Beaverton's Sage Green boasts net-zero homes

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Ben Walsh, owner of Green One Construction, applauds what LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, has done for the building industry.

He just doesn’t want to use it to certify Sage Green, the housing development he’s building in Beaverton. Same goes for the International Living Building Institute’s Living Building Standard.

But Sage Green, with its first phase nearing completion and its model unit staged and ready to dazzle buyers, is billed as the first net-zero energy home development in the nation.

Featuring rooftop photovoltaic arrays designed to generate more energy than each home needs and an energy-efficient design meant to keep heating and cooling requirements to a minimum in the first place, Sage Green promises low-impact living and modern design. Local products were used whenever possible, ditto for environmentally friendly and recycled materials.

The price? Around $258,500 for a three bedroom home — before tax incentives and before you consider that energy costs will be negligible.

“These homes perform as net-zero,” Walsh said.

But to build the homes in a way that would keep the price down, Walsh chose not to align with any certification process that would curtail his control of the project.

“For example,” Walsh said. “I’m a big fan of vinyl windows. They’re a great value.”

Vinyl windows are discouraged in LEED projects.

Green One also employed an unusual technology to build the walls, plywood sandwiching a layer of polystyrene. The walls greatly improve both the thermal quality of the home and, as tests at Oregon State University show, increase its seismic resistance.

Tara Doherty, the Portland architect who designed the homes in the development, said Washington County code requires three parking spots for each unit — a particular challenge for the narrow, 26-foot lots.

“The whole first floor is basically parking,” she said.

At the top end of the buildings, a south-sloping roof was necessary to make maximum use of rooftop solar panels. The result is tall, three-and-a-half-story homes with boxy balconies and an angular roofline.

“When they first framed them out I thought they looked small,” said Dan Walters, who who along with Ben Andrews heads up the sales effort for Sage Green with Willamette Realty Group. “But once you see how it lives it’s amazing what you can do with 1,600 square feet. There’s not a lot of wasted space.”

Walters said he’s seen strong interest in the homes, especially for their solar panel-laden roofs. But the model has only recently been finished — buyers were eager to see what the homes would look like — and the landscaping has been delayed by the rainy weather.

“We’re kick-starting everything now,” he said.

Sage Green is being built in three phases. The first five homes are just about finished. Seven homes are in the second phase, the final phase will include six more. Completion of all three phases will be dependent on just how well the net-zero homes sell.