News
SOLARA, Poway, California
By Charles Lockwood
Urban Land Magazine
Page 149
Published June 2008
The two-story, 56-unit SOLARA affordable housing apartment complex in Poway, California, a town of 50,000 people in San Diego County, is California's first Zero-Energy New Home project. The 170 photovoltaic panels on the carport and residential roofs also make this the first apartment complex in California, and possibly in the United States, to be fully powered by solar energy. Residents have no electricity bills.
Contributing to SOLARA's zero-energy status is a passive solar design and a building orientation that supports natural ventilation. Architectural features like roof overhangs, balconies, and shading devices, along with Low-E double-paned windows, reduce interior solar heat gain. Central high-efficiency, gas-fired tankless boilers and programmable thermostats reduce natural gas usage by 70 percent. All appliances are Energy Star-rated.
SOLARA, which opened in 2007, is more than an energy-generating, energy-efficient apartment complex. Its carbon footprint is 95 percent less than that of a comparable conventional apartment complex. The HVAC system does not use ozone-depleting freon. Building materials comprise zero- and low-VOC paints, carpeting, and insulations, and materials with recycled content, including wood (decking), pathways (recycled glass), and playground equipment (recycled milk cartons). SOLARA conserves water with dual-flush toilets and flow restrictors on showers and faucets.
The 2.5-acre infill site has no grass to water and mow. Instead, it is landscaped with drought-tolerant California native plants, an organic lemon grove, and a bioswale that helps to slow and clean stormwater before releasing it to an adjacent greenbelt.
Stores, schools, parks, a pool, a city library, a cinema, and even Poway's city hall are all within walking distance for SOLARA's residents.
The $18.5 million (including the cost of the land) SOLARA apartment complex was developed and is managed by the nonprofit Community Housing Works of San Diego. Rents for the one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments range from $388 to $1075 per month. People who earn 30 percent to 60 percent less than San Diego's annual median income (generally, single residents earning $28,750 or less and families of four earning $41,100 or less) are eligible to live at SOLARA.
By every standard, SOLARA is green, but it does not have a LEED rating. "Green was the mandate for SOLARA from the beginning," explains SOLARA's senior project manager Mary Jane Jagodzinski. "But in the fall of 2004, when we started doing our site planning and bringing our green advisers on board, there wan no LEED for Homes program. Our planning charrette used the LEED checklist, but it didn't have guidelines for low-rise residential. Community Housing Works is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, and we're very supportive of LEED," Jagodzinski continues. "For SOLARA, it seemed we were just a little ahead of the curve."
The California Energy Commission calls SOLARA a model for California and U.S. developers on "how to build cheap and green" and cites it as the first of several of the Commission's solar-powered Zero Energy New Home Program partnerships.
SOLARA was a 2008 recipient of one Urban Land Institutes's (ULI) Awards for Excellence in the Americas competition, announced in early May. California's first affordable housing project designed to be completely independent of the power grid was recognized for its efforts to overcome a myriad of entitlement, financing, technical, and community challenges to become a fully leased community of households committed to a green program.
