Las Urbanistas

By Eric M. Weiss; Washington Post Staff Writer; Monday, April 30, 2007; B01

After years of building multibillion-dollar megaprojects such as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and the Springfield interchange, Virginia transportation officials plan to spend hundreds of millions of new dollars on small, local fixes that have been ignored for years as congestion has escalated.

A left-turn lane here, a ramp there, an eliminated light, a new interchange: By focusing spending on the region’s overburdened secondary roads — such as Braddock Road and the Fairfax County and Prince William County parkways — the proposed new funds have the potential to eliminate many of the day-in, day-out trouble spots that drive so many commuters mad.

“Those are the kinds of projects that would make a huge difference in commutes as soon as [drivers] get off the highway and onto smaller roads,” said state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis (R-Fairfax), a member of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, which is in charge of choosing many of the projects that will be built.

Spending the money locally also speeds the process of putting asphalt on the ground because the projects don’t have to go through some state and federal reviews.

Over the past decade, Virginia has guided much of its transportation money to major projects, such as the $2.4 billion Wilson Bridge and the nearly $700 million Springfield Mixing Bowl. Those projects are nearing completion, and funding sources have been identified for the next megaproject — a $4 billion effort to extend Metrorail to Tysons Corner, Dulles International Airport and Loudoun County.

The state has partnered with the private sector to build other major projects, signing deals with companies to widen the Capital Beltway and a 36-mile stretch of interstates 95 and 395. Those projects would be funded by tolls.

That allows leaders to spend the money raised by a host of new regional fees and taxes, expected to produce about $400 million a year, on secondary roads that have become overwhelmed. As congested as most major highways are, the secondary roads they connect to are often worse.

Transportation analysts say the biggest impact can be made on projects such as the widening of the Fairfax County Parkway from Route 123 to the Dulles Toll Road and raising the parkway to go over Monument Drive and Fair Lakes Parkway, two of the most traffic-choked intersections in the region. Other possible fixes include lengthening the left-turn lane at routes 123 and 50/29 in Fairfax City, upgrading the intersection of Braddock Road and Route 29 and re-timing traffic lights throughout the region.

“We haven’t, for the last decade, had a reasonable secondary-road program for Northern Virginia, and this money is a huge plus in addressing a problem that has many, many sides,” said Pierce R. Homer, Virginia’s transportation secretary.

The new money comes from a General Assembly agreement this month that allows Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to raise a menu of regional taxes and fees to pay for transportation improvements. The way the legislation was written virtually guaranteed that the money would go to smaller projects.

Of the $400 million that is likely to be raised in Northern Virginia, 40 percent, or about $160 million, will be distributed to the region’s nine jurisdictions, to be spent on projects of their choosing. Localities also get to keep every dollar raised by commercial real estate tax increases and new car registration fees.

Of the remaining $240 million or so, about $75 million a year is earmarked for Metro and Virginia Railway Express. That leaves roughly $165 million a year for other projects, to be chosen by the authority.

Bob Chase, spokesman for the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, a pro-roads group supported by businesses, said he is worried that what seems like a lot of money will be spread too thin to make much impact.

“We’ve got the money, but the real measure is whether we spend it well,” Chase said. “If you don’t have that big network, all the small improvements don’t add much.”

Chase pointed to Hampton Roads, where, unlike in Northern Virginia, leaders have decided to dedicate their dollars to a few large regional projects, including a third tunnel and the widening of interstates 64 and 664. In a decade, Hampton Roads residents will be able to look back and see what their tax increases paid for.

Ronald F. Kirby, transportation planner for the Washington Council of Governments, agreed that it would be troubling if the transportation dollars were “spread around like peanut butter.” He said, however, that improving the region’s secondary roads and eliminating bottlenecks is a key part of fixing a neglected regional transportation system.

“These are lower-cost projects, and you can do them more quickly,” Kirby said. “And I think if the money gets spent well, the public will see a tremendous improvement.”

Others emphasized that the new money needs to be viewed in context. There will continue to be state and federal funding sources, which have paid for large chunks of building the new Wilson Bridge and the Springfield interchange.

Chris Zimmerman, chairman of the NVTA, said the definition of a “local” project is fleeting in a region where drivers cross multiple boundaries to work, shop and play. He added that an advantage of smaller, more local projects is that commuters can see dirt being moved within two years, unlike megaprojects that can take a decade or more.

But Zimmerman also tried to tamp down expectations.

“There is no amount of building that will make our congestion go away,” he said. “It will only be less bad. If all we do is add more roads and more development in a sprawl pattern, we’ll be back to where we were.”

ProLogis

A ProLogis distribution center in Japan has wind turbines.

NOT too long ago, the concept of “green” building was discounted as impractical, something that might be good for the environment but not necessarily for the business climate. But that mind-set is changing rapidly.

Paul S. Bartholomew Photography;
The Plaza at PPL Center in Allentown, Pa., developed by Liberty Property, has a vegetative roof.

James Burtnett/Burtnett Studios
The Inn & Conference Center by Marriott at the University of Maryland is a “green” hotel.

As concerns mount about global warming and oil prices, so, too, has interest in more sustainable, or green, construction — that is, developments that balance style and function with protection of the environment and conservation of natural resources.

“You can’t open a newspaper or a real estate publication these days without seeing the word ‘green,’ ” said John Fleming, the director of commercial real estate for Johnson Controls, whose sales of products that monitor energy output have been strong.

An estimated 6 percent of commercial developments are certified as “sustainable” or have applied for certification through the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program of the United States Green Building Council. Industry experts say they expect that the percentage could rise to as high as 10 percent by 2010. And many more buildings are being retrofitted with devices that curtail energy consumption and carbon gas emissions.

What does it all mean for real estate investors?

“Green for the environment and for your bottom line,” said George Caraghiaur, a vice president for energy services at the Simon Property Group, one of the largest owners of shopping malls. “Energy expenses make up 25 to 35 percent of our controllable operating costs.”

