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A first-hand account of all aspects involved in creating a sustainable neighborhood development.
This new GreenSource book offers a complete look at Civano, the nation's largest sustainable mixed-use community located in the southeast part of Tucson, Arizona. Civano is comprised of four neighborhoods with the capacity to house over 2,600 families.
Inside the Civano Project covers the planning, funding, building, and management of this development which integrates residential communities with shopping, workplace, school, and civic facilities, as well as parks and natural open spaces. The book discusses the zoning and building code guidelines, sustainable building materials, energy standards, and water conservation technologies that make Civano ahead of its time.
- The USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) is still developing the guidelines for LEED-Neighborhood Development - Civano has already put those proposed guidelines into practice.
- Civano has achieved 60 percent reduction of heating and cooling energy and 55 percent reduction in potable water usage.
- Covers the Civano IMPACT (Integrated Method of Performance and Cost Tracking).
Offers a complete survey of Civano, the largest high-performance mixed-use community in the United States. Located in Tucson, Arizona, Civano encompasses high standards of resource conservation, sustainability, and solar energy use.
Inside the Civano Project features insider information on the planning, funding, building, and management of this development, which integrates residential communities with shopping, workplace, school, and civic facilities, as well as parks and natural open spaces. The book discusses the zoning and building code guidelines, sustainable building materials, energy standards, and water conservation technologies that make Civano ahead of its time.
Inside the Civano Project Covers:
- Behind-the-scenes preconstruction discussions.
- Site analysis, planning, and zoning.
- Insights from members of the Civano development team.
- The Congress for the New Urbanism.
- The LEED-Neighborhood Development program.
- Public/private land development strategies.
- The Urban Lands Act.
- The Integrated Method of Performance and Cost Tracking (IMPACT) System.
- Energy and water use monitoring.
- Photographs of Civano.
- Challenges, pitfalls, and lessons learned throughout Civano's development.
From the Foreword
The following story is about a group of people who recognized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and took it upon themselves to reinvent the future and work for its realization. The great vision of this project was understood long before those still preoccupied with the status quo could accept its premise. Yet, the story unfolds despite all the resistance and pitfalls in its path. While the final outcome was never assured, the dream and ultimate value of this opportunity would never be shaken. And so this is the story of the Tucson Solar Village Project later to be renamed Civano.
The 1970s was a decade much like the present period - protracted energy crisis, a long global recession, major changes in our monetary system, high unemployment, conflict and wars, heightened global competition for resources and markets, inflation, and growing interest in solar energy and new, more efficient technologies. In short, the world was burdened with uncertainty but also drawn to the possibilities of great and needed change.
The key scientific finding during the seventies was that Planet Earth is a finite system and that unconstrained growth would lead to dangerous resource shortages and degradation of natural systems. When the bad news would arrive in the future - when the limits to growth would be reached - was debated endlessly among "experts." However, in everyday terms, these limits seemed so far off in time that more immediate, pressing issues absorbed most people's attention. Except for a relatively small community of scientists and environmental thinkers, the value of alternatives to growth was very low. Why pursue sustainability when the presumed nature of the economy and the world's capacities is to always grow.
In the United States, the seeds of the sustainable development movement germinated in the seventies in response to these scientific findings and the social and cultural fallout from economic instability. For those of us who came to see this coming paradigmatic change, many would have to carry this knowledge patiently into the eighties and nineties before the time was right to actually work on planning, engineering, and building a different world.
The story of Civano is a story of many diverse people and events coming together at different points in time to move forward the proposition that now is the time for a prototype sustainable community development. The designs changed and evolved, but the vision was always a comprehensive treatment of all functions of the human built environment in harmony with the natural cycles of energy, water, materials, and eco-systems.
When this opportunity appeared to the first wave of Tucson innovators in the 1980s, it was clear that the next evolutionary phase was beginning. We would lead the first major experiment in the desert Southwest for learning how to create a community land development based on regenerative cycles and significantly reduced resource consumption. The promise of wide-scale utilization of solar energy in the future would be furthered by this single venture in a new approach to development.
The chronology of Civano spans three decades with important milestones achieved in each. At many points, the realization of the dream stood in doubt as challenges overwhelmed the participants and the institutions backing its progress. But key actors always kept the effort moving forward up to its current state as a living, breathing place where people and families live their lives.
An experiment should never be labeled either a success or failure because the underlying purpose of experiment is to test hypotheses and learn about something which often has never been attempted before. Civano provides us with a unique set of valuable lessons for designing ongoing responses to the intensifying sustainability crises unfolding all around us.
The story of Civano is ultimately a story of local heroes carrying forward a noble and important mission. In particular, I want to acknowledge Al Nichols, engineer extraordinaire, for his many roles throughout the past two decades in bringing Civano into being and making its beneficial lessons available to all those now and in the future who will take on the next critical sustainability challenges.
- Robert Cook
Former Chair, Tucson/Pima County Metropolitan Energy Commission Co-Founder, Sustainable Tucson
Table of Contents
Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgments. Chapter 1: A Seed Is Planted: The Early Stages of Land Planning. Chapter 2: The Public/Private Partnership: A Balancing Act. Chapter 3: Guiding Growth: Master Planning and Analysis. Chapter 4: Impacts and Adjustments: The Basics of High Performance, a.k.a. Green. Chapter 5: Germination. Chapter 6: Tug of War: Rediscovery. Chapter 7: Ground Breaking: Neighborhood One. Chapter 8: A Middle Ground - Phase II: The Costs and Benefits of Production Housing. Chapter 9: Civano's DNA: Leading the Evolution. Chapter 10: The Future Neighborhoods: Phase Ill, IV, the Commercial Center, and Beyond. Epilogue. Glossary. Appendix A: Civano Impact System Memorandum of Understanding on Implementation and Monitoring Processes; Signed June 26, 1998. Appendix B: Revised Sustainable Energy Standard. Bibliography. Index.
About the Authors
C Alan Nichols PE LEED AP (Tucson, AZ) established Al Nichols Engineering in 1995. He has served as Project Engineer at Western Electric, Process Engineer for W. L. Gore, and Project Engineer for Tierney Manufacturing. Nichols has over 30 years' experience in heating, air energy systems, and plumbing. As a member of the Tucson/Pima County Metropolitan Energy Commission, he was instrumental in writing the sustainable energy standard (SES) for Civano. Additionally, Mr. Nichols was part of a volunteer group that led the development of building code guidelines that have resulted in Civano's 50% reduction of heating and cooling energy and 60% reduction in potable water usage. In 2002, he received the Energy Users News Award for Best Mixed-Use Facility for the Civano project, and he is Past Chairman of the Tucson/Pima County Metropolitan Energy Commission.
Jason A Laros LEED AP (Tucson, AZ) is Sustainability Analyst at Al Nichols Engineering as well as Membership Committee Chairperson and Governing Council Member for the United States Green Building Council, Southern Arizona Branch.
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