Green builder to discuss his project
Green builder to discuss his project
DAVE GALLAGHER THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
BELLINGHAM — Joe Van Belleghem believes that environmentally sustainable practices are not a cost of doing business, but can create other economic opportunities. He’s trying to prove that with a major project in Victoria, B.C.
Van Belleghem, one of the speakers at Thursday’s Sustainable Communities & Land Use Conference in Bellingham, is working on Dockside Green, converting an industrial area into mixeduse development that will be a community for approximately 2,500 people on Victoria’s waterfront. The goal for the project is to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED®, Platinum certification. Platinum is the highest green construction certification issued for this type of project.
He will be talking about how the project is going and how it has been economically viable while working with the city government and the community. To make the project LEED® Platinum, Dockside Green plans a variety of environmentally friendly measures, including treating storm water and sewage onsite with a system capable of saving 70 million gallons of water a year. The project is under construction.
“We really worked hard to create a project that would be in everyone’s best interest,” said Van Belleghem, a partner in Windmill Development Group in Canada and a board member of the U.S. Green Building Council. “There were skeptics, but by getting neighborhoods, the government and many other organizations involved, there are now a lot of people who don’t want us to fail.
“We’re on budget and we have no worker supply issues because the construction industry has bought into what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s already leading the way for other sustainable redevelopment in this community.”
Along with Van Belleghem’s presentation, the conference will have discussions involving other big-picture projects that change neighborhoods, said Derek Long, program and development manager for Sustainable Connections, an organization of local businesses focused on creating environmentally friendly economic practices.
“In past conferences we’ve focused on just green buildings, but this year we want to tackle the broader issue of land use,” Long said. “I’m impressed with the similarities of Joe Van Belleghem’s project to what Bellingham is currently working on with waterfront development. His project is smaller, but he’s further along. That makes him a good speaker, to offer insight on what can be done.”
Long said Bellingham was reaching a critical point in time, not only with the waterfront redevelopment but what’s happening in neighborhoods, particularly with discussions of creating urban villages within existing neighborhoods.
“We can’t continue to move forward with developers motivated purely by profit and neighborhoods that won’t change no matter what,” he said. “We hope we can get enough people here to talk about innovative ideas that will benefit both the developer and the neighborhoods.”
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