From the time it was completed on Earth Day in April 2012, Paisano Senior Housing, a 73-unit environmentally friendly community in El Paso, Texas, for the elderly and persons with disabilities, has been focused on green energy. Using power from a large photovoltaic array plus wind turbines, the complex produces as much energy over a calendar year as the occupants use.
Rancho Mission Viejo is an emerging master-planned community in southern Orange County, California, that is beginning construction with an age-qualified enclave. But the project’s goal is to achieve what Paul Johnson, the community’s senior vice president of community development, terms an “ageless paradigm.”
Consumer demands are changing in a post-recession market. What is outside counts at least as much as what is inside the home itself. Car-free access to parks, cafés, and transit—it all adds up to time and money saved. Add edgy design—as well as affordability—and the result is a perfect housing match for millennials.
