Nueva Maravilla- A Green Community

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2013

The Nueva Maravilla public housing development was built in the late 1930’s when concepts of energy and water conservation were rarely if ever incorporated into building design and development. Increasing energy and water costs over time and diminishing federal and local government resources to support these costs, combined with the implementation of local green ordinances and initiatives, provided the impetus for replacing the inefficient energy and water systems at Nueva Maravilla with state of the art systems designed with the objective of maximizing conservation. Aside from the cost savings realized by this project, the long term benefit to the environment in lower energy consumption, reduced green house gases and water conserved is, to borrow from a popular advertising slogan…priceless. Completed energy conservation measures include the installation of cool roofs, solar panels, lighting, refrigerators, pervious paving, condensing water heaters, solar thermal hot water heaters, plumbing fixtures, irrigation and drought tolerant xeriscaping improvements. The Going Green initiative provided the HACoLA with significant energy and water savings and will increase energy efficiency, reduce costs of public housing, while creating green jobs.