San Jose Welcomes LEED Platinum Certified Fourth Street Family Apartments

Recently awarded LEED for Homes Multi-Family Mid-Rise Platinum certification, Fourth Street Family Apartments provide a hundred affordable and truly “green living” apartments for families in the Silicon Valley.

If you are looking for an office you’ll find them on the first two floors. The next seven stories are all residential units. Want to ride a bike to work? No problem, there is a large and secure bike parking area, even an extra shower for staff bicyclists. Want a cherry on top of that? First Community Housing (FCH) will get you a free annual transit pass (“Eco Pass”) for bus and light rail transportation throughout the county. And to completely capture your heart you’ll be offered some free dwarf fruit trees to decorate that balcony.

Get ready to be educated, before you move in you’ll be handed a green building orientation tour and educational handbook. You will even be offered a class in green cleaning, recycling and water conservation.

The building’s sustainable features include:

Vegetated green roof;
Rooftop photovoltaic system;
Locally-sourced materials;
Natural linoleum flooring;
‘Cradle-to-cradle’ carpeting (made from recycled materials that will later be recycled) and furniture;
Water-conserving toilets, showers, faucets and irrigation;
Well-insulated building envelope with energy-efficient windows and solar shading;
Energy Star appliances;
LED lighting; and non toxic and VOC free adhesives, paints and sealants to preserve healthy indoor air quality for building occupants.

A whopping 95% of construction waste was diverted from the landfill. Extensive solar studies were performed during design development that led to specifically sized window overhangs on several elevations. California Title 24 was exceeded by 28%.

About 35% of all residents are folks with developmental disabilities. It is reported that this group of people is especially responsive to indoor air quality and said to experience less asthma symptoms and could even stop using anti-anxiety medication.

The word on the street is that the vegetated or green roof has native plants and cool water conservation features which are particularly popular with the local hummingbirds. Hey who can blame them, who wouldn’t want to hang out on to of Silicon Valley!?