Many big institutions are investing billions into projects with sustainable building practices, aiming for both environmental and financial benefits. Among the leaders so far have been big pension funds like the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as Calpers, which has a goal of reducing energy use in its real estate holdings by 20 percent over the next five years.

At the same time, private equity funds and partnerships focused on green developments are being formed, like the Hines Calpers Green Development fund and the Rose Smart Growth Investment Equity fund. These funds are marketed to institutions and high-net-worth individuals.

“The institutional players are getting to the market first,” said Leanne Tobias, the founder and principal of Malachite, an advisory company specializing in green real estate investments. “You’re seeing more sophisticated investors who want to take the development risk.”

But Ms. Tobias, who is herself exploring the creation of a green real estate fund, and other industry experts say they believe that investment products will eventually filter down to average investors.

Gary Pivo, a professor of urban planning and natural resources at the University of Arizona, who tracks the green building market, said, “The No. 1 issue for the general public today seems to be global warming, and buildings are a huge part of the problem and part of the solution.”

One of the first green-focused public mutual funds was the Forward Uniplan Real Estate Investment fund, created in 1999. It takes into account environmental factors when choosing companies for its portfolio, though it also looks at broader criteria of social responsibility, like management policies. The Spectra Green fund, established this year, uses similar standards and adds to the mix manufacturers of equipment used by green builders. Such manufacturers include Suntech Power Holdings of China, which produces solar panels.

Ecologically minded investors might also consider individual stocks of real estate companies that have been recognized as having a strong focus on energy efficiency, including the Thomas Properties Group; hotel companies like Marriott International and Hilton Hotels; and real estate investment trusts like ProLogis, Liberty Property Trust and Simon. Liberty’s Plaza at PPL Center in Allentown, Pa., includes a vegetative roof of 6,000 or so plants that helps cool the building, among other things.

These companies and a few others “are listed as part of various socially responsible investment indexes,” like the Domini 400 Social Index and Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Dr. Pivo noted, and they may also have partnership programs with groups like the Environmental Protection Agency.

Dr. Pivo says he thinks investors will be able to choose among more green companies over the next few years. A study he completed this year found that 41.3 percent of REITs, real estate operating companies, developers and pension funds had invested to some degree in green buildings, and another 26.8 percent had plans to do so.

Many real estate companies have already been making steady forays in sustainable developments overseas, where the green movement has clearly gained traction.

“We’ve been very focused on sustainability for a long period of time in the U.K. and Japan; it’s what the customers want,” said Jeffrey H. Schwartz, the chief executive of ProLogis, the world’s largest warehouse developer. “In Japan, it’s expected that you have grass on your roof and computerized light systems and H.V.A.C. system to minimize electrical use.”

ProLogis also uses, among other devices, photovoltaic solar panels and wind turbines; low-energy heating and cooling systems; and landscaping irrigation that incorporates recycled rainwater. But it has found, too, that simply replacing incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent lights can significantly cut electrical use.

THE company is making inroads in the United States as well, starting with its new 89,000-square-foot headquarters in Denver. The building, LEED-certified, has a light-harvesting system that adjusts electrical lights based on the level of incoming sunlight and an evaporative-cooling mechanism that uses less energy than conventional air-conditioning.

In its first sustainability report, which the company plans to release formally this week, ProLogis is laying out plans to create minimum design standards for new developments that will meet or exceed the requirements for environmental certification from global rating systems like LEED. “Being a good corporate citizen,” Mr. Schwartz said, “is also positive for shareholders.”

Mr. Caraghiaur of Simon agreed, saying energy conservation measures can be “seen as a proxy for management strength.”

“The smart investors of the world have come to conclude that energy is a tough thing to manage and that those companies that do manage energy well are seen as those that manage well — period,” he said.

Since 2004, Simon has trimmed about $18 million a year in operating costs through its green retrofitting and other projects, representing a reduction of 110,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, Mr. Caraghiaur said.

Some of the same conservation measures employed by big companies like Simon can also be used on a smaller scale by individual landlords. To promote green building practices, the E.P.A. offers a free software tool called Portfolio Manager as part of its Energy Star program. The software helps owners track and improve energy efficiency.

“The opportunity to improve is often available through operations and management practices that don’t require much capital expenditure,” said Stuart Brodsky, the agency’s national program manager for commercial real estate. One step, he said, would be to inspect equipment regularly: “Are your fans running when they’re supposed to be? Are the electrical relays working efficiently? Are the thermostats calibrated to where you think they should be?”

The benefits are the same for all investors, large or small, Mr. Brodsky added. Besides lowering consumption, and therefore, costs, greener buildings typically attract and retain more tenants, thereby ensuring a more continuous revenue stream. They may also help landlords qualify for certain tax credits and insurance discounts, in addition to enhancing the value of a building. E.P.A. research shows, for example, that each dollar per square foot invested in a building’s energy efficiency has the potential to raise its market value by $2 to $3 a square foot.

Of course, advances in energy-saving technology have helped make sustainable buildings more cost-effective, not to mention more comfortable for occupants.

“In life,” said Ms. Tobias of Malachite, “it’s very rare when you find an opportunity to do well by doing good.”

Stephen Morton for The New York Times
Lush Land The “low country” near the Pocotaligo River in Jasper County, S.C., is attracting outside buyers like Debbie and Tim Phipps with their sons.

Stephen Morton for The New York Times
Debbie and Tim Phipps with their sons.

Stephen Morton for The New York Times
Tommy and Tyler Stanley have mixed feelings about the recent building growth.

THE “low country” here at the southern tip of South Carolina has long been passed through by people driving to and from Florida on Interstate 95. It has even been overlooked by visitors to Hilton Head, S.C., and Savannah, Ga., both within a half-hour’s drive.

