‘Sustainable’ NU project takes root in Mexico

The Trust for Sustainable Development has started con- structing an 8,000-acre resort community in Baja California that features advanced environmental techniques and New Urbanism. Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. planned the Mexican development, whose neighborhoods will have narrow streets and no motor vehicles other than some powered by electricity. The project, bordering the Sea of Cortez about 700 miles south of San Diego, is at least the third attempt by David Butterfield, president of the not-for-profit Trust, to develop a project that is both environmentally advanced and consistent with New Urbanism. In 1996 Butterfield was the initial co-developer of Civano, outside Tucson. He helped devise the requirements for Civano and “had a big influence on adding the new urbanist aspect to what was originally a sustainable development,” says Paul Rollins, a Civano pioneer. The first neighborhood in Civano adopted New Urbanism’s principles, but the development subsequently went through changes of ownership, leading to a more conventional layout in later phases (see October 2005 New Urban News). Butterfield, who is based in Victoria, British Columbia, earlier hired DPZ to plan Bamberton, a sustainable and new urban community for 12,000 residents on 1,580 acres in British Columbia. Despite seven years of effort, Bamberton did not get built. In Mexico, Butterfield appears to be making rapid headway. The Trust’s for-profit subsidiary, Loreto Bay Company of Scottsdale, Arizona, has begun developing the Founders’ Neighborhood, and by late December more than 250 houses were under construction in Loreto Bay. At completion, the Founders’ Neighborhood is planned to have about 500 dwellings, ranging from condominium units of $200,000 or so to custom beachfront houses costing more than $1 million. Agua Viva will be the second neighborhood in Loreto Bay. The development will have nine phases in all. community of villages Butterfield calls Loreto Bay a “walkable community” of villages, connected to a town center that will contain a beach club, pool, retail and service businesses, spa, fitness center, and areas for art, culture, and learning. The $3 billion development is expected to contain 5,000 housing units and take 12 to 15 years to complete. “By the end of the project, we will produce more energy from renewable resources than we consume,” Butterfield says. We will harvest or produce more potable water than we use, and there will be more biodiversity, biomass, and more habitat than existed when we started.” Only 3,000 of its acres will be built upon. DPZ planned Loreto Bay with a mix of housing types and with basic amenities within walking distance of homes. Two of the project’s phases involve tucking a village into the foothills of the Sierra de la Giganta Mountains and allowing development of individual houses with limited footprints inside the nature preserve. The project, about five miles from the fishing town of Loreto, is being developed with support from Fonatur, a Mexican agency responsible for promoting tourism. On the inner harbor in Victoria, Butterfield, as president of Huron Street Developments, produced Shoal Point, a 161-unit condominium and marine commercial development that uses a geothermal heat pump and other energy-efficient technologies to reduce energy consumption. The $110 million (Canadian) development, designed jointly by Wagg and Hambleton Architects and Paul Merrick Architecture, uses about 55 percent as much energy as a conventional building. Shoal Point has won many awards, including one for best Canadian development of more than four stories.