The October issue of Charleston Magazine has a great story about the Greening of Charleston.  Some excerpts:

 Bright Spots
Indeed, to earn a spot on a national green map and truly become a more sustainable community, Charleston will need more than a cluster of green businesses, a green roof here or there, or an all-out rush on Lowes to buy low-energy fluorescent light bulbs (though none of these things will hurt!). The critical need is a broader vision for where and how development will take place, says Neal Peirce, a nationally syndicated Washington Post columnist and urban affairs expert who coauthored the just-released “Charleston Citistate” report.

“Charleston is a national leader in terms of land conservation, but she’s a straggler in terms of sustainable development,” says Peirce. “‘Cut and run’ developers are still allowed to come in and build standard cul-de-sac subdivisions as fast as they can, with little or no forethought to the impact on transportation or schools. It’s as if the careful ethic of the City of Charleston has not been sufficiently broadened. There are bright spots, however,” Peirce adds, “such as plans for Noisette, Mixson Avenue, and Magnolia.”

Peirce refers to smart-growth neighborhoods, or “new urbanism,” championed locally by Vince Graham of the I’On Group, John Knott of Noisette, Robert Clement of Magnolia Development, and Tim Keane of Keane & Company, among others.

Just south of Park Circle, the I’On Group’s Mixson Avenue development will feature 44-acres of interconnecting streets, open green spaces, and a dense infill with 950 buildings, both commercial and residential (known as mixed-use). “Mixson capitalizes on the success of Mount Pleasant’s I’On neighborhood, in that it is pedestrian-friendly with emphasis on the public realm,” says Alys Campaigne, vice president for strategic planning of the I’On Group. “Mixson, however, is more urban and more sustainable. It’s centrally located for access to public transit, and we’re making a real commitment to green building, in choice of materials and in terms of balancing elegant proportion with efficient design,” she adds. Plans call for high-performance, low-impact buildings, carefully sited to best relate to the land. In addition, Mixson homes will be the first in the area to achieve Energy Star accreditation and LEED for Homes Silver Certification.

Not far from Mixson, Oak Terrace Preserve will feature bike and pedestrian paths, parks and open spaces, rain gardens, and 375 homes built to meet Earthcraft environmental standards (similar to LEED benchmarks). Central Mount Pleasant and Magnolia, the proposed brownfield redevelopment in the Neck area, also embrace these same smart growth, “livable city” principles. “These are significant projects,” notes Peirce. “If pulled off, they’ll establish strong alternative models to the rampant, stamped-out developments that continue to be built but do not reflect the environmental values heralded by Lowcountry conservationists.”

 

Back to the Future
The irony is that this new urbanism model is actually very old urbanism. It’s the ultimate in recycling—Charleston style. Imag­ine a beautiful, walkable city with a densely settled mixed-use urban core; commercial and residential buildings constructed with locally sourced renewable materials; homes with energy-efficient design, proportioned and positioned to capitalize on natural cooling systems; large public green spaces; and markets for purchasing locally grown, regional food, and you’ve got 18th- and 19th-century Charleston. Welcome home. Only as Thomas Wolfe sort of said, it’s not always so easy to go home again.

“Charleston seems to be on this precipice,” observes Campaigne, who came here from Washington, D.C., where she spearheaded environmental issues for the Center for American Progress. “The Lowcountry has tremendous natural resources that attract people and drive growth, and it also has an impressive land conservation legacy that now needs to be balanced by addressing critical land-use issues. To make headway, we need to invest in and support the less sexy elements of sustainability, like viable public transportation.”

Filed under: I'On Group, I'On Village on October 4th, 2007