Pardee Homes Hits Gold Standard For Green Building

National Certification for LivingSmart® Homes At Fair Oaks Ranch

Los Angeles, May 6, 2011 -- Pardee Homes is California’s first production homebuilder that is building an entire new home project certified to the National Green Building Standard™ (NGBS) by the NAHB Research Center, an internationally recognized, independent third party. Every home of Pardee’s new LivingSmart® Homes in Santa Clarita’s Fair Oaks Ranch®, is being built to the Gold-level criteria of the NGBS, inspected at least twice by an accredited green verifier, and Green Certified by the Research Center.
           
By seeking third-party certification of the green products, practices and systems incorporated into its LivingSmart homes in Fair Oaks Ranch, Pardee is providing added assurance for its buyers that the homes meet or exceed both the NGBS criteria, and California’s new CalGreen regulations. The NGBS is the world’s only residential green rating system approved by the American National Standards Institute and is therefore the home building industry’s “gold standard” definition of credible green construction.

Michael Luzier, president of the NAHB Research Center, announced Pardee’s commitment to seek Gold certification for all homes of LivingSmart®Homes at Fair Oaks Ranch, and commented on what a strong message that commitment conveys to homebuyers. He made the announcement at the new LivingSmart® Homes neighborhood, at a news conference attended by state and local government officials.

Represented at the conference were: the Santa Clarita City Council; LA County Supervisor Michael Antonovich; California Assemblyman Cameron Smyth and California Senator Sharon Runner. Also attending were representatives from Pardee Homes; the Building Industry of California; ConSol, the California verifier for NGBS; and Eco-Home, which reports on home building’s latest developments in green products, systems and processes.
Joining Luzier at the new conference was Pardee Homes President and CEO Michael McGee. He said that NGBS certification provides credible verification of a homebuilder’s claims about green building.

“NGBS offers builders and product suppliers a nationally recognized standard definition of green building,” he said. “It sets an important benchmark for our new home quality goals—and it’s a natural fit for the continuous evolution of our green building commitment, which began 13 years ago with our first energy-efficient homes in California and Nevada
           
McGee noted that NGBS home certification goes beyond individual home performance to consider how the location adds to homebuyer’s green lifestyle. Among sustainable attributes that will help LivingSmart® Homes homes earn Gold certification are the walkable neighborhoods of Fair Oaks Ranch; its proximity to Metrolink, schools, shopping and recreation; its water-savings measures and its open space preservation.
           
“Pardee Homes is really raising the bar for what consumers should come to expect when seeking their next new home,” said Luzier. “The NAHB Research Center doesn’t take lightly the meaning conveyed by issue of our Green Certified mark, and clearly Pardee doesn’t take lightly its responsibility to the local environment and the comfort, health, and well-being of its homebuyers. They are ‘walking the green walk’ with the homes in this community and I applaud the company’s commitment.”

Also see www.pardeehomes.com/living-green/ and  LivingSmart® Homes at Fair Oaks Ranch®.