Rebuilding After Katrina – Green

The U.S Green Building Council (USGBC), the Enterprise Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, the Trust for Public Land and others have announced a full complement of initiatives and ideas designed to assist in the rebuilding efforts of the Gulf Coast communities ravaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

During the upcoming USGBC 2005 Greenbuild Conference & Expo (Atlanta, GA, November 9-11), design charrettes have been organized with Gulf Coast experts and government leaders and mini-charrettes will take place on specific topics with regional experts. Scholarships have been arranged for 30 Gulf Coast community leaders to come and participate in the proceedings.

“This is about collaboration, partnership, and leadership,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, USGBC. “The rebuilding effort will be a Herculean task, and the USGBC is committed to providing our specific expertise to helping the citizens of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas re-set their roots and restore their communities as viable, vital, healthy and productive places, as quickly as possible and in a way that support them in the long term .”

Greenbuild panel sessions will focus on embedding sustainable strategies in the rebuilding effort and will culminate in a documentation work session on Friday, November 11, that will compile all the ideas generated in order to quickly produce a workable document to guide the reconstruction efforts.

The series of design workshops related to the hurricane reconstruction efforts will include:

• work with the Enterprise Foundation to customize their Green Communities program to better fit the needs of the Gulf Coast. This will be done in partnership with Community Development Corporation representatives from the region, and will help guide the placement of Enterprise Foundation funds;

• a partnership with the Trust for Public Land to continue their efforts on master planning of a mile long park on largely industrial land in New Orleans. This “Greenprint” process includes local citizen groups, the city, the Army Corps of Engineers, and others. This effort will involve the design of parks, infrastructure, ecological restoration areas, affordable housing and civic buildings;

• work with the Congress for New Urbanism to incorporate green building and infrastructure measures into the documents that will come out of the charrettes that they are currently holding in Mississippi;

• work with a school district on the redesign of a destroyed K-12 school, to apply green building strategies that create a healthier learning environment.

• during the Greenbuild mini-charrette a working team led by Habitat officials, the LEED Affordable Housing Committee, DOE (Janet McIlvaine, of the Florida Solar Energy Center) and Global Green, will provide green design assistance in creating Habitat prototype houses that fit the climate and vernacular of the Gulf Coast. The major focus of this effort will be to create a decision matrix that can be used by Habitat affiliates to sort through a variety of green building materials, technologies and techniques;

• set up a mechanism to link USGBC members and chapters with Habitat affiliates to provide donations, green building materials, and labor for homes in the affected areas.

• working with officials to develop green performance standards for reconstruction to ensure new structures are environmentally friendly for Gulf Coast climates and from the outset are healthier places to live and work; providing services and technical expertise ranging from on-site physical help to planning, design, financing, and related needs;

• developing long-term strategies to mitigate the effects of future natural disasters. USGBC is also looking into offering green building discounts and incentives for local builders affected by the hurricane.