Mariposa, CA-It’s one of the best-known communities on the way to a stunning national treasure. Mariposa, on Highway 49, is surrounded by beautiful green on the edges of Yosemite National Park.
But the gateway community wanted to know more about green of another kind. That’s where the creators of Alviston stepped in.
Fresno, CA-The push for “green” is steam rolling now. The candidates, the commercials, the children all sing a chorus of green these days. But there’s something quite out of tune with many in the building industry right now. A new reality for green builders has surfaced out West. The reality reads like this, various government agencies want green-building projects, but many lending institutions will only approve projects at old-code construction prices, which basically puts a red X on green plans.
Simply put, as the housing market continues its ride down, so goes the prices of building new structures. That’s good news for someone building with old-school sticks and stones. But a disaster for the evolving world of green construction. Green contractors, like Mark Alvis of Alvis Projects and Alviston.com, are first to admit building an energy-efficient “green” home will cost more. The idea is to save you long-term, especially with the energy bill. But full-cost financing for many “green” construction projects is fading.
In the case of Alvis Projects, an agreement with the City of Fresno to build energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly homes, on old vacant lots has gone from feel-good green to financial dilemma. Plans to complete the project have been dramatically altered. In the words of Alvis, “we’ll build them as green as we can, in the current financial climate.” But the idea of improving neighborhoods with highly energy-efficient “green” homes has come to a screeching halt.
West Region-Going down the road and keeping it clean. That’s a popular theme for one vehicle maker. Subaru continues to push PZEVs. PZEV stands for partial zero emission vehicle. The big question for some customers is, why not just make a hybrid? Subaru and parent company Fuji Heavy Industries are in hybrid technology development.
In the meantime, the companies are comfortable offering some of the cleanest gasoline-powered vehicles on the road. So much so, the PZEV logo is proudly displayed on some Subaru models. According to the company facts and figures, over 150,000 PZEV models have been sold to date. Subaru makes the clean air vehicles available nationwide, even though they are not required in all states.
California has some of the most stringent tailpipe standards in the nation and Subaru’s PZEV’s meet the regulations. It’s possible that Subaru could boast a super clean traveling machine once hybrid and the PZEV technologies are combined and available to consumers.