Arvada's GEOS Neighborhood

Arvada's GEOS Neighborhood

The GEOS neigh­bor­hood, locat­ed in Arva­da, Col­orado, is ahead of the game in terms of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and EV-friend­ly infra­struc­ture. The idea for the GEOS neigh­bor­hood, estab­lished by Nor­bert Kle­bl in 2006, was inspired by Euro­pean inge­nu­ity and tech­nol­o­gy. Arvada’s GEOS neigh­bor­hood was built upon exist­ing hous­ing infra­struc­ture includ­ing row hous­es and sin­gle-fam­i­ly homes and was expand­ed to include more com­mu­ni­ty-cen­tered liv­ing. The neigh­bor­hood was com­plet­ed in August 2019, and “com­bines a tra­di­tion­al neigh­bor­hood liv­ing with the most advanced sus­tain­able design and build­ing prac­tices” mak­ing it a “net-zero ener­gy neigh­bor­hood that reduces waste, water use, and car trips, while pro­vid­ing local­ly-grown healthy food, and incor­po­rates great places for kids, seniors, and peo­ple of all ages” ("Home — Geos Neigh­bor­hood", 2021).

The day to day liv­ing in this neigh­bor­hood is sim­i­lar to that of a con­ven­tion­al neigh­bor­hood, but there are no ener­gy costs since almost every home is out­fit­ted with solar pan­els and air and ground sourced heat­ing and cool­ing come from geot­her­mal sources like heat pumps. GEOS town­homes “save between $1,200 and $2,400 on util­i­ty bills in the first year com­pared to if the home were built to nor­mal build­ing codes” ("Tour — Geos Neigh­bor­hood", 2021)! Over time, GEOS home­own­ers can expect to rack up cumu­la­tive sav­ings by cut­ting out util­i­ty costs. In addi­tion, the more wide­spread the con­cept of GEOS home becomes, the less­er the cost will be for con­struc­tion and up front costs.

Home­own­ers will also reduce their car­bon foot­print sig­nif­i­cant­ly! In addi­tion to dri­ving an elec­tric car and liv­ing in GEOS home, they can take advan­tage of pas­sive and active solar designs instead of fos­sil-fueled ener­gy, and com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens and fruit tree ter­races which will lessen the need for import­ed food and trips to the gro­cery store. The neigh­bor­hood is also out­fit­ted with civic stormwa­ter sys­tems and per­co­la­tion parks that fil­ter and recy­cle water to con­serve resources.

GEOS homes also make it easy to charge your elec­tric vehi­cle. Car ports are cov­ered in solar pan­els, and both town­hous­es and sin­gle hous­es have 240 out­lets for charg­ing. A sur­vey showed many res­i­dents want­i­ng to buy an EV, and there are future plans to add charg­ers through­out the neighborhood.

Inter­est­ed in liv­ing here? Some town­homes are becom­ing avail­able in this neigh­bor­hood, and a new phase of vacan­cies is on the hori­zon. Check out a tour of the neigh­bor­hood and how pock­et neigh­bor­hoods and homes, com­mu­ni­ty ameni­ties, local busi­ness­es, parks, and gar­dens are integrated.

Check out the GEOS Neigh­bor­hood Face­book page. 

Sources

Home — Geos Neigh­bor­hood. (2021). Retrieved 4 Feb­ru­ary 2021, from http://discovergeos.com/