Smart, green, and growing. The master planned community of Saint Charles, Maryland has committed to transform itself into a model 21st century community that encompasses these three aspects through a new green city initiative launched by Maryland-based American Community Properties Trust (ACPT).
The 9,100-acre, 40-year old community, which was the second “new town” to be started in the country, includes 4,000 acres of undeveloped land that, through the initiative, is dedicated to be used for smart, green development. The project also includes retrofitting more than 12,000 existing homes and four million square feet of existing commercial space in St. Charles.
Steve Grissel, CEO of ACPT, said the genesis of the project was a desire to reinvent the city and enable it to remain on the leading edge of community development.
“Our ultimate goal is to double in size, use less energy and less water than we do today,” Grissel said. “We also want to disprove the existing paradigm that anything that is green is more expensive. Over the last 18 months we’ve been working with our partners to find a way to build homes that are smart and green, and a lower cost and with better performance, versus a higher cost at higher performance and we really think we’ve found a way to do that.”
The Saint Charles initiative includes plans to build 11,000 new homes and develop five million square feet for schools, community centers, and commercial space. Through the use of green technology planning, the community projects that it will reduce the co2 energy footprint by 135 million pounds and water consumption by 140 million gallons, saving the average home $6,800 annually in energy, water, and transportation costs.
Grissel said ACPT’s partnerships with local businesses and organizations are vital to the success of the Saint Charles Green City Initiative.
“We’re a tight knit community in Saint Charles,” he said. “Our whole vision as a company really is that partnerships are absolutely fundamental to create value for the future.”
ACPT’s partnerships include working with the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative to install smart meters in existing homes and businesses, and installing programmable thermostats in apartment communities in Saint Charles; Competitive Power ventures building a 10 MW solar farm and a 650 MW natural gas electric generation plant in Saint Charles; Charles County Public Schools building a new LEED certified high school in Saint Charles; and working with the College of Southern Maryland to promote the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) program to develop a workforce for a green economy.
In addition to these partnerships, Grissel said the Saint Charles Green City Initiative would benefit the Maryland economy by attracting new businesses and jobs to the community through its available commercial space, ideal location close to Baltimore, DC and Richmond, and green incentives, such as the Green Jobs Opportunity Zone.
Grissel said ACPT is working with the Charles County Government to develop the Green Jobs Opportunity Zone, which would grant a one-time tax credit that hire new employees within the zone, as a part of an effort to bring 20,000 green jobs to the community.
Grissel said that though there have been concerns about issues such as suburban sprawl, the Saint Charles community is really an effort to minimize development’s impact on the environment. Currently, about 25 percent of Charles County residents live in Saint Charles, he said. By the end of the project about 80,000 residents will be living in Saint Charles—40 percent of the County’s population on only 2 percent of the County’s land.
“We want to create a community that people really want to live in and to create a sense of place for people, where people can live in homes they can afford, kids can walk to school, the grocery store is just down the road, and the commute to work is short. We want to provide this while simultaneously saving electricity, water and other resources,” he said. “We want to build a community of the future that can be a model for other communities to build off of.”
For more information about the Saint Charles community click here.
