2005 MDB Award Recipients

This year, a wide variety of new projects were nominated each exhibiting alignment with many of the original MDB Principles. Of those, three were chosen as being especially good examples:

Heron Courtyard Apartments

Genesis Non-Profit Housing Corporation (GNPHC) has created a remarkable project supplying apartment living with a traditional neighborhood “courtyard” style. The entire 22 acre site also offers other residential use types for more intensive disability levels and maintains important natural amenities such as adjacent wetland and natural open spaces. The Courtyard Apartments got a rough start being first proposed near Carrier Creek between Diamond and Emerald, but later found a more acceptable home at 1210 Leonard, about a half mile east of Plymouth. Other aspects of the property include:

33 apartments arranged in 11 structures which appear to be large single family homes with more traditional architecture treatment.
Grocery store, a library, bus stop, restaurants, banks and other community services within a half mile.
Additional housing for nearly 100 disabled persons in larger building configurations behind the Heron Courtyard apartments
The 19 acre balance on the property will remain open space supporting significant wetlands and natural areas.

Also setting this project apart is the unique collaboration represented by Genesis itself. GNPHC is an affordable housing corporation evolving from a partnership between the Inner City Christian Federation, The Dwelling Place and Hope Network. This effort has clearly demonstrated community leadership and the ability to share a variety of financial resources regionally in providing affordable housing to the citizens of our area.

Calvin College Ecosystem Preserve

Calvin College has produced an important ecological treasure at the growing edge of our urbanizing community. In a part of town where new buildings have been predominated by corporate headquarters and their asphalt covered surroundings, this project has truly pointed public attention to a better, more sustainable form of site and building development. The 90 acre Ecosystem Preserve has been designed to allow students and the public at large to enjoy and learn more about nature while permanently protecting wetland, woodland and important old field ecosystems in this sensitive area at the Whiskey Creek headwaters. The college utilized another 75 acres for the Gainey Athletic Fields, public walkways and a cross country track, while still ensuring responsible treatment of storm water run-off from those structures with a 3-pond water treatment system to naturally filter those waters before returning to the natural environment.

Rounding out Calvin's ecological offerings is the Bunker Interpretive Center . This unique structure clearly fulfills the college's mission of education by offering a completely environmentally sound building with year-round environmental education programs serving 2,000 school children each year. In fact, this building is LEED Certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), including composting toilets, gray water treatment beds, solar voltaic collectors for energy needs and an HVAC system with passive ventilation mode. There is recycled newspaper insulation as well as natural native vegetation requiring no long-term irrigation. The building is completely independent of the cities sewer system and attains 60% of its operating power from the sun. This is clearly an outstanding effort in environmental sustainability and public awareness.

Ada Township Open Space Protection Program

Ada Township has become a leader among townships in our metro area by taking the hardest and most important step in realizing its vision for preserving open space: providing dedicated funding directly from its citizens. In 1998 a small group of citizens organized their efforts and urged the Township Board to do something about the loss of their township's open lands. The board appointed a task force which produced the Ada Township Open Space Protection Plan two years later. The plan identified high priority sites throughout the township and outlined tools and funding sources which could be used to protect such lands.

What distinguishes the Ada plan, however, was the follow-up efforts to attain public funding to purchase and preserve these prioritized lands. In November, 2002, a dedicated millage of 0.4 mills for 15 years was approved by Ada voters. Since that time, the township has enacted an Open Space Preservation Ordinance creating an Advisory Board and a set of formal procedures governing the selection of lands to be acquired.

Ada Township has further provided outstanding leadership in our area for similar preservation efforts by other communities, and, in a unique relationship with another MDB Award nominee, The Land Conservancy of West Michigan , has established a dedicated fund for use in their protection efforts. This program allows Township residents to make tax-deductible contributions to a fund targeted to the Ada Township open space efforts.

Finally, adding one more educational role to both Ada Township and the Land Conservancy of West Michigan, many of the ideas and outcomes of Ada's Open Space Protection Program have now been captured in a useful product entitled “West Michigan Tool Kit for Local Green Inventories” developed by the Land Conservancy of West Michigan with assistance from Planning & Zoning Center, Inc. and GVMC through grants from the People and Land program of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Grand Rapids Community Foundation.

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