Sonoma Mountain Village, USA
A fully endorsed One Planet Community
 |
 |
North America’s first endorsed One Planet Community is a $1billion redevelopment of an 81 hectare, ex industrial site, forty miles north of San Francisco. Currently under construction by Codding Enterprises, it will house 5,000 people in 1,900 homes, while providing 4,400 jobs in some 50,000 m2 of office, retail and commercial space. The construction of the commercial units is complete with the residential phase due to start in 2012.
Sonoma Mountain Village is home to the second largest privately-owned solar array in Northern California
The development aims to generate 100% of its energy requirements from renewable onsite sources and to date has installed the second largest privately-owned solar array in Northern California – a $7.5 million, 1.5 megawatt, 8,361 m2 array that will power 1,000 homes.
Further demanding sustainability targets have been set including 98% diversion of waste from landfill, 82% reduction in transport emissions, and 60% reduction in use of municipal water sources.
Key strategies for achieving these include bringing commuter rail to Sonoma via the SMART train initiative, a masterplan which draws on new urbanism and ensures that no resident need to walk more than five-minutes to local shops and amenities, a year-round farmers market in the Town Square to encourage consumption of local, seasonal food, and irrigation and toilet flushes using only non-potable water.
Office space at the 25 acre Sonoma Mountain Village business centre
Sonoma is currently the city’s largest source of new jobs with over 850 workers already employed in 21 businesses in the main business centre and the Sonoma Mountain Business Cluster, a non-profit business incubator for over 25 sustainability-oriented and socially relevant technology start-up companies.
