After years of careful study Capital District Community Gardens (CDCG) is ready to move forward with plans to build our Gardening Education Center on Eighth Street, in Troy to help support and extend our core mission; bringing food security and self-reliance to the people of the Capital Region. The building itself will be a teaching tool. LEED certified and utilizing a variety of green technologies (many supplied by Tech Valley companies) the highly visible structure puts the community in touch with realistic ways it can integrate these new products into daily life.

What is LEED Certification and why are we “going for the gold?”

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification is a system recognized among builders for determining how environmentally sound a building is. Buildings are given one of four rankings; Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum, depending on the quantity of the 69 available credits earned in five design categories.  The categories are: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

An initial review of our building plans by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) determined that the Garden Education Center could earn between 43 and 58 credits, placing it in the Gold or Platinum category.

Achieving a high ranking does more than display our commitment to the environment it makes us eligible for funding from NYSERDA. The steps taken to achieve the rating - having a green roof, straw bale walls and photovoltaic cells, will also reduce the long term costs of heating and cooling the building. Recent studies have also shown the improved work environment in LEED certified buildings increases worker and student performance. So our already hard-working staff might be able to do even more!

To find out more visit www.usgbc.org   the website of the US Green Building Council

Adjacent to one of Troy’s oldest community gardens, our future home will be visible to thousands of commuters. The striking and energy efficient building will be a symbolic and practical expression of CDCG’s commitment to the region and the land that feeds us all. Demonstration gardens and hydroponic greenhouses at the site will expose our community gardeners to the latest techniques for growing food year-round. The food grown will also provide funding to sustain and support the new facility and programming. A new business venture will sell our “home grown” organic produce to local restaurants, schools, food coops and other local outlets. It will also serve as the core of a job training program, where community members will have the opportunity to learn essential job skills in a healthy environment.

The Center will help us continue connecting the Region’s residents to gardening and local food, while providing necessary space for the Veggie Mobile  and our growing equipment inventory. Classrooms, a horticultural library and a commercial kitchen will allow us to train current and future gardeners in the healthiest ways to raise and eat their food. The kitchen will also allow hands-on training in food preservation, including canning, freezing and drying.  During the day classrooms will be used by students from Questar III, the BOCES program for Rensselaer, Columbia and Greene counties. The Center will offer the most complete organic horticulture program available to secondary school students in New York State. At night classrooms will be available for adult education.