In Forest Park, a condominium development is proving that it’s possible to live green in a multi-family building.
The board and residents are working together to back new sustainability measures that they think can be applied to other buildings in the area.
David Gulyas, The Grove resident and a member of the Village’s Environmental Control Commission, said that he and his wife Carol brought a desire to incorporate green practice with them when they bought their condo at The Grove several years ago.
“I’ve been involved in sustainable design for quite a while,” he said. “We built an LEED certified home in Bloomington where we lived for 10 years.”
When the couple moved back to the Chicago suburbs to be closer to aging parents, Gulyas brought his can-do attitude to their new building. As he describes it, “The Grove is not really old, but not really new.”
Built in 2007, the building was in good shape, but Gulyas saw areas that were ripe for improvement.
His first step was to investigate electric car charging for residents. “I got an electrical engineer to install an electrical pathway so all residents could install an electric car charger,” he said.
He then turned his attention to other ways residents could practice sustainable living.
While he might have kick-started the changes, Gulyas quickly credited others for helping the movement get off the ground.
“We are just so lucky to know someone like Mark Burger,” he said. “Also, our building manager Tim Davis made the process easy, and the condo board was very open to these initiatives.”
Burger, a solar consultant with Oak Park-based Seven Generations Ahead, helped the group decarbonize the building’s common areas. After exploring their options, they found that community solar made the most sense for The Grove. This allows the building to source its energy from an Illinois solar farm without having to install solar panels.
For a single-family house, the move to go with solar panels is relatively straight forward. Bigger electricity users — those using 1 million kilowatts- can make special arrangements, but Burger said condominiums like The Grove are sort of a “middle market.”
“The condominium building might use 100,000-200,000 kilowatt hours per year. They’re big but they don’t quite have the economy of scale,” he said.
He said SGA can help a condo board wade through the choices and financial implications of different plans. Burger notes that Seven Generations Ahead does not make or sell products.
“We’re not the developers, we’re the hand holders,” he said.
Working with the board at The Grove, Burger suggested a specific community solar provider, and the board researched that option and other companies to make sure they were getting the best deal. At the end, they chose Burger’s suggested provider, Solstice, and expect to see electricity bills that are 10-20% lower.
The Grove is also retrofitting older windows to make them more energy efficient. Gulyas said that there are some benefits to being part of a larger, multi-family building when it comes to making these changes.
“We have about 140 units and two large buildings. We can take advantage of group purchasing,” he said.
The condo board is taking those advantages and exploring replacing The Grove’s aging air conditioning system with heat pumps that can cool and heat the units. Working with Oak Park-based Energy Matters, they are converting their systems.
Gukyas said that heat pumps will probably allow The Grove to get to what he calls an 80/20 solution: “The heat pumps will provide up to 80% of our heating and 20% will be provided by the existing furnace system. We’re still using a little bit of fossil fuel, but you can keep moving forward.”
A community compost program is also part of the building’s shift towards embracing green initiatives. Gulyas said a company brings around a cart once a week that people can fill with their waste from “anything that lives.”
Participation in the compost program is optional, and Gulyas said that’s important. “You have to give people a choice. We stay away from moralistic choices.”
At the end of the day, Gulyas said it’s about giving people what they want.
“A lot of folks here are anxious and excited to do this,” he said about the steps they are taking towards sustainability.
“You look around and there’s just so much that’s going to be changing in the next 10 years. Kitchens will be changing. Appliances will be changing,” he said, referencing new codes in municipalities such as Oak Park that are requiring all new construction use electrical appliances and heat sources rather than natural gas.
The rate of the changes requires that all hands are on deck according to Gulyas.
The Grove has proven to be up to the challenge, and Gulyas thinks that it will continue to move forward.
“I relish the opportunity to be able to do projects like this. It’s really a dream come true. It’s like a laboratory here. People are very excited about this.”
Burger said that getting more multi-family buildings to take on sustainability measure is one of the goals of Seven Generation Ahead.
“We want to get the word out to other condo associations that want to do this, but don’t know how to start,” Burger said.
When it comes to sustainability measures, he added, “Everyone is looking for the magic formula, but it’s a question of the organization making it happen.”
If the leadership of the building is motivated, Burger said It’s possible to make change.
“It won’t happen overnight. It takes a few years. If you stay the course, in three to five years you’ll see real benefits like lower utility costs and improved value of units.”