we could supply the paint and accessories (with the shared money) and they could do the work.”

Hawkins suggested if residents have project ideas for their community, they should contact their local Chamber of Commerce.

Great Days week also serves as the kick-off for the PACC Angel Tree program. More than 800 children in Mayes County were served last year in the Angel Tree program.

In September, there were several collection efforts for children’s underwear and socks, including area churches hosting Undies Sunday. The need was realized last year, which marked the first time the Chamber oversaw the massive program.

“We know how much children need underwear and socks and we were somewhat amazed at how expensive those items can be,” Hawkins said. This year’s collection effort was very successful and donations are still being tallied.

Hawkins admits last year was a learning experience and the assistance they received was invaluable.

“We are so grateful for the help we received from the counselors in the Pryor School system,” Hawkins said. “They went far and above in their efforts to assist us and we couldn’t have done it without them.”

For more information on Great Days of Service, to volunteer, or to share project ideas, contact your local Chamber of Commerce. Pryor: 825-0157, Chouteau: 476-8222, Locust Grove: 479-6336, Salina: 434-8181.

WENATCHEE — An off-leash dog area and a skateboard/BMX track emerged as the top ideas for a new waterfront park at a meeting earlier this week.

About 35 people attended a city open house on Tuesday to gather ideas on how to develop about five acres on either side of the Pipeline Bridge along Wenatchee’s riverfront.

The land was donated earlier this year by the Hale family.

The city parks board hopes to have a final design for the park by November. The city would like to start applying for grant funding early next year and build the park in 2016.

During the brainstorming meeting at City Hall, a dog park got 14 votes, followed closely by 12 votes for a skateboard/BMX park.

Ideas getting fewer but multiple votes included a waterfront trail connection to South Wenatchee neighborhoods, restrooms, a stage and live-music venue, splash pad, trees and landscaping, playground equipment, picnic areas, basketball courts, community gardens, fishing access and miniature golf.

Suggestions that got just one vote each included a recreation center, water slides, fountains, fishing pond, go-cart track and tennis courts.

The city will continue to accept ideas for the park’s development until Oct. 16. They can be submitted to parks director Dave Erickson at daerickson@wenatcheewa.gov.

Reach Russ Hemphill at 509-665-1161 or (javascript required to see email). Follow him on Twitter at @Worldcityeditor.