And the Built Green Hammer Award goes to…

The Master Builders Association Built GreenTM Case Study for April is about an affordable housing townhome community built across the “dell” from me near the home I owned before moving to High Point. I am referring to Croft Place Townhomes, built by DNDA (Delridge Neighborhood Development Association).

In case you have ever wondered, the name of the Delridge neighborhood is derived from the dells and ridges that define this community.

Several years ago I remember going to the community meetings, held at Sanislo Elementary School, and hearing the NIMBYs. I decided a lot of people in the neighborhood had a case of “sour grapes” and felt people who are of lower income didn’t deserve to live in healthy new construction. What was ironic about this situation is that the Puget Ridge neighborhood where this is located is a rather modest community and many of the people living here would have qualified for affordable housing in this new community.

The most squealing was about how much more traffic this 21- unit community would bring the neighborhood. I lived around the corner and at the very busy intersection of 18th and Myrtle and Orchard (5 streets met at the traffic circle) and just laughed because everyone and their brother already was driving thru that intersection on their way to SSCC, “cutting the corner” so to speak and avoiding the stop light and left-hand turn at SW Austin and 16th Ave SW. And they were driving fast and no one yielded properly to anyone. I don’t miss that, or any other real aspect of my old residence on 18th Ave SW. What a crazy place.

More about Croft Place from the Built Green web site:

This month’s featured project is Croft Place Townhomes, a 3-Star townhome project in Seattle’s Delridge Neighborhood. Developed by the Delridge Neighborhood Development Association, the 21-unit project is a model of quality, environmentally friendly affordable housing. Winner of the 2008 Built Green Hammer Award in the multi-familiy low-rise category, this project not only incorporated green design and building strategies, but also took the next step to include community residents in designing community-wide artistic elements to establishing a sense of place. Croft Place Townhomes is one of the great examples here in the Pacific Northwest that demonstrates how green building can be realistic for affordable projects.

You can see the entire case study here. Right now you can also see the townhomes from Delridge, on the east side of the street, across from Lam Bow Apartments. The trees have not leafed in and they are pretty visible. Those houses are built on STILTS!

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