Green orgs crowdsourcing DC homes

[GreenDC.me]

If there's one thing I'm glad to see, it's not just nonprofits or membership groups working with for-profits to execute their vision, but green organizations working with developers to build attainably-priced green housing.

It started with Live Green, a green-oriented membership organization based on providing green business discounts to its members, and Taurus Development Group, a woman-run real estate development firm with a twenty-year ecological track record. Both of these entities, through a linking partnership with CoolTown Beta Communities, agreed to a crowdsourcing program ensure Washington DC would provide the most attainably-priced, greenest housing that its most progressive, willing residents wanted, manifested via the Bearden Arts Building. In the arrangement, the developer agrees to contribute to the green organization for every one of their members that eventually buys a home when they're completed in 2010. Not only did DC Greenworks, Treehuggers and CreativesDC recently join the program, but...

...they inspired another DC developer, the Menkiti Group to offer the same program, this time for a redevelopment of an existing building (pictured) just four blocks from a major transit station and neighborhood hub with housing scheduled to be completed within a year. You can read about the program from Live Green's viewpoint via their website here, and if you live in DC and are looking for a green home you can truly afford in a hot neighborhood, well, then you'll want to know it's first-come, first-serve by completing the survey and stating your interest in group customizing your future residence with fellow creatives!