NAHB Model Guidelines Green Communities, Too
Four more production home builders and developers have announced plans to construct communities with homes certified by green building programs based on the NAHB Model Green Home Building Guidelines.
The news is another important step for the NAHB National Green Building Program, which will be unveiled at the International Builders’ Show in February, said NAHB Green Building Subcommitee chair Ray Tonjes, a custom builder in Austin, Texas.
The Southern Nevada Green Building Partnership and Pulte Homes announced last week that Pulte has signed as the first production home builder to participate in the program, which was established to help builders design and construct more environmentally sensitive homes in metropolitan Las Vegas.
MHI, a builder member of the Home Builders Association of Greater Dallas, will begin constructing more than 800 green homes for its three brands — Pioneer, Plantation and Coventry Homes — in the Dallas-Fort Worth region that will fit the HBA's Green Built North Texas program's construction guidelines.
In New Jersey, K. Hovnanian Homes has broken ground on a home to test the NAHB Home Green Building Guidelines in a production setting. It's part of what will become a 120-unit development in Barnegat Township — a green prototype community for K-Hov's Northeast Region, according to Doug Fenichel of the home builder's public affairs department.
In Chicago, D.R. Horton is planning a 5,000-home community scored to the Guidelines. And across the river from St. Louis in Wood River, Ill., former NAHB National Green Building Conference Chair Matt Belcher is one of two builders working on a 290-unit development built according to the Guidelines and using low-impact design principles.
In Las Vegas, Pulte plans to launch its participation with the design and construction of its Villa Trieste at West Park community, which will feature 185 homes when completed. Villa Trieste will have three-story home designs from about 2,400 to more than 2,800 square feet, with prices starting in the $400,000s.
The company built and sold 4,519 new homes in 2006, according to Home Builders Research of Las Vegas.
MHI is one of the first volume builders in the Green Built North Texas Program and will brand its green homes with the Eco Smart label. Eco Smart homes built by the Pioneer Homes division of MHI are priced from the $110,000s, designs by Plantation Homes are priced from the $150,000s and homes by Coventry Homes start in the $280,000s.
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