Eco Friendly Real Estate Blog

I'm excited about the idea of a closely-knit gathering of energy-efficient, green-built homes, especially if they are affordable and on a small footprint!    I am attracted to the notion of rounding up 10-or-so homes on a small-ish enough parcel of land so that  people who live there naturally gravitate to contributing their ideas, talents, and leadership skills in a neighborly way.  But that's me, and when it comes to added value for my clients, I'm not objective.

What I want to know is what YOU think. Is it important to you to engage the community in which you live? You may find the benefits of neighborly collaboration - sharing in community projects such as community gardens... attractive. If so, let me know because I happily will clue you in to what is happening in Asheville... and will put you in touch with other real estate experts all across the USA who can be of service to you in finding affordable green housing. But, wait a minute...first....

Tell me, how would you define that as "cluster housing"? Does it look the the graphic below?  (the graphic shows an artist's rendering of Asheville's Villages at Crest Mountain.)

Look it up at Wikipedia  and you will find it described as  "...the grouping of residential properties on a development site in order to use the extra land as open space, recreation or agriculture... increasingly becoming popular in subdivision development for its low impact and sustainability appeal.... [and] other advantages, including more green/public space, closer community, and an optimal storm water management."   Could this be the remedy for balancing conservation and development objectives, and offering an opportunity for developers and conservationists to meet in the middle, creating more livable communities in the process?

PLEASE DO STAY TUNED as I look for the answer in a number of such enterprises in this series.

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(*)/'(*)..........      ............and keep on rolling into the sustainable  world you can create today and tomorrow!. WHAT is Cluster Housing, Again? Greenolina in Asheville NC Copyright © 2010 All Rights Reserved

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UPDATE: March, 2009

PLEASE KNOW  that all of us at the Eco-Steward Real Estate Firm are Eco Certified® Real Estate  Consultants, and specialize in land carefully and thoughtfully reviewed for eco-friendly development. Also, please know that we consider steep slopes and landslides a potential hazard ( I have personal experience with the result of  flat-lander inexperience in my own neighborhood and decry it)...and that we DO recommend that our clients contact Professionals and bring in a State licensed geotechnical engineer, if necessary ... to look at potential hazards ...  

HERE IN BUNCOMBE COUNTY just this month in fact, we have been having quite a brouhahain terms of Steep Slope development...and landslides ...Fingers have been pointed at Developers, Sellers and at REALTORS® . .. THIS IS ONE Real Estate Firm NOT to be disparaged . Again....in the Eco-Steward Real Estate Firm ALL members are Eco Certified® Real Estate  Consultants, and specialize in land carefully and thoughtfully reviewed for eco-friendly development

I wrote the following post back in 2007....

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Real Estate Investors and Developers with little experience in terms of steep slopes might want to seek out the assistance of an ECO certified REALTOR® and her team of Experts. Here in Western North Carolina, Landslides are a reality as you can see with this graphic shared at a class we recently took with Richard Wooten at the Warren Wilson College Environmental Leadership Centerjust outside of Asheville.

Some landslides only consist of soil, called an earthslide. Some are a mixture of soil, rock trees and mud, called a debris flow. Other landslides contain only rock, called a rockfall or rockslide. In any case, it behooves the REALTOR®, and developer to be conscious of that fact, and so advise clients.  Not long ago a developer from a State where mountains are not so common, bought a huge ridge top where he planned to erect 4000 sq ft homes on 1 AC lots and place them atop the lofty peaks. What the developer didn't know was that this" prime acreage" was unstable.

 The result for the developer was a combination of community concern, private embarrassment, and public back-peddling. Once the community found out that the "flatlander" was planning to build on steep slopes in an area prone to landslides, they were (rightly) distressed. Who wants to live downhill from where a landslide might take you for a fast ride in the middle of the night?  For that matter, who would want to invest in a home under those conditions?  Obviously, the community groups reasoned, that developer must not have a clue as to the dangerous conditions with which he was tampering. Shouldn't he at least have looked at the property to see if there were signs of danger such as breaks in the ground surface and/or curved trees?  (see photo below our photographer took at an acreage soon to go on the market.)

Back to the story....Community members, fueled by their feelings of extreme concern,
 formed vocal groups.
They came in noisy droves to the commissioners' planning board meetings,
making it necessary for the meetings to be moved to larger and larger rooms.

The media picked up on the story. A few months passed. The developer learned that the community groups had hired an attorney. Having done that, the attorney began his process of discovery. He verified that slope stability analyses from the planning through construction and inspection phases of developments can help mitigate the potential for landslide damage.He also found out that the analyses, best done by the cooperative efforts of qualified geotechnical engineers, geologists and soil scientists, were nowhere to be found.

This lack of due diligence on the part of interested parties created an opening for the community groups to question the safety of the project. They were able temporarily to halt development pending environmental assessment studies and review of steep slope ordinances.

Soon, in our part of the mountains, landslides and potential landslide areas will be mapped.Then investors, developers and REALTORS® will have readily accessible tools with which to identify and disclose that home sites and homes in those areas are vulnerable to landslide. For all of us, it is a good idea to know certain pertinent facts about the topography and geology of a tract of land that go beyond desirability of location.  

What do you think?

Copyright © 2007 All Rights Reserved  Asheville ECO Real Estate: Trends, Legacies & The Home Place Greenolina

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