But the county’s lush landscape — rural and marshy, with wetlands and rivers and an abundance of Southern live oak trees draped with Spanish moss — is finally being discovered by outsiders.

Explosive residential development has sprung up nationwide, even in the most unlikely places. But it is only now arriving in Jasper County. With a population of less than 30,000 spread over 600 square miles, an area about twice the size of New York City, Jasper could become the site of 40,000 or so new homes in the coming years, which could more than double the current population, local officials say.

Rather than allowing development to overwhelm the county, officials have collaborated on a plan that tries to guide growth and preserve the region’s natural beauty.

An estimated 30,000 new homes have already been approved in Hardeeville, which grew in a few years from five square miles to more than 50.

One large-scale development, called Tradition, broke ground in October, with 9,500 homes in the $500,000 price range. Hampton Pointe, a gated golf community of 1,022 homes by the Toll Brothers, is also under way, with prices starting in the mid-$300,000s. The first occupancies are expected this fall.

Meanwhile, Ridgeland, the largest town in Jasper, has 1,000 homes on the way, according to local officials, not including expected development on an additional 20,000 acres still outside the city limits.

“Jasper has been waiting for this,” said Edward G. Evans Jr., who has lived here for 30 years with his wife, Diane. Mr. Evans, a principal owner of a land planning and landscape design firm, Wood & Partners, said that he and his wife had recently built a new “preretirement” home for themselves on land that is still accessed by a dirt road. It is in a development area that four years ago was vacant and now has 45 houses. The single-family homes are priced from $300,000 to $600,000.

Longtime residents and local officials who want to guide growth, but not hinder it, say they believe that Jasper will benefit from developing later than other parts of the South. Having watched their neighbors, particularly Beaufort County, become overwhelmed by growth that spilled over from Hilton Head, Jasper officials say, they saw what was coming and got together to set some ground rules.

“In areas like ours, where people are starved for development, they’re willing to give away the farm,” said Kevin Griffin, assistant city manager of Hardeeville, who has an advanced degree in urban planning. “But we’ve really tried to get ahead of the growth, rather than being five years behind and having to catch up.”

More than two years ago, local leaders from Hardeeville and Ridgeland got together with county officials to collaborate on a shared growth plan. A five-mile radius was drawn around Ridgeland, and another five-mile radius was set around Hardeeville, delineating where development could occur according to local zoning laws.

Any landowners who fall outside of each town’s boundary and want to build have to petition to be annexed, and if approved, pay for the installation of sewers, water, and roads. After extensive research, the joint planning committee determined that every new residential unit costs about $6,200 in services.

“People talk about smart growth, but this is more like fiscal growth,” Mr. Griffin said. “We don’t say you can’t develop here; it’s a pay-to-play environment. Suddenly, that cheap land doesn’t seem so cheap anymore. But the good developers, the ones who want to be stewards of the land, they are the ones who can adjust their plans and create a quality product.”

Not only does the joint planning agreement require impact fees, it also encourages mixed-use development and mandates that land be set aside for public services like parks.

“The boundary acts like a greenbelt,” said Jason Taylor, the administrator for Ridgeland, the county seat. “It’s a beautiful area down here, but the problem is, people discover areas like this that have been undiscovered for so long, and they crush it under the weight of new growth. All the land’s been cleared, and wildlife has disappeared, and it’s no longer what it was. Guiding growth will prevent that from happening.”

Land outside the two designated boundaries is regulated by the county, which currently has a moratorium on development until an updated zoning plan is put into effect, which is expected to happen in June.

“We want to maintain the rural character,” said Glenn Storck, chairman of the county planning commission, particularly the pristine land on the northern tip of the county, known as Mackay Point. “It’s beautiful, virgin land up there.”

Until recently, Mackay Point was virtually uninhabited, except for the Mackay Point Plantation, an old, private club where Vice President Dick Cheney has hunted. Coming soon is the Settings of Mackay Point, an upscale development on the Pocotaligo River, which was already under way before the moratorium was put in place.

But the developer’s sensitivity to the landscape won over its very private neighbor and county officials alike.

Situated on 327 acres of marsh and wetland, with 40 percent set aside for a natural preserve with hiking trails and open space, 411 homes will be built at the development on lots slightly smaller than lots on similar upscale developments. Shared boat docks and narrow roadways also help preserve land.

Lots were specifically drawn to accommodate the oldest live oak trees, and the developer, the Settings Development Companies, an Atlanta-based concern, has a policy of no clear-cutting. The first phase of the project is nearly sold out, with vacant lots selling for $100,000 to $800,000.

Debbie and Tim Phipps, who live in Cincinnati with their three sons — Kyle, 18, Austin, 15, and Parker, 12 — came across the Settings after vacationing in Savannah and Hilton Head.

They were recently in the area to look at “low-country” home designs, characterized by wraparound porches, large windows and pitched roofs. It is a style they will use when building on their newly bought lot.

“We just fell in love with the whole area,” Mrs. Phipps said. “It’s not built up and not in the middle of a big hub of activity, with the huge clubhouse and all of that. It’s simple living but accessible to Savannah and Hilton Head” — which is a 40-minute boat ride away.

“The landscape to us, it just said ‘South,’ with the live oaks and Spanish moss, marshes and rivers,” said Mr. Phipps, who is an operations manager for a packaging firm. “It just puts us in a soft frame of mind.”

But for all the efforts at progressive planning and development, growth is still changing the area, creating mixed feelings for a few lifetime residents, like Tommy and Tyler Stanley.

The Stanleys are fourth-generation Jasper County residents. They live in a home, which they are now renovating, that had belonged to Mr. Stanley’s grandmother. Mr. Stanley, 37, said he specifically chose a career as a land surveyor so he could stay in Jasper County after graduating from high school.

He thought he was going to work for timber companies, which until recently owned much of the land in Jasper County. Instead he is working for developers — a job that is keeping him busy.

