I would like to make a correction to the Napa Valley green hotel article. The USGBC removed the Bronze rating years ago and replaced it with LEED Certified. LEED Platinum is the highest rating possible. Silver and Gold are in the middle. Please see USGBC.org for a list of currently certified projects.

Looks like this is their site: http://www.gaiahotelnapavalley.com/

I can't wait for the mispronunciation of this hotel's name. Thing is, how useful is it really? I mean, are people now going to flock there now to stay? Is is close to anything, making it a feasible alternative to Holiday Inn or the sort?

The eco-community seems to be celebrating an unecessary luxury hotel built in the center of Napa Valley (more or less where I live). Replete with LCD flat screen TVs in every room (huge energy burners), plush lawns and koi ponds (water waste, maybe?), this new hotel is about as much a boon to Gaia as a brand new oil rig. Why are we celebrating "sustainable" development? If a building is LEED certified, the ecosphere goes gaga - there is no questioning of the need for the new building in the first place. In fact, in some ways the LEED system merely empowers developers to develop virigin lands as they know environmentalists are going to go easy on proposed LEED buildings.

In short, there is no such thing as sustainable development. As James Lovelock puts it in The Revenge of Gaia, "Two hundred years ago, when change was slow or non-existent, we might have had time to establish sustainable development . . . but now is much too late; the damage has already been done. To expect sustainable development to be a viable policy is like expecting a lung cancer victim to be cured by stopping smoking and to deny the existence of the Earth's disease, the fever brought on by a plague of people." Sustainable development is for those who have to fully realize the predicament we find ourselves in. Sustainable redevelopment is our only hope. The shrinking of cities, the rebuilding in denser, more compact fashions of our living spaces, the adoption not of more efficient (some of you are familiar with what William McDonough has to say about eficiency) automobiles, but cities that do not require cars in the first place - this is what must happen. I know, it sounds radical, but to think that anything less than radical measures are going to save our species and the globe is to deny all reports of the coming calamities.

Shorter Tod: we should never build a new building again.

Tod, I agree with much of what you say, however, what's best? A new hotel built with little or no regard for environmental consideration, or a hotel that is built with care and minimises its impact on the environment? That's what we should be celebrating - the fact that it IS less damaging. It may not be perfect but less is more, right?

A green hotel can be a showpiece to introduce people to green living. They can be exposed to building, power generation, and waste management techniques and realize that they work and can even be associated with a luxurious lifestyle. they get to live in that environment for a couple of days and really see how it works and feels.

Great Discussion! We did the design and installation for the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel landscape, Sentient Landscape, Inc. Sebastopol California. I wanted to take this opportunity to shed some light on the landscape issues that have come up so far. As for the location, American Canyon is the "Gateway to the Napa Valley." It is the town that is directly north of Vallejo and south of Napa on Highway 29. It is about a 10 to 15 minute drive to the heart of the Napa Valley wine country to the north and to the Vallejo ferry terminal with destinations to San Franciso and Oakland to the south. Gaia Napa Valley is definitely not a luxury hotel. I would describe it as a Hilton Garden Inn deluxe and equivalently priced. I encourage everyone to come out and see it for yoursely.
Ironically the above photo was taken prior ro the majority of the planting installation and the areas around the guest room patios were filled in with turf using Photoshop. 100% of the plants installed are drought tolerant and there is no turf. We use natives as a foundation while also including a diverse array of drought tolerant, edible, medicinal, and otherwise functional species. We plan on weaning the entire landscape off of the irrigation system within 5 years. The irrigation system consists entirely of drip emitters. This strategy along with three inches of mulch and plant selection have reduced irrigation requirements for the landscape from coventional commercial landscape use by over 50%. The irrigation system has been plumbed separately from the domestic water line in purple pipe so that when American Canyon's recycled water line makes it to the Hotel frontage (within the next two years) what water that is required for the irrigation system and pond refill can be be recycled. The developer also, at significant additional cost, plumbed a parallel line to supply all the toilets with recyled water when it becomes available. Though it is true that the pond is also a water user, we have planted large native shade trees and fruit trees along the enitirety of the pond banks so that the majority of the water surface will ultimately be shaded thereby significantly reducing water losses to evaporation. Water that does evaporate from the pond is serving the function of reducing the ambient temperature in the interior hotel courtyard and reducing cooling and energy costs for the hotel. Ducks from the pond eat snails, slugs and earwigs while depositing phosphorous rich manure throughout the landscape. There are no koi, just large decorative goldfish related to carp to eat mosquitoes and clean the pond. Should calamity descend I would be the first to ecourage scrambled duck eggs with goldfish stew as we wanted to at least hint at the possibilites and productivity of aquaculture.
The pond also receives the majority of the hotel roof runoff where it is detained and filtered. The parking lot rainwater runs off into biofiltration swales where it is absorbed and filtered by the landscape.
I completely agree that redevelopment of the existing urban and suburban landscape and infrastructure is the ultimate challenge and opportunity of the 21st century. LEED already offers points for developing within "high density" areas that do not include agricultural land or wetlands. The Gaia Napa Valley did not qualify for thse points because of the surrounding denisty however the project lot is directly adjacent to Highway 29 with two developed commercial lots on either side of it.
Though the project site prior to development was a long abandoned bull pasture with some agricultural value we believe that a development project can have a regenrateive impact not only on the surrounding environemnt but the surrounding community as well. Of the 4 acres slotted for commercial development we left approximately an acre in landsaping and a quarter acre of pond. This gave us the opportunity to significantly improve the species diversity, habitat, and productivity of the land while also serving the infrastructural needs of the city (confernence/ community meeting space)and exposing guests to ecologically conscious building.
It is true that we have a long way to go still and that we have less and less time to get our act together, but it will be through the efforts of leaders like Wen Chang, the developer of the Gaia Napa Valley, that we will start to send these sharply curving trends in the right direction.

I, for one, would go out of my way to stay there instead of another hotel. So hopefully that would start to encourage other hotels to make sustainable changes. I'm wondering, though, if the hotel has a green roof. If it does, then it's actually doing a lot to clean the air. Even more than if the hotel wasn't built and there was just a parking lot there.