. . . Development the Easy Way

You don’t often see developers and environmentalists mentioned in the same sentence unless the sentence also contains the word “battle.” But that’s only one of the unusual things about the Village Green housing development in Sylmar.

Environmentalists were there to applaud the 186-home community, built by Braemar Development and the Lee Group, when it was dedicated last month. And no wonder. One of the first home communities in the country to be built under the Partnerships for Advancing Technology in Housing program, the houses, built around a communal park, come equipped with energy-efficient washers and dryers, refrigerators and air-conditioners that don’t use chlorofluorocarbons, and walls and windows designed to provide extra insulation. The development, at Hubbard Street and Ralston Avenue, is adjacent to the Metrolink train station so that residents can take advantage of mass transit, for which they will be offered discounted monthly passes. Imagine! In car-obsessed Los Angeles.

And that’s not all. The three- and four-bedroom Village Green houses are affordably priced at about $150,000 and for first-time home buyers. In Los Angeles. Imagine!

This is definitely the kind of development the city could use more of.