A planned housing development that claims it will produce more energy than it uses was approved for a re-zoning by the Ann Arbor City Council last night. It was a unanimous vote.
Doug Selby, a co-creator with Meadowlark Builders, created Volta Homes with a vision of building carbon-positive housing. His first project is to demolish the rental home he owns at 530 North Division street, near downtown. He will replace it with a “quad-plex”, with four separate apartments. They will be all-electric and will be outfitted with solar panels and other eco-friendly features.
Selby says he wanted to use this as a tool for the advancement of this type of construction.
“Building one zero-energy building in Ann Arbor is not going to move the dial very much, right? What I wanted to do was to show what is in it for developers and builders who want to build this way, and as much as possible, to provide sort of a learning environment for it.”
Selby hopes to be able to partner with the Ann Arbor Student Builder program in an effort to teach the next generation of builders.
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