Development planned to allow homeowners go off the grid

Town founders Julie Starr Sanford and Bruce White believe Sky, a 571-acre project in Calhoun County, will provide an environmentally sensitive and sustainable town for the future.

According to White, “In 30 years, we will have exhausted fossil fuels.”

One of the goals of Sky is to develop other energy sources, but also to become a self-sustaining community where residents aren’t dependent on costly electricity.

The team of Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk through their Miami-based firm DPZ & Company designed Sky.

DPZ through its development of Seaside, stirred interest in new ways of planning communities. DPZ’s vision of dense, walkable Seaside-like developments has been recreated throughout the country.

In a variety of ways, Sky planners promote the idea of sustainability for the 624 homes clustered in villages on 312 acres with another 154 acres devoted to agriculture.

By using cluster housing, the project saves land, said White.

“It is a good model as opposed to the sprawl in many developments,” he said.

More than 100 acres will remain undeveloped.

Residents will be encouraged to walk, ride bikes or use solar-powered golf carts.

Sky is designed so that homes on the farthest edge of town are only a 10-minute walk to the market square, White said. Streets are deliberately narrow to encourage children and adults to walk or bike.

Shuttles running to Tallahassee, Marianna and the beaches will ideally use biofuels, he said.

The property is 45 miles from Tallahassee between the Chipola and Ecofina rivers and about 45 minutes inland.

While the project is its early stages, the state of Florida has recognized the research and development possibilities for renewable energy sources with a $1.8 million grant to Sky, Florida State University’s Center for Advanced Power Systems, the University of North Florida and Kore Consulting of Jacksonville.

According to DPZ town planning director Galina Tahchieva, who led a planning charrette for Sky, “Like Seaside, Sky is innovative and will be a very influential project. We now have two decades of sustainable urbanism from which to build, but Sky takes it to entirely another level. The environmentalism of Seaside was more intuitive; it was very, very early environmental thinking. Sky is one of the first developments in the country, and the first luxury development, to try not to be dependent upon municipal services. Here we are marrying what we’ve learned about traditional urbanism with technology.”     

Due to the slow real estate market, White said the first building will be the Sky Institute, which will demonstrate energy conservation. The goal at Sky is for every home to be ultra energy efficient with an anticipated energy load reduction of up to 70 percent.

Heating through solar radiant heat is not a problem. The biggest challenge is air conditioning, White said.

Home sites range from 24- x 80-foot cottage lots to country properties and start at $89,900.

Sky will have shops, restaurants, a conference center, amphitheaters, an equestrian facility, swimming pools, miles of walking and riding trails and the non-profit research and education facility, the Sky Institute.

For more information go to skyflorida.net.