 EnviroCitizen.org is excited and intrigued by the number of eco-friendly communities that are sprouting up all over the country. The Stapleton Community, located in Denver, Colorado, is an amazing example of a sustainable community. The buildings are new and have state-of-the-art green technologies. The community itself is an example of the eco-friendly standards which every new community should be held do. The Stapleton Community really does have it all!
This community, which happens to be Denver's top-selling community, offers a variety of services and alluring assets. Central Park, Denver's largest new park which sits at the heart of Stapleton Community, features an amazing variety of native plants. But they didn't stop there, planting 26,464 trees throughout the rest of the entire community.
The Stapleton Community is comprised of five neighborhoods. The oldest and most mature, E. 29th Avenue, boasts amenities like a Center for Blind Children, Aviator pool, a grocery store, a variety of shops, restaurants and a health clinic. Another neighborhood, the South End neighborhood, has a pool (called the Puddle Jumper Pool), a dog day care and a Police Academy. They even have a community garden where residents can rent plots of land to grow flowers, vegetables, herbs or anything else that they want to grow. The Stapleton Community is much more than the kind of cookie-cutter community that many people think of when they imagine an organized community. The community offers a variety of groups and clubs, such as the Stapleton Strollers which is a group of parents that jog and workout together while pushing their children in strollers. There are book clubs, cooking clubs, cookouts and neighborhood block parties. All residents of Stapleton Community receive the monthly newsletter, New Leaf, which encourages residents to live a more sustainable, earth-friendly life. In fact, residents of the Stapleton Community have the highest recycling rate (over 90%) in the entire city of Denver!
The Stapleton Community is driven by one core principle: sustainability. They aim to serve as a living example of sustainable living. When creating the infrastructure for The Stapleton Community, contractors used former Stapleton Airport runways (the area used to house an airport) for the sidewalks, roadways and bridges. All of the buildings in the Stapleton Community have been built to the United States Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.
The Stapleton Community also offers affordable housing to low-income families and individuals. They have won numerous awards, such as the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Achievement Award, the Best Sustainable Neighborhood award from Pacific Coast Builders, the Urban Land Institute's 2006 Awards for Excellence and the Best in American Living award for Smart Growth.
EnviroCitizen.org firmly believes that The Stapleton Community is a great example of sustainability in practice. As they continue to forge the way for other communities, we can only hope that the desire to create, develop and engage in sustainable communities will grow exponentially in years to come.
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