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  Green City Being Developed in Maryland  
 

Apr 30, 2010

Green City Being Developed in Maryland

The St. Charles Project

By: Jay Cox

First, there was Babcock Ranch, the planned 17,000-acre "solar city" near Ft Myers, FL, billed as the world's first city powered wholly by the sun's energy.
 
Earlier this year, Maryland developer American Community Properties Trust (ACPT) announced plans to break ground on St. Charles, MD, a 9,100-acre "green city" near Waldorf in Charles County, MD, that the builder describes as the most comprehensive smart community development project in the U.S.
 
The St. Charles project includes 4,000 undeveloped acres, plus the retrofitting of more than 12,000 existing homes and more than 5 million square feet of existing commercial space, schools and community buildings.
 
The project will double St. Charles in size but actually lower today's carbon footprint and water usage for the community. It will also allow 40% of Charles County's population to live on about 2% of its physical land footprint.
 
The plan outlined on Monday included the following:
 
  • Creating 20,000 jobs through a Green Jobs Opportunity Zone, including 1,000 new jobs in the next 3 years towards Maryland's goal of creating 100,000 green jobs statewide;
 
  • Developing St. Charles into an "international living laboratory" for new technologies, products and services;
 
  • Working with universities and colleges to create a green campus, research and development park, and incubator;
 
  • Construction of the largest clean-energy infrastructure in the U.S., including a 640-megawatt natural gas-powered power plant, a 75-acre solar farm generating 10 megawatts, geothermal well fields for heating and cooling buildings, and a biomass gasification technology plant, potentially using methane from the Charles County landfill to produce electricity.
 
ACPT has signed memoranda of understanding with Charles County, the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO), the College of Southern Maryland and businesses to try and move the project forward.
 
St. Charles will represent a model for cities around the world, making vital connections between the creation of new jobs and a thriving economy, and the health of our planet," said Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley on Monday at the launch event. 
 
To support the new community's infrastructure, Maryland-based Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) has agreed to acquire land to build a 75-acre, 10-megawatt solar farm -- the largest such farm in the Mid-Atlantic region.
 
Additionally, ACPT and IBM Corp. will try to create a common technology platform for the community that promotes greater productivity, conservation, safety and efficiency. American Community will build its 625- unit residential complex called Homefield according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for neighborhood design. All single-family homes, townhomes and apartments in the neighborhood will be also be built to LEED specs.
 
SMECO has asked the Maryland Public Service Commission for approval to install and test 1,000 "smart meters" at existing homes and businesses in St. Charles. Also, SMECO and St. Charles have begun installing programmable thermostats in up to 2,500 apartments, a program that helps the electricity company manage energy loads during peak summer demand periods. Finally, ACPT will donate 98 acres in St. Charles to Charles County Public Schools for construction of the next high school.