The city is very conscious of our responsibility as stewards of our environment. 39% of our city consists of tree canopy – in line with Maryland’s goal of 40%, but remarkable for a developed city. The city government obtains 100% of our energy from renewables. We are working on major projects to bring our stormwater under control, to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay as well as reducing the chance of harmful flooding to our properties. We minimize the use of salt during winter storm events. And we do not use pesticides and herbicides on city parks.
In my years as a leader in the Kentlands HOA, before joining the we launched several environmental projects. We installed a new geothermal system to replace an aging HVAC system, and we worked with the Maryland dept. of energy to earn a grant that provided them with real-world information on how the system performs and how much energy and money it saves. So, not only are we saving money, but we are providing hard data to others who may be thinking about geothermal solutions so they can perform their own cost-benefit analysis.
For this program, the City of Gaithersburg honored the Kentlands with an environmental achievement award.
Neil Harris, chair, and Jarrod Borkat, vice chair, receiving a 2014 environmental award on behalf of the Kentlands Citizens Assembly.
We also launched one of first HOA programs to utilize organic landscaping in the community. You can read about how that came about and where the project stands in a post here: Chemical Herbicides.