Everyone’s familiar with America’s classic neighborhoods: narrow tree-lined streets, wide sidewalks, porches, a nearby corner store, tame traffic, a park within walking distance and not a garage door in sight. Children walked or rode bikes to school, their friends’ houses and the corner store.
Like many other aspects of our heritage, Americans are rediscovering the traditional neighborhood. A century ago, Americans understood how to create neighborhoods of charm, enduring value and wonderful memories. At Water's Edge, we have resurrected their traditional town planning, building practices and common sense wisdom. A fine example of this is in Boise's coveted North End, Hyde Park in particular.
But Americans have changed in the past century. According to the President, "Americans are addicted to oil". We must now live in subdivisions that Engineers and Builders have designed to accommodate the automobile as a priority rather than being designed around the pedestrian. The typical "suburban subdivision" has streetscapes dominated by bland, wide streets with garage doors lined up in all directions. Street trees are a distant memory and Planners have even gone so far as to make the quaint "corner store" illegal. Because these unattractive garage doors have now replaced the classic front porch in most modern house designs, neighbors rarely have the opportunity or the inclination to interrelate, much less come to know each other's names. It is very common to have only one builder in a subdivision, so "clone homes" sprawl as far as the eye can see. Most all of these houses in these subdivisions are very similar in price to each other, so if we ever need to buy a more or less expensive home, there is no choice but to pull up stakes and leave the entire area to find what we need. No wonder neighbors don't invest in relationships with each other when they know they will be leaving in a few years to find the next house to meet their needs. At Water's Edge, you can "age in place". With many housing choices and price points available all in one community, you can move several times as your income and household changes through the years and you can still remain in the same community where long term friendships can be maintained. Planners now separate living, working, learning, shopping and recreation into vast zones. This approach forces people into their cars for each daily task or errand, uses more oil, costs more time and money, creates more traffic and associated accidents. It also breaks down the valuable social networks around the home. This approach to "neighborhood" design creates mile after mile of unwalkable, automobile-dependant groups of tract houses that aren't viewed with much affection. By the year 2015, it is estimated that 75% of Americans will be overweight. This is not the American dream.
We at Aldeia, LLC know that these conventional planning methods are a failed model that cannot support healthy, happy and productive living. We have designed a new model. We have blended the best of traditional American craftsmanship and neighborhood design with modern technology and convenience. Many residents in Water's Edge will be able to choose to get by with just one car in the family because many of their daily needs are just a short stroll away. Just think what the average family budget can do with an extra $400- $600 or more each and every month as a result of selling that second car! We are even planning on having some community owned cars and a pickup truck or two that can be reserved and borrowed at low cost to help make the transition to a single car household even easier. We are now facing permanent world wide energy constraints and as a result, we are facing very high costs for energy in the future. Water's Edge residents and business owners will be greatly insulated against energy cost increases in the future.
Water's Edge will have the next generation of Fiberoptics To The Home technology (FTTH) that will support telecommuting and all the latest broadband based technologies. Smart home technologies will be available for those residents that want the most cutting edge systems for their homes and businesses in the community.
Enhancing our National Energy Security demands that we give some serious thought to how we consume energy in our daily lives. Aldeia, LLC's Water's Edge community will be leading the nation in the energy conservation and green building movement. Many homes will produce more energy than they consume through the use of solar, small wind, geothermal ground source heat pumps and cogeneration systems.
Water's Edge has been selected to be included in the U. S. Green Building Council's LEED-ND pilot program for Neighborhood Developments (see www.usgbc.org). LEED for Neighborhood Developments will certify the entire community as being designed and built in a way that takes not only the home's healthy indoor environment and energy use into account, but the design and layout of the entire community for high quality livability as well. Take a look at Aldeia, LLC's flagship project called Independence Station at www.independencestation.com. Independence Station is slated to be the world's #1 highest rated green building ever built. We will be bringing this caliber of design to Water's Edge as well. Green is the new red, white and blue!
