Welcome to Babcock Ranch, the Sunshine State’s first solar-powered town. As environmental calamities rock Florida’s coast, an inland community seeks to live in harmony with nature.
Kaia Freeman, 4, chases after her brother Jordan, 13, in Founder's Square in Babcock Ranch. The 18,000-acre development is billed as the nation's first solar-powered town. BABCOCK RANCH, Fla. — The autonomous shuttle was parked for the night, but the town square was otherwise hopping. Kids in tie-dyed shirts cartwheeled on a lawn that has a pair of solar trees — free solar charging stations curved into massive green stems.
In a state whose government is known for lax pollution controls and an aversion to even mentioning climate change, Babcock Ranch is a groundbreaking concept that residents say they hope will catch on in other parts of Florida. Fales and her family relocated from suburban Fort Myers, the closest metropolitan area, about 15 miles west. They chose a five-bedroom, roughly $420,000 house.
Cattle graze in an open field on the same road as Babcock Ranch. The community sits across from a horse rescue and not far from a feed store. Sustainable development has not been South Florida’s forte: for example, the early 20th-century attempts to drain the Everglades. But the need for resilient development feels urgent with the onslaught of environmental disasters, perhaps intensified by climate change.
This past summer, southwest Florida residents blamed runoff pollution from development as a factor fueling red tide and toxic algae that rendered beaches and waterways unusable for weeks. Millions of pounds of dead sea life piled up on Gulf of Mexico beaches about 30 miles west from Babcock. Hurricane resiliency is another selling point. “We do have people moving off the coast and coming to Babcock,” Kitson said.
Kinley and his wife, Robin, both 61, were the first Babcock residents. She is a professional quilter; he is semi-retired from a medical device company. Each year, more Florida communities are responding to climate-related concerns by updating building standards and sustainability or disaster mitigation plans, said C.J. Davila, executive director of the Florida Green Building Coalition.
The real engine is the solar field north of the town center, down a road sometimes blocked by foraging wood storks and herons. There, poised to capture enough energy to power about 15,000 homes, tilt 340,000 low-to-the-ground solar panels.
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