The southern-most ~12 acres of land on Milwaukee St frontage will be reserved for sustainable development, with an emphasis on carbon net zero affordable housing. We believe in minimizing environmental impact by following the principles of the Living Building Challenge, which uses development as a tool to improve surrounding ecosystems. A major housing goal is the creation of affordable homeownership opportunities for marginalized communities and Biracial, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC). We also envision the creation of 600 – 1000 dwelling units, small business retail, maker-spaces, community centers, and different forms of intentional communities including housing cooperatives and co-houses.
Renewable energy
All sustainable infrastructure will be powered by 100% fossil-free clean energy, much of it produced onsite. The project will implement a solar micro-grid to power all electrical loads. An onsite municipal composting center will also create feedstock for an anaerobic digestor that will produce biogas. This biogas will provide district heating for the built infrastructure in the winter, and district cooling (via an absorption chiller) in the summer. The waste of product of the digestor will be used as fertilizer for the urban farm.
Building Density
The image below shows approximate dwelling units per acre (DU/ac) that may be constructed in two scenarios: the original, less dense city plan, which would cover 24.4 acres and a more dense plan that would consume 11.6 acres yet still provide an equivalent number of units. We intend to implement commercial mixed use (purple) and medium density residential (orange) under the TR-P zoning classification.
