The City of Kitchener, in partnership with Community Renewable Energy Waterloo (CREW), offers a grant program that is intended to encourage homebuilders and homebuyers to invest in green buildings, and offset direct building impacts on energy, water and waste for new home construction.
Also, Congress pares tax credits for energy-saving home renovations, the mortgage industry shrinks, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are more likely to foreclose than modify home loans.
My notebook runneth over. Sightings from the real estate landscape:
•Still going green. Impaired as it has been by the economy, the home-building industry nonetheless has been making a fair amount of noise in the last couple of years about efforts to be more environmentally friendly.
Sloot Construction Ltd. has partnered with Owens Corning to build residential homes with a codebord air barrier system, provided by OC. This system uses a compression type seal to improve airtightness and durability, and moves the barrier/dew point to the exterior wall.
The Cape on Bowen, a $100 million oceanfront community located on the southwest tip of Bowen Island near Vancouver, recently announced that it is offering financial encouragement to buyers who follow the community's Sustainability Plan and build certified LEED and Built Green sustainable homes.
The cash incentives increase if buyers opt for a higher environmental certification. Buyers who build their homes to the LEED Platinum level will receive a payment of $100,000 from the developer when the home is certified.
As part of the Ontario government plan to build a cleaner, greener future , the Province is investing millions of dollars over four years to help homeowners save money by installing energy saving features. A welcome by product of this program is that these measures help fight climate change. As a result, everyone benefits: the homeowners save money and in the process we are helping to reduce greenhouse gases.
Energy Audit
Local politicians are mounting solar panels on 37 more roofs, to help promote solar energy and earn provincial cash.
The $18-million regional government project will put panels above child care centres, the Sunnyside nursing home in Kitchener, public housing units, a new Waterloo police building, the regional museum in Kitchener, a new transit garage in Kitchener, and an operations centre in Cambridge.
“I think this is entrepreneurial, green and forward-looking,” said Coun. Sean Strickland, of Waterloo.
GUELPH — What does a car plant in Cambridge have in common with a new condo building and a supermarket in Toronto’s Regent Park?
They’re all purifying the air in their buildings with Guelph biologist Alan Darlington’s magical green plant wall.
The plant wall not only looks good, but early tests have proved that these self-sustaining plant ecosystems can almost remove more than 500 different kinds of biological pollutants from the air.
And like any good housekeeper, the plant wall leaves behind not a single trace of waste.