“All I did to get this place was convince people to abbreviate stuff — pretty cool”
Former Twitter CEO Evan Williams is obviously a very green guy, and all he wants to do is build a net zero energy home in San Francisco’s historic Parnassus Heights neighborhood. Who could possibly object to an internet entrepreneur using his hard-earned money to build a 7,700-square-foot home fitted out with eco-solar panels, an eco-roof and eco-windows?
A house that uses zero energy, people. Who could have a problem with that?
Well, for starters, the 240 people (some of them neighbors) who already like the 5,000-square-foot, Louis Christian Mullgardt- designed Arts and Crafts influenced property that sits on the site of William’s proposed house/project. Williams hasn’t even applied for permits yet, and emails are flooding the San Francisco Planning Department’s inbox faster than characters fill that little tweet box.
What’s at stake here? Well, obviously zero energy is something to strive for in building. But what if every rich dude in San Francisco decides he wants to tear down an existing property to make his killer environmentally awesome dream house? Will San Francisco lose its flavor? And how much energy will all that destruction and rebuilding use? It’s a debate that will surely go on for some time — and hopefully involve a lot of Twitter jokes.
