Jersey Continues to Go Green: Good News on Two New Green Residential Developments in Garden State

We're pretty up front with our pro-Jersey bias here at gbNYC. Stephen and I are both sons of that superfund-y soil, after all, and after several decades of environment-intensive Jersey jokes -- medical waste washes up on your beaches one time and you hear about it forever -- it's kind of empowering to be able to report good green news about the Garden State. And we've had a good amount of it to report of late -- green condos in Trenton, an ultra-sustainable retail building in Montclair, and now, good news about a pair of green housing developments in Morris County and Union County. The Point at Morristown, Jersey's first Green Globes-certified building and the subject of a previous post by Stephen, is now at 90% occupancy, while Scotch Plains' Park Avenue Green was awarded EPA Energy Star honors. This doesn't solve the vexing and ongoing moral and athletic problem that is the New Jersey Nets, but it's good news nonetheless.

Stephen's previous post on the The Point at Morristown has all the information you need on the building's green elements, but they're considerable. More notable, though, is the fact that The Point at Morristown pursued Green Globes certification rather than LEED. Back in 2008, New Jersey became the 12th state to write green building legislation that recognizes both Green Globes standards and LEED standards, which Stephen (and I, now that I know about it) recognize as unequivocally good news. As Stephen wrote when S1077, the Jersey initiative, was first being discussed, "gbNYC has frequently called for rating system flexibility among state- and municipal-level legislative schemes." LEED has its uses and it also has its faults, but healthy competition between ratings systems -- and an opened-up playing field -- seems like an inarguably positive development. As, it should be said, is the news that The Point at Morristown is pretty well full during a down market.

The bad news about 549 Park Avenue, which was built by New Jersey green building aces NeedlePoint Homes, is that it doesn't have its own website. (There is a NeedlePoint press release online, though) The good news on 549 Park Avenue, though, is manifest -- it's sustainable as can be, top to bottom, and one of the greenest suburban residential developments in the Garden State. Double-insulated windows, copious insulation and Energy Star hot water heaters are standard in each apartment, while the building systems include high-efficiency HVAC set-ups, integrated-solar attic fans and a battery of Energy Star appliances. The parking lot features permeable pavers, and is within walking distance of mass transit. In other words, it's urban-caliber green in a suburban setting. It is also, per that press release, "the first certified New Jersey Energy Star apartment building in western Union County." Which... is good, I guess? That title is an achievement, naturally, but not nearly as impressive an achievement as the building itself.