“Development is coming like a tsunami,” Mr. Stanley said. “As a surveyor, you know you’re seeing these properties for the last time as they are. But we’re open-minded enough to know that things change.”

Donna Alberico for The New York Times

MORNING MIXER The social experience at Orion on West 42nd Street in Manhattan begins early each day with a free breakfast and conversation.

THEY came in sweatshirts and fuzzy slippers, suits and oxfords, seeking chocolate muffins and Cheerios. Some grabbed a yogurt and left. Others lingered. In the room high above the Hudson River, they relished the food, the vistas and one another’s company for as long as they could stretch a New York minute.

So began another morning at Orion, a 60-story condominium on West 42nd Street with a glass body and a Club Med soul, where residents in anything from pajamas to pinstripes can enjoy a taste of camaraderie with their free (yes, free) daily breakfast, Starbucks coffee included.

“It’s almost impossible not to make a friend here,” said Danny SiFonte, the resident manager with a buildingwide celebrity akin to that of Norm on “Cheers.”

“We’re going to do movie nights and we’re going to do book clubs,” said Nancy Diaz, a resident who, in an interview, likened the condo to a cruise ship. “There’s talk of using the pool for water volleyball. We’ll have Monday night sports. We have a spring fling coming up in May.”

Clearly, Orion is incubating a mutant strain of New Yorker.

New Yorkers, as any MetroCard-carrying resident knows, are not notably genial neighbors. Many get to know one another solely by what manages to permeate their deadbolted doors — an odoriferous stew, the wail of a child, the hushed sighs of intimate moments.

But the boom in condos loaded with amenities, along with the construction of some high-end rental buildings, has created opportunities for neighbors to make the transition from polite elevator nods to cocktail-caliber mingling. Of 19 properties in the city with units being marketed and sold by Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group since fall 2005, all have community amenities like gyms, lounges and roof decks.

These and more novel spaces — cinemas, wet bars, squash courts, outdoor rain showers — are putting lounges with a lonely television set to shame, and they are fostering a clubby college-dormitory atmosphere in several developments. Some residents said they can’t help but hobnob, especially if they want to take advantage of what they paid for.

“Instead of staying up in our apartment, we always stay here,” said Annie Jose, 54, who was nibbling a bagel and raisin bread at Orion one morning. “Sometimes we have two, three tables joined so everyone can talk.”

Developers, too, are embracing the idea of friendliness. A six-building condo development in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, for instance, which will have its first open house on May 6, has been named Hello and given a name-tag sticker as its branding image.

It already has YouTube, Flickr and cheeky MySpace Web pages for its buildings, with one MySpace page claiming: “The poker tables alone will make friends and enemies, but everyone can all get along by watching ‘Badlands’ on the big screen.”

The amenities, like rooftop cabanas, a barbecue area, wine cellar, library, children’s playroom and pool, are spread throughout the six buildings, in part to motivate residents to fraternize.

“We’re extremely social creatures, and I think people in New York really suffer from an inability to really interact with people,” said Susan Meiklejohn, an associate professor of urban planning at Hunter College. “And that’s what these developers are realizing.”

This is not because New Yorkers are cold, Dr. Meiklejohn said, but because the city is so dense that people avoid one another to establish buffer zones. “What level of friendliness can you possibly sustain each day if you have to say hello to everybody you meet on 34th Street?” she said.

In many new buildings, though, neighbors are venturing beyond tight-lipped hellos at the mailbox. At a Chelsea condo that opened last year, groups of residents have organized Friday night cocktails and floor mixers, and gathered on Sundays to watch “The Sopranos.” Some are planning a rotating party this summer.

“I was in my old building seven years, and it wasn’t until the last year that I got to know my neighbors,” said Carol Candiano, who lived in an Upper East Side prewar building before buying her apartment at 555 West 23rd Street. “People kept to themselves.”

Yet even within a spirited building like Orion, experiences vary. Ms. Jose, a nurse, said she has made numerous friends there, while another owner, Tanya Cereda, 25, a waitress, said she feels “at home” with her neighbors but has not established friendships.

Ginger Gilden, on the other hand, said she has become part of a close network of mothers and nannies since she and her husband moved last year to be@ClintonWest, a condo building in Hell’s Kitchen, from a rental building in Queens. “We all have the same pediatrician,” said Ms. Gilden, an architect. And she said she is looking forward to a coming golf tournament, to be held at the building’s open-air putting green.

“It has a small neighborhood feel to it,” Ms. Gilden said of the building, “like its own little town.”

That is how neighbors meet in many other parts of the country, gathered as so many are in communities built around golf courses and recreation centers. It is the story of Florida, Arizona, North Carolina — places to which New Yorkers flee.

But in New York, tenants and apartment owners rarely enter buildings expecting a welcome wagon. Indeed, Bre Zack, 20, a student at Pratt Institute and an intern at Christie’s, said she expected little when she moved to EastCoast, a rental building with a gym, sun deck and lounge areas in Long Island City, Queens, from her Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone, where she said “no one spoke with one another.”

Yet “everyone was so friendly upon my arrival,” she said. “All of my neighbors came out to say hello to me and ask if I needed anything.” That atmosphere became more evident once she began using the amenities regularly.

Jonathan Miller, president of the Miller Samuel appraisal firm, estimated that there are about 15,000 to 20,000 new residential condo units in development in New York City. Sales of condo units in the first quarter of this year reached 1,703, the highest in at least 20 years, according to data from Miller Samuel. About 30 percent of the 2,994 condo units listed for sale were from new developments.

Real estate professionals said the new buildings are more likely to have community space, making opportunities to socialize more plentiful.

“These amenities are drawing people out of their apartments,” said Pamela Liebman, the president and chief executive of the Corcoran Group. “This has become a way of life.”

At least for those who can afford it.

