May 17, 2005
Ms. Linda Neal
Senior Planner, Town of Fairfax
142 Bolinas Road, Fairfax, CA 94930
Re: Planning Application, A.P. 174-121-07
Dear Ms. Neal,
We’ve read your request for additional information on our project, in the letter to Rushton-Chartock Architects on May 5th. Thank you for all the information you’ve provided. We would like to explain why we believe this house design is the best for the property, in support of our application for a Hillside Residential Development permit.
We want to build [this house] because the location is surrounded by open, undeveloped land. We chose this architectural design because it fits so well into the environment, and embodies our own personal values.
Our goals for our house are:
– Attractive and sustainable, with set-backs, decks and large windows;
– Sensitively proportioned to avoid a “boxy” appearance;
– Energy-efficient, incorporating passive solar features and green building materials and technologies;
– Minimal impact on the land and the trees, keeping the construction area as small as possible;
– At least 3 bedrooms, for a couple, a guest, and a home office;
– Ground-level entry, and garage space for two cars; and
– Fully accessible for disabled and elderly people (We both have parents that may need in-home care in the future).
We understand that a prior house design for this property did not create enough off-street parking. So we expect that Fairfax has a requirement for as much off-street parking as possible, as well as compliance with the town building codes. Our house will be set back far enough to provide driveway space for two additional cars with the current driveway configuration, in addition to garage space for two cars.
We have some very specific ideas to make our house efficient, sustainable, and green. We expect to:
– Construct a house that is not overly large, approximately 2000 square feet of indoor living space;
– Take advantage of passive cooling, by allowing warm air in the house to flow by gravity directly up the center stairwell, and out through clearstory windows at the top of the house;
– Take advantage of earth insulation on three sides of the structure, to help keep the temperature of the house moderate in all seasons;
– Build with engineered wood products made from sustainably-harvested or recycled lumber, and insulate with recycled materials that do not use CFCs;
– Incorporate a 2-to-3 kilowatt photovoltaic power system for electricity, with a PG&E intertie so that we return power to the grid during the day;
– Utilize the most energy-efficient lighting and appliances we can afford;
– Provide windows that are double-pane, made with low-E glass;
– Install radiant floor heating, an instant-on hot water heater, and a building ventilation system that has a heat exchanger, but no air conditioning;
– Use paint and building materials with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs), or none, whenever possible; and
– Use bamboo or palm wood flooring, made from plants that grow very fast, saving hardwood trees;
This house design meets all of these goals better than any alternative we can conceive. It is compact, and inherently efficient. By building the house over the garage, with a ground-level entrance, we create access for disabled people, minimize the amount of land occupied by the house, and make a single structure that is easy to heat in the winter. Nestling the house into the earth will not only improve insulation, it will make the house nearly invisible from the surrounding open space, since only a few feet of the top of the house will peek up over the land surface. This design will connect the indoor and outdoor areas well, with several decks, a great view, and clearstory windows on the top floor that let you look through the house from the street. This design provides the most attractive solution to the erosion problem on the front face of the property, by avoiding visibly large retaining walls.
We can think of only a few alternative house designs, and all of them create more problems than they solve.
For example, we can build a street-level garage, and move the house itself up the hill to the more level area of the property. This will reduce the amount of excavation by somewhere between 10 and 33%. However, it eliminates disabled access, eliminates the energy efficiency of a single structure with earth on three sides, and requires us to use much more land surface, cut down more trees, and use more building materials. The house would not fit as well with the neighborhood, located up on top of the hill, and would be very visible from all of the hiking trails in the open space in three directions. The 30-foot retaining wall around the garage would be highly visible from the street, and very unattractive.
If we try to build the house and the garage up on top of the hill, with a steep driveway and retaining walls across the front slope of the property, we will have to excavate at least as much land as our current design, and we will destroy much more land surface and more trees than any other alternative.
If we use our current design, but move the entrance up to the second floor to make the first floor as small as possible, we will reduce the amount of excavation by approximately 2%, but lose access for disabled people. We will lose direct access between the garage and the house. We will lose much of the passive cooling advantage provided by a central stairwell going all the way through the house. It will also cost us a lot of money to completely redesign the first and second floors, for a less desirable configuration. And lastly, the result will not look as attractive as our current design.
We look forward to creating a home with all the qualities we’ve listed, and we look forward to living in Fairfax. We understand that the town planning council is considering ordinances that encourage green/sustainable building, and we are happy to be a proving ground for as many of these ideas as possible.
Sincerely,
Tom Childers and Nancy Jones
