Portola Valley’s proposed Town Center complex is pretty green
By David Boyce
The town of Portola Valley preaches high standards when asking homeowners to consider the environmental impacts of their choices when building and remodeling their homes.
Among the town’s recommendations: use paints and carpets that emit fewer toxic gases; use insulation made from recycled materials; build to take advantage of solar energy and natural light.
How does the town measure up on one of its own projects? The plans for the new complex at Town Center — including a library, town hall, community hall/activity room and recreation areas — set an example that includes the above features and more.
Storm water runoff, for instance, will be directed into swales — soft-contour vegetated ditches — to filter the water before it enters Sausal Creek. There should be less runoff water to cope with in the new complex; the plan has 11 percent, or 21,000 square feet, less surface area that is impervious to water.
The beams from the existing multi-use room are likely to be salvaged for this project, which comports with the plan’s goal of using locally manufactured materials when possible.
When new wood is needed, plans call for 50 percent of it to come from forests managed to protect the forest’s integrity, which includes its biological diversity, water and soil quality, and the rights of forest workers and nearby indigenous people, if any.
The plans include waterless urinals to save water and shaded parking areas to reduce the heat rising from pavement.
All these steps are intended to qualify the Town Center project for a superior grade from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system, “a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings,” according to the LEED home page.
A qualifying project is eligible for one of four categories — certified, silver, gold or platinum — based on the total number of points a project is awarded for the use of particular green features.
On March 24, resident and Cisco Systems CEO John Morgridge donated $1 million to the Town Center project through the Portola Valley-based TOSA Foundation. The gift is in recognition of the project’s environmental goals and his hope that it receives a gold rating, he said.