Available 698-square-foot studio apartments in the William Beaver House, a residence in the Financial District being developed by André Balazs, the hotelier, range from about $950,000 to $1.1 million. The perks, designed to encourage social interaction, include a cinema with day beds, a lap pool, a covered outdoor dog park and an outdoor basketball court with bleachers.

“You can think of the entire building as your home,” he said.

Then again, as Mr. Balazs said, people may become friendly in these buildings because they are “self selecting” clubs.

People in poor or working-class neighborhoods, on the other hand, meet on stoops, at city-run pools and in community gardens, said Dalton Conley, the chairman of the sociology department at New York University, and parents have always used parks and playgrounds to meet neighbors and foster a sense of community. “I do think this possibly is new to these folks who have traditionally used economic power to buy privacy and individual anonymity,” Dr. Conley said.

Once people move into amenity-drenched buildings, however, some discover that Mister Rogers was indeed onto something.

Highlyann Krasnow, the executive vice president of the Developers Group, said befriending the neighbors is especially common in buildings that are in emerging neighborhoods where there are younger buyers and somewhat lower price points.

The type of amenity and its placement within a building also affects just how friendly the vibe is, said Shaun Osher, chief executive of CORE Group Marketing.

“There are some buildings that seem like they’re turning into a frat house,” he said, adding, “We’re doing a condo on Fifth Avenue. If we put a hot tub in a common area it really would not resonate with our buyer.”

Not every residential experience, obviously, revolves around amenities. Jim Malkin, chairman of SourceMedia, which publishes American Banker and other financial publications, said his five-story East Village walk-up had open house-style parties every Christmas when residents wandered among apartments, eating and drinking. He now lives in the Gretsch Building, a condo in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where there is a common space, but he said it is not used very often.

“It really depends on how friendly you want to be,” Mr. Malkin said, adding that those, like himself, who want to befriend their neighbors, will always do so, amenities or not.

“The nice thing about New York is you can make that choice,” said Judith DeSena, an associate professor of sociology who teaches a course about neighborhoods at St. John’s University.

That people today commonly buy into a building before it is completed and all move in about the same time may account for a good deal of the friendliness. There are no entrenched social circles to penetrate, no ornery characters who have been ruling the roost for 20 years. The anticipation of collectively shaping the atmosphere of the building begins well before the owners move in, thanks to building blogs and Champagne opening celebrations.

“It’s a bonding experience,” Mr. Osher said.

Ms. Candiano agreed, saying that moving into 555 West 23rd Street “was like the first year of college.”

The unanswered question is whether they still will be friends come senior year.

Chuck Squatriglia, Chronicle Staff Writer; Sunday, April 29, 2007

But they don’t belong there.

They are invaders from central Asia, introduced three generations ago for the benefit of hunters. Scientists fear they are driving out native black-tailed deer that have been there for centuries but could vanish within our lifetime.

From Point Reyes to Everglades National Park, many experts say, invasive species of every size and description are changing the very ecology of America’s parks and public lands. The National Park Service says it is bound by law, including the statute that created the agency in 1916, to act.

It is of acute concern at Point Reyes, which is among the most biologically diverse places in the world. Seventeen percent of California’s plant species, 45 percent of all bird species on the continent and 30 percent of the world’s marine mammal species live in a park just three times the size of San Francisco.

That complex ecosystem is under attack from within. Foreign species introduced over the past century are pushing out endemic plants and animals at an increasing pace, and they are moving beyond the park into Marin County.

Beach grass from Ireland has pushed the western snowy plover from coastal dunes. Eastern bullfrogs and mosquito fish from the American Southeast kill endangered red-legged frogs. A European sea squirt that has blanketed vast tracts of the North Atlantic now lives in Tomales Bay.

Individually, invasive species are a nuisance. Collectively, they threaten to reshape within decades ecosystems that evolved over millennia.

“We’re at a moment in history where we must save California’s natural heritage,” said park Superintendent Don Neubacher. “If we don’t address this in the next 20 to 50 years, a significant part of that heritage will be lost forever.”

Critics argue Neubacher is an alarmist. They say ranching, development and the 2.5 million people who visit the park each year do far more harm than a few hundred fallow deer or a pond full of bullfrogs.

Evidence suggests ecosystems can thrive for decades with invasive species before reaching a tipping point beyond which the invaders expand exponentially. The ecosystem becomes homogenized, dominated by a few hardy species in the environmental equivalent of suburban strip malls filled with big-box retailers.

It’s happened on islands in the South Pacific. There are signs it’s happening in Bodega Bay.

Ecologists call invasive organisms the greatest threat to endangered species after habitat loss — a significant concern at Point Reyes, home to at least 27 species of threatened or endangered plants and animals.

Nationwide, about 400 of the 958 species protected by the Endangered Species Act as of 1998 are at risk primarily because of predation by, or competition with, invasive species, according to a study published in the journal Bioscience. The number of protected species has since grown to 1,285, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Humans have moved plants and animals around the world for eons. The U.S. Geological Survey says there are at least 6,500 nonnative species in the United States. Cornell University researchers place the figure closer to 50,000.

The issue goes beyond the National Park Service. Studies show that invasive species cost the nation $138 billion annually in economic losses and environmental damage.

Point Reyes spends $750,000 annually combatting invasive species and will spend $20 million during the next five years restoring the Giacomini wetlands and other habitats to protect endemic species like the red-legged frog.

It is one of many parks grappling with the issue. But it typifies the many ways the pests are introduced, the challenge of removing them and the opposition many people have to government tinkering with the environment.

A rancher introduced fallow deer and the less commonly seen axis deer to the area in the 1940s. Their numbers have ebbed and flowed with the effort to control them; park officials estimate there are about 1,100 roaming the park.

Fallow deer are voracious eaters and more aggressive than the endangered tule elk, and they carry Johne’s disease, an intestinal disorder often fatal to native deer. They have few Northern California predators. A study by the U.S. Geological Survey found Point Reyes would have 900 more black-tailed deer without the invasive deer.

