Blatchford Carbon Neutral Community – Part 2 – Living in Blatchford
In part 2 of our series on Blatchford Carbon Neutral Community, we meet Heather and Justin, two early residents of this amazing green development.
By David Dodge, GreenEnergyFutures.ca
Heather MacKenzie and Justin Wheler were among the first residents in Blatchford, the largest planned carbon-neutral community in North America.
Blatchford has been described as “wildly ambitious,” but that original vision to develop a large carbon-neutral community is now setting the bar for jurisdictions all over the world moving to create sustainable places for people to live.
“What we love about Blatchford is that all of the homes here are heated with renewable energy,” says Heather MacKenzie.
“In our case, that’s the ground-source heat pump, and some of our neighbours have air-source heat pumps. And then, of course, our home was solar-ready, so that was a big draw for us because we’re really into solar.”
Heather likes solar so much that after working to put solar on their church and doing tons of research on it, she got a job in solar.
“I work in climate change, I have for my whole career, and Heather’s working for Solar Alberta, and we couldn’t stomach buying a house that had emissions,” says Justin Wheler.
The couple looked at a lot of houses before buying in Blatchford.
“We had almost given up, and I said, maybe Blatchford is ready. We had heard that it might be ready, and we came and looked, and there were the first few houses that were just going on sale and they all had heat pumps, and were solar-ready, and EV-ready and had a walking street out front,” says Justin.
Density with Abundant Green Space?
“It’s pretty phenomenal in terms of density, which I really value so that we’re not sprawling outwards onto really good farmland and good wetlands,” says Heather.
Indeed, Blatchford is a 50-acre site right in the heart of the City and will be home to 30,000 residents when complete.
“Our city can grow up instead of out. And we also have really great amenities,” she says.
Amenities people in the suburbs wait decades for
“We can walk to the grocery store any day, walk to the coffee shops, and we can walk to the bowling alley,” she says.
“We have a playground already, we have an outdoor rink, there’s a walking path, and a stormwater pond with lots of ducks and wildlife around it,” says Justin.
Indeed, Blatchford represents a new kind of people-centred urban planning. There’s a light rail transit station on site, bike paths, and even a community garden.
And their front street is called Yorke Mews, and it’s pedestrian-only a place where residents hang out and kids play, something many residents we spoke to said they loved.
“People refer to it as the Mews, and we host community barbecues out there. And on Halloween, we do a little costume parade there,” says Justin.
And when the community wants to host ad hoc events, “We don’t have to go to the city and get permission to close a street. We can just say, let’s meet on the mews and do a community cleanup or barbecue or hockey game or anything like that.”
If you thought it would be hard to find green space in this denser form of urban design, think again.
The large stormwater pond Justin referred to is more like a small lake, and many residents told us it’s also one of their favourite features. There are walking paths all around the lake, and sitting by the water, you might forget you are in downtown Edmonton.
Greener by design
Justin and Heather really wanted an energy-efficient home powered by renewable energy, but had trouble finding one they could afford.
“There are so few places in the city where you can get a net-zero row home and at a very great price point,” says Heather. “I know some of the homes here are not super affordable, but when I looked at a net-zero row home, one neighbourhood over it was $200,000 more than ours.”
Blatchford is green by design. It has a green building code that at the outset was 70% more energy-efficient than the building code, but since then it’s been updated and is not close to net-zero ready.
“We want it to be fully net zero,” says Heather. “When you move into Blatchford, you’re going to be net zero from a heating perspective because you’re going to be on either ground source or air source heat pump.”
“But you’re not net zero from an electricity perspective because Alberta’s grid is dirty and it is powered with a lot of natural gas. And so, if you really want to be truly net zero… solar is a really easy way to do that, especially if you have a solar-ready home like we do,” says Heather.
Net-zero homes
Some would describe Blatchford’s standard as near net-zero ready, but across the street from Heather Landmark Homes is building fully net-zero homes by including solar, paired with an air source heat pump with all of their homes.
Due to using the air source heat pump, the Landmark homes only have an electricity bill that for some nets out to zero cost, thanks to the solar.
Heather and Justin also have an energy-efficient induction stove, and in addition to their ground source heat pump, they have a heat pump water heater as well. The homes here also have a heat recovery ventilator to provide fresh air to these well-sealed homes while recovering up to 80% of the heat from waste air.
Since moving in, they have purchased an electric vehicle and are considering expanding their solar system to provide enough electricity for the EV.
As with many residents we spoke to, one of the most pleasant surprises in these homes is the heat pump. Most homes in this northern city don’t have air conditioning, but thanks to climate-induced variations last year, temperatures dipped to -41 Celsius in the winter and soared to +35C in the summer.
“We don’t notice the hot days or the cold days other than when we go outside. Our dog sometimes gets cold in the summer, so then he asks to go outside so he can warm up in the sunbeams,” says Justin.
Justin says their super energy-efficient heat pump provides “guilt-free cooling.” But as Heather says, “I do feel embarrassed about it because everyone else is suffering and you’re just sitting at home blissful.”
It’s easy to brag about Blatchford
After finding just the home they were looking for in Blatchford, Heather says, “It’s easy to brag about Blatchford.”
“We’re sort of unofficial tour guides,” says Justin. “Everyone we talk to says, ‘Oh, I’d love to check that out.’
If they are “super nerds,” Justin shows them the furnace room with the cool technology in it.
But if not, Justin just shows them “the solar panels and the walking streets and the high-density homes and the central heating plant.”
When Blatchford was starting up, one of the complaints was the lack of choice in the homes there. The first phase was made up entirely of townhomes, and some were quite pricey.
“When we first bought here, most of the homes were going for around half a million, but now there are some new homes in the community that are below $400,000. So it’s becoming a bit more accessible,” says Heather.
Today, Blatchford is growing, and “there are a variety of different formats of homes coming to Blatchford from 3-4 story walk-ups to apartment buildings that will offer desperately needed rental units.
“It’s sort of exponential growth, right? Like, there were four families, and then eight, and then sixteen, and then now the newest [projects have] 90 new homes, 100 new homes, so it’s really growing quickly,” says Justin.
That was all part of Blatchford’s vision: to offer a variety of housing options and plenty of mixed-use space.
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