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Planned Community Combines Green With Universal Design
 In Clarksburg, Md., Winchester Homes, Inc. is putting the finishing touches on the first of the hundreds of units it will be building over the next few years in the planned community of Clarksburg Village.
In addition to meeting National Green Building Certification requirements, the home is designed to incorporate the “Live-Ability” features of Design for Life Montgomery, a voluntary Montgomery County program aimed at increasing the supply of homes with basic universal design features.
For Winchester, the opportunity was ripe for this project, said Steve Nardella, senior vice president for the company. In addition to its growing interest in green building certification, Winchester entered the active adult market earlier this year with its 2,130-unit Shenandoah at Lake Frederick in rural Virginia.
Winchester reasoned that the universal design features of its Virginia homes would also be useful for many buyers in Clarksburg Village and other future developments. “We have a home customization program called ‘Your Home. Your Way.’, and expanding it to include voluntary programs for green building and visitability offers more choices for our customers,” Nardella said.
The Clarksburg home includes a number of common universal design features increasingly requested by more mainstream home buyers, such as a first-floor owner’s bedroom suite, a curbless spa-like shower and first-floor laundry.
Wall outlets and switches on the first floor are positioned to be reached easily and doorways are wider than is standard. The electrical panel box and main water shut-off valve are located on the first floor rather than in the basement, and there is easy roll-in, no-step access between the garage and the main floor of the home.
Because it will be used to demonstrate universal design principles beyond basic “visitability,” the home also features a no-step entrance from the front door and the back deck — which may not work for every home, depending on the lot’s topography, buyer preferences and other variables. “Every family's needs vary. Thus, universal design is not best served by taking a one-size-fits-all approach,” said Randy Melvin, Winchester’s director of research for standards and design assurance.
Melvin also served on the consensus committee for the National Green Building Standard, which has been submitted to the American National Standards Institute for approval. His involvement with the standard — and his familiarity with NAHBGreen and the NAHB National Green Building Program — helped lead the company to consider green building certification for the Clarksburg home.
The roofs over the home’s entrances help protect against water infiltration — important for universal design features like no-step entrances and low-threshold doors — and they’re also recognized as being green because they enhance the home’s durability, Melvin said.
A camera over the front door enables the occupant to see who is knocking, and a remote-control lock allows the door to be opened easily — a “gee-whiz feature,” Melvin said, that’s useful for home owners who might have a condition or circumstance that makes it difficult for them to reach the door.
The home’s universal electronic features extend to a programmable thermostat that is easier to operate and that reduces energy expenditures.
The home is Energy Star-rated and includes blown-in foam insulation at the rim/band board and a high-efficiency furnace with a cartridge media filter.
The exterior decking, insulation and carpet padding contain recycled material, and the home was built using pre-cut/pre-manufactured framing components and engineered wood — all eligible for points under the NAHBGreen rating system.
The project also highlights the importance of flexible voluntary programs — both for green building and for visitability, Melvin said. “It takes some looking to get an affordable, dual-flush, residential toilet that is also accessible, and such a feature may not be feasible for a production builder,” he pointed out.
In addition, the cost-effectiveness of a combination of requirements for adequate drainage away from the home, minimal impervious area and accessible no-step entrances will likely force “value judgment-based trade-offs,” Melvin said, that wouldn’t be easily accommodated under more rigid mandatory measures.
“That’s why it’s so important to keep these programs market-driven, because there is no absolute answer — with green, storm water management, universal design and budget constraints, the builder, design professionals and the customer require flexibility to balance all these needs,” he said.
For more information, e-mail Calli Schmidt at NAHB, or call her at 800-368-5242 x8132.
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