That worries park biologist Natalie Gates and other biologists because black-tailed deer are a keystone species critical to the park’s health. They control vegetation and are the primary prey for mountain lions.

Park rangers shot 2,700 exotic deer between 1976 and 1994, when park superintendent Neubacher scuttled the practice pending a formal management plan. The plan approved in December calls for sterilizing some deer and shooting others. The 15-year campaign is to begin later this year; the goal is to eliminate the invasive deer by 2027.

The plan is supported by the Sierra Club, the Marin Conservation League and others. But it is opposed by many local residents, naturalist Jane Goodall, the Marin Humane Society and In Defense of Animals. They argue the park is exaggerating the problem and say the deer can be managed with contraceptives or by sending them to a preserve.

“Parks are not static things. They’re constantly changing,” said veterinarian Elliot Katz, president of In Defense of Animals. “The thinking is a new species has moved in, it’s causing a problem, so let’s kill it. We should try to see if there is another way to solve the problem.”

Few people objected when the park cleared beach grass by the ton in recent years from 50 acres of coastal dunes near Abbott’s Lagoon at a cost of $400,000.

In their natural state, Northern California’s coastal dunes are mostly open sand dotted by about a dozen species of plants. Seventy years ago the U.S. government recommended planting beach grass and other exotic plants to keep sand from blowing around.

Greater environmental awareness brought a re-examination of that policy. Beach grass dominates the landscape, eliminating most native vegetation and robbing shorebirds of nesting grounds. Nothing eats beach grass, so there’s nothing to remove it.

Eradicating it is straightforward: Yank it out and let nature run its course.

Within six months of the restoration of Abbott’s Lagoon, endangered plovers returned and raised 11 chicks, said Jane Rodgers, a vegetation ecologist at the park. Beach layia and Tidestrom’s lupine, two threatened plants, and seven other species of native vegetation returned as well.

Given that success, park officials hope to restore the remaining 750 acres of coastal dunes, beginning with a $2.2 million campaign to restore 300 acres of dunes south of Abbott’s Lagoon in 2010.

Eastern bullfrogs and mosquito fish are harder to eradicate.

Bullfrogs, introduced to California as food after the Gold Rush, live in ponds and marshes throughout the park. And nonnative mosquito fish have started turning up in recent months, said biologist Gary Fellers of the Geological Survey.

When they aren’t eating red-legged frogs and tadpoles, bullfrogs compete with them for food. Mosquito fish — introduced to California to control mosquitoes — prey on the red-legged frog, Pacific tree frog and endangered California newt tadpoles.

Removing all the bullfrogs and mosquito fish — both likely introduced by people who couldn’t predict their consequences — is all but impossible. However, biologists hope they can keep them from spreading to other areas, Fellers said.

Possibly more problematic is a sea squirt called clonal tunicate. The invertebrate looks and feels like a dirty sponge. It turned up in Tomales Bay four years ago, most likely in ballast water dumped from freighters.

Clonal tunicate envelops and suffocates almost everything it touches and is almost impossible to eradicate. It has blanketed more than 88 square miles of the Georges Bank fishing grounds in the North Atlantic since its discovery there in 2003, according to the Geological Survey.

That alarms marine biologists in California because some 2,000 species, from the smallest invertebrate to harbor seals, live in Tomales Bay. If the tunicate establishes itself, it could disrupt the entire food chain, said Ben Becker, a marine ecologist at the park.

“If it establishes itself on the floor of the bay, it will have grave impacts,” he said.

Studies suggest ecosystems can tolerate some level of infestation before reaching what ecologists call invasional meltdown — a point at which an invasive species grows so dominant that the natural system collapses and the invaders take over exponentially.

“We know that some of these species can change a habitat significantly and make it hospitable to other species,” said Ted Grosholz, a UC Davis ecologist. “You can reach a point where the system is so overloaded, so compromised that it becomes easier for invasives to move in.”

Grosholz has seen the nonnative eastern gem clam live for decades in Bodega Bay alongside two species of native clams, Nutricola confusa and Nutricola tantilla, until the European green crab arrived in the mid-1990s. The crabs have decimated the native clam population, and the gem clams now dominate.

Grosholz and other ecologists credit the park service for its assertive approach but complain that the issue of invasive species has gone largely unnoticed in the years since President Bill Clinton signed an executive order in 1999 directing federal agencies to minimize the number of invasive species in the country and their impact on both commerce and the environment. They say there must be greater cooperation among the agencies charged with addressing the issue, and the government must be more proactive.

Chris Dionigi, assistant director of the National Invasive Species Council, said the government is trying to be more aggressive but will be playing catch-up for years to come because there are so many species migrating into, and out of, the country.

“We’re at the point where we need to get serious about addressing this issue,” he said. “The sooner you act, the smaller the impact and the lower the cost. The longer we wait, the more difficult it becomes.”

E-mail Chuck Squatriglia at csquatriglia@sfchronicle.com.

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This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

2 freeways closed near Bay Bridge

Peter Fimrite and Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer; Sunday, April 29, 2007

(04-29) 09:24 PDT OAKLAND — The heat of a dramatic gasoline tanker fire destroyed an overpass and closed two major roadways in the MacArthur Maze at the East Bay access to the Bay Bridge early this morning.

A section of the roadway taking traffic from the Bay Bridge onto eastbound Interstate 580 fell onto the connector that brings East Bay traffic from Interstate 80 to Interstate 880 southbound toward Oakland and San Jose.

Lanes of 580 near the East Bay Municipal Utility District sewage treatment plant at the maze are draped like a blanket over the northeast edge of the freeway below with the corner tip touching the ground below that.

Traffic is being routed several different ways around the scene and tie-ups are likely to worsen as the day wears on.

