UPDATE: Possible "Center for Green Living"

Driving down Park Street in Canton you might notice the lack of life around 70 Park and a bright blue tarp on the roof. Fifty mile-an-hour winds over winter break sent one of the cottonwoods behind the house onto the roof causing major structural damage and temporary relocation of the residents to 58 East Main Street.

While the ecologically minded low impact lifestyle of the residents has not and will not change their permanent housing situation may have to. Please read the Architecture and Physical Plant update to learn about possibilities for a new sustainably designed residence.

Architecture and Physical Plant Update

"Our January wind storm brought down a tree onto the center of the roof of the Low Impact Living Green House Theme Cottage (70 Park Street). We are still assessing whether it is best to be torn down or repaired. Should it make sense to demolish this old home, it would provide an ideal location for a four unit townhouse structure that might house 20 students rather than the ten in the present residential structure. As our retention and first year numbers have increased, our need to replace and add to our housing capacity has also increased.

With or without the loss of 70 Park Street, it seems to make sense to begin the programming and planning for a "Center for Green Living," a low impact green living townhouse arrangement. Again with the able guidance of Tom Greene, we will begin the on campus process of programming and conceptually designing a low impact living townhouse arrangement. This will be an exciting opportunity for us as we bring our student life knowledge of townhouse living together with the premises and drivers of sustainability and, of course, the need for financial efficiency. It could offer us an opportunity to do something with high visibility along Park Street that would likely attract donor opportunity and enhance the University's revenue stream significantly in excess of incremental costs. We are all excited to begin the preliminary thinking on this possibility."

About the Green House

The Green House (Low Impact Living Theme Cottage) seeks to create a comfortable living environment for ecologically-minded and environmentally-conscious individuals on campus.
We work together as a group to develop programs that will educate the campus and community about environmental issues and also to ensure that our house is as responsible as possible about our environmental impact. We incorporate this awareness into our everyday lives, and lead by example so that other students may understand how to be environmentally active and conscientious, both on campus and in the world.

Activities

As a house, we cook dinner five nights each week, and buy local and organic food from the Potsdam Food Co-op and two local farmers. Also, each member of the house is required to organize two programs each semester that foster environmetnal awareness that are open to the entire campus and community. Some past programs have included:

• Open house and dinners
• Root beer making
• Basket making
• Norwood beach clean-up day
• trips to the Canton Farmer’s Market
• Jelly/jam making
• Applesauce making
• Knitting and movie night
• Project to bring communal “green bikes” to campus
• Project to require sale of Snowbowl property for sustainable land-use and ensure that the land would not be logged or mined

The Cottage’s theme is “To gather caring, motivated people with similar interests together to build a strong presence of environmental action and to serve as a model of low impact living.”