The foundation has been laid and the walls are going up for the very first home in Aurora’s new “smart neighborhood,” part of a partnership between Nicor Gas and Habitat for Humanity that looks to build a net-zero emission, affordable community.
Habitat Green Freedom, located near the intersection of Jericho Road and Edgelawn Drive, will eventually hold 17 homes designed with energy efficiency, green energy and resiliency in mind. Construction began this week on the neighborhood’s show home, which is set to be complete by mid-October, and five other houses are expected to be built by December.
“This is a project that we’ve been dreaming about and working on for many, many years, and today it finally becomes a reality,” Barb Beckman, executive director of the Northern Fox Valley’s Habitat for Humanity, said at a construction kick-off event on Tuesday morning.
The neighborhood’s homes are expected to be affordable not only because of Habitat for Humanity’s special mortgages but also because of technology incorporated into the houses themselves, which should lower homeowners’ utility bills. Some of that technology includes rooftop solar panels, batteries to store energy from the solar panels, smart thermostats and energy-efficient appliances.
Plus, the houses are being built in ways that will make them more energy-efficient. One of those building techniques was showcased at Tuesday’s kick-off event: foam blocks connected by plastic webs that fit together sort of like LEGO bricks.
The modular foam pieces, made by BuildBlock Building Systems, are interlaced with rebar as they build up the walls of the structure. The blocks are then used as a mold for concrete, giving the building technique the name “insulating concrete form.”
Micah Garrett, CEO of BuildBlock, said the insulating concrete form walls will make the houses both disaster resilient and energy efficient, helping to lower utility costs by 30% to 40%. The blocks also make construction faster, as they account for what would normally be multiple steps in the building process while only weighing seven or eight pounds.
In fact, the blocks were so easy to use that government and company officials who attended the kick-off event helped to build up one of the house’s walls after only a short lesson from Garrett.
The goal of the energy-efficient building techniques and integrated technology is to make the homes “net-zero,” meaning that they produce as much energy as they take to power, heat and cool, according to a fact sheet distributed at the event. The homes are also “dual-fuel,” using both electricity and natural gas, which the fact sheet said can be more cost-effective and comfortable in a cold climate like Illinois.
Specifically, natural gas is expected to power the homes’ heating and water heating systems, said a different fact sheet also distributed at the event.
It is because of Nicor Gas’ support that Habitat for Humanity can built “not just houses, but affordable and resilient homes that will be strong foundations for Habitat families,” Beckman said. Habitat brings expertise in housing development, she said. while Nicor brings to the project expertise in energy and innovation.
Wendell Dallas, president and CEO of Nicor Gas, said it is a privilege to serve the families that will one day be living in the neighborhood.
“I’ve had the wonderful privilege of working with the team over these past few years, and now seeing this come up out of the ground to actually become a reality is just an amazing, wonderful, incredible achievement,” Dallas said.
Nicor is doing what few companies these days are doing: looking to the future rather than just short-term profits, according to U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, who helped secure $1.25 million in federal funding for the project. Plus, he said Habitat for Humanity is an important part of the solution to the affordable housing crisis in America.
Aurora Mayor John Laesch, who said he also supported the project when he was an alderman, is looking forward to when the project is complete and to see “all the geeky numbers” like how much energy will be saved. As a green builder himself, Laesch is working to make his 120-year-old home more energy-efficient, but if he had to build new, “this is exactly what I’d be doing,” he said.
“This is the future, and it’s exciting that all these partners have come together to make this home possible,” Laesch said at the event.
Nicor Gas / HANDOUT
A rendering show what the Habitat Green Freedom “smart neighborhood” in Aurora may look like after it is fully built-out. (Nicor Gas)
This first house going up on the site of the future neighborhood will be built by Habitat for Humanity of Northern Fox Valley, but the other five homes to be built this year will be done through a Habitat-organized “Home Builders Blitz” that will bring in volunteer builders and tradespeople to get the job done in a shorter timeline.
All of the homes in Habitat Green Freedom will go to those in Habitat for Humanity of Northern Fox Valley’s home ownership program, which can be applied for at habitatnfv.org. According to the website, applicants are selected for the program based on their level of housing need, willingness to become partners in the program and their ability to repay the no-profit, no-interest loan.
Nicor Gas’ partnership with Habitat for Humanity is also bringing a smart neighborhood to Carpentersville, though the homes will be different. This will allow Nicor Gas to see how various building techniques and technologies impact energy use and other factors throughout the year, according to a fact sheet.
Southern Company, the parent company of Nicor Gas, also has other “smart neighborhoods” in Georgia, Alabama and soon in Mississippi, a fact sheet said, but the ones in Aurora and Carpentersville are the first to use natural gas.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com