Slump may swamp eco city

The Sunday Times
June 14, 2009

The property crash has cast doubts over plans for a green metropolis in Florida that has the backing of Bill Clinton

Dominic Rushe

In Central Florida, where the Ronald Reagan Turnpike meets Highway 441, lies a largely empty area of old cattle ranches and swamp known locally as Yeehaw Junction. Over the next decade property developers backed by a fast-food billionaire, and with the blessing of Bill Clinton, the former president, hope to turn the site into an eco city the size of Washington DC. If, that is, they can ever get the plans off the drawing board.
Destiny Florida is being developed by the property entrepreneur Anthony Pugliese and is backed by Fred DeLuca, the billionaire co-founder of Subway, the sandwich chain. It is far more ambitious than the usual Florida land grab.
Destiny intends to be green from the ground up, a hub of eco-friendly business built round an environmentally friendly city that will preserve much of the rich local landscape. When finished, Pugliese hopes that “Destiny will position itself not just as the global model for sustainable building in the 21st century but also become the hub of green technology — like a [green] Silicon Valley for the United States, if not the world.”
His plans, now being drawn up by Arup, the London-based design and engineering firm, certainly seem to have impressed Clinton. But some critics are already doubting Destiny’s green credentials, claiming that its plans are nebulous and getting more so. A failure in Florida would be a black eye for the Clinton Climate Initiative, which supports “climate positive” developments in mainly urban areas.
Destiny is the largest of 16 sites chosen by Clinton alongside projects in London, Berlin, San Francisco and Warsaw. His approval has already attracted global interest from firms looking for a green base for their operations, said Pugliese, though he declined to give names, citing non-disclosure agreements.
While most of the other Clinton-backed schemes are developments of urban areas, Destiny intends to build a city from scratch covering 64 square miles and producing energy to meet at least 50% of its own demands.
The first building, a green-friendly petrol station selling ethanol and services for electric cars as well as regular fuels, is already under construction.
The city will be designed using green technology throughout, said Pugliese. “We don’t want to end up designing beautiful buildings and then plopping on solar panels. The idea is to design buildings that provide for solar panels and to design buildings that can incorporate all types of new technologies.”
Half the world’s population now lives in cities and that figure is expected to grow to 70% by 2050. Cities occupy only 2% of the world’s land area, yet they are responsible for more than two-thirds of global energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions.
Clinton’s “climate positive” developments will strive to reduce the amount of on-site carbon-dioxide emissions to below zero. In Destiny, solar panels will be used to supply power to homes and to feed into the grid. Rubbish from restaurants will be composted and grass cuttings will be made into fertiliser. LED lighting will be used in place of less energy efficient incandescent units.
Destiny also hopes to lead the way on water. The city will aim to capture as much rain water as possible and reuse “grey” water from sinks, showers and kitchens to irrigate vegetation as well as using local supplies of brackish water (more salty than fresh) wherever possible.
Even the golf course will eschew the legions of sprinklers usually associated with hot-weather ranges in favour of greens using less thirsty grass. “Water is going to become a big issue everywhere we go in the future. It’s probably going to be more scarce than oil,” said Pugliese.
Central Florida is the least developed area in this densely populated state. It also happens to be an area of outstanding bio-diversity, home to rare plants and animals. Without sensitive planning all this could be lost, said Pugliese.
He hopes to start construction by 2011 and the project could take 25 to 50 years to complete. “The fortunate part is that we are starting with a clean canvas,” he said.
However, Destiny has more than ecological challenges to overcome in Florida. The property crash has hit the region hard. Florida is second only to Nevada in the number of repossessions and the state now has so many abandoned homes that the authorities are concerned the untended properties will create an extra hazard during the forthcoming hurricane season.
Destiny is not selling homes yet but it will need to raise cash – cash that is still in short supply. The credit crunch “hasn’t affected us because we are not putting infrastructure into the ground at this time”, said Pugliese, adding that Subway’s DeLuca had been “very important” in the funding of the project. “Right now, we are self-funding,” he said, but Destiny would look at raising money through bond issues and possibly through taxes on residents.
Eric Draper, policy director of Audubon, the conservation group, said that “conceptually” he was supportive of Destiny’s plans to set aside land for eco systems. He said its scientists had seen early plans but were “not aware of specifics at this point”. Charles Lee, Florida-based director of advocacy for Audubon, was less diplomatic. Destiny’s plans had become “nebulous”, he said. “They have gone through a couple of team leaders and, with each change in the team, things have become fuzzier and fuzzier,” he said. “It’s flopping around like a fish on the land.”
Pugliese responded: “I don’t understand what he’s talking about. Our plans have only gotten better. We have studied every square inch so that we know where wildlife corridors are, where wetlands are, where environmentally sensitive plants are and animals. We understand the land and have only taken areas for building that have been disturbed and cannot be saved.
“There is always going to be someone who doesn’t want you to build anything, ever again. They are the last ones to move to Florida and they don’t want anyone else to come here. But that’s not very practical and that’s not going to happen.”
Given Florida’s demographics, the odds are that some new development will rise out of Yeehaw Junction. The credit crisis will ease, property markets will recover, green businesses will want new homes. As Pugliese goes back to the drawing board, though, a bigger question remains: how green is Destiny’s destiny?