What's so green about green housing projects?

Have you ever dreamed of having a house in an environmentally friendly neighborhood? Or, perhaps, becoming part of a global movement that strives to prevent damaging the earth while at the same time enjoying a more quality life?

Leisure Farm Resort, a 700-hectare luxury residence area in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, is an example of an eco-friendly residential area that offers outdoor and indoor air quality, energy saving, proper sanitation and waste management.

The ready-stock houses in its seven-themed precincts highlight the use of natural lighting, which utilizes natural light. The area, located next to a golf course, has its own nursery park growing various fruits.

Rafiah Rafii, a sales executive at the Leisure Farm Corporation, a subsidiary of public-listed Mulpha International, said the residents were committed to taking care of their household waste, separating the organic from non-organic separation and also taking part in the waste-recycling program.

The residential area also has its own sewage treatment plant, an investment only practiced by a few developers in Indonesia.

"Pipes from the houses are connected to a main pipe that transports the household waste to the waste treatment plant. After the liquid waste is processed into clean water, it is transported into the canal," said Koh Boon Teng, a senior sales and marketing manager at the property division of Mulpha International.

Sewage treatment plants are hard to find in Jakarta, a city which only sees 3 percent of its areas connected to a sewage system.

Property company Lippo Karawaci that developed Lippo Village in Tangerang and another property giant Agung Podomoro Group invested in a sanitation system.

Lippo Village, a privately developed residential and business complex covering 3,600 hectares, processes sewage from around 10,000 families living in the area.

Investment on sanitation is not environmentally beneficial for developers, but economically profitable.

A manager at the company said the waterworks system, developed in the early 1990s, ensures the value of property at the complex rises at an average of 20 percent each year.

The Jakarta city administration could not provide adequate waterwork infrastructure for the city - having only a sewage treatment plant at Setiabudi, South Jakarta, and waste treatment facilities at Pulo Gebang, East Jakarta, and Duri Kosambi, West Jakarta.

The city says it is working with the central government to build a sewage tunnel system by proposing a Rp 3.8 trillion loan from Japan for the initial construction of pipes and the plant.

Koh of Mulpha International said Leisure Farm Resort targeted foreigners who want to spend their post-retirement at a new residence with serene countryside views.

The Leisure Farm Resort in Gelang Patah is located only some 15 minutes drive from the Singapore immigration checkpoint, thanks to the smooth traffic and well developed street infrastructure that lays along the second link expressway.

Koh said Indonesians are a prospective target because many sent their children to study in Singapore.

Currently, he said, Indonesia sits in third position in the list of foreign buyers that purchase the residential area, just behind the UK and Singapore. The demand for a housing complex with a green concept is increasing in many countries along with the sparking of the global warming issue. But how long can the concept last?

Rana Yusuf Nasir, the director of ratings and technology at the Green Building Council Indonesia (GBCI), said the green concept in property was not merely a trend, but had become a new paradigm, which would continue because it involved the urgent need to save the environment and the people.

"The green concept is strong because we realize that our position is critical and it requires an action. Natural resources, including water and materials such as wood are downsizing," he told The Jakarta Post recently.

He said property buyers, however, should scrutinize any claims by developers that they have adopted green housing. Such scrutiny is essential to prevent a practice known as "green washing" in which companies' claims are false.

Rana said a simple way to check the green level of a property was by checking its certification for a green building, a non-mandatory rating system developed in the country.

He said the GBCI was finalizing a framework for a rating system, in a step toward a standard for newly constructed buildings to be environmentally friendly certified. He said currently there were 30 rating tools around the world.

If the estate did not used a certification, he said customers should check whether the buildings could decrease the use of energy such as electricity, water and material, limit the environmental damage by managing the waste and carefully design the spatial plan, and the rooms were clean and comfortable.

"Clean and comfortable rooms are good for people's productivity," he said.

Rana said customers should also check whether the housing complex had good access to public transportation or if the estate provided public transport to a nearby city.

"If there is no public transport, people are forced to use private cars, causing traffic jams and pollution," he said.

Source : The Jakarta Post