“We’re screwed, huh? That’s going to be rough on everybody,” said Joe Dorey, 55, an engineer who lives in Oakland.

The tanker, which was traveling from I-80 full of vehicle-ready gasoline, seems to have disappeared. One Caltrans worker at the scene held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart to describe how big the tanker is now.

The driver, who got out of the truck on his own after it overturned, hailed a taxi to a nearby hospital, where he is in critical but stable condition with burns.

One section of roadway has fallen away from the main structure and another may yet fall this morning.

Below the two stretches of roadway is a Caltrans property full of equipment being used to rebuild the Bay Bridge.

So far this morning, traffic on all the affected roadways remains light, but major backups are expected today and for the foreseeable future.

E-mail the writers at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com and dbulwa@sfchronicle.com.

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.

The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

At the airport, crucially important for the functioning of the country, inspectors found that while $11.8 million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8.6 million worth were no longer functioning.

At the maternity hospital, a rehabilitation project in the northern city of Erbil, an expensive incinerator for medical waste was padlocked — Iraqis at the hospital could not find the key when inspectors asked to see the equipment — and partly as a result, medical waste including syringes, used bandages and empty drug vials were clogging the sewage system and probably contaminating the water system.

The newly built water purification system was not functioning either.

Officials at the oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said they had made an effort to sample different regions and various types of projects, but that they were constrained from taking a true random sample in part because many projects were in areas too unsafe to visit. So, they said, the initial set of eight projects — which cost a total of about $150 million — cannot be seen as a true statistical measure of the thousands of projects in the roughly $30 billion American rebuilding program.

But the officials said the initial findings raised serious new concerns about the effort.

The reconstruction effort was originally designed as nearly equal to the military push to stabilize Iraq, allow the government to function and business to flourish, and promote good will toward the United States.

“These first inspections indicate that the concerns that we and others have had about the Iraqis sustaining our investments in these projects are valid,” Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who leads the office of the special inspector general, said in an interview on Friday.

The conclusions will be summarized in the latest quarterly report by Mr. Bowen’s office on Monday. Individual reports on each of the projects were released on Thursday and Friday.

Mr. Bowen said that because he suspected that completed projects were not being maintained, he had ordered his inspectors to undertake a wider program of returning to examine projects that had been completed for at least six months, a phase known as sustainment.

Exactly who is to blame for the poor record on sustainment for the first sample of eight projects was not laid out in the report, but the American reconstruction program has been repeatedly criticized for not including in its rebuilding budget enough of the costs for spare parts, training, stronger construction and other elements that would enable projects continue to function once they have been built.

The new reports provide some support for that position: a sophisticated system for distributing oxygen throughout the Erbil hospital had been ignored by medical staff members, who told inspectors that they distrusted the new equipment and had gone back to using tried-and-true oxygen tanks — which were stored unsafely throughout the building.

The Iraqis themselves appear to share responsibility for the latest problems, which cropped up after the United States turned the projects over to the Iraqi government. Still, the new findings show that the enormous American investment in the reconstruction program is at risk, Mr. Bowen said.

Besides the airport, hospital and special forces barracks, places where inspectors found serious problems included two projects at a military base near Nasiriya and one at a military recruiting center in Hilla — both cities in the south — and a police station in Mosul, a northern city. A second police station in Mosul was found to be in good condition.

The dates when the projects were completed and deemed successful ranged from six months to almost a year and a half before the latest inspections. But those inspections found numerous instances of power generators that no longer operated; sewage systems that had clogged and overflowed, damaging sections of buildings; electrical systems that had been jury-rigged or stripped of components; floors that had buckled; concrete that had crumbled; and expensive equipment that was simply not in use.

Curiously, most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage stemming from Iraq’s parlous security situation, but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of any maintenance and simple neglect.

A case in point was the $5.2 million project undertaken by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build the special forces barracks in Baghdad. The project was completed in September 2005, but by the time inspectors visited last month, there were numerous problems caused by faulty plumbing throughout the buildings, and four large electrical generators, each costing $50,000, were no longer operating.

The problems with the generators were seemingly minor: missing batteries, a failure to maintain adequate oil levels in the engines, fuel lines that had been pilfered or broken. That kind of neglect is typical of rebuilding programs in developing countries when local nationals are not closely involved in planning efforts, said Rick Barton, co-director of the postconflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization in Washington.

“What ultimately makes any project sustainable is local ownership from the beginning in designing the project, establishing the priorities,” Mr. Barton said. “If you don’t have those elements it’s an extension of colonialism and generally it’s resented.”

Mr. Barton, who has closely monitored reconstruction efforts in Iraq and other countries, said the American rebuilding program had too often created that resentment by imposing projects on Iraqis or relying solely on the advice of a local tribal chief or some “self-appointed representative” of local Iraqis.

The new findings come after years of insistence by American officials in Baghdad that too much attention has been paid to the failures in Iraq and not enough to the successes.

Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, commander of the Gulf Region Division of the Army Corps, told a news conference in Baghdad late last month that with so much coverage of violence in Iraq “what you don’t see are the successes in the reconstruction program, how reconstruction is making a difference in the lives of everyday Iraqi people.”

And those declared successes are heavily promoted by the United States government. A 2006 news release by the Army Corps, titled “Erbil Maternity and Pediatric Hospital — not just bricks and mortar!” praises both the new water purification system and the incinerator. The incinerator, the release said, would “keep medical waste from entering into the solid waste and water systems.”

But when Mr. Bowen’s office presented the Army Corps with the finding that neither system was working at the struggling hospital and recommended a training program so that Iraqis could properly operate the equipment, General Walsh tersely disagreed with the recommendation in a letter appended to the report, which also noted that the building had suffered damage because workers used excess amounts of water to clean the floors.

The bureau within the United States Embassy in Baghdad that oversees reconstruction in Iraq was even more dismissive, disagreeing with all four of the inspector general’s recommendations, including those suggesting that the United States should lend advice on disposing of the waste and maintaining the floors.

