Four sites in England have just gotten the green light to begin construction on the first of many eco-towns. The eco-town program is a sustainable development initiative launched in early 2007 by the British Department for Communities and Local Government who announced a competition to build 10 eco-towns within the next decade. Hundreds of eco-town proposals were submitted, but only a handful met the design and location criteria required to participate and be approved for the program.
Oh Won’t You Take Me To…Eco-town!
The intent of the eco-town program is to help alleviate England’s growing housing problem by offering affordable housing in sustainably built and run communities. So what is an eco-town? The details of exactly what it is, and will be, are quite long and detailed (found here), but the general idea of an eco-town is a community designed to meet the highest standards of sustainability including low and zero carbon technologies, walkable amenities, good public transportation, ample green space, and many other sustainably driven features and designs. In Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s words:
“Eco-towns will be at the forefront of Britain’s green revolution. They will help to relieve the shortage of affordable homes to rent and buy and to minimise the effects of climate change on a major scale. They will provide modern homes with lower energy bills, energy efficient offices and brand new schools, community centres and services.”
Some other features of eco-towns include:
- Affordable housing: a minimum of 30% affordable housing in each eco-town
- Zero-carbon: eco-towns must be zero-carbon over the course of a year (not including transport emissions)
- Green space: a minimum of 40% of eco-towns must be comprised of greenspace
- Waste and recycling: eco-towns must have higher recycling rates and make use of waste in new ways
- Homes: homes must reach Code for Sustainable Homes level 4 or higher (surprisingly not the highest standard available, casting doubt on the credibility of these requirements)
- Employment: at least one job opportunity per house accessible by public transport, walking or cycling (although the standards are silent on how housing developers might guarantee this and it is largely discredited in the current economic crisis)
- Services: there must be shops and a primary school within easy walk of every single home, and all the services expected from a town of up to 20,000 homes
- Transition/construction: facilities should be in place before and during construction
- Public transport: real-time public transport information in every home, a public transport link within ten minutes walk of every home
- Community: there must be a mixture of housing types and densities, and residents must have a say in how their town is run, by governance in new and innovative ways
In addition to these features there are several others dealing with water, biodiversity, and energy production/conservation. Also, a few of the selected sites were previously brownfields, so the reclamation and reuse of that land goes even further towards an eco-town’s goal of being as green as possible.
Selected eco-town site
The Good: A government sponsored sustainability initiative that aims to solve an affordable housing crisis without putting much more strain on the environment. The size and scope of the eco-town projects and planning is impressive, and it appears on the surface to be very detailed in regards to the sustainable criteria and implementations that will need to be included in every eco-town.
The Bad: Many towns immediately adjacent to the selected sites are upset about increased traffic and resource strain. Like anything government sponsored, red tape and bureaucracy are sure to be part and parcel.
The Bottom-Line: Britain continues to forge ahead on major environmental initiatives and goals. The eco-towns, if successful, should provide a model for greener cities to come in the near future.
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