History

In 2003 the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association, the Atlanta Regional Commission, the Urban Land Institute Atlanta District Council, and Southface initiated a pilot program to develop broad sustainable community development guidelines. The pilot process brought together policy leaders, land developers, environmental groups, and other stakeholders to address low impact development issues around site selection, land disturbance, water quality, storm water management, energy, water and transportation infrastructure, community design, open space, green space preservation, pedestrian design, transportation, and other sustainable development issues in the southeast.

Five communities representing a diversity of development models in north and middle Georgia participated in the EarthCraft Communities pilot program to help test the criteria for applicability and relevance. The program officially launched in 2005. A coastal version of the program piloted and launched in 2006 with additional support from the Sustainability Division - Georgia Department of Natural Resources, due to the program's success and development pressures along the coast. EarthCraft Communities is now a regionally specific, nationally recognized tool utilized by land developers to create better communities and local governmental agencies to promote smart growth and green living.

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Principles

You cannot have smart growth with dumb buildings.
Every certified EarthCraft Community includes verification of design and construction that considers the quality of the vertical as well as the horizontal development. All residential structures are certified EarthCraft and certification of commercial structures is encouraged within the program’s criteria.

Sustainability must be true to its place.
No development site is the same and EarthCraft Communities recognizes the breadth of development contexts in the southeast. The criteria are adjusted based on terrain and development context (Conservation, Urban, Mountain, Coastal & Piedmont). It supports local initiatives wherever possible and the Communities Team works with local governments to recognize the program and the efforts of the developers participating in the program.

Sustainability begins with integrated planning.
Each community enters the program with an integrated design charrette that focuses the entire design and development team on the environmental goals for the project. Going forward, the Communities Team is a phone call away to answer questions and assist with documentation and verification as the project works within the program towards certification. The program also emphasizes the importance of planning by requiring each project to host and document community outreach meetings that allow community input into the project designs and goals and assuring that the development is consistent with existing comprehensive planning efforts.

Verification is key.
An EarthCraft Communities Technical Advisor visits each community working towards certification within the EarthCraft Communities program to verify implementation of sustainable development strategies and offer ‘in the field’ support and assistance. These regular site visits build relationships between the EarthCraft Communities Technical Advisors, staff, the development team, and design consultants. These relationships are vital to the success of the best practices being utilized in the development and serve as a constant and direct form of feedback on the applicability of the program’s criteria.

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Certification Process

Projects apply to enter the EarthCraft Communities program by participating in a Program Orientation facilitated by an EarthCraft Communities Technical Advisor. Official entry into the program begins with a charrette. Developments in the EarthCraft Communities program work with an EarthCraft Communities Technical Advisor to build their application for certification. This is a thorough application requiring a worksheet of EarthCraft Communities points the development is tracking, site plans, construction documents, calculations, supporting narratives and site visit reports. EarthCraft Communities Technical Advisors are there to help identify strategies and provide appropriate resources to attain EarthCraft Communities certification and to assist in documenting credits.

The completed application, once reviewed and accepted by EarthCraft, grants the development the status of EarthCraft Community early in the project’s development timeline. This completed and approved EarthCraft Communities application guides the verification of the project’s environmental strategies through the remaining years of active development until the project leaves the EarthCraft Communities program when all community infrastructure is in place and EarthCraft builders control all lots.

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Services

Each development participating in the EarthCraft Communities program is to host the following trainings provided to them within the EarthCraft Communities Program as part of the certification process. These trainings help integrate sustainability more holistically into the development and surrounding community.

• EarthCraft Communities and EarthCraft House Realtor Training
• EarthCraft Builder Training
• EarthCraft Post-Occupancy Home Owner Trainings
  

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Developers Get Started

Please download and fill out the Request for Services form. An EarthCraft Communities staff member will contact you about next steps. In the meantime, you can download either the coastal or piedmont guidelines to begin reading more and explore the links to communities that are currently in the program working towards certification or those that have already certified.

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Regional Council

EarthCraft Communities began with policy leaders, land developers, environmentalists, and other stakeholders through a nearly 2 year process of deliberation which resulted in the original EarthCraft Communities program criteria, worksheet and process for certification. The program continues to be guided by a Regional Council dedicated to providing technical criteria revisions and final review of projects applying for certification.