“Recommendations such as how much water to use in cleaning floors or disposal of medical waste could be deemed as an intrusion on, or attempt to micromanage operations of an Iraqi entity that we have no controlling interest over,” wrote William Lynch, acting director of the embassy bureau, called the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office.

By Carol Lloyd, Special to SF Gate; Friday, April 27, 2007

 

Down a rambling residential road on the outskirts of Sebastopol, the dream house sits like a testament to discriminating taste.

This dream house is the love child of artist-builder Jay Shafer, who lovingly hand-crafted it. The stainless-steel kitchen, gleaming next to the natural wood interior, is outfitted with customized storage and built-ins. From his bed, Shafer can gaze into the Northern California sky through a cathedral window. In his immaculate office space, a laptop sits alongside rows of architectural books and magazines — many featuring his house on the cover. And from the old-fashioned front porch, he can look out on a breathtaking setting: an apple orchard in full bloom.

But in an era when bigger is taken as a synonym for better, calling Shafer’s home a dream house might strike some as an oxymoron. Why? The entire house, including sleeping loft, measures only 96 square feet — smaller than many people’s bathrooms. But Jay Shafer’s dream isn’t of a lifestyle writ large but of one carefully created and then writ tiny.

Shafer, the founder of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, began his love affair with diminutive dwellings about 10 years ago when teaching drawing at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. “I was living in an average-sized apartment and I realized I just didn’t need so much space,” he said. “I always envied people who had smaller homes, because they didn’t have to do as much housework.”

He bought an Airstream trailer, remodeled it and spent two years suffering the long, bitter winters before conceding that insulation was one amenity he was unwilling to forgo. “So I started from scratch and built myself a small house,” he told me. He built the 100-square-foot home on wheels and parked it on a friend’s farm outside of Iowa City. Eventually, he moved back into town but not without some difficulty. “I wasn’t allowed to put the house on a city lot, because it was too small,” he explained, referring to the minimum-size standards in the codes of many cities and counties across the country. So he bought a house, put his little house in the backyard and rented out the main house.

By 2000, he had decided this would be a way to channel his artwork, feed his hunger for simplicity and escape the rental rat race. After a friend asked him to build a house for him to live in, Shafer launched Tumbleweed Tiny House Co. in 2000. The friend went on to become the president of the Small House Society — and thus was written one more episode of the small-is-beautiful movement. Shafer began building and designing little houses for people who wanted them as backyard retreats, second homes or primary residences. Eventually, he sold his own first home because he wanted something smaller and then built himself a 70-square-foot home on wheels (now called the XS House on his Web site).

“I knew I was going to be traveling out here and didn’t know where I was going to put my house,” he explained. “I wanted for it to fit in a parking place — actually, I wanted to be able to parallel-park it.”

I’d heard of getting a car small enough to parallel-park — but a house?

Shafer pulled his house out West on a U-Haul and parked it in a public lot smack in the center of Sebastopol, hoping he would meet people sympathetic to the pursuit of the simple life and invite him to live on their property. It took exactly 20 minutes. For the next six months, Shafer lived on 40 acres of land with a creek outside the upscale town of Occidental. He then moved closer to Sebastopol, before selling his home to build his current one — which he dragged to its current location in an apple orchard.

Over the years, he has built and sold 10 homes and dozens of house plans, which cost about $1,000. But the real story is that he’s become a poster boy for simple living, with interviews or mentions in This Old House magazine, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and, last February, even on “Oprah.” What’s behind the rush to peek inside Shafer’s tiny living room and grill him about his lifestyle?

“Our society’s been based on excess for so long, it’s still a somewhat novel idea to live simply,” he said. At 42, Shafer has a quiet, boyish presence and the unclouded brow of a man content with his choices. But he’s also someone who obviously has gone to great lengths to live life according to his own principles — an intensity seems to flicker in his eyes and in the humility of his explanations. You won’t find much in the way of ranting about greed and gluttony. Though he does sometimes utter words like “excess,” he maintains it’s not for him to judge the needs of others.

“I can’t say what the definition of a small house is,” he said. “Maybe it’s 4,000 square feet, if that’s what it takes to suit their needs. The idea is that the house is being well-used. Some people need more space than others.” Even when asked about the likes of Larry Ellison (whose recent building plans involve battling for a house bigger than a city block), Shafer resisted: “I don’t know his needs.”

Shafer said that small-house fans tend to be a nonjudgmental lot because so many have experienced “discrimination”: Most building codes across the nation maintain a minimum-size requirement that prohibits the building of very small houses like Shafer’s. Some homeowners associations and towns maintain this high standard in order to maintain high property values — as well as keep out the affordable-housing riffraff. This has meant that many tiny-house aficionados only live their dream by skirting the law, living in someone else’s backyard or heading for a rural county with no planning department.

But even in counties where tiny houses are allowed, lenders don’t always look kindly on homes the size of a walk-in closet. Indeed, Shafer knows that some people might even see his house as a threat to their property values: That was an argument he heard often from his father, who recently sold his 4,000-square-foot suburban home in Mission Viejo to move into an RV. Now, Shafer thinks his father may be coming around to understanding the inherent beauty of living small.

Shafer chose Sebastopol in part because he thinks the politically liberal community will be supportive of abolishing minimum-size standards. His next dream is to create a little community of small houses, with a half-dozen or more connected by walking paths on a small piece of land.

“Trailer parks get a bad rap because they are made of cheap materials, but their structure is very conducive to community,” he said. “Everyone knows high density is the way to go.” Indeed, the tiny house may be the antidote to vertical high density in small towns and rural areas where neighborhoods are eager to preserve views and open space. Unlike in a three-story, lot-covering, mixed-use development, from a cluster of tiny houses, you can still smell the apple blossoms.

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