Fresno, CA-It’s a bright spot along the way. When you drive by, the colors jump out at you. It’s a new community/neighborhood out West but not a new concept. In fact, it’s a throw back. You can see it in the design. Front porches that face each other, community hall and pool. They call it LaQuerencia and this is what it means, right off its fresnocohousing.org website:
One of the most important colors used for LaQuerencia is green. It’s not painted on as much as built into the structures. LaQuerencia is green by design, energy efficient with numerous green applications. A completely unique concept in this part of the West.
A community within a community, complete with community dining options and other community-oriented gatherings. Evidently, people who buy into this concept want to know their neighbors. All types of families have a chance to connect in many different ways at LaQuerencia.
The buy-in is more than emotional, it is literal. LaQuerencia home units are for sale. It appears developers took the best of community planning and neighborhood associations, added a green spin and put it up for sale. So far it has attracted a number of community-minded buyers with room for more.
Western U.S.-No time like the present. If there was ever a time to revamp and fix the mortgage system in the United States, right now might sound good to a majority of Americans.
You would have to be on a desert island, in a hole or parallel universe to NOT be aware of the economic disasters facing the U.S. economy at this moment. Real estate in particular is hard hit. More specifically real estate loans.
Mortgagegreen feels it can provide at least one solution; financing of green construction. Obviously Alviston.com feels the green theme has merit or this virtual “green” city would not even exist.
Currently the green of cold hard cash is hard to find when you decide to build “green.” Mortgagegreen is committed to changing that green money shortage. Mortgagegreen is banking on it in fact.
Leader of Mortgagegreen, Tomek Rondio continues to get his ducks in a row from his Southern California base. Rondio hopes to change the world of “green” financing and lines out the green dream at mortgagegreen.com.
Green News will continue to provide information about the financing project of Mortgagegreen and others on the cutting edge of green finance, check back often.
Western U.S.-There were a lot of strings attached to the recent Federal bailout of Wall Street. Strings that stretch all the way to the sun. Congress used the financial crisis to push through a number of stalled concepts including solar power incentives. Here’s the way it reads now. Information provided by REC Solar, a respected solar system installer out West.
The solar investment tax credit (ITC) provisions will:
Extend for 8 years the 30% tax credit for both residential and commercial solar installations;
Eliminate the $2,000 monetary cap for residential solar electric installations, creating a true 30% tax credit (effective for property placed in service after December 31, 2008);
Eliminate the prohibition on utilities from benefiting from the credit;
Allow Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) filers, both businesses and individuals, to take the credit;
Authorize $800 million for clean energy bonds for renewable energy generating facilities, including solar.
The solar tax credits were originally enacted in 2005 and have created unprecedented growth in the U.S. The amount of solar electric capacity installed in 2007 was double that installed in 2006.
REC Solar and others are poised to provide solar options now more than ever. A booming marketplace and this Federal boost is more evidence that solar has arrived.
Western U.S.-The e-antiques keep piling up. You know the ones, those huge computers and monitors from the stone-age, circa 1990’s. Tried to pick up one of those monitors lately? That computer dinosaur is awkward, heavy and taking up space. A lot of the heavy e-waste continues to pile up nationwide. You can’t just toss the stuff in the trash and it’s difficult to find takers for the old equipment.
One answer to the build-up is to find e-waste collectors. Sometimes they’re fundraisers in the neighborhood. Those e-waste collections take the burden of e-discard off your hands and make a little something for the collectors.
One of those on the e-cutting edge of e-disposal is Archway Recycling based in Northern California. Archway and its E-Sweep program will take that TV, that computer, that monitor and the “that” list goes on to dispose of the electronic waste, e-properly. Again throwing it in the trash is not acceptable, in fact in some places it’s cause for a fine.
According to Archway Recycling President Andrew Lesky, e-waste dismantling is big business. The plastic, metals, leaded glass all need special processing. Once dismantled, almost all of the e-waste is recycled. That turns a profit for some and makes a lot of sense to those following the green movement.
Central CA-There’s been a lot discussed and a lot written about “green” home construction. Alviston.com felt it was time people actually had a chance to see what the “green-world” means. Through the cooperation of Alvis Projects, the veil is lifted on the concept of “green” construction and its potential. See for yourself in the following report.
