This nature-friendly development provides an eco-setting for green homes.

Think Like an Expert!

By now, you’re likely used to seeing our Green Home Resource and a Green Home Showcase article in every issue of New Life Journal. But, recently, we’ve done something new: we’ve called together a group of area green home experts—from builders to architects and more—to form the NLJ Green Home Experts Board. And, from now on, you’ll find their comments about the Showcase project with each article. We’ve even got them going out to the homes, businesses, and developments to see the projects first hand. They will discuss the pros of a choice a homeowner, builder, or developer made, and maybe highlight some cons or additional eco-friendly steps that could have been taken, all in order to help you discern the right choices for you and your green project. For a complete list of board members, along with their bios, visit www.newlifejournal.com.

While headings or titles can often be deceiving, this subdivision is aptly named. As the Board members and I discovered upon our arrival to the site, just inside the entrance to the 186-acre residential development sits a historic roadbed that once connected drovers to and from the markets of Asheville’s city center. While there is a much larger, paved road near it that now shuffles commuters in their cars to and from work, the worn path serves to connect the development’s residents to a piece of local history; this connection continues inside Drovers Road Preserve—located in Fairview, North Carolina—and can be found everywhere from streets named after historical and local figures to informational plaques that tell the story of the land.

But it’s more than just “Drover’s Road” that accurately reflects the development; “Preserve” is also a fitting piece. As stated on the property’s website, “The philosophy of Drovers Road Preserve is to develop home sites in environmental and aesthetic harmony with the surrounding landscape.” In order to carry out the philosophy, “a carefully conceived set of design guidelines governs all construction, ensuring that the character of the land is maintained and that man-made living spaces are an integral part of the nature preserve.”

Prior to beginning any clearing of the land, Drovers’ developers hired the Asheville-based environmental consulting firm Equinox Environmental to perform a detailed site assessment and master plan, which included a natural resource inventory of the land’s native botanical plants and wildlife habitat. The inventory found the habitat of a rare animal—the Eastern Woodrat, the Carolina Hemlock Bluff plant community, four rare plants, seeps, springs, mountain streams, and the property’s ridgeline, which contains an old-growth forest of 150-year old trees. These resources were classified as the 110-acre conservation easement, likely the most obvious element of environmental conservation and one aspect the Board was pleased with, held by Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. The easement permanently protects these natural resources and the majority of the development’s forested land from any future development.

But the eco-friendly aspect of this preserve goes beyond the visible protection of the land. After the protected areas were identified, buildable areas were explored in areas of the property that had experienced past disturbances. Further analysis of the areas was conducted with careful attention to soil, to ensure that it could adequately support septic systems, and slope, to further limit the environmental impact of development. The careful evaluation of slope allowed the developers to place the roads to limit impact and removal of trees. The roads are a narrow sixteen feet wide throughout the development. Almost no bank exists on the sides of the roads, creating a seemingly seamless transition to the Board members and me between development and the preexisting landscape of the area.
Design elements like innovative stormwater management techniques also speak to the enviro-friendly approach of the development. A constructed wetland is used to treat stormwater runoff by allowing the settling of sediment and pollutants contained in the runoff. Constructed wetlands, or depressions, offer a place for stormwater to go. Once there, the stormwater is treated by a variety of wetland plants that play an integral role by nutrient uptake of the polluted runoff. The water then either evaporates over time or is stored providing aquatic habitat. Additionally, bioretention ponds were created that use a porous soil mix containing sand to allow excess water to trickle into the depression and become absorbed. These rain gardens also provide nutrient and pollutant removal benefits.

Other stormwater features incorporated into the design include the use of water quality swales and riparian buffers, vegetated corridors found along a creek’s edge.

Tree lumber and debris from the site were also recycled for use throughout the project. All bridge crossings over streams and paths were constructed out of the lumber cleared for the roads, mulch and edging materials are also recycled lumber, and recycled locusts serve as decorative signposts throughout the development. A historic chimney on the property was also salvaged and rebuilt for use to provide fire and visual appeal to a picnic shelter; the shelter serves to provide residents a place to enjoy the setting and be involved with their community and neighbors. Slate tiles for the roof over the picnic table were also salvaged from another project, and some of the oak from the property was used for the shelter’s wood.

All in all, these efforts contribute to the visual and emotional appeal of the development, as well as the offerings available for prospective homebuyers, priorities of Drovers’ developers. The 23 home sites are sensitively located within the landscape, providing homeowners woodland or mountain views or views of the wildflower meadow. Bordered by the rustic, natural beauty of the area, sites are also situated with access to nature trails, streams, and a treetop viewing platform.
To ensure that the green approach to the development continued once homes were built in the subdivision, design guidelines were created that have helped and will continue to help convey the philosophy of Drovers to homebuyers. The guidelines serve to recommend, although not require, the integration of green building and sustainable techniques, including water and energy conservation and solar access. Specifically, the guidelines require building that protects the viewshed for residents and lessens environmental impact, including requirements for a property perimeter from which trees can be cleared. The guidelines also illustrate appropriate architectural styles and building and landscape materials, such as the use of native plants, to help homes situate appropriately in the preserve.

While a visitor to the property may not be able to discern all of the sustainable development, building and landscaping techniques utilized on the property, they will, no doubt, notice the intact beauty of the natural landscape and the serenity of sound the development provides: trickling streams, a call of the native wildlife, and, perhaps, the faint sounds of drovers with their stock passing by.

The Board Says:

LAND PLANNING:
janeAnne Narrin: “It appears that great care was taken to preserve the integrity of the land—road layout and design are such that visitors and residents can still enjoy a connection with nature.”

Clarke Snell: “I was most impressed with the road layout and construction: very low impact. Still, I think it could be even less wide, though I don’t imagine that would pass code muster. For example, creating a one-way loop layout would allow for a one-lane road…there are probably other factors that would have made that difficult.”

STORMWATER MANAGEMENT:
janeAnne Narrin: “I loved the way the raingardens were spaced and the culverts sat quietly, blending in with the whole scene where trees and rolling horizon dominate.”

Clarke Snell: “Impressive to see constructed wetlands, etc. in comparison to other developments. I wonder if the maintenance will actually be carried through, or if this will just be a nice way to sell lots. It’s going to be up to the subdivision inhabitants.”

PROTECTION OF NATURAL
RESOURCES/CONSERVATION:
Clarke Snell: “Conservation easement protecting the ridge and area around it gets an A+.”

David Tuch: “In rural areas, conservation subdivision design is the very best tool for providing limited homesite development with honest-to-goodness land and water conservation—from protection of our regions forests to our streams, wetlands and farmland.”

HOME SITING:
David Tuch: “It is nice to see developers realizing significant financial benefit for doing the right thing. Lots in Drovers Road, for example, are selling at premiums because they are all surrounded by conservation easement land, which is forever protected.”

janeAnne Narrin: “Most homes surprise you as you walk this land—they may be large or small, but they fit into the place and contribute to its beauty.”

Clarke Snell: “I liked that they (developers) chose forested areas that had already been most affected by human meddling for most of the house sites. The fact that they put the ridge in a conservation easement, not houses, is obvious to me, but radical in the present development schema. Again, though, I really think that more intensive clustering and co-housing is the real future.”

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