City celebrates opening of EverGreen

Bloomington celebrated the grand opening of EverGreen Village, an eco-friendly and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified development on Wednesday.

When asked why the affordable housing development was seeking LEED certification, Director of Bloomington’s Housing and Neighborhood Development Department Lisa Abbott said “it doesn’t make sense to put a family in a house that is expensive to operate. ... The idea is to make operating costs as low as possible.”

Woolford said the family needs to live in the house for one year for it to be LEED certified.

EverGreen Village is home to solar panels, pervious concrete, rain gardens and ENERGY STAR-rated windows, doors and appliances.

Duke Energy donated the solar panels to EverGreen, which Abbott called a “blessing.”
The solar panels not only utilize the sun’s rays for energy, but allow the meter to run backward as well as forward, off-setting the house’s operation by a third, Abbott said. If the solar panels generate more energy than needed, the excess gets put out on the grid for Duke to buy back.

EverGreen Village is also the location of pervious concrete and rain gardens. Typical sewage systems drain rainwater through pipes which eventually spill into a larger body of water. The problem with this is that what spills into the river or lake is not just rainwater, but contaminates such as car oil and trash, which are often littered on the sides of highly traveled areas. In EverGreen Village, the water is collected in the rain gardens and is naturally filtered through the soil.

Robert Woolford, the program manager of Housing and Neighborhood Development, said EverGreen Village is situated on a property of about four and a half acres that was acquired by the city in 1992.

EverGreen Villiage is in reality the “brainchild” of Susie Johnson, Abbott said. Now the current director of Public Works, Johnson was formally the director of Housing and Neighborhood Development.

“The affordable housing is targeted to individuals who earn 80 percent or less of the area’s median income,” Woolford said. Likewise, “a family of four must earn $50,500 or less in order to be eligible,” he said.