Green Neighborhood Under Construction in Peterborough

Nubanusit Neighborhood and Farm lies just a mile from downtown Peterborough along the Nubanusit River.

When it’s done, the 113 acre property will hold 29 homes.

But the mix of single family, quads and duplexes will be clustered on less than four acres.

Builder Michael Bruss has almost completed construction of some of them.

Bruss1 (these are duplexes, here this one’s getting set up to be sided, they’re insulated now, that was a pump that just started up..(noise under)

That noise is coming from a machine blowing insulation made from recycled newsprint into one of the homes.

Bruss says this neighborhood has set a high standard for energy efficiency.

They want to be 55-percent more efficient than standard building code, and 35-percent greener than the EPA’s Energy Star standard.

Bruss2 (now it’s green buildings and sustainable building it’s looking at the big picture, we’re trying to build healthy buildings that don’t just perform well thermally but also are healthy places to live)

That means going further than just using energy efficient light bulbs and appliances.

It means building with recycled and natural materials with little or no toxics, called volatile organic compounds, or V-O-C’s.

1067 1:55 Bruss3 “anything from adhesives, subfloor adhesives, stains, paints we chose no VOC products, the particle and plywood have no formaldehyde in them, so we’ve chosen materials that won’t ….. cause what they call sick building syndrome.”

Architect Sheldon Pennoyer says the roofs in the neighborhood intentionally face the sun so solar panels can be used for electricity in the future.

And he adds heat and hot water for the entire neighborhood will come from wood pellets.
1056 we have a renewable energy source here pellets, which are made right here in Jaffrey, we’re using that system with some very clean boilers and distributing the heat throughout the neighborhood because we have a centralized system

One might expect homes with so many green features to be more expensive – and they are.

At the low end, a 900 square foot, one bedroom unit costs 280-thousand dollars.

A 1900 square foot single family home with four bedrooms runs more than 600-thousand.

But Pennoyer says the extra cost has little to do with the green features.

1073 3:24when you look at the cost of the buildings, when you buy in here, you’re buying a unit but you’re also buying a piece of the 120 acres.

Residents of Nubanusit are buying a farm, acres of open space, a forest to manage and a commonhouse to share.

Shelley Goguen Hulbert, a founding member of the community, says having smaller homes is a hallmark of what’s called co-housing.

(people live in smaller than typical homes and then they share a common house, which has all the kind of space that you would like to build into your home but you would use only occasionally so that would be space like guest rooms, multi-purpose room, or rec-room, large play room for young children, we have in our common house a library, so that kind of space we share together.)

The idea of cohousing is nothing new – it originated in Denmark in the 1960’s and immigrated to the US soon afterward.

But it’s found new momentum.

Richard Pendleton is one of the founding partners of Nubanusit Neighborhood

He was also a member of Peterborough’s Conservation Commission.

He says he and his family like the idea of having open space and reducing their carbon footprint.

1050 1:15 the combination of living with other people who also want to live more lightly on the earth, I find that inspiring to have a chance to learn from other people about what they’re doing to try to reduce their impact.

The community is also pedestrian-friendly, with cars parked on the periphery to encourage walking.

And trails lead to downtown Peterborough.

Shelley Goguen Hulbert hopes an organic farm on the property will eventually supply 50 percent of the food for the neighborhood, reducing trips to the store.

Hulbert currently owns an organic dairy that she plans to relocate to the neighborhood.

Other residents plan to bring honeybees, horses, and even llamas.

A key component of cohousing is to encourage sharing, not only for the environmental benefits, but also to establish connections to neighbors.

And Hulbert says Nubanusit is designed to do just that.

1044 :37 the front door of your home faces a public space and so if you’re sitting on your font porch or in your front yard you’re basically saying, I’m ready to interact, the back of your home is a private yard that focuses on either a cultivated or wild natural space, so the woodlands and the river, the pond, the farmfields, the pastures.

Future resident Lono Hunter says he and his wife Lara were looking for that sort of mix.

1060 :31there’s a couple of pieces of it, one is this sort of intense intellectual curiosity it’s like this experiment and we want to be a part of it, she’s a psychologist, so she’s really into the social people part of it, and I’m an architect so I’m into how do the buildings influence this process, and then this sort of environmental charge, what is this sustainable thing, and are we actually going to be doing something to help that debate.

And in an attempt to vary the kinds of families that can move into Nubanusit, the founders have set up a fund of more than 700-thousand dollars to help reduce mortgages for those who can’t afford them.

About half of the homes are already reserved.

Tours for others interested in living at Nubanusit Neighborhood and Farm are available this weekend.

For NHPR News, I’m Amy Quinton.